I'm currently finishing up my last year at Bowling Green State University. I am graduating in May with my BFA in Graphic Design. I currently plan to find a design job within the area of my hometown, as well as launch Comfort Covers within the next few months. I am hopefully Comfort Covers will be a success, and look forward to helping families, care providers and people living with dementia benefit from Comfort Covers.

SO YOU JUST COMPLETED THE HATCH AT BGSU - WHAT WAS YOUR PITCH? WHAT WAS THAT EXPERIENCE LIKE AND HOW HAS IT SHAPED YOUR FUTURE? 

I pitched my business venture Comfort Covers for The Hatch. Comfort Covers are developed for people living with dementia, their families, and caregivers, for the purpose of guiding comforting conversations of memory-based exchanges. The Hatch was an incredible experience, giving me a crash course in business in just 10 weeks! The Hatch has opened so many doors for me. I have been blessed through this experience to receive support from many people, as well as having strangers share their personal stories about their family going through the transition of having a member with dementia and how it affects them. The opportunities given to me after The Hatch has definitely shaped me today, and I am hopeful it will continue to shape me in the future with all of the interested families and nursing homes I currently am in contact with.

HOW DO YOU REPRESENT THE TRAIT CONFIDENT?

I have never been a shy girl, I have always been an outspoken person. I think those traits of mine make up my confidence, being self-assured. Believing in my ideas and myself is a huge part of confidence to me. There are days self-doubt wants to take over but my confidence shines through any doubt and it truly shows in presentation.

HAVE YOU ALWAYS BEEN SO CONFIDENT? WAS THERE A DEFINING MOMENT IN YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU BECAME CONFIDENT?

I think many people struggle with confidence, especially when we try to figure out who we are and what our purpose is. I can remember when I would completely shut down as a teen, trying to figure out who I am was hard for me. When I got to high school and college is when I started taking on the confident trait. Now when I think of new design ideas I stand up tall and confident when talking about them. I don’t doubt my work since Comfort Covers. Comfort Covers taught me confidence and owning it! I learned that confidence shines through more than anything, even if your scared or have a little self doubt… training your mind that you believe in yourself will make yourself come off more confident and you will soon start to own it.

HOW DO YOU USE YOUR CONFIDENT PERSONALITY ON A DAILY BASIS?

I let my confidence shine daily through creating. Developing new ideas and exploring new possibilities for all of my design projects including Comfort Covers.

 DO YOU THINK YOUR CONFIDENCE RUBS OFF ON OTHERS? HOW SO?

I truly believe my confidence rubs off on others. There are things people worry about on a daily basis, being able to take the same situation and come off completely confident calms others down and they soon relax and pick up the confidence they always had, just didn’t believe in. I think confidence is a trait everyone has, we just have to uncover it. Believing you are confident will ultimately make you a more confident person. I can remember in high school being the only girl on an all guys hockey team, I needed to be confident, I was representing all girls. I had many girls sending me emails about how I made them see girls can do anything guys can and how my bravery and confidence encouraged them to want to be more confident. That alone was a powerful experience and making a difference made me realize the importance of my confident trait.

ASIDE FROM HAVING A CONFIDENT PERSONALITY, EXPLAIN HOW YOU ARE, BOLD, LOYAL, and CREATIVE?

Bold is another trait that branches off of confident. Being bold means holding your head high. I have always been a person of action, which shines through being bold. Bold can mean so many different things like confident, another way I feel I am bold is having a strong/vivid appearance. I feel looking professional makes people take you more serious as well as makes you feel better while creating.

I have always been a loyal person. I am loyal to my family, friends, and myself through my work. Having strong morals and goals helps my loyal trait shine. I am the person who always shows firm and consistent support to those who need it. Being loyal is something I pride myself in being, I enjoy that I can be the person others count on to be there to get the job done. Being loyal shows lot of discipline and self-determination.

I have been a creative person for as long as I can remember. I truly believe “creative” was the first trait I noticed about myself and how others viewed me. I was constantly creating and coming up with ideas as a kid. I would never leave the house without my drawing pencils and sketchbook. I can remember being a little girl and going to the zoo with my family, of course I had to take my sketchbook and pencils with me. I drew every single animal I saw at the zoo. My family would sit there and wait for me to be done drawing. Every animal I would draw would be so calm as if they were posing for me (so I was convinced!) I will always be creative, I just explore different ways I can push my creativity everyday.

WHO IS YOUR GREATEST INSPIRATION AND HOW HAVE THEY INFLUENCES YOU TO BE A CONFIDENT PERSON? 

I would have to say Jenn Stucker is a huge part of my confident personality. Jenn is an amazing design professor who is extremely talented. Throughout the creation of Comfort Covers she worked with me as a mentor, she taught me so much about believing in my work and myself. I can see how different my attitude is about my work and myself as a person now. I always want to show off my confidence in everything I do now. I think it’s important to come off confident and show you believe in what your saying or doing. Confidence relaxes people knowing they can rely on you to pull through strong.

HOW DOES YOUR CONFIDENCE INFLUENCE YOUR GRAPHIC DESIGN WORK? DO YOU SEE IT AS A DRIVING FORCE IN TRYING NEW IDEAS?

I think being confident allows me to explore so many more options in my design work instead of shutting it down from the start of concept. When getting in front of people to talk about my work I can see that my confidence is what people notice first, then they see I know what I am talking about and connect to my work easier. No one knows my work like I do, so being able to present it in a confident manor allows me to engage the viewer.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS, HOPES, AND DREAMS? WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN THE FUTURE?

In the future I plan to continue creating works that can make a difference in peoples lives like Comfort Covers. I feel Comfort Covers showed me I had confidence in myself the whole time and just needed to believe it. One huge goal of mine is launching Comfort Covers and getting the word out about the company and why it’s a valuable product. As dementia will continue to grow, tripling in 2050 this is something that needs to be approached with a positive outlook, which is why I created Comfort Covers. I hope to spread comfort and confidence in everything I continue to do.

 WHAT IS THE MOST VALUABLE THINGS YOU COULD TELL OTHER WOMEN ABOUT BEING CONFIDENT, OR ADVICE THAT YOU COULD GIVE?

 I truly believe confidence reduces stress, once I let my confidence take over I had nothing to stress about because I knew I could accomplish what I was stressing over. Confidence is simply being self assured. If you don’t believe you have confidence in you then you are soooooo wrong! If you truly believe in something that’s showing confidence. Confidence ranges in so many ways. One thing to remember that its always important to hold your head high, people won’t mess with you if you do so. Even if you feel like you aren’t confident on days keep holding your head high, no one will question if you truly are or faking it. Truth is, there is no faking confidence, once you hold your head high your body language tells your brain “hey I got this and I’m going to kill it!” Believe in confidence and it will show.

Find out more about Alyssa and her Comfort Covers below!

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Contact: alyssa@alyssabatch.com