Kristen's college professor told her she couldn't draw and after 10 years of believing that lie, she was inspired by the idea of showing her own work at an art convention.

The only problem was that she was starting literally from the beginning.

To get started with her art, she joined several different online courses and programs but kept running into the same problem...

The courses she was trying to learn from were too far ahead of where she needed to be. She lacked the foundation that would allow her to move forward and access the knowledge in the courses.

So she kept going backward to uncover the simplest techniques that would allow her to truly start right from the absolute beginning and in doing so realized the real first step she needed was learning how to hold the pencil.

About the same time as she had this realization to go back to the very beginning she began hearing about the Evolve program which promised to teach everything an aspiring art student would need - even how to hold the pencil.

But committing to something like this can be scary - unless you have one key insight that has been such a big part of Kristen moving so quickly through the program.

So what's Kristen's secret?

She knew that she could put in the work. If learning art came down to talent or having a special gift then it wouldn't work for her - but if all she had to do was follow the plan; she knew Evolve was something she could do.

After joining she got to work and has been handing in assignment after assignment, moving through the program without any hint of slowing down.

Just to give you an idea of how quickly she's been moving here's Kristen's timeline:

January: Got inspired by the desire to create work for an art convention March: Joined online courses and realized she needed to go back to discover a true starting point May: Joined Evolve and got busy December: Now working on professional level techniques and paintings

That's only 7 months from starting the program to now working on her first professional level pieces... all beginning with learning how to first hold the pencil and then applying herself every day to continue moving forward to her goal.

Prof. György Buzsáki of NYU on the Cognition from the Body-Brain Partnership