[Music] welcome to the illuminae universe podcast the cast get it the cast yes we have a celebrity of professionals and entrepreneurs on this show my name is Alina and I'm the founder of illuminate Universe where we Mentor job Seekers and help employers to Fast Track their business goals for this episode in particular I have invited Crystal Wang who is a co-founder and CEO of Shimmer a mental Wellness Group support platform that British science fact methods like CBT and DBT with the power of peer support and accountability ADHD can be your superpower everyone is born to
Shimmer Shimmer is accepted into the Y combinator one of the best and world-class startup accelerators Crystal will share today about the importance of developing key skills and attributes that will help you be prepared and thrive in the future of work we start off with her journey as a business student at Western University in Canada to working as a consultant for Bain and Company acquiring her MBA from UC Berkeley and finally to where she is today before further Ado please welcome Crystal onto the show hi Crystal thank you so much on coming onto the cast today
my first question for you is did you always know that you would become an entrepreneur one day definitely not you've known me for a while now I've done pretty much everything under the sun in like the business world my one of my core values is exploration so I love just trying new jobs and new roles and you really don't know a lot of the times until you're doing it so I think in the beginning when I met you I wanted to be an investment banker because it was kind of the most prestigious thing to do
when everyone around me was doing it I was in kind of like a capital markets Club at school at the time and I got a job at the bank and I hated it um I hated my um day-to-day and there was a lot of things about it that even though in theory I like finance and I still use fundamentals of Finance in my job every day now I didn't want to work at a bank and so then I worked at in a marketing role at L'Oreal that was really fun but it was still missing a
few pieces but essentially at each step of the way I was testing basically do I like this job if yes what do I like about it if not what do I not like about it and potentially even if I do like the job sometimes I would just switch because I want to change so I think at some point I even wanted to join the Army and joined the circus and be a journalist those were three things I was exploring um didn't end up doing any of them but I guess my first full-time job that I
did for more than a year was management consulting at Bain and part of the reason why I loved it was because you could switch Industries and roles and teams basically every three or four months depending on what sort of project you are on so it really I guess like scratched my itch of the exploration piece and trying and learning new things all the time but I always felt when I was doing that that I was missing an element of social impact I always really cared about just if you have kind of the opportunity and you
have the skills and you're able to to be able to use whatever skills you have as a Force for good and for Change and to do better for the world so that was what it was lacking for me a bit even though I was doing some social impact projects at Bain so I ended up actually going to Berlin and doing social impact consulting which was amazing I had such a fun time Berlin's also the best city in the world so I had a lot of fun but I think I was still itching to do something
that was a little bit more close to the impact I wanted to see the people that I was helping and be able to talk to them and the work that I was doing was very kind of far off it was helping an organization who was helping multiple organizations who are helping like multiple communities of people often in different countries and I was or even continent that I was in so what that all led me to was an MBA program so I started my MBA and my mph at Berkeley for the purpose of exploration so I
thought about VC I thought about design thinking I was very purposeful purposeful about the mental health space and so but I didn't know exactly how I was gonna help I guess I just knew that I wanted to help solve a really big challenge which there are lots in the mental health space and I wanted to have a really Hands-On role but I think also just being a little bit opportunistic I think a lot of things kind of just happened to me because I was open and I was willing to take breaks and take spaces so
I took a lot of breaks and spaces to either travel or take time off and in those spaces a lot of things kind of just happened or I just found them or someone found me so I think that's also a really important piece is to stay open because I sometimes think when you have two strong or strict plan something really cool might just like fly by you and you just never even notice absolutely the best plans are the ones that are unplanned exactly along the way planned out there's no Adventure yeah I know I would
be an investment Baker which is not very fit for me to thrive in everything that you do uh meeting you when I was a first year and I applied for Western Capital markets because it was sounded cool I was like Wow same I was in that spot before but let me tell you this by joining wcm Western Capital markets I've met some of the most incredible individuals like yourself like William I should totally reach out to them for podcasts as well yeah and I I've always just I'm not sure if I've ever shared this with
you but uh so when I joined wcm for our listeners the the University Club that Crystal was president of I was trying to explore various different aspects of my life including wow I should totally just try dating in my first year university and have a boyfriend for the first time and not tell my parents about it and so I so I mentioned ventured into that space and else and also lost my AEO along the way and for those of you who don't know what AEO is it's called events Advanced entrance opportunity to the ivy business
school it was like the dream it was the total package you go to Ivy and then you become an investment banker or a consultant at mbb and that was the dream um you know now I think Ivy has diverged a bit more it's been a lot more diverse in many ways but I've entered into that love and boyfriend space lost my AEO and I was in such a low point in my life and Crystal I don't think I've ever shared this with you but I was looking through some old wcm dots oh Google Drive and
I saw the notes that you took when you interviewed me and I was in such a low point in my life such a low point I was like I'm such a loser I lost my EO my boyfriend my ex-boyfriend fell in love with my best friend none of my friends stood on my side to feel totally betrayed and such a loser and that one sentence you wrote on that Google doc was so shimmering it is it was it was the Shimmer for me and it said something like the future president of WCN I think I
remember right afterwards I whoever else was in that meeting with me I was just like she is I was like she's in I was like I don't care she's in like nobody else gets an opinion here I love that dictatorship so you've always carry this light this positivity and I think you place uh a shimmer on everyone that you that you communicate with that you encounter in your life including myself and so my next question for you is how did you come up with Shimmer how did you come up with the creation of Shimmer what
was the idea behind it and what is the personal connection to you I'll answer that in two parts so we were just talking about this before we went on air but Shimmer actually recently pivoted and I just really like to talk about the pivot processor at least mention it because I think a lot of times when companies are doing well you think that it was really easy for them and they just got there they got the idea they launched it and then they just blew up um so I'll get to that in a sec but
right now what we do is we do one-on-one ADHD coaching so that's coaching for adults who have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder which in a really short nutshell if you haven't heard of it before it's generally uh if people are very hyperactive kind of the cancer still talks a lot that kind of that's one side of uh ADHD and the other side is inattentive um so that's generally when you like can't focus on something when you Daydream a lot it's like hard to follow a thread sometimes and there's also combined type which is both but uh
with ADHD so I was diagnosed earlier this year and then I was looking for behavioral Solutions I wanted to try to figure out how to do it without medication first and so I found coaching and coaching was like 200 plus dollars an hour and yes and US dollars since I'm in the US right now but I just remember feeling floored like if I cannot afford this like I wonder who are the people affording it and the people who can't afford it aren't they the people who need it the most so that was like I guess
my personal connection and what brought us to exploring the thesis of how do we deliver ADHD coaching at five to ten times more affordable than what is out there and so I was lucky that along that journey I was able to bring on kind of our clinical advisor and our head coaching psychologist that helped us shape essentially what Shimmer is today it was a lot of iteration kind of launching our beta where there was no product there was kind of just zoom calls and texting all the way until now where we have our IOS app
our Android app and our web platform so that all happened literally in the last three to four months but what I wanted to call out was actually we used to run support groups we run support groups for anxiety and depression that was CBT based so there was a curriculum and for a bunch of reasons after after the pandemic when things cooled off of it the support groups format online was not doing as well anymore and so that was one of the hardest things that we had to go to go through because we had members who
really loved what we were doing and depended on us and we had to shut it down and that was really difficult for one because of the members but two also for ourselves we were asking ourselves questions like what about our investors what about everyone who has been watching what we're doing like this is not okay and then admitting kind of like that we failed and that we needed to restart going through that entire process was a massive learning for me and for us my co-founders as well and so I always want to touch on that
as well and I'm happy like in any other circumstances talk about the pivot more because I think that pivoting and failure is something that just people don't talk enough about and it's in every person's Journey who is successful absolutely and I think another word that's related to Infinity is being adaptable it's so important to be adaptable and I think it's such an important skill to develop so Crystal in your entrepreneurial Adventure what has helped you to become more adaptable so it's interesting because adaptability is actually one of the executive functions which is something that people
with ADHD struggle with and oddly that one executive function I'm actually very good at but I think honestly for me I mean I talked about it before it's by trying a bunch of different things in my life and viewing that more as my purpose like the journey being my purpose rather than a specific destination it's super cliche that like Journey over destination thing but I really love that quote and I live by it because I think that if you put the emphasis on the journey then you will be more adaptable you will be more resilient
you'll be more happy because you're happy with like every moment of the journey rather than trying to get to one specific point because when you try to get to one specific point you're not as adaptable because I don't know like if you go off in this way and your point is still over there and you'll just miss everything that's on this side that may be good for you but I think that the people around me like more tactically so that I'm not being just topical more tactically I think just having people around you that are
super supportive is the best thing I think for me like when things are going wrong now like I know I can turn to my roommate my boyfriend my co-founder and they will just accept the fact that I am not feeling great that this is hard and then they'll help me talk through whatever changes I need to make and make me feel better about it and I think that was something that I struggled with a lot before because I think that a lot of people always expected and depended on me to be like the positive one
the one who was like gonna come with the solutions and who is going to like be okay no matter what and I think it took me like a long journey to like accept that not everything's gonna be okay all the time and I think all of that I attribute to just having a great support system and I think that could look like more than just the couple kind of friends or partner or whatever or just having people around you who just bring you up and like light you up and will also be there for you
when you're down I like the way you lit up my life wow being 18 was very hard it was such a hard year uh and now my next question for you this is Off Script but I really have to ask you so ADHD can be your superpower tell us more about that I love that I love that you asked that um so I first want to say because sometimes people get mad at me for saying that for saying ADHD can be your superpower is that there are a lot of hardships like Point Blank that come
with having ADHD it is a neurodevelopmental disorder um so I will put that aside for one second but given that there are certain things that not for every single person with ADHD but it's very common and those things include thinking outside of the box being very creative and these are all things like I have this analogy it's like the front and the back of the hand so when someone has something that's like a plus they generally also have something that's a minus that's connected to that and so it helped it a side note but it
helps me when I'm mad at someone for something and I'm like wait a second but it's probably related to something that I love about them and so if I can like look at that more holistically it helps me calm myself down but with ADHD for example um we think outside of the box we can always come up with solutions that other people don't come up with but that also makes it hard for people with ADHD to like follow instructions to like do their homework on time to like do things that are inside the box so
that's one hyper focus is also a major one so with ADHD the biggest thing is basically like you struggle to regulate your attention and your focus and what that means is sometimes you can focus and Zone in really hard which can be a good thing so you could get really stuck in one problem and just it's like the whole world around you just disappears and you like warp into the problem and you're like one with the problem until you solve it and then you come out and you're like a mad scientist and you've solved the
problem but you probably like suddenly realize oh I need to pee like I need to drink water like I need to eat and so it can go a little bit too much sometimes but hyper focus is definitely a massive superpower um and the last one I'll mention because I think is really cool is people with ADHD often have a lot of empathy and will really be there for their friends sometimes to an extent that it might be too much where you'll like kind of feel other people's feelings or you'll kind of internalize other people's feelings
too much and then end up I guess like impacting your day but it can there can be a lot of pluses there as well because you know that someone with ADHD or your friend will like be there for you and stand up for you and be like super mad for you if you went through some sort of Injustice that's like a small one on top too A lot of people with ADHD have um a super strong sense of like Injustice so if people do something that's like bad to their friends friends even more so than
yourself but to your friends like we're the first people to go like banging on the door and being like well what did you do like I'm here I'm here to collect the debts so those are some of the the superpowers but there are there are definitely a lot more as as well and I think that they're under talked about so I'm really glad that you asked okay well first of all I love your answers and I also love this question I'm so glad yes well Off Script things are the best I love it you know
in the future I think I'm just gonna give give away the stuff just give up on the script just just do it naturally these are the best kind of conversations here or organic ones and Crystal I think one thing you mentioned well many of the things you mentioned are very insightful and amazing forgive me for my lack of vocabulary you know what I'm trying to say but one thing that really stood out to me is ADHD can absolutely be your superpower in so many ways I I've always thought that you're either the kind of focused
individual or you're the kind of person that's all over the place and you're creative but the way you described it it almost seems like the super these superpowers are like colors in a palette and you can pick and choose and activate your superpower when it comes to different circumstances and that's amazing yeah I actually forgot to mention but so women for example are it's I guess like are under diagnosed because a lot of women have inattentive ADHD which means that they're not bouncing off the walls as a kid so their teachers won't notice it and
then therefore they won't get diagnosed and the reason why their superpowers have also been kind of squashed over time is because they've been told that oh you're like not paying attention you're daydreaming why didn't you do your homework and they've like internalized so many negative messages over their life that they develop kind of like it's called masking they start to not show their superpowers and they start to act more like what they think is normal to be able to help other people be better like better cope with them and so that's a massive problem in
the ADHD space And so there's a lot of people who in my opinion um have lots of superpowers that are just like waiting to be Unleashed but they've been told so long in their entire life to just like sit down and be still and like do this and do that that they've kind of like for the time being like lost that fire and that can a lot of like I guess other things can happen from that so there can be kind of anxiety depression Eating Disorders other sort of self-esteem issues that all come because they
weren't diagnosed and that they thought that they were wrong um so that's something that's really kind of massive especially for women that we're trying to help with as well because a lot of women don't get diagnosed until they're adults and they I don't know notice on Instagram or on Tick Tock all these kind of relatable posts and they start to ask these questions they start to talk to their doctors and then eventually they get their diagnosis or often it happens when their kid gets their diagnosis and then the the doctor starts asking questions because it's
super genetic I think gender role plays such a huge role and and all of all of us and I love daydreaming I think I spend most time I think it's a gift it's a blessing because there's a quote it's that it goes like show up like her before you become her so if you don't Daydream and and think about yourself in that situation or who you're going to become how are you going to become that person so now Crystal you you've helped me to realize that I shouldn't feel that bad about me daydreaming I think
it's a skill Stephanie is a skill it's like I love dreaming I Love Lucy dreaming as well I feel like you can double I used to say this all the time and it sounds a little bit wacky but I feel like you can like double your life if not more because in dream when you're dreaming time also runs differently you can run like a whole week in your dream just in one night so you can effectively live like double and on the amount of time in your life depending on how you view what life is
if you just dream warm so it's amazing that's cool and I solve problems in my sleep do you do that as well yeah I solve problems I also this is very nerdy but in University I used to practice presentations in my dreams because then I could do it so many more times and then I would go the next day and then I would just do the presentation and I had like the script memorized already that is wild oh my gosh okay ADHD can be can be absolutely is well thank you so much Crystal for being
on our show and it's such a pleasure to have you here oh thank you no I love chatting with you I'm happy to do this whenever you want [Music]
