The Role of Arts in Human Growth

All right, well, hello, Genein. Thank you so much for joining us today. Wonderful. Okay, so for those who may not be familiar with you, can you share a little bit about yourself and your journey thus far?

So happy to be here.

Sure, I’m an educator by trade, so among my people. And I taught third grade for three years and then ran the music and creative arts program at my school. I stayed at one school for my entire teaching career in Canoga Park, California, which is north of Los Angeles, and loved it. But because I had a general education credential and background, even though I was teaching music at the time, I taught music, but I brought in the other content standards underneath it. So… while the kids were learning Beethoven and Ode to Joy and learning how to play the recorder, we were also going over fractions and then even Beethoven’s life, resilience, dealing with hard circumstances. Of course, you know how music has the narrative and the narrative within stories. There’s a lot of through line throughout all of the content. That gave me beautiful positioning and beautiful practice really to see how everything is connected and to show the kids how everything is connected. And then I left the classroom in 2019. I say I got a divine shift shifting in my life and it was time to look at another aspect. I say I didn’t leave the classroom when I just expanded my walls basically and just became the teacher of America basically and the teacher of the world. And just did a lot of started doing a lot of corporate work and K-12 training. But looking at creativity and how do I help offer a solution to our plummeting creative just numbers. And when I say creativity, I don’t just mean artistry, but the ability, the mind’s ability to think of new ideas, to have cognitive flexibility and just innovative solutions to the problems that we’re facing. And so I looked at intercultural creativity, basically how culture impacts and influences creative thinking and vice versa. And then just, you know, kept doing more speaking and wrote a book on it called The Seven Gems, because the diamond is the logo of my company. And yeah, just been going off ever since.

Amazing. You’ve done so much already. I cannot wait to see what you do next. But I think the way that I found you was through this amazing concept of neurosomatic creativity. found you talking about this on LinkedIn and I’ve been so intrigued.

Ever since. So because I’ve heard of somatic teaching, I’ve heard of somatic learning and how we embrace that within our bodies. The idea of connecting that with the brain is super interesting to me. So can you share more about this idea? I think you’ve coined the term, right? Neurosomatic creativity? Yeah.

Yes, yes, it is trademarked as is intercultural creativity. so kind of like you, because what drew me to you was, was we’re kind of cut from the same cloth of understanding that the arts are not an extra, but they’re an imperative and foundational part of the human experience. And I use the word injustice, how I feel it’s an injustice to to grow a human being and have a human being going, especially through their early developmental stages without the arts being a part of that developmental experience.

And so what I knew, even as I was doing a lot of the research on intercultural creativity and how is culture impacting our creative ability, how we see ourselves creatively and how we view the value of the creative potential of other people, I knew that if I’m doing leadership training and especially human development, whether I’m in K-12 or adult work, the arts are a critical part of that training and I just knew it from my own life. You know, I’m a twin, so I have a twin sister. She played the bassoon growing up. I started on the trumpet. My brother, who currently works for JPL NASA, he learned clarinet and taught himself piano and my little sister plays the flute. But even though we aren’t professional musicians, we can see how having a music background and we did theater and we did a little bit of dance and then I actually married a professional dancer. He doesn’t dance professionally now, but he did.

Even though these are not our professions, I can see how it is formulating our way of thinking throughout our everyday life and our ability to problem solve and our ability to connect with other people, especially people from different backgrounds who don’t come from different cultural norms than we do. We’re just more flexible and open. And so I have just stood in the right place at the right time because there’s a lot of research coming out out of the neuroscience field, right? And I went to UCLA at the turn of the century. Sounds funny saying that. The turn of the century in 97 through 2002. And I got in my first MRI machine. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a machine that shows brain imaging, but also brain activity, right?

And under the work of Dr. Matthew Lieberman, who was just starting out there, now he’s like the father of cognitive neuroscience, but he was just starting his work then. And that got me fascinated with the brain and, okay, well, what is this organ that I don’t really think about, but it’s yet paramount to every aspect of my life and my personality and my ability to function. And just seeing how all this work research is coming out of the cognitive neuroscience, but there’s also a big group of people doing work with music in the brain and dancing in the brain and looking at it in comparison to like dementia and Parkinson’s disease. But you you and I are focused like, what what’s happening at the front part of life? You know, that K through through through 12 experience. And so, you know, we just connect the dots, right? Being an artist ourselves, we just see the dots connecting and just me being in all these different fields and education and neuroscience and entrepreneurship and business and finance, because my first book is on financial literacy, and just kind of seeing how it’s all connected. So, neurosomatic creativity is the fact that once we understand how our brain works and how our mind works. Now, I separate the two. Some people have controversy over that, but I think they’re two separate entities. They’re highly connected because if something happens to your brain, it does affect the way that your mind works.

But I think the mind is so much more than just this three pound organ, right? And I believe that the body is an instrument of thought. I believe in the mind-body connection. There’s a duality there. It goes both ways. And not the fact that I believe it. There’s actually research now showing this. But I’ve always known it. Like you and I, we knew this stuff 30 years ago, right? But we didn’t have the science to back us up.

And now we do. And so that’s neural somatic creativity, that the mind, the brain, and the body, once we help people better connect them and flow through them and really understand how they work together, that informs our creative thinking, which we’re defining it as your ability to problem find and problem solve with relevance, value, and novelty in any field.

I’m just amazed already at all of these things and all the connections because honestly, when we move and dance or when we’re experiencing something in music, there is this whole body and mind and brain connection going on. Talk to me a little bit more about what you mean that the mind and the brain are different.

Yes, yes. So like I said, there’s different ideas about that in different camps. You’re going to find different things. But I believe that when I think about my mind, like my mind is just is a part, like my body informs my mind. The nature around me informs my mind, the songs of the birds. Of course, my brain has to interpret that and take it in as data points and energy, right? But

And then I come from a spiritual background as well and like the soul, there’s just so many elements that it’s more than just this tofu-like organ, right? It’s so many levels that I can’t even explain with language. And so when I think about my mind and my heart and why the arts really informs that, and as we move into this more AI-generated workforce, the leaders who are tapped into that element of that mind body connection of that soul and spirit connection, you because when you think about the arts, it’s almost metaphysical. It’s almost like you can’t almost describe it. Sometimes it’s this movement of energy, you know, when I dance and when I move or when I hear a musical piece, when I when I pick up my guitar and sing from my heart after after something bad or tragic tragic has happened in my life.

I can’t just do it with logic and data. have to have the arts to help me move the energy through and help me fully experience what I’m going through in order to continue to heal from it. I mean, can’t have that same response with a Scantron test.

Yeah, no, and I think what’s so fascinating to me about this is that I think, you know, quantum physics has shown us there is a difference between the mind and the body, or the mind and the brain rather, that there are two separate entities, I think. And so science is already showing us this. And then to your point, the connection to artificial intelligence and why this mind element being separate from just our brain is one of the reasons that separates us as humans from any kind of artificial intelligence, even in generative AI, which is such a big field that’s coming up that, you know, for all of the proponents that say AI can replace human creativity, this idea that AI is never going to have a mind. It can replicate a brain, but it may not ever have a mind. So I love that you’ve distinguished that within your own work.

So your company offers so many unique programs like this Intercultural Creativity and Prismatic Leadership. Talk to me a little bit more about Intercultural Creativity and the 16 diamond tools for creative thinking.

Sure, sure. So I’m a researcher like you and there’s some wonderful researchers out there by the last name of Bernstein. And so they have like the 13 tools of highly creative think thinkers. A great book. One of the first books that I picked up. But you know just in my own research I looked at other elements that informed my own creative growth and just to see you know how my brain and my mind was working together. So my first book I am creative that my son and I wrote together and it’s somewhere back back here. I probably should have my books read ready to go. But but I create inner child books so they look like children’s books but they’re actually for adults too because we need this work as well. And and I tell you know adults like you may not read a 250 page book but you’ll read a four sentence prompt that will have you thinking about did I work on my curiosity today? Is my curiosity stagnant? When’s last time I did something for the first time and how did I feel about that? What does my diversity group look like? Does everyone look like me, believe like me, or am I trying to reach out? So these inner child books actually bring up those prompts in a child-like friendly way, right? And as an educator, you know some of those profound books are like the kid books that really make you think about stuff, right? Like Ferdinand the Bull, right? And so the 16 Diamond Tools

Talk about, you the first one is when I wake up every morning, I try to start my day by thinking I’m creative in every single way, right? And you see a picture of my three-year-old yawning and waking up, but that’s huge. How do you start your day? Worrying or thinking about the possibilities of what issues am I gonna solve today? What am I gonna create today? Or who am I gonna meet that’s gonna challenge my river of thinking and I get to see and play with new ideas? Like, how are you starting your day, right?

And so it goes through mindset, observation, a lot of sensory work. I think as adults, we lose that. And in my book, I have a small story about walking to the mailbox with my two-year-old. And when I go to the mailbox by myself, I go and give it a mail and I come back. When we go, it’s a 30-minute journey, you know? Because he’s seeing everything. And so I even put in the book, you know, try to look at things with new eyes and usually if you have a child around you it’s a lot easier because you can kind of go with them and see what they’re looking at and what’s catching their attention because they tend to have lantern attention where we kind of have a spotlight. And then I say, if you don’t have a child around you, borrow mine. See how he’s interacting with the world.

But I think that’s what we’re looking for is those. I love the diamond. Diamond is my logo. And so I have the 16 diamond tools of creative thinking of the mindset, observation, curiosity, diverse experiences and insight, right? That eureka moment. Now we know actually what’s going on in the brain. It’s not really like a eureka, but there’s some default mode network time, which is you daydreaming, you.

kind of going inward and being curious within yourself. know, when you just kind of talk to yourself and ask yourself questions, well, why is it that way? And wow, you know, and then your brain just starts doing flips together with all of these new and old ideas. So that’s the 16 Diamond Tools of Creative Thinking. And then we morph the intercultural creativity into the seven gems of intercultural creativity.

So can you tell me more about those seven gems, what they are?

Yes, they are. I believe it’s the idea that’s met its time because as we are more diverse and we’re more connected globally, we have to understand that people aren’t seeing the world as you see it, right? And we don’t see with our eyes, we don’t hear with our ears, we see with our brain and we hear with our brain, we feel with our brain. Our brain is the one creating the narrative of what we are experiencing. So the seven gems are mindset. I always start with my mindset for like everything because that’s what’s processing this data. But and that it’s a creative growth journey. I don’t call it a growth mindset. I call it a creative growth mindset. Right. And even the work of Dr. Mary Murphy right there. She’s even coming out with more research on growth mindset because your mindset can shift depending on what environment you’re in. Like I’m normally an outgoing person. I can speak. But if I’m in a toxic area.

That’s going to probably, you know, cower me down and I’m just going to do the bare basic, you know, and not offer it in any way. So people have to understand what their mindset triggers are and glimmers that that’s a new word that’s coming out. What’s your mindset glimmers that really make you in awe and enjoy, right? What brings you out and what shuts you down, right? So that’s mindset. The second one is the empathetic way. Empathy affects both cultural competency and creative thinking.

And that’s the cool thing about each of these gyms is that they hit both of these camps, right? They hit your creative development, but they also hit your ability to connect with people for different lived experiences. The third one is observation. Again, I don’t think we’ve talked a lot about observation as K-12 or in corporate training, but observation, I believe, is gonna be huge, because you can’t create with something you’re not even observing about, right? And the arts really… strengthens your observational skills. You know, as a music teacher, if you want to be a great listener as a leader, go join an ensemble where you have to know what you’re doing and what everyone else is doing, right? Yeah, I remember being at the Walt Disney Concert Hall at Gustavo Dudamel, who’s the conductor, and I sat in on a, I don’t know how I got a ticket, but I sat in on a rehearsal and just seeing what goes on behind the scenes during rehearsal and in the middle of the orchestra playing like Pirates of the Caribbean. was like, but you felt like you were in the music, right? So just really telling leaders and parents, just how do you strengthen those observational skills? The next one’s curiosity. We know if creativity is a driver of innovation, curiosity is the driver of creativity. So people don’t really think about like,

Did I work on my curiosity skills? What’s limiting my curiosity? How am I not asking the right questions? You know, it’s not about finding the right answer all the time. It’s about, you asking the right questions, right? The next one is shifting perspective. I do a lot of training on that. Just drove home from Tucson yesterday with a group of CEOs. Perspective shifting. And we have the diversity diamond, which shows a lot of the demographics, like even your height.

Right? Your socioeconomic standards. Normally we focus on ethnicity and race and gender and disability or ability. But there’s like, you know, your hobbies, you know, affect the way that you see the world. And so many demographics influence your brains interaction with stimuli. And then we have authentic adaptation, is the sixth gem. And that is your ability to adapt.

Right? We’re in ambiguous times. It’s going to be next month could be totally different from this month with what we’re trying to do. Right. And so we’re looking at cultures that have an adaptive ability. But I call it authentic adaptation because can you adapt to who you’re trying to connect with while still being authentically you? You know, like I’m not going to you’re not going to see me out there, cousin and and and you know, cutting down people trying to get things done, because that’s not authentically where I come from. So I know where my values are, and I know what my mission is. But can I still work with a four-year-old in the same week, go sit at a board meeting with people who are running multimillion dollar companies and still execute well? But I’m adapting, but I’m still authentically, Genein. And so I think that’s going to be huge as people will not have the same job for the next 50 years, like our grandparents experience, right? They’re going to have to be able to shift. And Adam Grant talks about that as well. And our last one, the purple gem, is being a bridge. And this one’s special to me because I was actually in Boston, which is the birthplace of public education. And that was actually the night that Prince Nelson Rogers, the singer, passed away. And they lit the bridge purple. And I just…

Made the connection, right? Creativity is all about making connection. I was like, wow, I’m in Boston, the birthplace of education, and he’s passed, and the bridge is purple, and my last gem is about being a bridge, right? Being that connector. There’s a wonderful book called The Medici Effect, and he says that innovation happens at the intersection of fields, disciplines, and cultures. So people who get that intercultural development piece,

That’s where the creativity and then the innovation jump off because you’re exposed to new ideas, you’re not judging right away, you’re open and you’re understanding that people have different experiences with the same stimuli that you may be encountering and then you’re curious about what’s driving them as well.

Absolutely, and I love how you’ve kind of not separated but kind of shared each of these separate gems and how they work together but also why they’re important on their own. I’m gonna ask a question that I think a lot of our listeners are really gonna resonate with. In education, in K-12 education particularly right now, there is a lot of concern around the term cultural and what that means whether it actually distances people from each other or if it actually helps pull together. And I’m curious in your work with CEOs, Fortune 500 companies, the workforce that our children are going into, what do you see as a part, do they devalue intercultural creativity and these ideas that you’ve shared in these seven gems or these things that they are seeking for the upcoming workforce or are they things that they kind of feel like these aren’t necessary for right now? We just kind of want to focus on getting stuff done.

Yeah, well, the research is clear, though. That’s the thing is that’s what’s different between now and 25 years ago, right? Is because I’m able to come in with the neurons like this isn’t me. This isn’t my opinion. This isn’t what I thought up two days ago. You know, this is the neuroscience and peer reviewed replicated studies saying that your your culture and I do define culture because the beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms, right, per Socrates, and it’s just a social group. And so if you have people that are biased with some terms thinking that cultural means one thing, when not understanding the true definition, or they may not have taken a sociology class, I don’t know, but understanding that we’re human beings and we’re social creatures, and we’re influenceable creatures. And so if now, if AI is coming in and doing its thing,

Human capital is huge. Where are the ideas and are they in social groups where these ideas can come to light and really be seen with an unbiased eye, if that’s possible, or at least holding back judgment for time so you can really see which ideas can be further developed. Because normally ideas come out and they’re half-baked, right? They need some time to kind of go throughout the process. So, you know, an intercultural creativity actually was us trying to get away from sometimes, you know, even the D.I. term could be triggering for people. But what so I haven’t really had any pushback. There’s been like one or two, you know, which you can’t win everyone. They’re going to be out there when I get feedback with my talks and it’s not I have high numbers, 97, 98, 99. But there’s always one right or I don’t agree with what saying. Well, it’s like, okay, then this is not for you. Seth Godin said that. He was like, when you are on the forefront in creating new ideas that are backed by research, there’s some people where, hey, they’re just not ready for it, or you don’t know what their cultural experiences are, right? And so I’m open to just depositing seeds and I just, know, the water’s there, the sunlight’s there, I’m just gonna keep on going, you know, and hope that what’s done needs to be done and understand that this is where we’re going. So if you’re not working on your cultural competence, which is just your ability to connect with people who have different lived experiences than you, that’s all that is, right? I’m not asking you to take political position or whatever, I’m just saying, are you open to understand that people have different lived experiences and are interacting with the same stimuli as you in different ways. And then are you curious to see where they’re coming from without immediate judgment or devaluing their creative potential.

Yeah, perfect. So speaking of new ideas, I know that you have a new program out, Lyrics and Leadership. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Sure, I am excited for it. Because we’re actually launching our 7 Gems Intercultural Creativity Online program now. But you know, us creatives were like, OK, I’m trying to get this now, but I’m so excited about this next idea. So my co-teacher was like, Genein, you have to focus on what you’re focusing on now. But.

Training is going to be a must because we have to keep learning, right? The learning curve is huge. And so the organizations that wish to stay afloat need to understand that they have to keep upskilling their people. Because what you’re learning today is obsolete like three months from now, basically, especially people who are still in college. Like that’s a four year chunk. There’s a lot happening in the workplace in those four years, right? So they need to be very mindful of that.

And so what we’re looking at is how do we keep people just in front of the training? How do we keep them cognitively flexible and understanding how to keep their brain just aware and all the gems there in a fun way? Because me talking to you for two hours and lecturing to you about emotional intelligence, which is the craziest thing, right, is not working because you need to have experiential learning. know, teachers of young children know you can’t talk to them for three hours.

They’re gonna zone out in about seven, maybe seven. You’ll be lucky if you get seven, right? And so we know to engross them into the experience of learning. If you’re learning about different textures, you’re touching different textures. If you’re learning about animals, we’re going to the zoo. We’re hearing them, we’re smelling them. We’re interacting them with all of our senses. So why can’t leadership training be the same? And so what we’re looking at is how do we use the love of people, love for music to train leadership skills.

So we are selecting, yeah, yeah, yeah. it’s, know, a friend is like, this is so profound. You know, there’s a few companies out there doing a little bit, but not like this. So we are looking at using artists. our foundational artist is the one and only Prince. That’s why I’m wearing purple right now. Purple rain, right?

But he had a global following, but he had a diverse following. He wasn’t just an artist for just black people. He was from Minnesota, which is not a high, high, high diverse area, especially back then when he was there. It’s more diversified now. But how do I look at his work as a poet, because he was a poet, look at, okay, well, where is he talking about resilience?

Where is he talking about creativity, right? The last lyric, or the last stanza in Diamonds and Pearls is, you know, if you look inside and find, you’ll find like all of your creativity inside of you. Like how can I take that stanza and have people self-reflect, have people ponder about where their gifts are? Like the song Gold, right? It talks about if you’re gonna get to the mountaintop, you have to fly or if you’re going to stay on your same mo-mo-hill that you know, you know, okay, stay, stay there, you know it, it’s there. So he’s talking about all these leadership skills within his work. And we’re just standing around just dancing to it, you know, at the club or whatever, not really stopping to think about, wait, what is he saying and how does this apply to my life and what are the tools that I can actually execute it on? That’s really what lyrics and leadership is about.

I’m we’re choosing to start with Prince because number one it was I felt like I was I was Cho Chosen because he just kept popping up everywhere. I’m like why is Prince you know because I’m not really a huge Prince follower. I knew of him I knew of his music but I never purchased a CD. I don’t have posters on the wall. I know people who you know have tattoos of this man’s symbol on their body their body. That was not me. But really in the past three months of now deep diving and because I’m a researcher by trade, right? So if I’m going to do this and do this well, I have to know my content. And now I’m so excited. I’m partnering with a woman named Keely. She is a professional dancer and she was on Dancing with the Stars. And so you think you can dance in several dance movies. And so we’re looking at how do we help people improve their leadership skills and improve their brain health.

So we’re looking at brain skills, which is creativity, adaptability, resilience, self-awareness, and curiosity. And how do we improve our brain skills and our brain health, which is understanding the importance of movement, right? There’s a great quote that I heard, those who do not move do not hear their chains.

Susan Riley (29:47.779)

Mmm, I love that. That’s really powerful. Yes!

I know I was like, I have to write that down. Yes. So we’re looking at movement. We’re looking at stress reduction. What does music do to the brain in order to lower stress? Right. We’re looking at music in medicine. There’s a lot of research coming out there. We’re looking at music as a social cohesive aspect. How does music bring people together and what does it mean to be social and to be socially connected? And what does that mean for brain health?

And then even things like diet and sleep, right? I have to make those connections because I don’t think Prince was really good on the whole sleeping eight hours. But usually if you have a hyper creative type of mindset, sleep does kind of get compromised at times. But he ate well. He was very conscious about what he put in his body as far as food. And so, yeah. And so I think people already love.

The artists that we’re choosing, my goal is to attach the content to their love. they’re already there because it’s Prince or it’s Indy Ari or it’s Taylor Swift. They’re there because of the artist. Now, how do I get them to learn the…

Right? And isn’t that what we’re all trying to do with integrating the arts? Yeah. I love this program. And I think that you just offer so many incredible resources for all of us as you’re learning and you share them with us and how we can learn. So before we close out, where can people find out more information about you and what you’re offering?

Sure, well I am very active on LinkedIn, so I’m always there. My name is very uniquely spelled, so that’s G-E-N-E-I-N, Lettford, L-E-T-F-O-R-D. Our company name is Cafe Strategies, so it stands for Creative Advancement for Financial Empowerment, because our first tagline was, your creative health affects your financial wealth. So we want people to understand that you, increasing your creative thinking ability, not just artistic ability, but your creative thinking ability which can be increased through the arts as well. It affects your financial stability, right? Because how you produce value. So that’s CAFFE, C-A-F-F-E, strategies.com. But on all the social media platforms just sharing this work, we have a new group called InSync, which means, and not the group in sync.

I know, it’s just me. I just love making up stuff and then backing up by research. But it stands for International Society of Innovation for Neurosomatic Creativity. So was like, there’s a society for neuroscientists, a society for that. Why don’t we make up our own? So we’re making that up. And it’s just for people who want to be a part of a group, like an official group about…

How do we have better lives with neural somatic creativity through the arts?

That’s wonderful. So we’re going to link all of that in the show notes today so that people can easily find you and connect with you. Thank you so much for joining me today, Genein, and it was such a pleasure.

Happy to be here and thank you for the work that you do as well.

Thanks.