All right. Hello everyone. I see that it's 10 past and uh I know the sketch is very tight. So I wanna make sure you get the most of your session that we start on time if you're just rolling in now, totally fine.You haven't missed out on anything yet. Um It'd be wonderful to hear where you guys are from. Some of you already said Alicia, for example, she's American but she lives in Switzerland. A partner is in India. Very exciting myself. I'm from Germany, but I live in Sweden. Um And as I said, so this is a really casual session. Um Now that we get started, feel free to use the chat, I will share a presentation in a minute. Um But so I can't be able to see the chat. But if there's anything, any question you have any comments you want to make, let's be interactive. Let's be proactive, have a fruitful discussion and there will be some time afterwards for the discussion. So if you're just joining, feel free to use the chat any time, um And I was started to sharing my screen. I hope this works. We had a test last week, but it should work. All right, let me quickly go on this one. All right. So no matter where you are, good morning, good afternoon and welcome to the session. I'm very excited that all of you are here. I think this is such an amazing conference and network session.

Um I'm Katarina, just call me Kat and this session is about why combine tech with mindfulness. So I don't know what exceptions or expectations you have so far about this session. But what you can to take from this session really is that I will share my personal and my professional learnings. I will share with you some failures and takeaway from actually starting a micro app. Um We spent some mindfulness minutes um together leaving everyday hassle behind focusing on the power of our mind and really prepare you to think about your mind in the future, become aware of your power of your mind um for your business, for your career, for your personal growth, for your everyday life, maybe.

Um And we would also, I will also give you some questions, very simple questions. This, we combine the sort of the mindfulness aspect with the tech part. All right. So to get started, um I wanted to have a bit more vivid and a life. So here's a bit of some, you know, ideas. So you get an idea of who I am and what I do, as I said, I'm originally from Germany. Originally I started my career working at Mont Blanc. Some of you may know it, it's a um they do products like writing instruments, um jewelry, watches all of that. And I became a manager, international event marketing. At the age of 21 I was in charge of a seven figure budget. I organized all the top VIP customer events around the world, um which was amazing. I hung out with, uh with Hugh Jackman in New York. I organized events everywhere. It was fabulous. However, I realized there was something inside me in terms of values and something that was missing and I wanted to dive deeper. Um I was diagnosed with tuberculosis about three years ago or four by now. Um which obviously was quite a big surprise because you, you know, you don't think tuberculosis is such a thing, but it was, I'm totally healthy now, but it was a bit of a wake up call.

And a year later I did what everyone else called gap year, but I call it passion year. So I did everything I wanted. I volunteered in Colombia Namibia. So I quit my job for this, volunteered in Colombia Namibia. As you can see here, I started working for different start ups. I worked at the United Nations in New York. Um I started, you know, different projects and it all just grew and came together. Then I moved to Sweden to pursue my master in strategic entrepreneurship. And here I began my own entrepreneurial journey. Um I also recently was selected for the class of the Clinton Global Initiative University. And as you can see in the bottom right corner or in the middle, I had this um webinar or live conference. I'm actually here on hop in with um Kamala Harris and the Clinton, which obviously was pretty amazing. So apart from that, I just um also have an organization called Power of Word Woman. I'm a founder of a start up, which I would talk about later. And I just really want to talk about more and pursue my career in empowerment, empowering others and connecting woman empowerment with the power of our mind. So if we talk about mindfulness, you know, wherever you are these days, everyone talks about, I want to be mindful or mindfulness in any aspect or business, whatever it is. But what does it actually mean to be mindful?

Um It's sort of this password that we use in every different setting? There is about 100 2 million different Google entries. You read it everywhere. Everyone wants to be mindful. But simultaneously many really struggle to put this state of mind and this experience into words.

So if we look at the definition of mindfulness, it really means the quality or the state of being conscious or aware of something. So it's like a mental state achieved by if you just focus on your awareness on the present moment while calmly acknowledging and sort of accepting your own feelings, your own thoughts and um bodily sensations. And it is very often also used as a therapeutic um technique. Now, here's the thing very often, if you talk about mindfulness, you also very often see things about meditation, about yoga, but it isn't for everyone, right? Um I do both. I practice both but it doesn't always work. So sometimes there's days where you just can't meditate, there's days where I can't get onto my yoga mat. And so it's not for me every day. And so have I been struggling with being mindful through meditation and yoga? And then there was something, especially when I was volunteering in Namibia. Um I realized every time I come back from overseas people always ask me, oh, what did you do? What did you see? But to me, this question seemed a bit odd because to me it's about how I personally experience things. It's about the, how it's not about the, what it's about the experiencing things rather than seeing or doing, right?

So if you think about your favorite memories, maybe you may think about how you experience it and how you felt in that moment and it probably isn't just on what you did or what you saw, but how you felt and how you applied your senses. And that's actually because mindfulness matters is how we started sensage the start up. I briefly mentioned earlier, I'd be very frank that all started out of a fun activity. At first when I moved to Sweden, I heard about this accelerator program didn't know much about it. I just wanted to apply to be prepared for the next time. I have a really good business idea. I wanted to know what kind of questions they ask. So I found myself building the presentation, the pitch stick at 3 a.m. in the morning and I had the pitch meeting at 715 the next day. And I just went there with my pitch stick for this um app which I would talk about in a second and I got it. And long story short, I even finished the accelerator as a um on the demo day as the best pitch. And you know, it's starting to grow, it's starting to grasp and the app itself is called Sense it and it's all about combining the five senses with our journey. Now, you can see here the five senses, what we see here, smell, touch and taste is something we all apply on a daily basis. In every single moment you apply your senses, right? But too often we neglect them.

If you're in your car and you go reverse, you turn off your music because it's like, you know, an over or if you eat something, you first smell it before you actually taste it right. If you were somewhere very often, we did some surveys and it showed that very often we aren't really aware of what we touch unless it's hurting or unless it's like super nice. Same with the smell. So we thought, what can we do instead of teaching you something extremely big, extremely new that we have to learn. Why don't we just go back to something we already have and we tend to neglect and that is the five senses. So for each of the census, you have a different phase of where you can just, you know, grasp more of the census, capture it more be present the here and now. And it's not about the past or the future. It's not about the big things what you do. It's about right now. How do you perceive and experience the moment? Um Right now we are in the um beta testing phase. So we are currently on test flight testing the app. And um it's pretty exciting and if you want to hear more about it, I'm very happy to have a chat afterwards. So obviously, building a mindfulness app isn't easy and there's a few obstacles and challenges that I want to go through with you today.

And some of them are from the business perspective and others are more from a personal perspective. First. No coding experience. I'm very lucky to not be on my own. I have fantastic team members, one of my dearest friends in New Zealand, who's a psychology graduate. Then there's someone in the US who is a PIC speaker on mental health. And he's also amazing in marketing. And then we have someone else who's from Nigeria, but he lives in Sweden and um he's a UX designer. But as you hear, none of us are any developers. So how can you build an app without any coding experience? We actually started using um an app called Adao where we build it or a website or a tool where you can build it and it's been pretty good so far, obviously, however, it's limited and it kind of limits out of all the functionalities, but we get it done and it's an easy and cheap way.

I'm a female founder. I wish I didn't have to say Fema founder and I could just say founder. And here's why being a female founder, especially this is why I love this event so much. It comes with a couple of obstacles about stigma, stereotypes, whatever it may be, access to funding everything. It is still much harder for female founders to be taken seriously and to succeed. And then if you start something like a mindfulness app, it's all about purpose. It's about passion, it's about changing people's and users perception. It's not about the highest ro i it's about the purpose. So now that we're in the state of, you know, getting the app tested and wanting to reach out to investors, we have to get to the point where we find investors from an early stage that believe in the purpose, the passion, the meaningful impact that we will have. Rather than thinking if I invest $1 today, will I get $1000 in three months? We will be a good sustainable business. But obviously the passion and the impact for us come first. And there's also a few person at once. I said we're a global team, New Zealand, Nigeria, Germany, us, Sweden. You know, everyone, different time zones, different values, different experiences.

It's pretty hard for me to um kind of lead it and make sure that for all of us who just do it as a hobby, we still do it and like succeed. But it's a fun journey. I'm scared to fail and I'll be very frank, I'm scared to fail and my number one biggest mistake was not getting to the market. We did do it quick surveys and here and there and we did get amazing feedback on our last prototype. We had 85 test users, but I am still scared to fail. And this is something that especially as a founder is very hard. And it's ironic if you talk about mindfulness and you know, having the right mental stability and then it still has you on the daily basis. And that actually brings me to my third point, not being mindful, right? So many times I am not mindful myself, I use the app myself. I try these techniques, but I'm not perfect and I'm far from being mindful in every single day 24 7. So again, just as I'm trying to um you know, resonate with our users i experiencing myself. However, if you think about starting mindfulness and like a tech app, which is about mindfulness, if you think it's easy, it's absolutely not any entrepreneurship, any starting a business is hard and especially having something which is more about um a service and more about something which is more about a perception about a mindfulness, about a concept about experiences.

For many, it's very hard to grasp. So you can see here on the right how chaotic it actually gets. There is a few takeaways I want to give you. And um that comes back to my question of why combine tech with mindfulness and whatever you do no matter if it's on a personal level, on a business level, be mindful, be mindful in every possible way that you can be, be conscious, be aware, be present, step out of your comfort zone.

I said I was scared to fail. I still am scared to fail. Sometimes I don't want to ask for feedback because I don't want to, you know, get the approval or maybe even the feedback to others that we are on the right track. But whatever is out of your comfort zone is usually the best awaiting you. And the third thing is follow your passion. I know very often, especially in business, we think about what product sells the most. How can I make the most money in a short period of time? Right? I get that and I totally understand since I studied business and I have been there myself, but follow your passion, what is your passion? What do you think? How can you have an impact on others? What affects you on a personal level? COVID showed us all how important mindfulness and mental health are. How do you think can you connect with others? Is it mindfulness? Do you feel like you can, you know, coordinate with others and like, you know, be on the same base, follow the passion and once you're passionate and fully engaged, then the monetary success comes next and comes after on its own. However, you don't need to start a mindfulness business just be mindful. You don't need to have all the mindfulness coaching sessions and the certificates you don't need to be a certified yoga teacher, mindfulness, meditation teacher, whatever it may be.

First of all, be mindful and there's a few things I'm going to tell you in a few minutes or just in a few seconds, how to be more mindful. And I take this also as a takeaway for how to be, how to combine your own mindfulness, both on a business level, but even more on a personal level, especially if you work at tech where everything is fast paced and she really invite you to apply your senses over the next couple of days.

Don't only focus on what you're doing on rushing from one place to another. Maybe things are opening up again now that COVID is in some places, some countries already over or you're vaccinated. Focus on how you perceive things be present, take the time and really unwind if you eat something before, you know, once the food is served before starving and like putting it all in, take a moment to appreciate what it looks like. What colors do you see? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What do you taste for different flavors? Walk outside if you can and turn off your music, don't have any ear pods, any headphones in and think about what do I hear? Do I hear the kids laughing in the background? Do I hear the ambulance car come coming? What is it stop by and smell the roses? You know, there's this quote and it's true if you find a flower, really get the flower and try to explain and become aware of the smell so often. It's so difficult for us to actually put our experience of the smell of the touch of the taste into words. But I really, really, really invite you to be more conscious of your senses, touch some surfaces, catch some different rule, touch, whatever it feels hack a tree and become aware just for a few seconds here and there become aware of your senses continuously.

Remind yourself to go beyond and focus on all your five senses. What you see here, smell, touch and taste, and here's what the magic does. If you apply it more often and you make it become more of a habit, you don't have to learn anything new. It's just going back to what you already have. You will be more present, you will be more conscious, you will be more mindful and it will allow you also in tech, in your business and anything you do in any aspect of your life, to be more grounded, to be more connected and to perform better, you will have a strong mindset, a strong value set and I really invite you to do it.

So I, unfortunately, as I said, I can't see the tech chat right now. So I don't know if there's been any questions so far. I hope there's no message that you couldn't hear me. That will be a bummer. However, if you want to be in touch, um Here's a QR code that you can scan, it connects you to my website to my linkedin. Um You feel free to reach out to me. Also here on the chat on the, you can also reach out to me as my on my profile. Um Reach out, I want to hear your story. I want to hear your story also. Now in the open discussion, what's your story on being mindful? What's your takeaway? What's your biggest struggle? And of course, if you're curious to test our app sense it, I would love to hear from you and we always open to more feedback. So if you're open, please, please, please reach out. All right, that's been 17 minutes. So we have about three minutes left. Um, for the official session. I might step in for a few more. Let's stay for a while. I will stop sharing my screen now. All right, perfect. Amazing. Let me just quickly um see the chat. As I said, I couldn't see it before. I see some. Oh, you're French, you're living in Sweden as well. That is amazing. We have some from Finland. That is wonderful. Um All right. Um If you could just tell me a bit, did this helpful?

Is this like an exercise also for you where you think it's something as a reminder that you needed to be more present to be more mindful? Is that something you personally also struggle with, with being mindful as well as working at tech and combining it with your business? Why do you think about it? There's a question I want to get back to from um Nana. I hope I pronounced it correctly. You asked Katarina. I see you already have done so much. So how can you say it when you look at it all? It is nothing else but amazing. Um Thank you very much. First of all, that is amazing. A great compliment. I love it. I love supporting and empowering others. Thank you so much. Um, I have failed and I have failed many times and I'll be honest, I failed in business. I failed in life. I've tried all personal things. I fail all the time and it's ok. It's not easy, but that's part of the process. There are so many setbacks I have experienced from having tuberculosis to living through and um, 7.4 earthquake to other setbacks, It's all meant to be. And I actually think it's all meant to happen. All that matters is how you tackle the issues and how you tackle and approach them to be stronger, to grow to develop. Um So I hope that helps but I have a in many ways. Um Ale I hope I say it right. Thank you so much.

I love that. You say that you love the five senses journaling. As I said, everyone who's welcome and we're currently in the test flight version. You can find us on test flight. Uh oh sorry, on Senses it app.com, I might just put it in here, www Senses it app.com and also on Instagram, you can find us at Sense It App. Um and just reach out, I'm happy to hear from you. I would love to hear your story. Um and I would love to hear how the five senses can help you and how you can combine them in your daily life. Marianne, you started a mindfulness process a decade ago when in the depression, I am being mindful, lets you appreciate the joy of the moment. Absolutely. And I speak out of personal experience. I know how difficult it can be to struggle mentally, especially last year, I've met so many people, so many amazing people who are struggling mentally and that is ok. But mindfulness is something which really helps you to have a solid foundation and helps you be mentally, more stable. So first of all, if you struggle mentally, try to see if you can seek professional help. But yes, be mindful, it starts and being mindful means something different to everyone. But it's an amazing opportunity, amazing foundation for everyone to be mentally, more stable and to succeed better, to help through the depression or anxiety, whatever you may go through.

Um Yeah, I'm very happy so far. I haven't seen any other questions in the chat Marianne also said, in other words, get out of your head and into your body. I love that. That's exactly what it's all about. Um You know, sometimes our mind is just wondering all the time and it can be pretty chaotic and um we are overthinking everything in the mind always, you know, the head kind of decides where we go, what we do, what comes next, but sometimes turning up our mind and the head is really what counts.

And that's why the five senses are such an easy tool to help you to connect better with your body. It can be hard to just sit down for a while, be alone with your thoughts and then thinking um oh, you know, what do I feel in my body? And you might not even have a connection to it, but the five senses really lead you there. Um And I agree, Nevada, everyone has to practice more mindfulness. You can never be too mindful. Um And I love that you. Um I'm very happy to hear that you love the idea. Thank you so much. Also, Jen, I see. Um I would love to help test the app. I love that. Thank you so much. Um Please reach out to me. Um As I said, you can sign up con connect, connect with me on linkedin everywhere. Um I would love to help you. I would love to help your journey. Um What else with so much technology and distraction? Mindfulness helps us open. Our focus, brain scans have shown it helps all areas of the brain 100% of the brain anywhere. It just really, really helps and it just makes everything so much better and so important for us to be more mindful. Looking forward to checking out the app. Well, that brings you to the end of the session. Unfortunately, we already overrun. Thank you so much for joining, for whatever place you might have joined in. Enjoy the rest of your day, the rest of your morning evening, whatever time it would be.

Um Thank you so so much. It's been incredible. I'm very happy that many of you actually attended. Um And again, please reach out to me anytime. I'm very happy to connect, to hear your stories, exchange some ideas and um yeah, help you be more mindful. So have a wonderful day. Thank you everyone.