Log of what of Francisco Cabrera has learned at Techie Youth

From today's learning, pieces of knowledge that I will be taking away is how photographers and freelance writers can earn an income allowing them to do their passions full-time.

Photography is the art of catching still images to evoke either a message or feeling. Being a beginner photographer all you will need is a camera either the one from your one or a device, and an application so you can edit the image if need be. After you obtain those essential elements to start being a photographer and of course the knowledge that is needed to take amazing photos, one is then left with the task of figuring out how many can be made from this profession. Although it may be overwhelming thinking of ways to make money as a photographer, Techie Youth's units highlight some of the different ways that exist being making greeting cards, postcards, calendars, apparel, working with business (restaurants, catering services, wedding venues, Airbnb, etc.), and creating photo booths at events. Also another way to make money is by posting your images online and having someone pay for it either through a stock image or in competition (referring to your photo being selected as the best image amongst other similar images). Some good applications where you can post your images are Photerloo, EyeEm, and Shutterstock.

A freelance writer is a professional writer who works as a contractor instead of full time under a company. To be a freelance writer you need to have excellent writing skills, and be able to create pieces of work at a good paste. Once you can confidently have those skills and can display your work, the next step then becomes how can you make this into your full time profession. Thankfully there are a plethora of ways in which an aspiring freelance writer can achieve wealth through an entrepreneurial path which consist of working in journalism, public relations, advertising, social media, technical writing, and custom content. Once you find your first gig as a freelance writer, you need to constantly be thinking about how you are going to market yourself to get attention to your work. One last takeaway about freelance writing that I learned were the 5 major types of freelance writing jobs which are article/feature writing, copy/content writing, blogging, social media content creation, and editing. This was interesting to learn because it shows how versatile a freelance writer can be and the many paths that a writer can take. Reflecting on my experience with Techie Youth, I have learned about the value and the enjoyment I received from creating blogs and learning about freelance writers making money from blogs. I may highly consider creating blogs for my social media brand that I am trying to grow.

Thank you Techie Youth for all of the amazing lessons that you have taught me throughout these past 6 weeks. I will continue to learn and strive for self improvement in all aspects in my life.

Today I learned about how to start creating a musician GarageBand which is my software of choice to create music considering that I have a Mac, and I also learned about the different ways in which artists and creatives in the music industry can make money.

GarageBand is a music production application for apple devices and to start creating music on the app it is not as complicated as it may seem. To create a new project, you go under file, then new and you can begin creating a new project. After creating your product there are 3 track types being software instrument, audio ( contain two types of sub tracks), and Drummer track. Each track is used for different purposes depending on how you pertain to building up your song. And the last step is to start inserting my loops and samples to create the song, and I want to as well I can insert my singing of a song in order to get the melody of the song that I am trying to create.

My last takeaway was about how creatives in the music industry can make a living creating music and it was amazing to find out that there are a plethora of ways to do just that. Ways in which a creative can earn money online is by earning streaming royalties through digital distribution, making money playing gigs, selling brand merchandise online, collaborating with brands and other musicians, selling beats and samples, and teaching music classes or seeing lessons. With all of these ways to create wealth through music production it makes it possible for creatives to make their passion into their full-time career but to get to that point it will definitely take time and consistency.

Music production was my unit of choice today to learn about because of my love for the art, from the information that I have received today I learned about the different types of careers that exist in the music industry and some knowledge about how I can create a beat.

In music production, when many people think of a song they usually only attribute it to the artist which makes sense because they are the face connected to the song but the fact of the matter is that to every song there is usually a team behind it. The roles of team members that an artist may have to create a song and expose it to the masses are video and sound engineers, recording engineers, music directors/conductors, music teachers, DJs, musical therapists music journalists, music agents, song writer, and music franchise owner. Considering all of these positions in the music industry help create and distribute music, it is important to note that these are positions that anyone with a passion and the drive for music can achieve working in one of those roles, and you can make large sums of money from it as well. It was also interesting to learn that from the music production roles recording engineers and video/sound engineers are two of the highest-paid roles in the production team.

Finally going into the production of music, I have gained some information about how I can start creating beats with simply just my laptop and a microphone. That was very assuring to hear because the equipment that studios use to create music is very expensive, so I now have hope that I can create a high-quality piece of music with items already in my possession. After learning that vital piece of information, I was provided with a list of 5 music production apps that are free which are Garageband, Tracktion T7, Klevgrand SyndtSphere, Audacity, and Giada. Some other resources provided to me were Splice and Sounds.com which provide samples so I don't have to worry about having to create a sample in my beginning phase of learning to produce. Finally, I learned about components that go into a sample library which are 808s, claps, cymbals, hats closed, hats open, kicks, percussion, snaps, and snares.

Today was my final day on the video editing portion of the Techie Youth learning, I not only learned about some more resources that I can use in my video which I did today but I also learned that I can produce and edit a video in a few hours.

Some of the resources that I learned about today consisted of effects from pixel experts, free template stock video from videezy.com, free sound effects from both freesoundeffects.com and freesound.org, and free music from bensound.com. I was thankful to learn about these resources because they are vital to creating a high-quality and engaging YouTube video. Due to this I have started and will continue to use these resources on future videos that I create.

My final takeaway from today's learning was that I have the ability to create and edit a video in a short period of time because usually when I edit a video it may take longer. But what helped me achieve that accomplishment was because of all of the shortcuts that I learned about which did save me a lot of time such as pressing the "c" key to cut and the "v" key for the selection tool.

*If you are interested in checking the video, here is the link: https://youtu.be/34Lp7pKImYM*

In today's learning, I learned about I can create my portfolio to showcase my previous completed projects and how I can start up my own business venture in video editing.

Having a portfolio is one of the most important things that any person could have if they seek employment in any creative field because it showcases your previous projects and your style. That is why it is important to have a portfolio when wanting to become a video editor. To start off, you want to create a website to showcase your list of videos and some websites that were stated in my learning today were Wix and Squarespace which are the two best sites to use. After selecting the website of your choice, the fun begins because you get to select the style in which you want to present your work through the help of templates. With setting up your work you can either create a grid system or a system where you first highlight your best pieces of work and have the rest not as in-your-face to your viewers. Also it also important to note as well that you can use other social media platforms to showcase your work such as YouTube & Pinterest.

When starting a business in video editing you can build a career in any category such as wedding, music, and real estate. This was really interesting to learn about because it means that there are a plethora of possibilities of editing categories to choose to work on. After determining which market of clients one will like to work in, the next step of reaching out to clients begins. Some good ways to reach out to those clients are by emailing them what you do, your services, and examples of your work to get them interested. But something important that I learned is that if I have no previous projects that I can showcase to a client then I more than likely should either offer a low price for my service or offer to do the job for free to get completed projects under your belt. But if you have a client that is intrigued and willing to pay for your services then it is vital that you ask the client what is their budget so you can get a ballpark of how much you may be getting paid. If you do not think that the budget price is not fair then you can offer the flat rate that you usually charge for a project. Why it is better to charge a flat rate most of the time over an hourly or daily rate is because a flat rate rewards efficiency which is important to always be efficient in any type of work.

Today I learned about tools that can help me become a more efficient editor on premiere pro and how after learning how to edit how I can get my first foot through the door into a video editing field.

Premiere Pro is editing software created by Adobe it runs similar to the many editing software that exists today with the difference being certain features. As mentioned in my previous blog post, this editing platform is the software of choice for me so it was extremely enlightening learning about all of the shortcuts and tools that I can use to help me pump out video more efficiently. Some of the tips that were eye-opening were Drag & drop, master clip effects, adjustment, kill switch, quick copy, select all, drop shifts, locking layers, proxies, and editing while exporting. Essentially all of these tips are meant to help me speed up certain elements of my editing process such as having an effects folder with all of the commonly used effects that I utilize in a video in order to save me the time of going into my search bar to look for an effect. Also, I found it really helpful that I learned about the different keyboard shortcuts because commands such as copying and pasting take me long, but now I know of a faster command to copying a key which is holding down options and dragging the copied clip.

My final takeaway from today's learning is how I can start my journey into the profession of editing if I choose to go down that route. When starting I have to recognize that I am going to be in one of the 3 types of positions when applying to a job on the cold call. Essentially the cold call is the position that everyone is in when you are a beginner. The other two types of positions that you are in when applying to a job are the back door (forming a relationship with the hirer to get the job) and the referral (someone recommending you). It is important to note that with the back door and referral, one is more likely to get the job position which is why it is important that the individual in the position of the cold call tries their best to make themselves stand out and makes the initiative to reach out. The way you reach out is by sending an email out to the employer but making sure that in your first paragraph you write who you may have worked for in the past to catch the interest of the employer.

Today was a continuation of yesterday's topic of video editing, but today was centered around how to actually get started with video editing.

When starting off video editing there are many applications to choose from which can be overwhelming, but I learned that there is 3 main editing software used by the masses which are Adobe Premiere Pro (costing $20.99 a month for only this Adobe software), DaVinci Resolve Studio (One-time fee of $299), and Final Cut Pro (One-time fee of $299). My personal software of use has been Premiere Pro but it was nice learning about other editing software options considering that Premiere Pro can get really expensive considering that you have to pay monthly to use the application. Also, it is also important to state that free editing software does exist but you have to be cautious with which one you use because there are applications that allow you to edit for free but add watermarks to the video when you are trying to export the video. And as frustrating as that is you are probably left with no other choice but to pay the fee for that one month perhaps to acquire the video without the watermarks, but thanks to the learning from today there are 5 video editing software that is truly free or has the possibility to upgrade if you so choose to access more features. That 5 editing software are USDC, Primare, Shotcut, Hitfilm, and Lightworks. It is important to note that each of these software can only work on the specified system listed on the application site, also out of all of these free programs, Hitfilm is the most unique because it requires that your system to have high-end capabilities.

Some other lessons learned from video editing were the importance of putting all of the files that you are going to use in a video into a folder with the video project file to be able to transfer the video and all of its contents to another system if need be. Also, I learned that the color balancing done for one clip in a video can be transferred to another clip in order to the color balancing throughout the video consistent. This was important to me because I was fearful that I would have to take the time to figure out the perfect color balancing for each clip. My final takeaway from my learning was more third-party resources that I can use to get things like music special effects and graphics for my videos. The resource names were mTuber, Mtitle, Soundtrax, and Evantoelements.

Today's Techie Youth learning was focused on the art of editing videos, which I learned has many different career paths you can take and I also learned about the different types of edits used by professionals to enhance their videos or film.

Video editing can be defined as the way to enhance a video in order to drive a point being made or the overall storytelling of the video or film by combining clips and adding other pieces of sources like sounds or images. One of the greatest elements of a career path in video editing is that you can decide whether you would like to do freelance work or work under a company. Each path has its positives and negatives and in order to to make the right decisions you really just need to see which option best suits you and the life you want to live, but you can always change your path selection. In terms of the types of media that one would be editing it has a wide range of selections such as films, adverts, youtube videos, real estate, and interviews. And a really great takeaway about starting a career path in video editing is that schooling is not required for you to be successful in the field, but instead, it takes dedication and hard work in order to improve yourself as a video editor. A really good resource that was provided from the learning today was the use of Skillshare which is an online learning platform with thousands of creatives from different fields, teaching viewers about the skills that they know so they can then learn the foundation to build the skill that they are seeking to gain.

Lastly, one great takeaway from my learning was about the different types of editing techniques that exist and how such a small change can make a huge difference. The types of edits consisted of the clean-cut, L cuts, J cuts, cut on action, cross-cutting, cutaway, match cut, smash cut, crossfade, camera movement cut, and invisible cut. After learning of all of these styles of edit it not only changed my perspective on stitching clips together but also made me realize that whenever editing a video I need to consider my reason for adding or taking away elements to my videos in order to create a final product that I will be proud of. Also, one last piece of information that I learned that will help me become a better editor is to watch my video twice before I start to edit it. And not just regularly watching it two times but instead on my first watch enjoying the unedited video then on the second watch taking down the video and potential edits I would like to do in specific sections.

Today marks the end of how to build community on social media apps with the two platforms WeChat and Snapchat.

WeChat is an app based in China that serves multiple purposes such as messaging, social media, and mobile payment (like train ticket, rent and utilities payments). The greatest feature that distinguished WeChat from any other app is its ability to be linked to your bank account and credit cards in order to use a QR code system to pay for goods and services. One of the unfortunate downsides to using WeChat is the censorship of politics on the platform, which if someone does not abide by this key rule will have their account taken away. It is very important to take this into consideration before you decide to conceptualize and post content in order to build a following. Now in order to market yourself on WeChat a couple of things that you need to do are being timely with when you are posting your content, uploading interesting snippets, and connecting your website to your WeChat account (make sure that your website is hosted by a Chinese Internet Content Provider). To sum up, essentially you want to connect your website where you are posting your interesting content and taking snippets from the content created to then upload on your WeChat account to hook viewers. Also making sure that you post your videos at usual times that it is expected and posting frequently.

Snapchat is a multimedia messaging application with pictures, videos, and messaging. What made snapchat unique from other social media applications at the time when it first came out was not only its filters but also the key feature of messages and story updates deleting after a certain period of time unless you saved it. Considering that messages and stories deleted if you did not save it could also be considered as a negative aspect of Snapchat. In order to increase your social media following on snap chat it consist of sharing your Snapchat account on other social media platforms like YouTube, using Bitmoji (which are emoji characters are meant to resemble what you look like), running interactive giveaways, creating engaging blog style stories, exploring content on the discover page, and most importantly staying active. In other words, it is important to market your page outside of Snapchat but in Snapchat you are supposed to create engaging and interactive content on a consistent basis in order to grow over time. Also I learned of a small hack that can improve your follower growth rate which is putting your Snapchat Profile QR code as the profile picture on other social media platforms as well as using the application Ghost Codes.

Continuing on the topic of building community on social media platforms from my last blog post, today I learned how to build a social circle on the social media apps Pinterest and Facebook.

Pinterest is a social media service centered around sharing images, information, animated gifs and videos in the form of pin boards. With my Techie Youth experience today, learned of the steps that I need to take to be successful on Pinterest and those were having a minimum of 10-15 dartboard on my account, taking inspiration from other sinners who you may follow to get an an idea as to how you can meaningfully setup your boards, striving to upload and pin only high quality pieces of visual content, using relevant keywords, engaging with others, and re-pinning from "Explore" and "Trending" pages and other user pages. Essentially, what I took away was in order to grow on Pinterest, the visual presentation of your boards is one of the greatest components to your success in the platform. In order to create visually appealing boards you have to take into consideration the types of images that you are using. Also engaging with community members is key and staying on top of trends such as hashtags or popular categories of visuals.

Facebook is a social media platform with a plethora of functions such as information/photo sharing, and business. In order to build a community on the app, Facebook Groups is the way to do just that. Facebook Groups contains 3 types of group classifications that you can choose from which are public, private visible and private hidden. The difference between the private visible and the private hidden is that private hidden can only be seen in the search menu by the members in the group. In order to achieve success in your Facebook Group, 5 tips that will likely improve one's chances are creating a clear code of conduct, posting welcome messages and announcements, engaging with members but letting them lead, asking admittance questions to keep out bots, and offering high value and unique content. Essentially what I got from these tips to create a successful Facebook group is of course not only creating amazing content to discuss about but also cultivating a safe, productive and meaningful ecosystem in order to connect with people about the content of interest.

Today's learning focus was on how to properly market my brand on the social media platforms: Instagram and Twitter. I learned so many useful tips that I will definitely be implementing on those platforms.

For Instagram, before you start implementing marketing strategies for your content, it is important that you first can define your goals and your target audience. Without defining your goals, one will have no set direction as to why they are seeking to gain more followers if that is either to build community or a fan base. Then with knowing the why it is important to know the who which is the demographic of people you are seeking to show your content to. After having both of those pieces defined you have to set up a plan for your execution and to do just that a big component of marketing yourself on Instagram is the quality of presentation of the content you are sharing. Factors that must contain presentable quality are your videos, audio, text, images, and IG live. To further explain, considering that Instagram is an application based on the presentation of one's personal or business image, it is important that components like your images are given time and thought such as how they are edited. Also, another piece of secret to success on any social media platform is consistency which holds true for Instagram.

Going into my greatest takeaway from today is how to market myself on Twitter, considering that it is one of my most used applications. One of the first pieces of advice that I learned is that I should use other platforms such as YouTube for example to build my following on the app. After understanding that, and figuring out my goals and audience as I would do for Instagram I have to not only put out good content but also understand the key components that go into Twitter engagement. I of course need to post frequently, but I learned that the peak times (most people on the website) when to post are in general 12 pm-6 pm and 12 pm-3 pm from Monday to Friday. Knowing this information it is more than likely to get more people viewing my content than if I were to post it during a different time. Another piece of marketing strategy was the use of hashtags and how they on average bring 12.6% more engagement on a tweet than one without a hashtag, but it is important to note that one should keep the hashtags to a minimal use of either 1 or 2 per post. Lastly, I learned that on Twitter you are more likely to gain likes on a post if it contains visual content such as a video or image than a tweet that has just text.

Today I learned how to write up an executive summary for a start-up business that I have already started and how I can find the right social media niche to focus making content on.

Writing an executive summary was not as complicated as I thought it was going to be, essentially you are writing a summary about what your business is, what problem it plans to solve, the solution you are planning to provide, and the support you are going to need to get started (support can range from either physical assistance or financial). The purpose of the executive summary is to give readers an overview of your business in a concise way. Why this is important because investors can be one of those types of readers which is important to businesses who need that financial support in order to get their business off the ground. With now having the knowledge and the experience of writing an executive summary, I am one step closer to being well equipped to start up any new ventures I may seek to do in the future.

Now going into my greatest takeaway from the day, how I can figure out the best niche that suits me. Why this was initially an issue for me because I thought that the overall niche that I had selected to do content for was good enough, but I learned that I have to look deeper into the niche that I have selected. For example, my niche of interest is gaming but I could not just say it is gaming but instead looking into what type of gaming content I want to make such as gaming commentary or gameplay walkthrough. It was also helpful to learn that it is good to start off with having a single focus but then when I get a bit of a bigger following, then I branch out to more categories. Why this is so helpful is because I would love to eventually create a variety of content. Lastly, I learned that in order to make the right decision on the niche start making content by making content brainstorming which consists of you writing down all potential niches you are interested in and all ideas you have for one, and whichever focused niche you have the most ideas is the one you should continue with.

In yesterday's blog post I talk about a method of investing in commodities known as the commodity index, and today I learned about other methods of investing through commodity trading.

Commodity trading is defined as the trading of different assets, typically futures contracts, that are based on the price of an underlying physical commodity. In other words, you are not physically trading the commodities but instead investing in the assets associated with making the commodity possible in order to then trade. When it comes to commodity trading there are 3 strategies that can be used to maximize your success which consist range trading (buying when prices are at the bottom while selling when the resistance level price is at the top), breakouts (buying before commodity price increases and selling before the commodity price decreases), and fundamental trading (evaluating market fundamentals that are usually based on idiosyncratic, market factors rather than technical trading dynamics).

Lastly, another important piece of information that I learned about trading commodities is the risk factor associated with it. One of the first important pieces that I took away is how volatile commodities are which is something that always seems to slip my mind because when I think of volatility, I immediately attribute it to only cryptocurrency but far from that. But because of the volatility of commodity items, it means there is of course big loss associated but there is also the possibility of big gains which is what attracts people to this form of trading. Some other risk potentials of commodities investing consist of the market being risker for small traders than market professionals, and like investing in general it is important to be well informed and not make decisions based on emotions.

From my Techie Youth learning experience, I gained more information about strategies that will help prevent potential risks when investing in options as well as an introduction to commodities and what is a commodity index.

In yesterday's blog post I briefly touched upon some strategies that one could use depending on the type of options being invested in but some more strategies that I learned about were covered call, married put, bull call spread, bear put spread, protective collar, long straddle, long strangle, long call butterfly spread, and iron butterfly. As mentioned all of these strategies are effective depending on the type of market it is being used in for example short straddles short strangles, and long butterfly profit from a sideways market (market in one where prices don't change much over time, making it a low volatility environment. Also, I learned of the box spread strategy which creates a synthetic loan by using a long bull call spread and matching bear put spread while using the same strike prices.

Lastly, my greatest takeaway was about commodities which are defined as basic goods used in commerce that are interchangeable with other commodities of the same type. It is important to note that commodities can be combined with other commodities in order to create a new commodity. Also, there are two types of commodities which are hard commodities (classified as those that are mined or extracted from the earth such as metal), and soft commodities (grown such as wheat). Moving into investing in commodities, a method for investing refers to a commodity index which is defined as an index that tracks the price and returns on a basket of commodities. This can be used to invest through mutual funds or exchange-traded funds. Some key components which make commodity indexes unique are because they vary depending on the weight and composition of the commodities, are affected by inflation and are hugely reliant on capital gain instead of components such as interest. One of the last pieces I learned about commodities is that there are 3 ways that I can start investing in commodities today, which consist of outright purchasing the commodity, investing in related stocks of the commodity like an oil company, and investing in funds with exposure to commodities.

Today was an enlightening day about options trading in terms of what it is, how to get started, and how to be successful in this form of investing.

Stock Options Trading is defined as a contract between the investor and owner with no obligations to the investor, to buy or sell an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price for a given period of time, around a timeframe of days to years. Although the definition may make this form of investment seem a bit straightforward, it is far from that because different options can exist on the same underlying with multiple strikes (the fixed price at which option owner can buy or sell the underlying security or commodity) and expiration dates (last day in which the options contract is valid). Another takeaway about stock options was that I can get started today with my phone by using the Robinhood app. By watching the step-by-step guide on how to invest through the robin hood app I was able to see what buying/selling and calling/putting looked like as well as learn about premiums and the maximum profit (which consist of the price listed times the 100 shares from within the contract).

Lastly, one of the greatest takeaways from today's learning was the 6 basic steps one should take in order to greatly increase your chances of being successful in stock options trading. The following 6 steps consist of formulating your investment objective, determining your risk-reward payoff, checking the volatility, Identifying events, devising a strategy, and establishing option parameters. Essentially that these 6 steps are trying to highlight the importance of you doing your research beforehand such as knowing the risks of an option you plan on trading and not just the risk because the fact of the matter is that high rewarding options have the potential of costing you all of your money if one is not careful. Two more pieces to highlight are the importance of strategies and identifying events. In terms of strategies, 6 effective to use are short strangle, credit spread, ratio spread, iron condors, diagonal spread, and broken wing butterfly. It is important to note how one picks which strategies to use based on the type of option selected. And in terms of identifying events, it refers to being informed about current events going on with the company associated with the stock option like how you would do in the stock market, and being informed on economic data releases such as earning reports.

Continuing yesterday's topic of forex trading, today I learned about tips that I can take to become a better forex trader as well as the downsides to forex trading that I should be aware of. Not only did I learn more valuable information about forex, but I also obtained a better understanding of REITs.

In forex trading, a beginner can thankfully have success but it takes a matter of doing immense research to know what you are doing in order to yield profit. When in the research phase before you dive completely into forex there were 8 tips recommended in order to be a good trader which consisted of defining your goals, choosing a broker who offers a trading program with the analysis you want, choosing a methodology, and is consistent, keep your timing in sync, calculate your expectancy, focus on your trades, build positive feedback loops, and performing analysis of patterns and relevant news on the weekends. Essentially, if one follows these tips then they are likely to succeed as a trader but it is important to recognize that you have to always be striving to learn to stay on top considering that the market is always changing. Although forex is a good investment strategy, like everything in this world it has its negative aspects that you need to watch out for such as the leverage you use may result in a loss that surpasses a trader's initial investment, and the varying currency values caused by interest rate risk. Due to potential risks like the few mentioned, it is important to know all of the potential risks associated with forex and how you can either combat or prevent these issues from happening.

REIT which stands for Real Estate Investment is a way to invest in real estate without having to get involved without the physical component. Like stocks for companies like apple and tesla, REITs are assets traded freely on the stock market as well. Similar to forex trading is important that before investing in REIT that one does their research on this form of investment because it does have its pros and cons. Some pros are guaranteed dividends, hassle-free real estate investing, low minimum, and passive investment. While some of the cons consist of declining value properties, fees and mark-ups, potential market correlation, and gains taxed at the ordinary income rate. From looking into the pros and cons the two greatest components I took away were the ability to invest in real estate without having to do much hands-on work (pros), and the potential loss in value of properties due to many factors (cons). Overall, REITs are a form of investment that everyone should consider looking about but doing the research is important before you invest in all of your money.

Today was extremely insightful and empowering because I was able to get a better understanding of what Forex is, what are the best applications to use, and how to start investing today.

Forex is defined as a global electronic marketplace for trading international currencies and currency derivatives. When going into Forex, you have to work with a financial service called forex broker which provides traders access to a platform where they sell and buy currencies. It is important to note that similar that trading in the forex market is similar to that of the stock market such as being open 5 days a week but forex is open 24 hours a day.

Once getting a general understanding of what is Forex the next step is to start to invest in the market and some of the best resources provided to do so were, Trading game, Trading view, Etoro, Bloomberg: Business News, and Plus 500 Online Trading. Interestingly enough all of these apps are not to be selected one over the other but instead are supposed to work in tandem. For example, the Trading Game is the app that you would be using to dive into the live market and see real-time price movements, while you would use Bloomberg: Business News in order to know the news around the currencies that you are going to be trading. Why that is so important is because, like the stock market, Forex fluctuation in prices is dictated by events going on in the world so it is important to be well informed in order to make the best decisions for future investments.

Lastly, one of my greatest takeaways from starting to invest in the forex market was understanding the terminology such as base (currency on the left), quote (currency on right), pip (the smallest change in value for nay given forex quote), and the fractional pip. Some other important components to take into consideration were being able to evaluate trends that are going on in the graph but not solely focusing on the trends to know when to buy and sell but also considering the strengths of the currencies in real-time. By using both pieces then traders are more than likely to be consistent with the amount of profit return they receive. Two more key pieces to forex that I learned about was using leverage which meant making a small deposit in order to use more money provided by the forex broker (these ratios can range from 1:100 to 1:20, but for trading, it is best to use 1:20), and there are 4 kinds of trader personalities: Scalpers, Day, Swing, and Position Traders. Choosing the right type of trading depends on how long you would like to be holding the currency ranging from either minute to years.

Two of the greatest takeaways from my Techie Youth E-Earn learning today were how to obtain funding for a start-up and the importance of a Minimum Viable Product or MVP for short.

When obtaining funds, it is important to first do research to figure out a rough estimate as to how much money you may need to get your business up and running. Another important factor to consider when doing the research on the number of funds needed for your start-up is if you are even going to need a lot of money for your business. There are cases where a start-up nearly needs no money in order to get set up which is considered a shoestring start-up. Once you have determined that your business is not a shoestring start-up you can now focus on methods to obtain the funds to aid you in your journey. Some of the methods consist of paying out of your own pocket, paying with a credit card, an angel investor, and venture capitalist. It is important to note that even though paying out of pocket or using a credit card are options they are not the best options so it is more like that you will want to find an outside provider of funds like an angel investor or venture capitalist. It is important whichever form of funding that one does the research as to which will suit them and their business best.

Going into my second key takeaway from today's learning of Minimum Viable Product, it is a product with enough features to attract early-adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle. A good example of this is if you create a business around selling hats and customers love most of the hats but give you some constructive criticism about how one of the hats can be improved then it is important to take that feedback into account. Also, it is important that the purpose of the MVP are to release a product as fast as possible to a market, test the success of the product before committing more money to the product's growth, and learn what customers liked and did not like about the product.

From the lessons today, I learned 3 valuable components of creating a business which was finding co-founders, forming a business entity, and branding.

Finding a co-founder for a business you want to start up, is not as difficult as it may seem. Some ways you can find a co-founder for your business venture is by partnering up with someone you are close with such as a friend or family member, as well you can find a partner by attending networking events, not conferences. With then having a co-founder to start up the business it is important to set up a plan as to the roles that each co-founder will be responsible for to avoid future miscommunications leading to a fall of between the two co-founders.

Business entities consist of a sole proprietorship, general partnership, limited partnership, LLC, C corporation, and S corporation. Each type of business entity is tied to the type of business you plan on creating (for example a sole proprietorship is tied to the business of freelance writing, independent landscaping, and YouTubers). Also, each of these types of entities has its negatives and positives as in a sole proprietorship you are personally liable but after consulting your accountant any new equipment for work can be considered as a tax write-off.

Lastly, was branding which was my greatest takeaway from what I learned today. The components that go into branding consist of a domain name, company email, creating a slogan, mission statement, logo, letterhead, business cards, and website. Some important bits of information that I took away from these components were making my mission statement and slogan concise, and making sure not to use the trademark name of another business, there are a plethora of free logo-making sites, and the steps it takes to create an effective logo.

When getting your start-up off the ground, Techie Youth taught me that some of the key components to achieving success is by creating a profit model, value proposition, and defensibility.

Some of you may be asking what is a profit model which I had asked as well. A profit model refers to a company's plan that aims to make the business profitable and viable. For a profit model, it contains 4 types of models: The production model, rental/leasing model, advertising model, and commission model. Each of these types of profit models requires production and operating components, sales, marketing, and delivery of goods and services in order to function effectively. Creating a profit model to determine if a start-up will be profitable is key to your success because it erases potential time and financial loss from an initial idea that may not have worked if you did not have a plan as to how that idea was going to generate you wealth.

After creating your profit model, the next important component to consider is your value proposition which essentially refers to if the products or services provided by your company are appealing to customers. In order to achieve a successful value proposition is by following 5 steps: Identifying the major problem, identifying your products' benefits, writing out what makes these benefits valuable, connecting your benefit to your customers' problems, and learning how to differentiate your company from your competitors. To sum up the steps, you must find the problem and then create the solutions, and make sure to be in tune with customers' feedback on your products and services. This was such valuable information because it taught me the importance of research when starting up a company as well as making sure to always listen to the customers' needs and feedback in order to achieve business growth.

Lastly, one of the greatest takeaways from today's learning was the concept of defensibility which is the degree of difficulty to replicate your business. There are many ways in which one can achieve defensibility but some consist of creating technology that cannot be replicated, creating a community that will support the growth and creates value with each other, and good branding which will create customer loyalty. Essentially in order to achieve defensibility with your company, your company has to stand out from the competition which can be achieved through different strategies, but it is also important to study what competitors do in order to create that plan to be different.

Going into my learning for today, I was not expecting to learn so much about the two topics being how to avoid team conflicts and avoiding job scams. Why I was not expecting it is because those are things that were never heard being talked about it but are important conversations to be had because although employment has its positives, the potential negatives do exist as well and it is important that everyone seeking employment has the knowledge to navigate through difficult roadblocks.

When going into the topic of managing team conflicts while remotely I learned the most common causes of team tension are: miscommunications, lack of visibility, or unclear division of responsibilities. After learning that it made a lot of sense because of previous experience of doing group projects in school sometimes tension would be formed due to some of those causes. But what was mentioned in the article as the best solutions to managing team conflicts are: ensuring communications are inclusive and transparent, setting tasks and responsibilities clearly, providing space to voice concerns, and keeping conversations personal. From these ways to mitigate team conflict escalation, the greatest takeaways are effectively being able to communicate and keeping all of the conversations about the conflict at hand between the team and not involving any outside people like the boss.

Today's learning highlight was how to avoid scam job listings which I had no idea existed but it was vital that I knew off because I plan to seek a remote or hybrid position in a company in the near future. This means that it was important for me to know that scam job listing existed and the signs that I should look for in order to not fall into scammers' traps. In one of the articles provided, it stated that signs of high scam likelihood consisted: the job requires upfront expenses from you, you are offered a job without anyone contacting or even asking for your qualifications, asked for personal financial information early in the interview process or in the initial application, and ads that say things like "unlimited earning potential". With learning all of these signs, I can now make informed decisions about whether a job that is listed is legitimate or too good to be true.

Today was another enlightening day about how to become a successful entrepreneur, some of the key highlights were the importance of skills and have a passion for the type of business you seek to pursue.

When it came to skills there are two categories that skills fall under, hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills refer to skills necessary for a specific job (ex. knowing how to cook if you plan on being a chef) while soft skills refer to skills needed for every job (ex. communication, teamwork, and adaptability). Also, the hardest skill to learn is a soft skill because it is something that must be done constantly and can not be measured with a certification or degree while hard skills can be. Another piece of information that I learned about skills is in order to reach success using your skills it requires 90% effort and 10% talent which was interesting to me because I have heard about this same concept from big content creators to the backend of creating the video counts for much more than your actual talent being used to in your video. Lastly, I also learned that it is important that the skills you have learned be implemented with life skills because life skills are what is going to allow you to apply your learned skills in the real world to allow you to succeed.

In terms of passion, this was the word that was greatly cemented into my head when I want to start up a business. The reason why this is vital to your success is that this is what is going to drive you to put all of your efforts into your business. And with all of that energy being poured into the business day in and out it will inevitably grow to something you had hoped to achieve and you would have enjoyed the process to get to the goal due to it being your passion. Having a business where you enjoy doing something was iterated by many successful people in the provided video about 50 business people giving advice about starting a business. It makes a lot of sense because it is better to do something that is going to fulfill you and make you happy considering that life is short and we need to make the best of it while at it.

Today I learned the key elements needed to achieve a successful relationship with being mentored and how to become a successful entrepreneur.

Before today, I had no idea how to go out into the world to find myself a mentor although it was something that I would consistently be told to do. Also, the idea of finding a mentor seemed daunting because it meant that I not only had to search throughout the web or in person for someone willing to help guide me on my professional journey but it is also nerve-wracking to meet new people at first. Although I had all of these worries I realized that all of my fears stemmed from a lack of knowledge of how to get mentorship. One of the first things I learned was that I should look at getting a mentor as something that should happen organically. What was meant by this is that you should put in all of the efforts you can into getting yourself off of the ground in whichever career path you decide to pursue, so then as you progress you can come into contact or be noticed by people who have reached the level of success you seek to achieve. After realizing that mentorship can work in this way apart from reaching out to multiple people and hoping one person will respond, I felt so much better, but that other option of emailing still has its value. Another piece of information learned was not asking mentors generic questions that can be answered by google but instead try going in the direction of asking more opinionated questions which will show your level of enthusiasm towards the field. Finally, one of the greatest takeaways learned about a successful mentorship is that there must be a formed personal connection to be able to openly discuss topics of significance but it is alright if the first meetup has a professional tone to it. Why this was important to me because when forming a relationship it is important to eventually be comfortable with the other person if not it is going to feel like a strain to meet up with the person which I do not want.

For entrepreneurship, I learned that one of the greatest elements to be successful is having to be a leader. Why this is the backbone of entrepreneurship because you need to be able to make decisions without the guidance of a boss considering that you are your own boss and may even need to lead people who may work for you. Some other key elements that make up a successful entrepreneur are: being able to point out the needs of a market you are trying to target and the idea that will solve the determining issue, taking into account customer/other's feedback, and figuring out or having a created a plan for hard times (ex. your product did not sell as well during that week). To sum up, if an up-and-coming entrepreneur exhibit some of these vital elements to successful entrepreneurship then the sky is only the limit.

Continuing with the topic of "Improving Your Quality of Life" from the last post, today I learned about how to effectively use my time to get things done throughout the week and the importance of taking care of your physical and mental health which are super important to your success at any task in life.

Going into getting things done or achieving hyper-productivity (extremely or excessively productive), it boils down to a couple of main factors such as time management, avoiding time drains, not stressing things that are out of your control, and avoiding multitasking. Time management is vital to productivity because without laying out the tasks or the goals for the days/week during certain pockets of time it will be difficult to allocate the right amount of time for each task. After having your schedule laid out with all of the times allocated to each task the next important piece is getting rid of potential distractions that would steer you out of focus such as a cell phone or television. Your distractions depend on the type of work that you are trying to complete. After, knocking out distractions it is important to not stress about things that are outside of your control such as noise coming from outside. Instead, you can move to a quiet place or put in ear plugs to continue your work because if you stay fixated on the noise from outside you are likely going to lose a lot of work time. Lastly, is multitasking which is something that was heavily advised against when being productive. The reason for this is considering that if you focus on multiple things then you won't be able to effectively accomplish one thing, it is much better to focus on one thing at a time to make progress.

One of the greatest highlights of today's learning was the importance of your physical and mental health, and the ways in which you can achieve happiness and satisfaction in both forms of well-being. For physical health, it was stated that doing at least 3 hours a week of physical health can lead to a list of positive effects such as lowered levels of stress, anxiety, being able to make better decisions, a confidence boost, prevention of health conditions: heart attack, strokes, and cardiovascular disease. Some ways to achieve optimal health are by doing cardio, going to the gym, and the foods that you are consuming. In taking care of your mental health, many of the positive effects overlap with those of physical health but one of the many elements learned is that it affects your change in mentality such as being able to achieve happiness through practicing that skill. Some things that we can all do to maintain or improve our mental health is through connecting with those around us, being active, practicing gratitude through means such as meditation, always seeking new knowledge, and giving to others.

Today's learning lesson focused on the elements needed to ace an interview for either an in-person or virtual. There were 4 common themes that were highlighted in the series of videos and articles which were: 1) How to negotiate your salary, 2) The right dress code, 3) Question preparation, and 4) A difference between interviewing in-person and virtually.

Negotiating my salary was the theme today which blew my mind because it was a topic that I was not too informed on and it can get complicated but thankfully it was explained perfectly. The greatest takeaways from this section were to always negotiate your pay by not giving the first price so the ball is in your court. Essentially what I mean by that is if you give a price to the employer of your potential pay then you may be underpricing yourself from the amount of money you should be receiving for your skills. On the other hand, if the employer throws out a number you can make a decision if that is a good price in salary that you are willing to work for. The way in with a person seeking employment can make the employer throw out a salary number is by deflecting the question of "what are you expecting your salary to be?" by stating that you would have to get back to them about that question at a later date because you are currently uninformed but what is the usual salary given to someone in the position that I am seeking. Also, one last thing mentioned about negotiating your salary is to never give a price range because the employer is going to pick the lowest number while you are going to have the highest number stuck in your head which makes a lot of sense.

In terms of dress code, it is important that you are dressed up in a business suit or business casual depending on the company's attire rules and whether you are applying virtually or in person. Something important that was noted in the lessons was that if you were going into an interview virtually then it would be a bit much if you put on an entire suit for the interview but instead, you should instead wear a nice button-up shirt with a sweater to match. Also, another important consideration to make when doing a virtual interview is to not wear a white, black, or patterned button-up shirt because it will disrupt the camera and the interviewer.

Another key piece to being one step closer to acing your interview is your preparation to answer and give questions. Online there are many resources that help you understand some of the general questions that usually appear in interviews such as what are some strengths/weaknesses, and why did you leave your other job. With knowing some of the usual questions asked in job hiring interviews, you can have answers formulated before you even step into the interview room which will give you confidence, and having that confidence to answer questions is another element that employers are looking for in a candidate. Two more important things to have in preparation is the question you are going to ask the individual hiring you like what is your favorite aspect about this company, as well as bring a notebook with a copy of your resume, examples of your work, and keywords for your answers.

Lastly, a difference when it comes to interviewing in-person vs. virtually is when you are going to a meeting in-person on top of being early to the interview it is a good idea for you to try and be a bit social before your interview. Being social looks like you making small talk with the receptionist because after the interview the workers will talk about you and leaving that positive first impression can be a leg up against the competition. On the other hand, when you are going to interview virtually of course get there early but also make sure that your computer is at a good angle so you are not looking down at your computer, keeping your eyes on the camera to show the person hiring you that you are showing them eye contact or look at the person themselves but never at yourself, and make sure that your lighting is good.

Today's lesson learned from Techie Youth was the importance of showcasing the right image of yourself to others online because anyone could be watching especially employers when one is seeking their next job opportunity. Two ways in which this concept was highlighted in the program were through your Linkedin profile and social media presence.

Linkedin is a social media platform centered around business and employment so one could distinguish why your image through your profile's content would be important to acquire potential job opportunities. In Techie Youth's lessons, they teach you how to optimize your account to be most effective in attracting potential employers through 6 main steps: 1) Good profile picture, 2) Using an appropriate headline, 3) An effective summary, 4) Make your work experiences section short and sweet, 5) Ask for recommendations from previous employers, and 6) Put out your contact details. By accomplishing all of these steps it will boost your rate of likely being selected by an employer to continue in the hiring process.

Although Linkedin is a social media platform, it varies from other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram due to its focus on business-related interactions. As a result, the way one portrays their image on Facebook and Instagram varies, and instead of potential employers looking at your profile page to make an opinion on whether you would be the right fit in their company they look towards your content produced. When analyzing your content, 5 types of content that can get a candidate denied are: 1) Hate speech, 2) IMages of heavy partying or drug use, 3) Illegal or illicit content, 4) Poor grammar, and 5) Confidential or sensitive content about former employers. Also, something important that was stated is that this does not only apply to employment seeking but as well as applying to colleges/universities. A good example of student content on social media platforms being revised by admissions to make a decision to accept a student was the documented event in which Harvard denied 10 incoming freshmen from attending their school due to the harmful content they were posting and laughing at.

What I learned today with Techie Youth completely opened my eyes to the world of the stock market and cryptocurrency. Before going into these topics for today I asked myself how complicated could this actually be but oh was I wrong. The more, I dived into these topics I learned about the different types of crypto wallets and currencies that exist, and all types of stocks that exist along with getting a better understanding of how to read Stock Charts which was mindblowing due to the complexity of information those charts carry.

To elaborate on what I learned about cryptocurrency, a plethora of crypto exists such as hot, desktop, mobile, web, multisig, hardware, and cold wallets. It was interesting to read about all of the pros and cons of each wallet and which scenarios some of the wallets should be used for. Also, I was introduced to the use and importance of private keys when dealing with cryptocurrency because it protects against hackers from stealing your currency and information. Another piece to private keys was the use of crypto custodial solutions like custodial wallets which gives a 3rd party control to your private key so the crypto owner does not have to worry about having to save their written private key so it does not get stolen or lost.

Ending off with one of the greatest takeaways from today's learning session was my introduction to the stock market by differentiating the different types of stocks that exist such as common and preferred stocks. The greatest difference between both of those stocks is dividends and voting rights. As well as learning about what stock orders were and the long list of orders that exist such as market, limit, stop-loss, and buy-stop orders. Lastly, I now have a better understanding of the stock market chart such as different types of intervals having their roles in understanding trends: daily and weekly intervals help to distinguish between normal price changes and a time shift in trend, and intra-day intervals are helpful when it comes to deciding the best time to buy or sell). Overall, with all of this information from today, I can confidently take steps to invest in the stock market and cryptocurrency.

My 3 key takeaways from today at Techie Youth were the positive/negative outcomes of remote working, how to grow my social media presence, and resources to aid my content creation growth and sustanability. Some of the positive outcomes of remote work consist of being able to work in which place in the world where there is an internet connection, being able to create your own schedule, and saving time that would otherwise be wasted by commuting. While the negative aspects are; requiring employee discipline considering that you won't be having a boss watching over your shoulder, having to make more efforts to be social which is important because you want to form connections that in the long haul benefit you like your boss giving you a raise instead of an individual who is in-person every day. In terms of social media growth, my key takeaway is the importance of consistency and building community. Some good ways to build community if commenting on other small content creators' posts who are in your same niche, joining social media groups, and learning how to edit videos. Lastly, some of the resources that were shared to aid with my social media growth were Inshot, FilmoraGO, Lumafusion, Videoshop, and Storyblocks (drone-captured videos).