 Forums are a huge resource in today's society, though most of them terrible as they're asking for advice from non-professionals and getting responses that has some sort of natural remedy that includes putting something like urine on that infection? Ew. Not all forums are created equal. Yet when you get a specialized forum going that brings together optical professionals, there's an unmistakable vibe. Options today will look to online forums for some direction, only to be ridiculed or chastised for wanting to understand. Why did we do this? Are we so high and mighty that we need to make our optical colleagues feel ashamed for not knowing? But on the other hand, maybe it's because there are so many uneducated opticians out there that are playing the role of optician but are really quite terrible at it. So terrible that they're ruining the reputations of the great opticians. I mean, let's be honest, a bad optician can not only have a negative impact on the patient experience but on the profession as a whole. This awareness of ridicule by fellow opticians was an issue long before online forums. Any time opticians would come together, the same energy was evident in many circles. When I started as an optician, I was 19 years old and attending college. Now this was back before the day of social media and the abundance of online information that we have now. I was lucky enough to have a brilliant optician teach me. Erika Benier was the one who gave me my foundational knowledge and optical. Shout out to Erika. I love you. But even having this foundational knowledge and optical, I still, there is still this sense of inferiority every time we would go to any of the meetings or the national events. It didn't matter if we had met before or if I was introducing myself for the first time. The unwelcoming nature from my colleagues was so unsettling to me. So after a few years of going to events and national conventions, I would find myself asking legitimate questions only to get a snide reply that began with, oh, you're not licensed. You see, I'm from a state that doesn't require a licensure, so it was unnecessary that I be. But if it were so important, I thought, huh, let's just do it. So I registered for the certification exam. The national exam date was scheduled on a time that I would be out of town, actually in a licensed state. I arrived early at the testing center in Seattle and I started visiting with my fellow test takers. One of them asked if I understood a practice question. As I began to explain the answer, a few other people started listening in. Someone asked, how long have you been an optician? When I had replied back that I had been an optician for four years, they began flooding me with requests to explain test questions that they didn't understand. All of the other test takers had been opticians for less than six months and were now required to take the test. But as the testing timed you're closer, I kept hearing comments like, oh, I've never heard it explained like that before, or gosh, I'm glad I know that now before we took the test. I didn't think much about it other than it was a great way for me to make some quick friends and take my test. Fast forward to when the next national convention came around. Here I was certified, making new friends, talking with other opticians, and particularly striking up conversations with those opticians that had been so harsh to me years before. And you know what I realized? They didn't know their heads from their asses. It was so clear to me now. They were using their criticism to try and balance the field because they were protecting their own facade. I returned to my office proud of my previous training satisfied of my certification and entirely motivated that the optical team that I was building was going to be damn brilliant. I had started teaching my team in the most simplified and approachable way that I could, just like I did with my test classmates. I shifted my optical career and began educating not just my office of opticians but other offices in the area. Fast forward to now, I'm helping opticians in multiple continents gain access to trainings that will help their independent opticles thrive. Here's the reality of our optical world. There are amazing opticians out there that are absolutely brilliant craftsmen. And some of them might not have the time or the patience to teach, which is okay. Not everyone is a teacher. There are also opticians out there that have been working the trade for a very long time self-taught and really they just wish that they had more confidence in their foundational optical knowledge, but they would never have been it. There are also opticians out there that are making ridiculous mistakes. Now these opticians might be looking for help, but just don't know where to find it. The common thread here, education. From foundational optical education to knowing how to assess your optical and growth opportunities and running a business, the know how to do it is what is missing. I believe that more opticians want to be great, but they just don't have the mentors, the foundational knowledge, nor the direction to get what they need. Independent opticles are stronger when we support each other. So my ask of my fellow opticians is that when you get a question that every optician should know, whether it's online or in person, please answer with kindness and understanding or just send them my way. I'll guide them.