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We sat down with Basha (Artist) and talked about authenticity through music and life A conversation about being authentic through the eyes of an artist Question What 5 tips would you give to your younger self? Basha Number one don't rush. Do not be in a hurry. Everybody is on their own path and it takes different times for everybody. You can never mimic someone else's path and you just have to stay true to yourself and follow your gut instinct. Second, never underestimate the importance of a great team. Once you start getting into the music industry, you realize how important it is to have people who are executing their roles at a high level. Third, always be true to yourself. Especially when you're just getting started in the industry. It's easy to get veered off into different paths and different people. Saying you should do this, but this is what I like. So this is what we're doing in this session. When you're young and naive and just getting started it's hard to sometimes go against that or stay true to yourself. So I would say always just trust your gut and do what you want to be doing. Fourth, if something seems too good to be true, chances are it is. There's a lot of people especially today with social media to pitch you something and get you all excited making it seem like they're someone that they're not. If you have that feeling that this might be cap, chances are it is. The fifth one is doing it yourself. In the last year and a half, two years, I really just, put that on and the forefront of my mind. And it's really gratifying in a lot of ways, cause you're not waiting on people and you're not relying on, other people's schedules. If you can do it yourself, you eliminate so many possible areas of disappointment and expectations. Question What are 3 things you do to help develop who you are? I would say listen to as many different genres and types of music and different eras as you can. I feel if you're just listening to one thing all day long or one artist it's hard to get different ideas and different concepts to make something unique. You're ultimately just taking in the same sound the whole time. I listened to a lot of old music as well. A lot of old jazz. I love sampling music. That's a big thing to me. So I'm always looking for stuff that I can sample from old jazz records and stuff. Expand your palette because then you can say, okay, I like this from this era. And I like these drums from this song and I like how his vocals were mixed here. Let me put all that together and see what I can make. Ultimately, you would hope that will be something fresh and new. Two, try to work with people who typically work outside of your comfort zone. A lot of times I work with collaborators, whether it's writers or producers that aren't specifically in my field, but I can take certain things from that and add to what I know and love. You're always learning. The minute that you stop learning is a minute that you stop being an artist because it's all about learning and growing. I want to be a sponge, so I'm just looking to take as much as I can from different people. Third, I would say is put in the time. If you're not really doing this every day, and not doing it as a chore, but doing it because you love to do it. Like if you're not doing that it's going to take you a lot longer to develop yourself or to find yourself. You get what you put in. I truly believe that. If you're putting in all these hours and all this time, you're going to get something back. Question What are 3 things you do to help improve yourself? I'm very much a person that I have to do certain things throughout the day to maintain my focus and, you know, good mental health. I enjoy eating healthy it always makes me more on point. I need to work out every single day and read. If you can read 10, 20 minutes, a half-hour, a day, workout and eat clean you're good. Question How do you stop the creative block? For me what causes the creative blocks is when expectations are there. Then you're creating from a different place because then you're mindset is, okay, I need to do this certain thing or this, or at this certain time being creative is not about that. If it were easy everybody would be doing it and it would be a 9 to 5 job, but it comes and goes. Remove as many expectations as possible and create from a free place. For me personally, the best and exciting material that I'm making always comes when I'm just creating without expectations. In summary, remove yourself from comparisons to others and expect nothing, but pure joy when it comes to creating the life you want to live. You can view Basha's work on his website, instagram, Spotify and Apple Music. Be on the look for his new project coming out March 2022.

We sat down with Lorenzo “LORDENZO” Rodriguez (content creator) and talked about growth. A conversation about growth through self-reflection with a content creator Question What are your three tips for staying focused? Lorenzo Rodriguez First, for me is humility, I think staying humble is one of the most important things you can possibly do. Second, having gratitude, waking up every day, whether you're a religious person or not, thanking whoever you think up in the morning, whether that's your family, God or whoever it could be. Last, have pure passion, I think even if you're kind of steering off of that path that you originally were on but the fact that you're still staying passionate about what you're doing and passionate about levelling up personally before anything. The recipe for success is staying true to yourself. In the long haul, I mean, there's a lot of things you can say short term, like, oh, you know, hard work this and that. I think there's a lot of things that are generic, but I think when you get to the dynamic part of who you are as a human being, that's going to take it to the next level for the long term. You can have your hard work, never giving up attitude, and staying optimistic. I try to do those things on the daily basis. But I think, you know, being humble, passionate, and showing gratitude are the top three things that you can put into the pot to stay focused. Question What advice would you give to your younger self? I would say tastes everything that you can. I was trying to play professional soccer growing up. I played at the semi-pro level. I played in college and I think when I look back now it was always soccer which I don't regret at all. It was just staying hyper-focused on just one thing. But I think when you're young, a lot of times people think you can only do one thing. Now the older I'm getting and being the content creator, the fact that I'm able to just play like a certain game, but also take inspiration from other things, whether that's fashion, music, culture, sports, whatever, and just mix it all together. I think that's the most beautiful that you can do. So I would tell my younger self just to taste everything and everything will work out the way it's supposed to. Everything happens for a reason. Question How disciplined do you have to be a winner? I think if you do the little things, right, the bigger things will eventually kind of just formulate in their own way. So I think discipline is just always doing the little things right. What I learned in school and what I learned from family is to have a million-dollar idea with a $0 budget. So outworking the competition, but not necessarily like, oh, I have to work harder than this person. The competition is really just your mental battles, the demons inside you that are following you, and overall distractions. Question What were three tips that helped you stop yourself from going off track? Finding balance is huge. As I'm getting older I'm more in tune with myself. I'm always asking myself like, okay, am I having fun? I think that's the most important thing. Am I having fun? If I'm not having fun, the people who are watching me stream or watching my content, they're going to see it. Another would be, doing the little things to stay on track. Number three just manifesting and having faith that everything's going to work out. Whether that's exactly the way you put it, or maybe there are some alterations here and there. Question Why is it important to have a plan? I think I've always been hesitant about having plans. Growing up in my younger days of soccer the according to plans, it just never worked which is okay. I think when I was younger, it was hard for me to understand. I'm doing all the things, right. I'm skipping out on sleepovers. I'm not hanging out with friends. I'm not going to parties. I'm missing proms. I was okay with saying you know what that didn't work, go back to the drawing board and just create a new plan. I make rough plans. I make content roadmaps, but I think being adaptable and having resiliency are two important characteristics when it comes to creatives. You may have this one idea, but if it doesn't pan out there could be 10 plans underneath that main plan that you could have really explored. Having a general skeleton, but also understanding like bones can break and you're going to have to cast it up and keep going, just being adaptable and resilient are the two biggest things. Question What do you do when things don’t go to plan? I think most of the time things don't go to plan. I tell my streaming community all the time, I have more failures than victories. And I think a lot of people can resonate because most people do have more failures than successes, which is not a bad thing. I didn't get into my dream schools and that was heartbreaking. I didn't get the job from my dream company, and I realized everything happens for a reason. I changed my perspective which comes from maturity. I have the tools now on how I can get up quickly, and pivot left, right, up, down or straight. And take it in a positive way. I was able to develop, I got better at presenting who I am. I went back and zeroed in on my resume and really make it crisper. Even though I didn't win, I still won in a lot of different ways. And I think when things don't go your way, you pray on it. It goes back to those three things. Am I having fun with it? Humility? and gratitude? I could have said hard work and etc, but those are the foundational things that you can always go back to, and then just rebuild on top of those things. In summary, life can take you in many different directions. Finding yourselves through this journey and understanding what your strengths and weaknesses make this road worth taking. You can view Lorenzo Rodriguez's work on Instagram, website and twitch.

Lessons I learned from my past (creative.) First, never give up. You must remember no one is going to give you anything in your life. Because it's your life, not theirs. We all have a friend that says negative words to you. Those words start living in your head and you start asking yourself "am I good enough?", "I suck at this", or "I will never make it". That friend is also one of the biggest motivational factors you need because when you doubt yourself that's when you push to prove yourselves wrong. This friend we all have in common is doubt. It's a friend we never asked for, but need to push past the fear. Michael Jordan once said, "Never say never, because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion.” We indeed made up these so-called fears, they never existed until we thought them. So why not think positive and believe in yourself that you will make it. Second, it's okay to take breaks. Don't push yourself so much that you burn out. We're humans and rest is needed for us to charge up. Often we feel like we can do more today, and 9 times out of 10 that's true. In those moments yes work and stay focused. But listen to your body and mind by learning when to rest, and when you need to start the engine again. Third, learn from your creative role models. Understand why they succeeded and learn from their mistakes. A lot of our work is influenced by their work. The important part is not to indulge just dabble from their work, but expand and create something better that suits your artistic skills. Now, don't measure your success based on your role models. Doing this will diminish your path to greatness. Understand we're all different people, with very different skill sets. So be patient with yourselves because you will make it. Fourth, stay humble and help others. Life is short and it's the little things that count. Understanding a new generation is coming, and they will go through the same trials and tribulations as you once did. You were once a rookie and now you're a veteran, so passed down that wisdom. Always remember where you started, and how far you've come. Remembering when a goal is achieved to think back to when you first wrote down those goals, and the desire you had to achieve them. Fifth, practice every day at bettering your craft. We have 24 hours in a day to do what we love. Take advantage of the day before it takes advantage of you. Keep working, keep chasing and never stop asking questions on how to improve your craft. I know life can be crazy and you don't have time to do what you love every day, but if you can take out 5 minutes in a day to learn or sketch something that can go a long way. In summary, we all learn from others but most importantly from ourselves. Step back and reflect on your actions, words and thoughts. Question how will this help you achieve your desired outcomes. After you graduated from school or start living on your own, you never stop learning or growing. Every day is a test on how you can get better at what you love.

We sat down with Camyl Buenaventura (Artist) and talked about growth. A conversation about growth through the eyes of a freelance director, filmmaker and animator. Question What 5 tips would you give to your younger self? Camyl Buenaventura First, keep going and don't give up because there's a lot of things in life that you will face. You have to just keep going because no matter how big your dreams are, you're going to get there no matter what happens if you never give up. The second one, you are good enough and everything you need, you already have. So, utilize everything that you have in the moment or what you have now, and you'll get anywhere you want to get to. It's very important to remind yourself that you have everything you need to get where you want to be. Third, to balance life and to love yourself, take breaks. Definitely rest when you need to. As the saying goes, it's not a race, it's a marathon. You have to take breaks and balance your whole life. Also, use your energy wisely. We have X amount of energy in a day, so you have to question will this benefit us today? Because we don't have enough time left in the day for us, and now I don't have time to rest. So, use your energy wisely. Fourth is your dreams are never too big, they're not too big for you to reach. I think it's a good thing when you're scared of your dreams because the higher you aim, the further you go. No matter how big your dreams are, you still end up getting closer to them. As long as you're working towards them every day, by doing your best, you're doing great. The last one, talk to your parents every day because we forget that when we're growing up, they're also growing old. Because we're so busy with life and caught up in work that we forget to call our parents or even family. Question What are 3 things you do to help develop who you are? As a creative, I always tell myself to learn something new every day. You'll never know everything and that's okay. You will learn a lot of things, but I think the person who thinks they know everything never really learns anymore. I think in order to grow, you must keep learning and know that you will never know everything. The moment you accept that is the moment, where I think you are the closest to knowing a lot because that's when you humble yourself. The second is to accept to let things go that are no longer of use to your growth. Sometimes you keep people and things in your life that are toxic to you, and it prohibits you from growing faster than you should. The last one would be to listen. So many people love talking, and so many people don't know how to listen, but when you listen and when you listen to others this helps you learn something even about yourself. It's a really good quality when somebody is a good listener. That's an essential thing to developing yourself because you learn a lot of things when you listen. Question What are 3 things you do that help improve yourself? One always help others. I was starting out once and I wouldn't be where I am today without the people that have helped me. Usually, when you help other people you learn more things and improve yourself as an artist and as a teacher. Second, keep practicing your craft. You're never going to be perfect at anything, but you can always practice and come close to it. There's a lot of things out there now that you could use. Anything that you want to practice or learn? You can just watch it on YouTube. There's no excuse for you anymore to not practice or learn anything, all the resources are available out there in front of you. So keep practicing your craft. Third, always be humble. No matter where you are in your career, even though you've reached a certain goal. Being humble is always a good thing. You also once were where all these kids now are starting out. I always feel for the people who are just starting out, and I think that humbles me. I think that helps with improving myself because no matter how big I get or how far I get, I'm always going to remember where I came from. In summary, we learn a lot by pushing ourselves when doubt motivates us. Understanding what we have right now can help us achieve our goals. Remembering to help others, staying humble and going outside the box of doubt to achieve our dreams. You can view Camyl's work on her website or Instagram.

We sat down with Mykah Czarina (Artist) and talked about growth. A conversation about growth through the mind of an artist. Question What 5 tips would you give to your younger self? Mykah Czarina First, one would be trust the process. I feel like especially in North America, we're always trying to rush, rush, rush, and get. This perceived finish line or ahead of the line in some way, but in reality, you know, that's always moving, evolving, and changing. And so the best way is to just trust the process and just keep going. The second thing is to make sure to go to therapy, heal some of those wounds and take care of yourself. Again, I think our society really doesn't focus on that enough, but you can only be productive and specifically creative. I think when you're in a space cultivated for that. The third thing would be, don't take yourself too seriously. Have fun with it. I think that contributes to being more creative. Sometimes when you're trying to be too cool, you freeze up. Keeping that childlike wonder or interest and just letting yourself be like a mess helps some cool stuff come out of that. The fourth would be to try and connect or build a community. I think that's really important. It gives you a lot of different perspectives and you know, sometimes when you need that extra little push your friends have your back. Giving you some positivity when you can't do it for yourself. So I think that's really important and it's really cool to just be yourself, grow with others. And it's an easy way to get inspiration. The fifth one, stick to the daily practice. I know sometimes it's really annoying. You give yourself such a hard time when you're like, oh man, I'm not, doing the thing that I said I was gonna do. That's okay. Being forgiving of yourself first so that you can actually get over it easier and do it again, day to day is very important having that consistency. Question What are 3 things you do to help develop who you are? One of the things I learned is really to appreciate the downtime and let my palate in my head clear up. We're just so filled with so much information, so much social media, and we're always trying to learn and we're obsessed with learning and growing. When you step out again, you kind of see things in a new way. And some things that you've been like forcing to clear up, just kind of clear up on its own. Your brain is doing its thing and making its own connections. Second I try to look at stuff outside of what I'm currently working at. I'm generally creative, but right now for money, I do illustrations. So I try to take inspiration from other things and mish-mash stuff together so that you can find your own stamp and your own unique way of representing what it is you want to represent. The third, a lot of self-inquiry as well. So journaling, stretching and meditating and asking where am I at now? What do I need to accept about myself? What do I need to let go of? Question What are 3 things you do that help improve yourself? Health is really, really important because you can't do anything else when your body isn't functioning well. Keeping an open mind and trying to find the balance between hearing out the people that are trying to help you, and mentoring you. But also being able to know when you have to keep your foot on the ground and say no, this is what it needs to be. Welcome new challenges. That one's really hard because it's easy to become comfy. A job comes to you where you question yourself. But have faith that you are going to figure it out and handle it. Not shying away from the challenges and taking those opportunities as a thing to learn and another box to check off, giving yourself more confidence. In summary, connecting with yourself by learning, talking to others and taking time off can help clear the palette of thoughts we have. By letting our minds take its natural course and creating space for the new challenges we face as artist. You can view Mykah's work here.

We spoke to James Ramos (Photographer) about being authentic through his personal and work life. A conversation about authenticity through the mind of a visual artist. Question What are 2 things you do to help develop who you are? James Ramos First, connect with nature. Being grounded I found a lot of spiritual advice from either people or seeking it myself. When we're younger, you're always looking for something in your heart and in your head. I discovered we're all connected to everything. Being with nature and sitting by the water which is flowing and anything flowing is energy. It's nice because it shows we are part of this earth. The second thing would be spending a lot of time alone. I think being alone in your thoughts is good for you. Its mental strength, for example, going to the gym, eating right, and sleeping that's part of training. And part of training your mind is just being in your thoughts. Reminding yourself that you're just watching that chatter in your head. It's about being present, but it's not about being completely silent. Being okay with what you think and how you feel about yourself. Question How do stay true to yourself while creating? It's kind of difficult because when you are an artist or anything. You are always influenced by something. So, when it comes to being genuine and authentic, it's this constant battle. You do things that you like, and then you emulate. The things that you like by people that you were influenced by. So, in that respect, it's kind of going in that route, but not indulging too much in what they do, because you want to do things yourself. When it comes to creativity it all comes from one place, from God. Question How do you define authenticity? It's just being true to yourself. We have a mask for, when we go out, we have a mask for when we work, we have a mask for when we see our family, and then we have a mask when we look in the mirror. So the authenticity part is being yourself in all three, without having to compromise as much as possible Understanding your ego, and then once you're able to be okay with the person in the mirror, you'll be okay with the person at work, and you'll be okay with the person at home. But you create the vibe, and the environment you're around. Choosing to understand and being conscious of what's around you. Question What are your feelings towards social media? Social media is a good tool. It's awesome to connect with everyone right now. And it's a tool that should be used consciously. I try to keep it all sectioned out. So, I will have Facebook for myself, and I will have Instagram for my creativity. And then I will have my website say for my business. So it's all streamlined. In summary, finding yourself in this journey we call life will benefit us more than anything. Connecting with the planet and understanding God is blessing us with certain energies. In turn, giving us opportunities to create a better environment for all. You can view James work here Visual Smugglers is a creative agency. That helps with ideation, shooting and editing of projects for Brands and Businesses. Less talk, more visuals. https://www.visualsmugglers.com

At Visual Smugglers, we were faced with the big question; what should we post? So we decided to interview people we respect. We based the questions around our CORE VALUES. Example post DISCIPLINE You need a plan. The series of blog posts where we interview other people. Came to fruition through a conversation. When we were brainstorming on things to post about for our blog. So we came up with the idea of creating a blog post on our core values. To do this, we wrote an extensive 98-page business plan. We then created a post from the business plan. One section of our business plan included our CORE VALUES (The Code) we live by. Our Core Values 1. 🌱 GROWTH 2. 🧠 CRITICAL THINKING 3. 📲COMMUNICATION 4. 🕸INTENTION 5. 💪DISCIPLINE 6. ⚖️ACCOUNTABILITY 7. ⛏AUTHENTICITY Read more about our CORE VALUES We set off our Intern Dave. To interview people. 15 Mins max on a core value. He then took the audio from the zoom call and used De Script to transcribe the conversation into text. Dave then edited the text and added gifs and relevant videos to the blog post. Now we have a weekly blog, that revolves around our core values. We then send our feedback to Dave. We then have a POST. Conclusion We often overcomplicate things, the trick is to simply. When you simplify a TASK. You are more likely to be motivated to complete it. There is a famous saying "KISS" Keep It Simple Stupid" The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore, simplicity should be a key goal in creating content for your brand, and unnecessary complexity should be avoided. ABOUT US To find out more information about Visual Smugglers (Creative Agency) visit https://www.visualsmugglers.com

LESS TALK, MORE VISUALS We went to the "Saw" gallery in Ottawa to see our friend AMthruhpm gallery. Here are the visuals. A fun-packed night with music and art. Music by Unity

We sat down with Glen De Mel and talked about discipline. A Conversation about staying disciplined with Glen an entrepreneur & his tips on staying focused Question How do you stay disciplined? Glen De Mel One thing that I believe cannot be taught is hunger. You can be the smartest person in the world, but if you're not hungry to go out there and make your own bread, it's difficult to be disciplined in this specific realm. If you're born into a life of privilege, it's difficult to understand what it's like to not have this hunger. Me being an immigrant I know what it's like not to have much. It’s difficult to create and manufacture that hunger When I was young, I knew what my passion was. I knew I was always going to do something in business. I just didn't know what, but I knew no matter what, I like money. But then after making money, I realized it's not the money that I like. I like the time. When you're young, you think you want all these fancy things and you want to be a baller. What I'm realizing more and more now is what I actually want is enough money to be able to live life on my own terms.If I want to travel somewhere. I don't want to have to report to anyone. I want to just pick up and go, but I also want to have the financial resources. If I want to give my mom some money, help support my friends in a business that they want to do. I want to start a family and have kids you need money to do all those things, and what that does is it allows you to create and buy time. Question What tips do you have to stay focused? Tip #1 Make an intention to avoid distractions Put away your phone and take one to two hours out of your day a few times a week, and focus on a specific task or your health. Tip #2 Track your progress Write down tasks that need to be done. Breaking things down into little steps allows you to identify all the areas in which you're lacking. Tip #3 Hold yourself accountable Find out a way that you can notice when you’re not staying focused. Or ask friends to hold you accountable when you’re slipping from your goals. Tip #4 Write down what you want to accomplish Physically write down your goals and intentions and look at them every single day. If you're physically making a solid intention to write something down, that makes it much more real. Tip #5 Be around like-minded people Start reaching out to someone that you want to be like. Reach out and offer them value, and let them know what you can do to help. Ultimately you just want to learn and hear their story. Tip #6 Avoiding temptations Too much time is spent on things that can harm your future, for example, partying, video games, etc. Everyone has their own system of what works for them, but only you can figure that out. You can't wake up one day and be disciplined In summary, taking micro-steps today will benefit you greatly. It's your responsibility if you want to achieve the goals you desire. Remember why you started working towards them, and accept the trials and tribulations that come your way. There is always an opportunity to come back stronger. A video Visual Smugglers shot with Glen De Mel, on Discipline. This is our CODE 1. 🌱 GROWTH = Growth Mindset 2. 🧠 CRITICAL THINKING = Rules everything around us 3. 📲COMMUNICATION = We listen before we talk 4. 🕸INTENTION = Each action matters 5. 💪DISCIPLINE = To be great, you have to do the work 6. ⚖️ACCOUNTABILITY = If we say it, we do it. 7. ⛏AUTHENTICITY = Getting to the real YOU To read more about our core values, in the link bellow https://www.visualsmugglers.com/post/our-core-values

Visual Smugglers live by a code, one of our codes is Authenticity. To read more of our core values AUTHENTICITY: Being authentic is being yourself even though you may tremble. It’s about doing the self-work and asking the question to get to the root of the problem. You can only be your authentic self if you shed yourself from your own limitations. These are words that may scare others, "Be Yourself" we all want to fit in. As a business, you are told to follow an algorithm. Algorithm change without notice. The story doesn't, you don't. It's who you are. It's who you are in the moment. At Visual Smugglers, we go for authenticity. We did a series called, words of wisdom. We highlighted Mikka Gia owner of The Groomed Society. We wanted to create a video that felt like a conversation rather than a performance. Visual Smugglers is a content agency that creates branded content for business and brands. To find more information about us, visit https://www.visualsmugglers.com

A conversation between two creatives Gautam & Adom Woods about the pros and cons of working for others and yourself. Left, Adom Woods (Head of Animation and Creative Director), right, Gautam Narang (CEO Of Visual Smugglers) Question What are the pros and cons of working for others and yourself? Adom Woods Pros of working for others, I'll start with stability. That's the main reason I went back to all of my day jobs because I felt a lot of instability in my freelance work. And that was usually coupled with a lack of process in the freelance stuff that I was doing, which is what we're trying to address with visual smugglers to try and bring the best of both worlds together. Less freedom and less creativity, but at least you can make a steady amount of income Sometimes with freelance, you're still just working for other people, doing things that aren't necessarily creative, but you don't even get the benefit of having a steady income. The pros of working for yourself in the correct situation are that you can set things up to be exactly how you imagined a work situation to be. Which is pretty much just making money off of what you love, but this is a very tough thing to do. This is why a lot of creatives either work in other fields to make their living wage or go to a day job and sacrifice some freedom and creativity. What are the pros and cons of working for others and yourself? Gautam Narang Your whole life, you were pretty much told what to do from the moment you went to school. You were given a schedule and you were told, this is when the deadline is. You need to be in this classroom at this time at this location, and that's how we all spend our lives. Then you go into a workplace and you're told what to do, you're given a brief and told what is expected of you. So for me, I've never really thrived understructure. I've tried working for others, but one of the biggest issues is I'm always questioning. How do you have this job? You're not as qualified as you think you are or your title. I would go home and I would just research. How do you set up a business? How do you progress forward? Put a lot of effort into figuring out things, because I would say, there's someone in this workplace and all they're doing is this one job. Why can't I figure out what they're doing? I was teaching once and this student asked me. Should I go to school or should I freelance? And I told her, if you don't go to school, you better be disciplined because if you want to be a freelancer, the most important thing is to have discipline. Working as a freelancer, you have to figure it out all for yourself. Working for others, you get all that structure. You get told what to do. It makes life easier because you just come home and don’t think about your work. But working for yourself, you're constantly thinking of new ways to expand your business, new ways to improve your skills. You have to wear all the hats. You're all the departments. You have to be a student of life. You have to constantly read and figure out how to do things because somebody is out there doing the job that you dream of. You just have to figure out how they did it. Freelancing or working for yourself is pretty much similar to working for someone else, but you just have to work. All the time and you just have to be very disciplined and no one's going to tell you what to do. How do you balance work and personal life? Gautam Your priority goes down lower and lower. The moment I get clients, my clients become my priority, the moment we grow as a company, the employees are a priority. There is no balance. You're either on one side. Really busy or the other side, really quiet. We talked about Mamba Mentality, you have to be focused on exactly what you're doing. Makes more sense than having balance, because it'll never happen. How do you balance work and personal life? Adom I would say it's definitely been tough. ​​Having open communication with clients because when people hire someone as a freelancer, it's very easy for clients on their end to communicate with a freelancer as if they're always available with unlimited hours. When you work a day job, you show up at nine to five as soon as I leave no one's messaging me. Anything that needs to be done is going to happen as soon as I get in the morning. You just have to establish separation; there's really no way around it. A lot of freelancers will just bend and fold, giving away all their power and when an email comes in at 11:00 PM they feel that they have to respond by midnight. Open communication with whoever you're working with Like Gautam was saying, even when you're working for yourself, it's very easy for the client to become the boss. So it's just keeping open communication with the client. In Summary, there are lots of pros and cons for both working as a freelance or working for someone else. Every situation is different, but it all comes down to being transparent, honest and commutative with yourself and the people you interact with.

The process, of coming up with the "Less talk, more visuals" campaign. This was the first iteration. It had too much copy. It's a process. It all started with an idea. It all started with me looking through 600 images. How do we tie this all together? Show don't tell and a picture tells a thousand words. Are some of my favourite phrases. They get to the point. While going through my image collection. Less talk, more visuals came to my mind. To me, it sums up. Visuals can express more than words can. At first, we were going to add the text, "The internet has evolved...." but felt it was too much information. Our first thought is to give as much information as we can. Just in case someone doesn't understand the concept. But by getting rid of words, but getting to the point. You're going to be more direct. Sometimes you got to let the visuals speak. This was all done by using the process of CRITICAL THINKING. This is our process. Read our Core Values