In this episode, Julia Knyupa shares her visual thinking journey, the war in Ukraine and her journey fleeing war, and how she came to be where she is now. She also shares how the sketchnote community came through for her in her time of need.

Sponsored by Concepts

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Running Order

• Intro
• Welcome
• Who is Julia?
• Origin Story
• Julia’s current work
• Sponsor: Concepts
• Tips
• Tools
• Where to find Julia
• Outro

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Julia's website
• Julia on instagram
• Julia on LinkedIn
• Julia on Facebook
• Youtube TEDx Talk in Ukrainian
• Natalia Talkowska
• The Sketchnote Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Note-Taking by Mike Rohde

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• iPad Pro
• Neuland Marker pens
• A4 Printer papers
• Procreate
• Canva
• Toonly
• Doodly

Tips

1. Fake it till you make it.
2. Work-life balance. Just continue learning every day, getting inspiration from everywhere, from your colleagues, traveling, and following people from different industries.
3. Authenticity is the most important value nowadays so allow yourself to be yourself and be very kind o yourself.

Credits

• Producer: Alec Pulianas
• Theme music: Jon Schiedermayer
• Shownotes and transcripts: Esther Odoro

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Support the Podcast

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Episode Transcript

Mike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike Rohde, and I'm here with my friend Julia Knyupa. Did I say that right, Julia?

Julia Knyupa: Yeah. More or less. Everyone, even in Ukraine struggle with pronunciation of it, so it's fine.

MR: You mentioned that it's even an unusual name in Ukrainian, so maybe you can give it a little tidbit in that, in your origin story, but before we get to that, let's first say, Julia, who are you and what do you do?

JK: Yeah. Hello, everyone. Hello, Mike. I'm very happy to be here with you today. My name is Julia Knyupa. I'm 32. I'm Ukrainian, and last year I felt like I became even more Ukrainian. I speak to you from the United Kingdom where I temporarily based, and we'll see where life will bring me next. Originally I'm from Ukraine. I'm a visual practitioner, sketch noter, graphic facilitator, whatever you call it. I help to translate ideas into visual language.

MR: An interesting question would be, I know that you use digital tools. Do you also use analog tools like large boards and markers and such? What does your practice look like when you do that work?

JK: Actually, I need really to come back in time to talk about this because mostly it happened in Ukraine and before COVID, and of course, before the war. I worked as a graphic recorder on event. Mostly they were conferences and sometimes strategic sessions in organizations. Little and big, no matter. Mostly I worked being most attentive listener in the room and trying to keep all the ideas put on the paper, or like phone board. This is another type of paper I use.

This was since 2017, I started my journey in my native town, Turka, and then moved to the Capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. I spent wonderful few years doing this to different conferences and I never, never put any efforts to promoting myself. I still don't have a proper website. It was always word of mouth sharing information in my contact. This is in short.

MR: Interesting. Well, I've always believed that word of mouth is always the best kind of advertisement even better than having to send someone to a website. But of course, websites do provide good information and are valuable as well if you wanna branch out.

It sounds like you started in the analog space in Ukraine, and now that you're in the UK, are you still doing analog practice? Do you, like many practitioners see a shift towards digital for a variety of reasons? Is that true for you as well?

JK: Last year brought me one chance to do analog graphic recording. It was in Moldova in October, two days of educational forum. Mostly, I do now digital sketchnoting and graphic recording. As I still mostly work with clients from Ukraine and sometimes from other countries. But mostly it's very, very convenient for all of us and cheaper for organizers of events. Of course, it kills the magic of being present in the room with other people, but if they're all also are present digitally, so it has no sense.

MR: Then the last question I have around this is, have you experienced the case where you're doing your work on the iPad, and then it is being projected on a screen to the side? Is that something you've experienced yourself?

JK: Yeah, I tried it with a few organizers, but we found out that it not focuses people, but distracts them. Now I offer organizers both options, but after explanation, most of them come to idea of having it afterwards. Sending participants via email or somehow else. Because if you want to see a person who is talking to you when it's digital because it's so many distractions and it's better to be focused on people, not on drawing. In analog world, I would say the opposite.

MR: I wonder too, if it's with the analog world, because you're in the front and the scale is smaller for someone, say in the back. They see someone's doing something, maybe they catch a tidbit here and there, but if you're far enough in the back, you can't really read anything and you're not tempted to. So, you know it's happening, but your focus and attention is on the speaker.

Whereas with digital, a lot of times you might have a pretty large screen, and then if you're like me, I'm zooming in to do work. And they're probably seeing this zoom-in and the zoom-out. It can be very distracting in that regard where you can actually sort of see a little more. It almost draws you towards that in a way that analog maybe wouldn't.

I'm just asking these questions because as this transition is happening and I encounter graphical recorders, I'm curious to see their experiences 'cause everyone seems to have a little bit different one, and it's really great to hear your perspective on that.

Let's shift into, I wanna hear your origin story. How did you become the Julia that we know? That we see your work and you're doing this work, right? You didn't just come out of kindergarten and suddenly you were a graphic facilitator. You had to build up and probably experience a lot of things. Tell us your story from when you were a little girl, what are some of the key moments that directed you to the place where you are?

JK: It's a very nice question. Bringing me back in my memories. You said about kindergarten. I never was in kindergarten. I spent my childhood with my granny. It was very calm and nice, and she was very, very nice and creative person. I remember she spent a lot of time with me playing, showing me how to find a way in the forest. Drawing as well as her dream was to become a painter like an artist.

Unfortunately, she didn't have this chance in her life. I feel when I'm drawing now that I'm kinda a little bit helping her to fulfill her dream. I had a pretty basic childhood, very common for post-Soviet countries. Nothing really special. And it was pretty boring by the time I became a student.

My first degree is in publishing and editing. As when I was a kid, I liked to read books so much. My dream was to create books and to help people to get really interesting and important information in a nice way. I liked to write things, so I was really happy to play with wording, with editing.

Of course, when it comes to English, I'm not so good at explanations, but in my native languages, I'm much better. Believe me, just believe me. Also, when I became a student, I found out that there is not much happening in my little hometown. So I started to look for opportunities to grow and to travel as well as my family didn't have a lot of money, so I never left my hometown till the time I was 17, 18.

I started to apply for different trainings, projects, and conferences, and that's how I discovered that a lot of youth is participating in something like non-formal civic education. And I was really, really excited about this. That's how I decided, like deeply in my heart that I want to become a facilitator, a trainer, and not to be only a participant of this, but also to guide other people.

By the time I finished the uni, I already was a facilitator in youth programs. I'm really, really grateful for this education through Theodore Hoch College. This is a German program. Also, a nice and interesting part of this story is that I was a journalist, a TV presenter, and in newspaper when I was a student.

It was a very fun experience for me. Also, my granny was very proud that she can turn on TV and see me on the screen. This was something exciting about this. It also taught me that people really like when information is set up nicely and that time is money. Because on TV you suddenly realize that one minute is very expensive, so you start to put words in short which is also a very useful skill to what I do now.

Seven years of facilitation of youth projects gave me a lot of nice opportunities to learn about people, diversity, social projects. It gave me a chance to travel a little bit around the world, not like the world, around eastern Europe, let's say. It was a very great experience when I started to think that the world is something much more interesting than my little hometown.

MR: This reminds me a little bit of a interviewee we had last season with Natalia Talkowska who grew up in Poland, in post-Soviet Poland, really similar experience where she was just really hungry to see the world and to get out. Probably a little bit of a similar personality. We'll make sure and put a link in the show notes. If you wanna connect to between Julia and Natalia, you can listen to both of those interviews. Anyway, continue. Please continue.

JK: Yeah. Cool. This brought me to the moment of my life when I was practicing, doing seminars with young people. And I saw that my colleagues, especially from Germany, are using wonderful skills, drawing while explaining something. And I was really excited. I never saw anything like this. It was a totally a new world for me, but I thought that it's absolutely impossible to learn how to do this as I never draw before I was 25.

It was just kind of a dream, but I never even tried because I didn't believe that it's possible for me. But in 2016, it was my birthday and I was very lonely that day, so I decided to scroll Facebook and I saw that there is a training in Kyiv, in the capital of my city on visual storytelling.

It takes three hours to get to Kyiv from my city. So I bought myself a ticket and went to this training and I was so excited. It was the best birthday present I could give to myself. I tried that basically I can do this and I can use it on trainings. I started to put it in practice.

At the end of the year, I created my first big visual recording. And participants were excited because in Ukraine that time there was only one person who did this professionally. No one was really acquainted with this kind of, I would say, social art. That was amazing. It gave me an inspiration and gave me confidence that I'm able to do this.

I decided from the first day that it's a very difficult thing to do, it's not like hobby so I need to do this for money. So I set up a tiny, tiny price for it, but for me, just to know that I'm doing this to grow and to be a professional and not just to play with it. I took it very seriously. But I didn't get any support from my ex-partner. He saw my first picture, and he said, "Oh, such a shame. I don't think that anyone will pay you for this."

MR: Wow.

JK: That made me so angry. To be honest, anger is a power which really can bring you very far. So I decided to prove--

MR: Him wrong.

JK: That he's wrong. Yeah.

MR: Good for you.

JK: I decided to create visual notes. Now, I do visual notes digitally and if needed offline. I do explainer videos, and animated stories, and I also teach sketchnoting people in Ukraine in the Ukrainian language. For few years, I think few hundreds of people learned it with me. And I always recommend them your books, Mike.

MR: Wow, that's great. My book is in Ukrainian, by the way. I think you know this, right?

JK: Yeah, yeah. Of course.

MR: I don't know how well it's selling. I haven't gotten a report on it, but anyway.

JK: I'm sure I was a great promoter of your book, Mike.

MR: Thank you.

JK: Half of books in Ukrainian are sold because of me--

MR: Right. I like it.

JK: Lobbying.

JK: You may not be wrong, actually. Well, we'd have to see. Along this story, I dunno where this fits in, but we met each other in Portugal when we went to the International Sketchnote Camp. That's when I remember first meeting you and chatting with you really briefly, because a lot of people were talking and stuff. But it was really fun.

And I thought that sort of brought full circle for me, knowing that the book had been translated into Ukrainian and I have copies here. Honestly, I'm pretty aware of the world, but Ukraine was sort of a blind spot for me. I just never thought of it separately from Russia simply because when I grew up, they were kind of the same thing, right?

MR: That's probably my own blind spot. I was really excited when I learned that there was this, well, there's really like a separate language. Then as the more I learned, like actually this culture is really old, it's a really old culture, and it's this whole different experience. That was kind of my first awareness that. Of course, then I met Yuri Malichenko, who I learned as Ukrainian as well.

Then suddenly like all these Ukrainians started popping up in my experience, like you and I think there's some others that I've met. It was kind of a fun awakening for me. Like, wow, there's this whole country. I was not aware of it, and now it is and there's these really cool people.

My book is in this language. It was a fun way to be introduced to a country in a really positive way. Anyway, that's somewhere in this story, we met each other, I think that was 2018 in Portugal where we met.

JK: Yeah, I think so. This was my first time ever I met visual community.

MR: Really?

JK: Yeah. Because Ukraine is really, really far from what is happening in Central and Western Europe. Yeah. I felt like I'm really the first person who came from so far to sketch note camp. I was excited. And I remember it was very expensive for me. This was my first time I asked the community for support. I said, "I can volunteer, I can do something there. So please just give me a chance to come. I will be really, really excited to see all of you."

Because on the time, I only could follow people on Instagram, and it was unbelievable to see all them offline. That was great. When I saw you, I even didn't have words. I was so scared to approach you, and I was so happy then when you approached me. Like, "Oh my gosh."

MR: That's funny. I remember you being very quiet and then we were chatting, I think it was after a session, I don't know which session, maybe it was Michael Clayton's session potentially or something. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I remember we had a good discussion. There are so many people in those camps. You're sort of lucky if you get maybe 30 minutes with somebody unless you intentionally spend time together. So yeah, it was really great to meet you there.

JK: Yeah, that's for sure.

MR: Well, that's really interesting. Go ahead.

JK: Coming back to what you said before about Ukraine and the Ukrainian language, I also had a feeling and in my childhood, it was a very common narrative that Ukraine is a part of brotherhood, of big brotherhood. Also, my family has some roots, or not roots, but history is connected with Russia. My granny and my mom were born in Siberia, which is very far and it's a very cold place.

But life circumstances brought them to Ukraine so I was born there, but I always knew a lot of facts about Russia, and Russian culture. We spoke Russian in our family, and even my school studies were in Russian. I grew up on a lot of very propaganda narratives, let's say.

It's a very common story, unfortunately, for a lot of citizens of my country, but the good thing, which is happening now, we are finally becoming very, very independent. The freedom of thinking, the freedom of expressing your culture. I would say that being Ukrainian is not about your origin, but about what you feel yourself, about your soul, about your values, and how you identify yourself.

Even it came out that I don't have any Russian origin, I'm Jewish, which is another funny story. I feel so much Ukrainian these days. I feel like I'm so much with my country and it is in my heart every day, and it made me even more Ukrainian these days.

MR: I can imagine. I can't even imagine what that would be like. It's not even in my ability to imagine what it would be like. I'm so glad that you made it safely. Now, I guess, it's somewhere in this origin story. I'd love for you to tell what happened when you were there and how you got to the UK and all that stuff. It's really important for us to hear.

JK: In Feb, on February 24th 2022, like a lot of people in my country, I woke up from explosions and sirens in my city. And the first thing I did, I thought this is a siren of ambulance because I was sleepy and I didn't realize what is going on. And I thought that all the explosions are also happened in my night dream. I didn't take it serious, even I was very worried before.

I was anxious. Few months before the war happened, I kinda had a feeling that something gonna happen. The first thing I did, I opened the chat with my friends and then saw a message, "Oh my God, girls, the war has started. I remember that I had a very, very clear thinking, and I managed to do it very quickly.

I mean, I realized that I cannot stay there because I'm--in short, I have some mental disorder, which is anxiety and I couldn't stay there because I knew that, unfortunately, I couldn't manage to--

MR: Yeah, too much.

JK: --be productive, and yeah. So I decided to move from Ukraine the same day.

JK: Wow.

JK: It was a long journey as I live in the very center of Ukraine. By the way, I think that a lot of listeners even don't realize how big is our country. It's the biggest country in Europe. I don't remember if it's bigger than France or France is bigger, but we are kind of the same size. It's a huge country. It took me one day to get to the border and I spent two days on the border.

It was 36 hours in the car with my friend. My friend helped me to escape. She was driving. I spent one month in Poland. And it is an amazing country. Thank you all Polish people who are listening to this now. You are really great and your support of Ukraine is priceless and what you need to help our country is amazing. Not to underestimate the help of other countries, just we could really feel that this is a real friend now to us.

Later when the United Kingdom started a governmental program which allowed Ukrainians to come because early it was very, very difficult to get visa to the UK for us. It's really an amazing chance to start your life somewhere in safe place with all the support provided from this country.

So they offered local people to host Ukrainians. It is an amazing thing. And all last year was about feeling how world is supporting. A wonderful family in the UK offered to host me. So I still there. I still here. I'm very, very grateful to this amazing family who has eight children in total.

MR: Wow.

JK: They call me the ninth kid, and I really can feel it. I can tell this. And all other people who I met here, also very supportive and amazing. I even met here an amazing partner, like the best person I ever met in the whole life. Andy, I know you're listening and watching this. This is an amazing journey even it sounds horrible because of all this difficult circumstances like millions of people had to go through.

Some of us really suddenly could feel that our dreams came true. A lot of us wanted to travel, and we got this. A lot of us wanted to try something new. We have all this, but unfortunately not in the way we usually plan to have this. It took me half of a year to feel where I am, what is going on in general, to find out myself standing steadily on the ground.

And yeah, I started to look for chances to continue what I was doing, because I remember that it's such an amazing thing when you do what you love, it supports you. I don't want to share it as a long story, but what I was doing in Ukraine, like visual facilitation, et cetera, it's helped me to overcome depression. Of course, combined with the help of specialists, but it is an amazing thing.

If you can do what you love, it really helps you to be focused on your goals and your dreams. That's how I found out that, oh, my old iPad is not working anymore like it's used to. I dunno how to say this in English. So I cleaned it from the dust, and I found out, oh my gosh, it works only like 30 minutes even being plugged in. I cannot provide quality services to my clients anymore.

Unfortunately, it was not so popular last year in Ukraine to have visual facilitation as not so many conference has happened. So I had to start looking for new clients. It was a very stressful moment. However, one day I decided, oh my gosh, why I am struggling so hard trying to earn really little money if I can ask people to help me, because I remembered that if you ask, you have a chance to get it. If you don't ask, you will never get this.

I decided I will try. I didn't believe tha it'll be fast. I didn't believe that a lot of people would love to support an unknown person, really stranger. I would say I wasn't a part of English speaking visual community for a long time. I was very focused on Ukraine and people I worked with. It was really needed that time so I never invested a lot of efforts and time to be in touch with English-speaking visual practitioners.

However, it was an exciting moment when I realized that, oh, I can message some people I know. And that's how I messaged you and you were so kind to share my request. I created a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe and I just ask people if they will be so kind to support a person who has to start a new life from the scratch. And yeah, it was a magical period of two weeks when I was like sitting and realizing that unknown person from Malaysia sent me $5. A person I don't know.

I really was sitting and sending mental love and kindness and gratitude to people I never saw before for the support and help. In two weeks we got the amount I needed and I bought myself an iPad and I was able to create again.

It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. It made me think how much community matters and how we can really support each other. In my goal list is one day to pay it back or pay it forward. However, today I need to be focused on helping my country, and I try to do as much I can to work for Ukraine and to donate to support my people.

MR: Well, that was a great story. I remember when you reached out and I thought, well, "This is exactly what our community is supposed to be here for. If we can't take care of someone like this, then what are we doing? Why are we even here?" When I posted it and encourage some friends, I just felt like, "Okay, come on, community. You gotta show up here 'cause this is what it's about."

Everybody did. I haven't looked at the campaign, but I think we exceeded whatever--you had a a minimum requirement. I think we exceeded it by the end, which was really good feeling and a lot of people contributed. There was a variety of people, quite a list. So that was really encouraging to me to see that.

JK: If you're listening now, this wonderful people, I'm sending you my best wishes and gratitude for supporting me. Thank you very much again.

MR: It was exciting. It was really fun to see that happen and know that we were making an impact because we could all see what was happening. I think the other thing too was, I did some donations toward Ukraine for food and other stuff, but you feel like, especially in the U.S. maybe not so much in Europe, I guess, you sort of feel like it's so distant.

Then the problem of the news cycle means, you know in a week you forget about it because it's not on the front page. The fact that I knew Ukrainians, it was more on my mind pretty often, but you feel a little bit like, how can I have an impact? You can donate, but it still feels like so distance. Having a person who started her life over and needs this help to do the things that we all do, that felt like, wow, I can actually apply something to a person who's doing the work that we do and she's part of our community and I've met her.

That was a really great feeling to have that direct impact. Often the donations, you don't see the people getting fed, or the whatever you're donating to is sort of distant. So this was great to see it directly go to you and to help you move forward.

As much as it helped you, I think it also helped us. In a community, it's really a win-win situation where you win because you can move forward and we win because we feel like we're making a difference in your life. That's a really great, great way to be.

JK: That's like amazing. Since that time using this equipment, I already like finished more than 20 different projects for Ukraine. A few animations, a lot of visual notes. I was surprised, but by the end of the 2022, a lot of conferences had happened and most of them are now devoted to the topic, how can we support each other? How can we develop our country even in these circumstances? How can we rebuild our country?

That made me think about what should I do when I come back to Ukraine. What will be my next step to support my country? I decided while I'm here in England, I have a great plan to make a master degree in illustration. It's a very strange choice for a visual practitioner to choose illustration because it's kinda what we are moving from because the idea of illustration is very different from what we are doing.

It's about ideas not art, but I found out a very nice program which helps to design your learning path. And showed them what I'm doing and they said, "Okay, we're gonna support you in learning what whatever you need." Now I'm applying for university and this is a dream. I never told anyone except of my few friends about this. And today I'm sharing with everyone about this.

I hope that when I come back to Ukraine, I will be able to illustrate something really important. Something about social issues, strategic sessions, how to rebuild the country, et cetera, et cetera. I want to really come back and being well prepared to this and have all the skills to show how much we can do when we work together and think visually.

MR: That's really great. That's such a great wrap-up to that story. And it's not the wrap-up, right, because you still have it when you return, that will be the next phase of the story. It's great to hear that story and to hear that you're investing in yourself. 'Cause I think investing in yourself will eventually lead to investing in your country. That's a really great way to think about it long-term, I think.

JK: I think every visual practitioner, going into metaphor is kind of a prism which accepts a light and helps to spread the light.

MR: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

JK: If you can be a really sharp prism, you can do a lot of change in the world. I hope to be a nice prism for Ukraine.

MR: Great. I love that imagery. I love that imagery. Well, it's hard to shift away. Just wanna keep on enjoying hearing about all the work that you're doing, but I think it's really important that we continue with tools. At this point, talk a little bit about what are your favorite tools. We'll start with analog tools, which I know maybe you're not using as much, but maybe they're still part of your practice. Then, of course, digital tools. What are your favorite software and other things that help you do the work you do?

JK: Yeah, of course. Talking about analog tools, I'm not original. I use what master visual practitioners in the world use. I use quality markers like Neuland because they're available in Europe and phone board because I guess it's more thick and it stay longer than paper. I know that some companies I worked with still have this board in their offices. It helps to prolong the effect of session, which is visualized. Also, sometimes I use just usual paper like usual A4 paper and Pilot pen.

Nothing really original. I always compare it to like, cooking our favorite Ukrainian dish, borscht. So if you come to a person who, usually it's a woman who made a nice borscht, you don't tell her, "Oh, you maybe have a good pot." Because it's all about skills.

The same about visualization. Good equipment is important, but it's mostly dependent on skills and love and knowledge, not about only--when people learn sketchnoting with me, I always say, "No matter which instruments you have today, we'll draw anyway even if it is a toilet paper, I don't care. Please just bring some paper and some pens." When it comes to digital instruments, I use iPad Pro with a pencil and Procreate.

I chose them just because a lot of visual practitioners in Facebook community advised it so I just started to use them and never switched to anything else. It's very unusual, but I would recommend a online service Canva, which is for non-designer. Because it's so well developed nowadays that you can really create something visual note style, even without drawing if you don't have anything like a tablet. It's very easy nowadays.

For animations, I use Toonly and Doodly, which is kinda the same company who produces them. This is a very basic software. I'm pretty satisfied with what you can create because I didn't want to invest too much because I was not sure if I will continue doing this.

But yeah, people are very satisfied with what I produce because it's very quick when you, for example, create an animation with cool animations today, it takes months. But I can really create it in a few days, which is amazing nowadays.

MR: That's great. All the power is right there in that iPad with some software, which is great.

JK: Yeah, that's true.

MR: Cool. Well, I love that you have a simple tool set. I believe in being able to go to the drugstore and find your pens and your paper and be able to work. Again, it's really about your skills and your love and your soul, and not so much about the tools, but good tools do help, right? Bad tools can definitely distract.

JK: Yeah.

MR: Let's shift into tips now. The way I frame this is, imagine someone's listening who's a visual thinker, whatever that means to them. They feel like they're on a plateau, they're not growing, and they need some encouragement, they need some inspiration. What would be three things that you would tell them, either practical or theoretical to help them think about ways they can move forward?

JK: It's a very nice question. I'm a person who needs a boost now because I start to work with absolutely new audience for me, English-speaking audience. I'll give this tips, first of all to myself, and I hope that they will be useful to someone else. The first principle I always use when I try to do something new when I need to learn something is like, fake it till you make it, but I change it a little bit. I do it as a game.

You can pretend being a master in this and doing this, or you can think that you are a YouTube vblogger and you're telling to your audience how to do this or teach five-year-kid how to do this. I kinda try to pretend that I already know how to do this because I find it much easier to advice to someone than to do it myself. So I pretend that I'm just advising. So fake it till you make it with the first principle.

The second one is about work-life balance. I never understood it earlier, but now I realize how it is important to observe beauty and consume quality content. I really recommend to get inspiration from everywhere, from colleagues, from traveling to follow people from different industries. For example, I found a lot of inspiration in design industry, psychology, coaching, facilitation. Just continue learning every day and follow good people on Instagram. Let's say this is the second tip.

And the third one is a very important gift of allowing yourself to be yourself. What I mean by this that for example, I'm a very slow thinker and slow doer, so I give myself permission to do it in my own pace and with my own style is sometimes I think, "Oh my gosh, it's so ugly. Why people at all should like this or should pay for this, even."

I know now that authenticity is the most important value nowadays. Authenticity is very important so please allow yourself to be yourself and be very kind to yourself. It's very easy to say, but it's very difficult to do. But it's a moment where you are healing your inner child and be just very kind to what you're doing. Talk to yourself as a caring parent and support yourself. It's wonderful what you can reach when you kind to yourself.

MR: Those three are great. I love those tips. All three of those. The last one I especially like, and I often tell people, give yourself grace especially new learners who are doing sketch noting the very first time, like, "Okay, look, you've never done this before, how can you expect to be amazing?" It's gonna take time. Let yourself be yourself, in that sense. So I love that one, especially. Well, Julia, like we thought was gonna go really fast. So here we are at the end of the show. Can you believe it?

JK: No, this is crazy

MR: Now what I wanna do is let people know where they can find you, your social media. I'm gonna make the bet that your website will be done by the time this episode comes out. If it is, we'll make sure and put all these in the show notes. So if you wanna contact Julia and reach out to her to connect with her, if you've got projects for her. What is the best place to start?

JK: Yeah, any social media, like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, you can find me with the name Julia Knyupa. Hopefully, I will have a working website by the time when this episode will come up. Also, if you want to kinda learn something and to hear some inspiration from me on YouTube, there is my TEDx Talk in Ukrainian, but with English subtitles. It was in 2019, and I talked there about creative confidence. If you want to learn about this place, find this on YouTube.

MR: Julia, we'll have you send some links to us and we'll make sure those get into the podcast show notes so people can click on it and watch that as well. Last question is, do you know what your website domain name or URL will be for the website yet?

JK: Not yet.

MR: Okay. Not yet. Normally, I would've had you give the website and then people would just type it in and go there, and maybe by the time they hear this it would be live, but that's okay.

JK: I want to thank you for this wonderful chance to talk to you and to all of your people who are listening to this now. I know that it's tricky, but I want to ask you to continue to support Ukraine because the war is not over and we are fighting for the whole democracy and freedom in the world. So please continue to support Ukraine and I will be absolutely happy to work with people from different countries. Please reach me if you want to support Ukrainian artists.

MR: Yes. I love it. I love it. We definitely will. Thank you, Julia, for your time. And for everyone listening, that’s another episode of the “Sketch Note Army podcast” wrapping up. And until the next episode, this is Mike and I'll talk to you soon.