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7 Amazing Benefits of Riding An E-Bike As an Entrepreneur

The e-bike is the future, but…

But only if we, as entrepreneurs, establish it as the next best thing. The nature of an entrepreneur means that you’re usually a step ahead of the crowd and leading that crowd towards top-tier products. This job usually isn’t easy; you have to show your peers your unwavering belief in something before it has even landed.

However, e-bikes have made your job a whole lot easier since it’s easy to believe in a product such as this.

Increased Endorphins

E-bikes, like any exercise, increase your endorphins (i.e. your “happy feelings”) and as a hard-working, multi-tasking entrepreneur, you need all the positivity you can get to motivate you to do better and be better every day.

Enhanced Physical Health

It’s of the utmost importance to be in good physical shape to meet your goals as an entrepreneur. Look at Tyler Perry, he consistently produces great films, and I can bet that being in shape and incorporating an hour-long workout regime into his daily routine has helped him with his current success.

Being an entrepreneur means being at the top of the game, not just in business, but also in regards to your health.

Improved Mental Health

Not only does exercise give you that positive rush of endorphins, but it provides you with much-needed self-care to get your day started off right.

Louise Delagran, a writer, researcher, and former editor of Taking Charge of Your Health and Whole Systems Healing says that “Being in nature or even viewing scenes of nature, reduces anger, fear, and stress and increases pleasant feelings.”

Riding your e-bike to work or even recreationally in a park can prove to be one of the best things you can do to improve your mental health and have you feeling rejuvenated.

More Savings

If you’re a small business owner or just starting out as an entrepreneur, you, more than anybody else, know how important it is to save your money. Using an e-bike as a mode of transportation, not even as your sole mode of transportation, can help you save exponentially what you may have lost in the cost of gas (e.g. “most bikes cost less than a penny per mile to charge”) or the cost of public transportation.

Faster

Time is money. And being stuck in traffic, while commuting to work, is probably one of the worst things that can happen to you as an entrepreneur. You have meetings to attend and work to complete, so riding an e-bike will be a godsend will help you manage your time wisely and get what you need to get done.

An e-bike makes you both a driver and a pedestrian, so when traffic is heavy, you can switch into pedestrian mode and easily navigate out of the congested roadways and guarantee a fast and easy commute to work.

Alternative to Regular Bikes

You know that feeling you get when you’re riding a bike and you’re confronted with a massive hill? The feeling of insurmountable anxiety that rushes through you? Well, you can kiss that feeling goodbye, since e-bikes make climbing those hills and other tasks that are difficult on a regular bike a breeze.

E-bikes essentially have three additional parts: a motor, a display, and a battery. When you pedal, you choose the amount of assistance you want, ranging from eco to sport to turbo. Based on your decision, the motor increases from 125% to 300% without you having to put in any extra effort.

Environmental Benefits

We’ve all heard the horrors of greenhouse gases and how car emissions are slowly killing our planet. E-bikes support a better tomorrow since they “emit 40 to 140 times fewer pounds of greenhouse gases than a 30 mpg gas car.”

Discord Server: 5 Great Ways to Use Discord As a Free Marketing Tool

A Discord server can change the game for your business.

If you’re a millennial or a part of gen-z, then it’s true that the first thing that pops into your head when you think of Discord is gaming. Discord was made for gamers. However, over the past few years, this platform has served artists, musicians, business teams, political groups, and more, so Discord is more than a playground for gamers; it’s a platform to nurture various communities.

Today, I’ll be showing you how you can use a Discord server to market your business.

Discord In a Nutshell

Discord is a chat platform where anyone that has built a community (i.e. a channel) can engage. Once users have received an invite, they can join countless servers and interact with server members.

For instance, your employees can chat with one another and build stronger relationships or use the server to collaborate on company projects using Discord’s video and voice calling system.

Building Your Audience

You can use Discord for your business as a social platform to discuss various topics related to your brand and your target audience’s interests such as books, movies, games, or whatever you like.

And if you want to discuss more than one topic, just create a text channel, so your server can host a variety of discussions.

As word spreads and your Disorder server grows, so will your audience-base.

Interacting With a Company

Never before has a customer or fan had an opportunity to interact with those who shared similar interests with a company and with the company, itself. Customers will be allowed to share their thoughts, feelings, and ideas with their desired organization, so it’ll bring a whole new meaning to ‘building a relationship with your customers.’

While, as the owner, you will be gifted the opportunity to directly hear personal reviews and resolve any issues before they snowball into something worse, as with using slower systems like email.

Sharing Your Story

Putting a face to the company doesn’t only give your business character, but it gives your audience somebody to identify with and sympathize with when your business is going through hard times.

You can tell them:

• The history of your business and what motivated you to start it
• Who you are and any relevant details related to your brand
• Why you love doing what you do

However, be mindful not to share too many details of your life to your audience. Separating your personal life and business is crucial in succeeding as a business owner.

Giving Tips n’ Tricks to Your Audience

Are you a gumbo-making Creole chef in Louisiana, then share your best tips to making your recipes sumptuous. Are you a vegan animal activist in the Pacific North West, then educate your audience on rallies they can join and cruelty-free corporations they could buy from.

Interacting with your audience doesn’t just mean growing your audience, but it can mean supporting them and teaching them how to make their lives and the lives of others better.

Discovering Opportunities to Collaborate

While interacting with your channel members, you can also use your account to join other servers and meet like-minded individuals.

Finding these servers is as easy as just a Google search of black-owned business Discord servers or even chatting with members of your own servers.

From there you’ll meet people you can relate to, share your products with, and collaborate with for future business opportunities.

Success with Livestream gives some great tips on how to collaborate with other businesses:

Managing Passwords: 5 Easy Steps to Maintain Cyber Security as An Entrepreneur

Managing passwords is crucial as an entrepreneur.

As an entrepreneur, you have to wear many hats; you’re your own manager, cleaner, and accountant. But when it comes down to it, making sure that your personal data is safe determines how far your business will go.

Below are seven sure-fire ways to ensure that your internet privacy is safe and secure:

Be Aware of Hacker Tech.

Hackers have come a long way from their rudimentary guessing games to figure out your password (e.g. the world’s most common passwords). Nowadays, hackers can gain access to your most vital and personal info with just the click of a button.

Of the two best password cracking programs are John the Ripper and Hashcat, “The strongest password guessing programs, John the Ripper and hashCat, use several techniques. One is simple brute force, in which they randomly try lots of combinations of characters until they get the right one. But other approaches involve extrapolating from previously leaked passwords and probability methods to guess each character in a password based on what came before.”

The good news is that you can protect your business from these hackers using two simple programs:

• Password Manager
• Two-factor authentication (2fa)

Install a Password Manager

Experts advise us to change our passwords every 3 months. The problem with this is that it’s easy to forget to change our passwords and when we do, we usually switch one weak password for another.

This is where a password manager comes in.

A password manager is a secure, online vault that holds all your login credentials.

The best part about this tech is that it does all the work for you. It creates and stores the strongest, most complicated passwords, so you won’t have to go through the trouble of coming up with a password that’s both memorable and idiosyncratic.

We recommend finding a password manager that works for you, based on:

• Security Features
• Multi-Device Platform
• Userability
• Free Options

Although, if you still want to know our favorite password manager, LastPass definitely takes our #1 spot for all of the features above.

Set Up Two-Factor Authentication

The most important accounts to set up two-factor authentication on are your bank and email accounts. No one wants somebody having access to all of their funds, and if a hacker gets into your email, they can reset your passwords on the accounts that are linked to your email.

Create Your Own Password

If you’re a traditionalist and still feel that creating your own password is best, then do that. Here at Biz Tipper, we want you to succeed at doing what’s most comfortable for you.

Here’s a few tips on how to build a strong password that’ll stoop hackers:

• Create passwords that are 12 to 16 characters long
• Consider using a saying, like “the dogs run after the squirrels.” This saying is 27 characters long and easy to remember in a pinch.
• Avoid reusing passwords. Hackers will take advantage of this as soon as they have your old passwords.

Educate Your Employees

At the very least, employees require basic cyber security training to protect trade secrets. Regularly providing your employees with training will allow them to remain aware of current, virtual threats and be prepared on how to guard against these threats.

Managing passwords may seem tedious, but completing these steps can save you from future headaches of having to rebuild your business after someone steals your data.

30 Great Jobs Based on Your Personality Test

Personality tests have many uses: from quick and easy ice-breakers at parties to mirrors that give us a clearer picture of ourselves and help us better understand who we are.

Thus surprisingly… or unsurprisingly enough, the test first began as a spiritual quest.

Katherine Briggs, the creator of this highly popular test, was a deeply religious woman who understood the meaning of life to be rooted in understanding who you are and living your life as the best version of yourself. On the opposite end was her daughter, Isabel Briggs Meyers, who adopted her mother’s desire for people sorting, but only to help them with job placement, rather than as a spiritual endeavor.

The mother-daughter duo started what was called the “cosmic laboratory of baby training” in their living room in the 1900s where they tested the personalities of neighborhood children to see if they were: introverted or extroverted; judging or empathetic; thinking or feeling, etc. and thus began what is now known today as the Meyers-Briggs Personality Test.

Today, we’ll be using this incredible test to give you all as freelancers, creatives, business moguls, and more insight into the type of job that best fits your character:

INTJ-A/INTJ-T

You’re thoughtful, creative, and a strategic thinker who’s always a step ahead of the game. You prioritize organization, reason, and are often using creativity to find ways out of a problem. With your intuition, you probably already know the best job for you, but want another perspective just in case:

• Lawyer
• Architect
• Social media analyst

ENTJ-A/ENTJ-T

One thing about you is that you don’t take no for an answer. You’re outstanding, insightful, determined, and maybe the next Obama or Kamela Harris. The job for you:

• Politician
• Business Owner
• Emergency Responder

INFJ-A/INFJ-T

You’re often told that you’re wise beyond your years or an old soul. You’re inspirational, kind, and ever-the optimist. Because of this, we can’t see you in any other roles beyond those that support others:

• Therapist
• Writer
• Yoga Instructor

ENFJ-A/ENFJ-T

Charismatic, alluring, ahead of the crowd, quite simply, you’re everything we all want to be. You’re the main character. As such, adopting a role that fits your personality may be tough, but it’ll also be worth it:

• Actor/Actress
• Comedian
• Youtuber

ISFJ-A/ISFJ-T

Kind and warm, you protect others at all costs. And you may be called the Dad or Mom among your friends, but they love you all the more for your caring behavior. Multiple jobs that compliment your sweet personality:

• Nurse
• Psychiatrist
• Teacher

ISTJ-A/ISTJ-T

You’re logical, objective, and naturally smart. You probably majored in something to do with anatomy, chemistry, or math, so finding a well-paid job that fits your skills won’t be too hard:

• Professor
• Marine Biologist
• Computer Scientist

ESTJ-A/ESTJ-T

In times of emergency, people look to you for leadership. You’re great at managing people and juggling tasks, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see you in these leadership roles:

• Human Resources Officer
• Bank Manager
• School Principal

INFP-A/INFP-T

Altruistic, empathetic, and always giving to others before you give to yourself, you are a kind soul in this chaotic world. For this reason, your path is as an:

• Civil Rights Lawyer
• Animal Activists
• Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Director

ISTP-A/ISTP-T

You’re crafty, practical, and great with tools of all kinds. As a child, you probably dreamed of making and fixing things, and you can’t imagine another way of living.

And now, all you wish of is the times when we weren’t so reliant on technology. The jobs best fit for you may give you calluses and stain your clothes, but for you that’s just an added bonus:

• Carpenter
• Mechanic
• Construction worker

ESTP-A/ESTP-T

You’re adventurous, charismatic, and you think on your toes. Similar to an ENFJ-A/ENFJ-T, you’re everything many of us want to be; you’re an entrepreneur. The best job for you, honestly, is one that you make yourself. You are your best advocate, and you know yourself better than anyone else, but if you need a little guidance, here’s a few jobs for you:

• Content Creator
• Freelance Photographer
• Motivational Speaker

Myspace: 7 Things That Kept This Musical Platform Alive

This may be hard to believe, but Myspace is alive and well.

Remember the times of booting up your computer and waiting those loooong minutes to finally be able to go on Myspace, a place where you could be as weird and wild as they come and chat with other musicians, people who understood the craft and loved it just as much as you?

Well, despite, the diminished community on this platform, Myspace is still kicking up a musical storm and keeping others updated on the latest in pop culture.

If you’re wondering how this platform has kept running for the last 2 decades, then let’s dive right in:

Justin Timberlake Becomes Stakeholder

Myspace (now with a lowercase “s”) became the little train that could when Justin Timberlake bought the platform in 2011 for $35 million. This buyout resulted in a much-needed redesign of the site: more music-heavy, rather than a social media hub, like Facebook and Twitter.

When asked why he bought the site, he had this to say, “There’s a need for a place where fans can go to interact with their favorite entertainers, listen to music, watch videos, share and discover cool stuff and just connect. Myspace has the potential to be that place.”

A Site to Connect Musicians to Fans

Myspace is now a site for musicians and bands to show off their work to fans and connect with them. Artists also use the site to publish their discographies.

Getting Nailed Hits The Mark

While a nail salon would not be my first choice as a funny, relaxed setting to interview a musician, Liz Culley makes it work. On Getting Nailed, Culley asks her guests fun and insightful questions that down come off as intrusive, but rather bring their walls down.

Content Hub That Keeps Us Up-to-Date

Myspace provides readers with a wide swath of content, from listicles to features, q&s, and news. This site doesn’t limit itself on the type of articles it publishes, rather it’s guaranteed that you’ll be satisfied with the stories you come across on Myspace.

Has a Modern Appeal

Justin Timberlake’s insistence upon revamping this hub made it so that Myspace’s grungey look would be trashed and replaced with a cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing black and purple design. While visiting this site, you’ll also be happy to see your fave singers and rappers and countless up-and-coming artists.

Easy User Interface

There’s a category for almost everything. Whether you’re trying to connect with writers, photographers, singers, DJs, or activists, Myspace makes it simple and easy to find them for you.

Provides Us With That Ooey-Gooey Nostalgia

While Myspace is not the explosive social networking site it once was, it still has that nostalgia factor. Wanna know the 17 Songs That spent The Most Time at #1 In The ’00s or 30 Classic Hip-Hop and R&B Jams For Your Barbecue Playlist, cause this platform has all that and more on its aptly titled #ThrowbackThursday search tab.

More than anything, Myspace, despite the change in name, design, and fanbase, is still a place for weirdo artists to connect, so if you’re looking for a sign to sign back into your old account, here it is.

10 Best Loans for Students

Loans for students are a necessary evil.

Student debt is at an all-time high with this year’s debt reaching 1.75 trillion. While, at the same time, the nation-wide average for unemployment has skyrocketed with 6.3 million experiencing joblessness. Thus, finding promising loans with affordable interest rates is more important than ever.

Sofi

Fixed APR: 2.49%-7.59%

Variable APR: 1.74-7.24%

Maximum Loan Amount: 100% cost of attendance

With a shockingly low fixed rate of 2.49% -7.59%, Sofi is the number one lender at Biz Tipper.

Sofi also provides borrowers with several repayment options (interest-only and flat-fee) and additional benefits such as career planning and entrepreneur support.

Earnest

Fixed APR: 2.94% – 12.78%

Variable APR: 1.74%+

Maximum Loan Amount: 100% cost of attendance

Earnest comes as a close second for its low-interest rates and accessibility since even those with a fair credit score of 650 can be approved for this loan.

The only catch for this lender is that they don’t offer variable rate loans in AK, IL, MN, NH, OH, TN, and TX.

Lend Key

Fixed APR: 2.49% – 7.75% with autopay

Variable APR: 1.90% – 5.25%

Maximum Loan Amount: 100% cost of attendance

LendKey is great for independent borrowers. Unlike many lenders, if you have a sufficient annual income and long credit history, LendKey will allow you to borrow from them without a co-signer.

However, private school borrowers beware, this lender will only allow you to refinance up to $125,000 in loans which may not cover the full cost of an expensive private school education.

College Ave

Fixed APR: 2.99% – 12.99%

Variable APR: 0.94% – 11.98%

Maximum Loan Amount: 100% cost of attendance

With its estimated low credit approval rating of mid 600’s and easy application, College Ave keeps those facing hardships in mind. You’ll also be happy to know that College Ave gives you as many as 15 years to repay your loan.

Sallie Mae

Fixed APR: 3.50% – 12.60%

Variable APR: 1.13% – 11.23% APR

Maximum Loan Amount: 100% cost of attendance

Sallie Mae is the ever-reliable lender that we trust. With flexible repayment options (students can start paying off their loans while getting their degree) and online and campus coverage, Sallie Mae comes through when you’re in the clutch.

This lender also supports non-traditional students (non-citizen, part-time students); however, Sallie Mae does require a hard credit check to review eligibility and most applicants will need a co-signer for approval, so there are as many cons as pros with this lender.

Mefa

Fixed APR: 3.75% – 5.75%

Variable APR: N/A

Maximum Loan Amount: 100% cost of attendance minus financial aid

For those who want immediate results, Mefa is for you. This lender gives an instant application decision and allows borrowers to apply from the comfort of their own homes.

And like College Ave, Mefa gives borrowers up to 15 years to pay off their loan.

Common Bond

Fixed APR: 3.74% to 10.74%

Variable APR: 3.39% to 9.34%

Maximum Loan Amount: 100% cost of attendance

Commonbond is a charitable lender for budding philanthropists and those who care for the welfare of others. This company has partnered with Pencil of Promise, an organization that supports education in Ghana. Therefore, every student loan goes towards not only your education but also the education of students in a developing country.

Commonbond is also leagues ahead of other lenders with its competitive refinancing options.

Ascent

Fixed APR: 3.97% – 11.89%

Variable APR: 1.47% – 9.05%

Maximum Loan Amount: 100% cost of attendance and other school-related expenses (up to $200,000)

Similar to LendKey, Ascent is a proven lender for independent students. Applicants can qualify for a loan without a co-signer and with no credit history, so if you or someone you know is a young student who’s supporting themselves and needs a loan, checkout Ascent.

However, an area where this lender can improve is in its outcome-based loan since they don’t offer it to Freshmen or Sophomores without a co-signer.

Citizens

Fixed APR: 3.48% – 10.78%

Variable APR: 1.99% – 8.02%

Maximum Loan Amount: $ 100,000 for the lifetime maximum, with an annual 100% annual coverage 100% minus aid

Citizens One knows that time means money, so to save you from hours of applications, this lender provides you with multi-year approval. After your freshmen year, Citizen One allows you to apply for the following years in advance, which doesn’t just save you time, but also saves you from future hard credit checks.

Custom Choice

Fixed APR: 3.20% – 10.77%

Variable APR: 1.03% – 9.67%

Maximum Loan Amount: Cost of attendance minus aid, but cannot exceed $99,999

Repeat after me, NO MORE HARD CREDIT CHECKS. Custom Choice knows how detrimental these checks can be to your credit score, so they make approval a breeze. And as an added bonus, this lender won’t hassle you with late fees and actually gives you a principal reduction of 2% if you graduate.

However, if you’re getting an expensive private school education, just know that Custom Choice may not be the right choice for you with its maximum $99,999 loan amount.

From tapping into the power of Kpop to embracing the possibilities of the metaverse, 2021 was a year of extraordinary firsts for IW Group, a leading creative agency specializing in engaging diverse audiences, and its clients. As the pandemic continued to limit in-person activities and on-set production, the firm explored new creative approaches that not only yielded award-winning campaigns for clients McDonald’s and Jack Daniel’s but also an unprecedented expansion into new consumer segments — including LGBTQ+, Hispanic and Indigenous — for the traditionally AAPI-focused agency.  

Characterized by a renewed emphasis on innovation, transformation and purpose, IW Group’s landmark 2021 has culminated with being named Ad Age’s 2022 Multicultural Agency of the Year. One of the marketing industry’s highest honors, it is part of the trade organization’s prestigious A-List & Creativity Awards, which recognizes the best forward-thinking leaders, top agencies and creative innovators of today. 

“It’s an absolute honor to be recognized by one of the industry’s foremost authorities in creative excellence,” said Bill Imada, IW Group’s Founder and Chief Connectivity Officer. “These past few years haven’t been easy but they’ve also brought forth extraordinary opportunities from both new and existing clients. Their faith in our agency and our team’s passion for innovation is what enables us to produce significant work, which leads to significant awards.” 

Bolstered by diverse young talent and guided by veteran leadership, IW Group scored new clients in 2021 across a broad range of industries including consumer, entertainment and healthcare. Upskilling agency personnel has also been a key priority, with internal training courses on emerging tech and digital trends (e.g., metaverse, NFTs and VR) offered regularly to staff. With an eye towards the future, the firm also recently opened an office in the metaverse, which will be utilized for virtual events, client presentations and staff meetings.     

“As brands continue to double down on their commitment to multicultural youth, agency partners who are both culturally and digitally fluent will be imperative,” said Nita Song, IW Group President and Chief Momentum Officer. “Our team’s diverse backgrounds — both personally and professionally — and our talent development programs have aligned us with the zeitgeist and are preparing us for the future.”  

For the year ahead, IW Group will pursue agency growth; with plans to expand its award-winning entertainment practice, scale up its content department and formalize its burgeoning metaverse marketing capabilities. Additionally, the firm is exploring new client opportunities with overseas brands seeking to enter the US market.     

“Our non-traditional approach to tradition and the opportunity to introduce new representations of culture not only fuels our creativity but also drives our purpose as an organization,” said Telly Wong, IW Group’s Chief Content Officer and SVP. “Our mission is to create work that not only excites our clients and resonates with audiences, but also inspires our team.”

Quotes About Being Happy That Every Entrepreneur Needs to Hear

Quotes about being happy are more than words on the page, rather, in a lot of ways, they’re lifelines. 

On Youtube, more than 40 million people have watched Denzel Washington’s inspiring advice about looking to the stars and working towards a life bigger, grander than your own. That record number of people who tuned into watching this video shows that words can make a significant change in someone’s life. So below are some of the most inspiring, hopeful words that can get you through your day, especially if you’re an entrepreneur.  

“Dreams without goals are just dreams.”

-Denzel Washington

Dreaming without the ideas in place to achieve them is hopeless and redundant. You need to work towards happiness to achieve it. And that’s easier said than done, but the time and energy you put towards success will be worth it in the long run when the things that once seemed impossible to do now give purpose to your life.

“It’s okay to fail; it’s not okay to quit.”

-Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness

Failure is a part of life that many, including myself, would like to avoid, but it’s a necessary part of progress. Without failure, we wouldn’t learn and without learning, we wouldn’t become better, happier, and more wanting of a greater world to live in.

Appreciate all your failures, because they’ll build you into a better version of yourself.

“I believe that every person is born with talent.”

-Maya Angelou

Failure and the struggles we face in life make it easy to assume that we are all just talent-less waste of spaces. In fact, consider one struggle, like Depression, and think of what it does to the best people in your life. Symptoms of Depression can include:

• Hopelessness
• Difficulty accomplishing tasks
• Anhedonia or losing passion for the things that you once loved.

Facing every day with symptoms that make it impossible to write, paint, and simply do all the things that you care for can make anyone feel like a talentless smuck. But take a step back and recognize that you are an amazing person; it’s just your present circumstances that may be making it harder to see that.

“Fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create. Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real. But fear is a choice.”

-Will Smith, After Earth

We can learn a lot from Will Smith’s character, Cypher Raige, in After Earth namely that fear is a choice. We think a million thoughts a day; yet, we never put value into them. The same should go for fear since it’s only a product of our minds.

“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become”

-Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness

We all have faced some type of trauma or tragedy in our lives, but what matters most about these things is how we respond to them. For instance, grow larger and become better than your pain. This is not to say that pain should be let go of, but rather that we should learn from it, rather than holding onto it.

“How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.”

-Toni Morrison, Paradise

It’s funny, but we all cling to happiness, wanting to be taken by the joy and pure euphoria of it. But happiness is not a passive state. Rather, as mentioned previously, happiness is something to be worked towards.

Being happy is equivalent to maintaining a relationship: it takes thought, passion, inspiration, and energy to produce such a great feeling.

“In whatever you do, choose things that make you happy, instead of just doing something for money and material things that are fleeting.”

-Zendaya

Surprisingly enough, Zendaya, the award-winning, beloved actress that seems to have everything, recognizes that true happiness is discovered in the things she has or the things that we may think should make us happy, but rather in what we know makes us happy.

“You can’t be hesitant about who you are.” (Viola Davis)

Figuring out who you are is a lifelong journey, but, despite the times when you feel unsure or doubtful of yourself, you should remain true of who you are. Insecurity can make it tempting to be someone else, but learn to love your voice, your thoughts, and everything you’re feeling.

You are valid.

Think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

-James Baldwin

Simply, you’re not alone. I, myself, feel like my thoughts are stuck in a vacuum and that nobody will ever truly be able to grasp what I’m feeling or why I’m feeling the way I do, but as I write this now, I understand that I am not the first person to have felt this way.

When you’re feeling alone, remind yourself that this feeling is not a fact of your life. Go out, be with people, listen to them, really listen to their words and their voices, and you’ll see how connected you are to the world around you.

“I like to read quotes that touch on how I am feeling [on social media]. If I am dealing with confusion, I will read quotes about clarity and peace of mind. I started posting these quotes on my Twitter page, and the fans responded so positively! I realized that many of them were dealing with similar issues, and the quotes helped to open up a genuine dialogue between us.”

–Keke Palmer

The award-winning actress and beloved comedian, Keke Palmer, maybe young in age, but she is wise beyond her years. She understands that quotes can clarify and also connect her to others, beyond distance and time. And sharing them with other people furthers the mission of writers and their words: to be seen and to be understood.

Thus, read words, watch movies, view art, and do the things that make you feel recognized and alive.

Downtown Music Holdings (Downtown℠), the world’s leading music services provider, announced today that it has established a fund to invest over $200 Million to support independent artists and entrepreneurial business owners. The fund, supported by a new credit facility with Bank of America, will be utilized across Downtown’s distribution, publishing administration and artist and label services operations. 

“Empowering artists has been Downtown’s core mission from the very inception of the company,” said Andrew Bergman, CEO of Downtown Music Holdings. “This financing from Bank of America enables us to expand our music services business by giving creators and business owners the ability to finance projects in an environment where the options are often unpalatable.

Bank of America recognizes this need in our industry, and we applaud their commitment and belief in our mission.” Downtown Music Holdings’ Chief Investment Officer Alan Goodstadt commented: “We are immensely gratified that Bank of America shares our vision of building financial solutions for creators in our industry. This credit facility enables us to empower the thousands of artists who use our services.”  

Downtown currently manages more than 23 million music assets on behalf of over 1 million artists and enterprise clients hailing from 145 countries from a catalog that spans 100 years of popular music. The company’s growth reflects the rise of independent artists overall, who now represent 31% of total streams on Spotify, according to MIDiA, and, based on an analysis conducted by former Spotify Chief Economist Will Page, out-released major labels during 2020 at a ratio of 8 to 1.

With over 70 million tracks spanning 5,000 genres in the world, not only is the quantity of music being released by independents dramatically increasing, but its quality is being noted at the highest levels—at the 2021 GRAMMY® Awards, 52% of all winners were independent artists.  

“Downtown Music Holdings has built a company that is well positioned to serve the fast-growing independent sector of the music industry,” said Randy Hua, head of the Entertainment Industries Group at Bank of America. “Downtown’s new fund is a powerful resource, empowering music creators all over the world. Bank of America is pleased to help finance this innovative sector of the artistic economy.”

“Cat Packer should have stepped down as the Director of the Department of Cannabis Regulation a long time ago. Cat stepping down is not going to fix all of the problems. Everybody else in that department needs to go as well. They should revamp the whole department because everybody participated in the destruction and the demise of LA’s cannabis market. LA should have been the number one cannabis market in the world. LA looks like the biggest joke in the world because of everyone in that department — Michelle, Rocky, and Jason Killeen.

“Cat’s exit doesn’t come as a surprise to me because I saw the writing on the wall. Bottom line is that the department has not done its job since it has been formed and created. The department had the opportunity to set precedence in the world and definitely in the United States to be the leader of the cannabis industry as we boasted when we first started because it was true. For this organization to not allow this industry to continue to grow but actually suffer and fail, it’s because of the people running DCR and the names that I named.

“Cat was a pawn; she’s the fall person. And they are going to blame it all on her. But really, she was not capable of running that department. Once she sat in that seat, and we started seeing all the moving pieces, it didn’t take long to figure out that she wasn’t qualified for that seat or position. She never owned a business, and she didn’t understand politics. And that’s why every move she made signaled that she never ran a business or had knowledge of running the business and didn’t understand LA’s politics. Every move she made represented that.”