Disclaimer: This is transcribed using AI. Expect (funny) errors.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:00] I’m Mindy Peterson, and this is Enhance Life with Music, where we explore the ways music can make our lives better and spotlight the resources you can use to enhance your life with music. I’m so excited to bring today’s guests to you! I’m a huge fan of education and holistic lifelong learning, whether it takes place in the four walls of a school or in any other environment. And today’s guest pretty much covers all the bases. She has a background as an educator, performing artist, author, speaker, podcaster, and more. Genein Letford is the founder of adult and K-12 training programs that develop brain capital and 21st century skills through arts integration. She and her team have empowered employees, teachers, and corporate leaders and using the arts to increase leadership and brain health skills. Genein advocates that the arts can lower dementia risks and increase creative thinking in non arts areas. She has written numerous books on these topics and speaks around the world sharing this message. She claims that teaching brain health through the arts will be “a new way of learning for a new way of leading.” Love that. Welcome to Enhance Life with Music, Genein.
Genein Letford: [00:01:22] I’m so honored to meet you and be here. Thanks for having me.
Mindy Peterson: [00:01:26] My pleasure, it’s great to have you here. Looking forward to this conversation. And there are so many different directions we could go in a conversation. I know you have so many outlets for your message, and I want to hit the highlights of those so that listeners can check out the ones that are best suited for their purposes. But first, how do you describe what you do and why you do it? I know there are so many different outlets that you have for this message. Is there a way that you describe sort of the common umbrella that they all fall in under?
Genein Letford: [00:01:57] Yes. I believe this is an idea that has met its time. You know, we’re in a huge shift nationally, even globally. And so understanding just the importance of brain health or new term that’s being introduced, something called brain capital, which is brain health and brain skills like creativity, curiosity, adaptability, resilience, neural resilience and brain health. And so, you know, just you’re you’re an educator. When you teach kids, you have to have different methods of teaching because, you know, just kids learn in different ways in different days, which was a quote at our school. Right. And so, you know, with some, you know, you’re you’re singing or you’re doing acting or you’re reading or just different ways to reach everyone and help and help them have access to the information. And so that’s what I do. I’m a teacher by trade, taught third grade for a while, and ran the music and an arts program at my K-12 in Canoga Park, ran a gifted program. And I do keynotes. You know, I’m. I had a stutter growing up. I still stutter today, so I had a speech impediment. And it’s funny now that that my main way of connecting with people is speaking, right?
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:08] Right. Yeah.
Genein Letford: [00:03:09] Life has a funny way of, uh, of showing up. So I do keynotes. I get on, on stage in front of tens or thousands. Um, just speaking, the importance of the arts and especially music, especially during this critical time when we need new solutions, we need people who can see solutions that other people are missing and think in new ways. And I really believe it’s the game changer for your next wave of leaders coming through. So I keynote, I write books, um, leadership books for adults, but also my seven year old son, Sean, and his father and I, um, we do. We call them inner child books. They look like children, children’s books, but they’re actually for adults as well.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:50] And inner child books. I like that.
Genein Letford: [00:03:54] We’re trying to start a whole new literary group. You have fiction, non-fiction and inner child books.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:59] Yes.
Genein Letford: [00:04:00] Oh, cool. And just the, you know, those books about creativity, but also the brain and and even ways that we can lower dementia starting earlier in the lifespan. Um, I have our own podcast, like, like you mentioned, the Create and Grow Your Brain Capital podcast. And of course, being a teacher, I do workshops for corporate, but I’m also I have my foot in K-12 just because that’s where I came from. And I have credibility there. Right. I’m not that person. Like, why are you talking to us? You’ve never been in a classroom. Well, I have been in a classroom. All types of classrooms, all, all backgrounds and. Yeah, just trying to get the word out. Um, I’m that person who could read journals, you know, eight point font journals and then go and teach it to an eight year old. I believe that’s my my gift to the world.
Mindy Peterson: [00:04:47] Mhm. Love that. Well I like in a lot of your materials I saw this phrase preventing dementia while building a strong Brain that will flourish with creativity and connection, and that is a message and a model that we need for all of us at all ages. And you certainly speak to all of those different ages. I know you do corporate keynotes, you do nonprofit work, you do work in schools. You do so you do cover so many bases. Um, talk to us a little bit about those different audiences that you do speak to. So let’s start with maybe adults. Um, and your keynote speaking for corporate leaders employees, is that the prismatic leadership that I saw on your website?
Genein Letford: [00:05:38] Yes. Well, when you walk outside in your in, it’s a sunny day. You’re surrounded by sunlight. But what do people don’t understand is you’re surrounded by rainbows. Have you ever thought about that literal rainbows? You just can’t see them because you don’t have a prism, right? If you if you have a ring on or uh, you know, you can see the rainbow colors in a ring or if it’s raining, right? Water droplets act as a prism. That’s why we can view rain, rainbows, depending on where you are in relation to the sun. And that really run deep with me. That prismatic leaders are leaders who can see the hidden colors in people or themselves, and they can pull out those traits. Right. And so I tell people, I’m very blessed to have started my career in K5, right? Because no one’s going to look at a five year old and say, okay, in five years, you know, if you’re exactly the same person you are today, then you know, oh, well, no, that’s a huge red flag in five years. If this kindergartener has not developed physically, emotionally and academically, that’s a huge red flag. But with adults, we don’t say to a 30 year old, okay, in five years, if you haven’t changed at all, then you know, we don’t really see it that way because we can’t see them growing and evolving. But prismatic leaders are the ones who could see those inner traits and put people in position so they can discover those own inner skills and abilities and courage. Right? It’s really coming into a point in our workforce where we need leaders. Adam Grant talks about this in his book Hidden Potential. We need leaders who can pull out the potential of people. And that’s why my diamond, my logo of my Cafe strategies, my for profit company, is a diamond. Because our leaders today, they have to be multifaceted. They have to be able to be prismatic and see things that other people don’t see in order to get the best out of their team members.
Mindy Peterson: [00:07:31] Yeah. Love that. And I know it has been in the news recently how a lot of parents who are working in Silicon Valley, working in computer science, are actually telling their kids to go into the creative arts because they feel that that’s where the future is, because of some of the things that you’re talking about, some of those skills that are developed, the creative thinking, the curiosity, and they feel like that’s really what’s going to give their kids the the leg up, the advantage going into the workforce in another five, ten years. So, I mean, certainly going into the creative arts has its own challenges when that’s what you go into educationally, but totally agree with some of those core skills that are learned through being in the arts.
Genein Letford: [00:08:17] Well, I’ll I’ll jump in there if I can, because it’s a critical point. And I want to make sure you go a little bit deeper in that is I believe, and research is showing that that it is the game changer and the fact that this was a norm, you know, like 200 years ago for people who had access to, to school. But now it’s a luxury right.
Mindy Peterson: [00:08:38] Now was to have that arts education.
Genein Letford: [00:08:40] You mean you had mute music? It was the norm. You know, you came together to sing together. You painted. Um, and if you look at your top scientific thinkers like Einstein, George Washington Carver, A lot of them had a arts background. Right.
Mindy Peterson: [00:08:54] Well, and you mentioned in your book and you’re kind of, I think, pointing back to Adam Grant’s book, that there’s so much like 22 times higher odds of getting the Nobel Prize. For those who have arts backgrounds, which was fascinating. I had never seen that correlation before.
Genein Letford: [00:09:10] And there’s a neurological reason before. So what I do now is I bring the I. I’m like that connector. I bring the brain research instead of, you know, you and I, we’ve been saying this, this is what we do, right? We we tell people music is important. You know, if you can, if you have the resources. Sadly, we have to say that if you have the resources, you know, put your child in music, give your child piano classes or violin or what, what have what have you. And neurologically, the fact that my son has been doing piano since five, he’s he’s seven now and he’s been on the recorder and he was playing bells at two and his piano teacher said he has perfect pitch. The fact that he has that training his brain like a neuroscientist can look at his brain and tell he’s a musician. Sure, neuroscientists can’t look at a brain and say, oh, that’s a construction worker, that’s a lawyer. That’s that. That’s a cashier.
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:59] Or a soccer player.
Genein Letford: [00:10:01] Yes. But they can look and see if it’s a musician. Now that’s where it becomes a justice issue, because now my son’s brain is neurologically mapped to have higher pathways for connection. Right to. So the adult ideas and the thoughts can be connected to be able to shift perspective more. And just like you said, those transferable skills. Now he may not grow up to be a professional musician. He might um, but the transferable skills that cognitive flexibility and shifting is going to be key. The pattern making and pattern breaking recognition, the sensitivity to patterns and emotional, um, data that’s going to be key. So whether your kids go into music professionally or not, or to dance or what, or visual art or theater. That’s just a bonus win. I think, um. Right. But it’s those transferable skills which are going to, to separate.
Mindy Peterson: [00:10:57] Well, and you reference to the 2025 World Economic Forum. They list top core skills that are needed in the workforce and in life in general. And those. You point out how those are developed in arts training. Talk about what some of those different skills are.
Genein Letford: [00:11:15] Sure. Just, you know, Google it and you’ll see it. A few like 2 or 3 are still tech skills, right. Especially with cyber cybersecurity um, gaining ground. But like 5 to 7 of them are your brain skills and their your ability to have something called social influence. You know, I ran the musical theater program at my school. Talk about kids, um, learning how to speak in front of people and create prosody in their voice, which is, you know, that musical and fluctuation and command a stage. You know their third grade doing The Lion King but transferable skills. Um, so creativity, innovation, which we know creativity drives innovation and curiosity drives creativity. And just just leadership skills, social skills, emotional regulation. Leaders who do not know how to regulate their emotions. They will not be in that position for long or they.
Mindy Peterson: [00:12:12] Don’t have self-awareness. Self-awareness.
Genein Letford: [00:12:14] Self-awareness is is huge.
Mindy Peterson: [00:12:16] Yeah.
Genein Letford: [00:12:16] And so what we are positioning is these not only build the brain skills like that we just listed, but they also help in brain health keeping the brain healthy, vibrant, optimized. Right. And as you mentioned before, dementia preventing I’m in Arizona. We have the top Alzheimer’s cases in the nation because.
Mindy Peterson: [00:12:41] Of the age of your, you know, the demographic of the population.
Genein Letford: [00:12:44] I don’t know what’s causing a lot of people are moving to Arizona, so they’re bringing their brains with them. Um, and, you know, I’m I’m a transplant from California, but what we’re. This is key. What we’re we’re finding out is Alzheimer’s and dementia and Parkinson’s and the other cognitive cognitive diseases are not an elderly issue. Alzheimer’s can show up in the brain during midlife, which means it’s a childhood infancy concern. And the data is that my my son and I are writing our next book called The Rainbow Brain. Right. And I have rainbows coming in my my room now because of the crystal that that I have up. And so I love rain rainbows. But those seven colors represent the seven pillars of a strong, healthy brain capital type of brain. So you have, of course, your food and your social interaction. But other organizations have six pillars. We added the arts as a seventh pillar, just because the research is clear that the arts need their own pillar, it is an injustice to take away the arts from a developing human we feel. And that’s the work that we’re doing now.
Mindy Peterson: [00:13:50] Mhm. Well I sort of took us out of our, our pathway there of having you explain the different various, the various audiences that you speak to. But you talked about the, the keynote speaking. You mentioned just briefly the cafe strategies. Can you talk a little bit more describing that?
Genein Letford: [00:14:06] So when I left the classroom that was my first company. So we did a lot of corporate training about something called intercultural creativity, how cultural competence affects our ability to think creatively. So people who really can connect with people from different lived experiences, those are the same cognitive skills that you need to think creatively, like, you know, empathy, curiosity, perspective, shift shifting. So we did a lot of training with that. Um, just a lot of, uh, diversity training and that that was really big. And it should, should be still, still big. Um, and then we do neuro somatic creativity, which is helping people connect the mind, body and, and brain together to increase their leadership skills by using the arts so they can be great leaders in non arts areas. Okay. You know, so how can an accountant be a better accountant? By picking up music. How can a lawyer be a better lawyer? By taking an improv class or surgeon? A better surgeon by taking up painting?
Mindy Peterson: [00:15:00] Sure. So we have the prismatic leadership. We have cafe strategies. Tell us about Lyrics and Leadership Institute.
Genein Letford: [00:15:08] Yes. So Cafe Strategies is a part of the intercultural creativity, cinematic creativity and charismatic leadership. Those are our training programs and mostly geared towards adults. And we we really wanted to, um, really bring in brain health, right. And leadership skills together in a fun, interesting way. You know, not everyone’s like me that will sit in an eight hour lecture and read an article from from the Neuroscience Journal. Like, I love it, but that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Sure. So how do we make brain health? You know, in the seven pillars of the building brain capital fun? Why don’t we take something that people already know and love and connected to that. And so I am a big proponent that music isn’t just for us to. To sing to and dance to. We can learn some pretty deep things, especially if you’re looking at the lyrics of artists who really were great at songwriting and metaphorical lyric writing and really were deep thinkers and just put it in the music, right? And so if we’re like, music moves, people, music attached, you know, I can play songs from when you were 12 and take you right back there, right? Yeah. And so how do we use that? And so that’s what lyrics and leadership is. How do we take them or use or inspired by the music of iconic artists that you know and love and create a community around our love for that artist, but also learn emotional regulation, leadership skills, brain health skills, deep thinking skills, which is a way to starve off dementia and Alzheimer’s. Right? This ability to think deeply about concepts and then connect with people with different lived experience about that. So that’s lyrics and leadership. It’s an online platform where people can come together and grow and learn.
Mindy Peterson: [00:16:51] And you’ve used that training with some non-traditional demographics. I think you’ve used it with at risk youth. You’ve used it for women coming out of jail, uh, homeless centers. Is that right?
Genein Letford: [00:17:03] Yes. Yeah, we we partner. So part of people’s tuition because there’s just a small tuition, less than 20 bucks a month. Like you can pay more to go, you know, to a fast food place, which isn’t good for your brain, by the way. Um, but, I mean, it costs more because it costs more to take a family of three to like McDonald’s than this. But, um, we believe in democratizing it. So now with cafe strategies, like, you have to bring me into a corporation for me to do my training. So I just really said, how can I bring this to the people in a way that’s accessible to everyone? And most people can afford 1999 a month? Um, and and that’s really just to have buy in. Right. Because sometimes you don’t really take seriously. Things you get for for free. All. Definitely all the time. Um, and part of that goes to we go to, uh, new friends home, this center located in the valley north of Los Angeles. And we bring this training to people who who are there and bring in the importance of the arts. And we even sing together now because of us. They started their own karaoke time, which is awesome. But you know how music just changes the atmosphere. Right? Yes. Um, and that’s what we want. You know, they need an hour and a half of just for getting their issue, their current issue. Then let’s, let’s, let’s have music be to be a part of that experience. And then we also we just finished our six.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:23] It’s a healthy coping mechanism. It’s a healthy escape. Yeah.
Genein Letford: [00:18:28] It it it is.
Mindy Peterson: [00:18:29] And obviously you’re training them to make use of those tools even when you’re not there. The karaoke is a perfect example of that.
Genein Letford: [00:18:37] That is true. And, you know, I don’t know if you interviewed Doctor Daniel 1110 on your show and he’s amazing. He’s definitely one of my mentors, and I actually got to have a coffee with him once. Um, and he talks about all the neurochemicals that are flooded in the brain when you, you know, you sing or you play music. And so the date is there. We just need to get it to the everyday person. Right? And we need to to reframe it that the arts belong to all of us because of our culture, and especially in the European, um, the historical ways of okay, Beethoven’s the composer, he does art in the symphony. The rest of you just sit and listen. You know, it’s kind of like. But art belongs to all of us. The arts belong to all of us. And so how do I better democratize this? Um, sure. And then we also, um, we just finished up our six week pilot program teaching brain Alicia’s adventures. I just love making.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:28] Up the name of that brain Alicia’s adventures.
Genein Letford: [00:19:32] Once again. How do you make neuroscience fun? You know, to 11 year old, to an eight year old, you know.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:38] So the brain Alicia’s adventures is your K K-12 version of lyrics and leadership, right?
Genein Letford: [00:19:44] Yes. Yeah. Can you use arts? And so with that, we teach a course Brain Health and just get them excited about, hey, you have this organ up here that is bigger than the universe that can do more than a universe. Do you know that it’s there and how to use it and optimize it? It’s really that introductory aspect. Um, but we use our books my brain, my brain, my beautiful brain, and I am creative and and the power of I am. And the next one coming out, baby, oh Baby, which is geared towards mothers and fathers who just had infants. But but we get them excited about their brain.
Mindy Peterson: [00:20:18] But in those books, I’m just going to quick interject here. Those are your inner child books, right, that you wrote with your son. So you started writing. Yeah. So you started writing these with him when he was five. Is that three? Three when the first one was written? Yes. And yeah. And listeners can’t see this, but I’m holding up the copy of my brain, my brain, my beautiful brain, which I love because it is one of those books that any age can get something out of this. You talk about the different parts of the brain, so there’s sort of this introduction to neuroscience. And kids learn and adults learn about the different parts of their brain and what each part does, what it’s responsible for. But then you also kind of get into the different ways of learning to the different styles of learning. And as you mentioned at the beginning, kids learn in different ways on different days. And yes, and this kind of highlights some of those different eight ways, those eight intelligences that um, some of us.
Genein Letford: [00:21:21] Gardner.
Mindy Peterson: [00:21:22] Yes, yes. So anyways, just a quick interjection. And your husband did the illustrations for those books. So you have like the family dream team there with the creative team thing.
Genein Letford: [00:21:33] Yeah, it’s the best thing because that could be a high cost, you know, especially for those, um, illustrations. We did have to contract out for the actual people, but Shane put them all together in the book that’s coming out, um, for World Brain Day. Uh, Shane did all the illustrations for it. Okay. For that.
Mindy Peterson: [00:21:48] So anyway, I kind of interrupted you there, but the Brain Delicious Adventures utilizes those inner child books for a full curriculum.
Genein Letford: [00:21:58] So we take each page and or we take each intelligence, and then I give the parent or the teacher because I’m connected to the homeschool community. So this is for homeschoolers. Um, this is for, for for teachers. This is for whoever I’ve even had, like adults bring this to their team members because sometimes even a simple prompt, you don’t most some people won’t read a 250 page book. Exactly. You can get deep with four sentences. You know, I wake up every morning. I try to start my day by thinking I’m creative in every single way. I can have a long two hour conversation on those four, four sentences. You know, like, how do you wake up? Do you grab your phone? Do you grab the negative news? You know what? What’s the first thing you say to to yourself? So that’s there’s a lot embedded in four lines, you know.
Mindy Peterson: [00:22:40] Yes I agree. You have those children’s books that we just mentioned. You also have adult books. Tell us, just in a nutshell about your adult, your books for adults.
Genein Letford: [00:22:52] Sure. We have the seven gems of intercultural creativity. So they go through the seven gems. The seven, because I love the metaphor of diamonds, but they show how cultural competence and creativity actually sit on the same set of skills. But we just go over seven of those skills. And then I took that business book, because I do have a foot in K-12, and I turned the business book into a K-12 book. So I’m talking to teachers, to parents, to people who are raising up the next generation of saying, hey, here’s mindset, mindset for you, because a lot of times the teacher themselves needs to do the work right. What is my relationship with creative thinking? What is my relationship to artistic thinking? That’s huge. A lot of times teachers won’t bring in the arts because they themselves are not comfortable with executing in that art. So now you have a class of 20 to 36 kids who have no access to that art. Because of your trepidation with it and or your relationship with it. You know, so we have to to come, come and and deal with that, right?
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:53] Yeah. I know you have integrated some kind of music curriculum for older students. I think it’s like an arts integration course. Tell me a little bit more about that, because I do I work in my day job with a lot of music department faculty, and I’d love to hear more about what you’re doing with. I think California State University is where you’ve been working. Yes, yes. Arts integration course. Tell us about that.
Genein Letford: [00:24:19] Sure. At the beginning of my keynotes, I tell people, yeah, I’m teaching a four year old and then my nonprofit back then alumni, 360, a 14 year old, and then I go to California State University and 34 year old, and then I’m on the board of donor.org, which is a great website for people to get instruments and stuff. Um, so in like one week I’m working with, like, the whole pipe pipeline. Yeah. But. But which is amazing. And it it increased my perspective to really what the narrative is across the, the, the lifespan. But my work at California State University, I got to work in the master’s program for teachers who were getting their masters. And really, how do you integrate this into the curriculum? Because I don’t know about your day, but my day is like, do not give me one more extra thing in my day. I have no time. Right? So the key is integration, I believe, for the arts and for brain health, because it’s such an important thing right now, because we can lower dementia cases by starting in childhood. And so what I, I talked with the teacher is look for narrative in in your academic curriculum, look for story and look for just ways to enter the the curriculum or explore through the curriculum or exit. Right. So at the beginning of the year we do and I call it the periodic table of of the the arts. Right. The elements. You know how the periodic table has all the elements of physical ness, right? Oxygen and gold.
Genein Letford: [00:25:41] Well, the arts have the same thing for music. You know, its pitch and tempo and rhythm and visual art. It’s color and space and texture. And it’s the kids ability to combine and recombine these elements to tell their story or to communicate their response to a prompt or whatever, what, what have you. If they have the ability to do that, well, oh, they can create anything. And so that’s what we taught the teachers at CSUN. You know, let’s say you’re teaching the one and only Ivan, which is a story about a gorilla that’s trapped in in a mall. And the kids really had to, you know, go through their normal academic experience and read it and talk about character development and all the Ela, you know, the English language arts standards. But then, okay, if Ivan were going to sing a song to Ruby, what would he sing? Or if you’re going to, you know, the kids chose the melody. Um, when the night has come and then, you know, they chose that melody, but then they changed the words to have the character. So they have to think about what position is Ivan, who is Ivan and what is his relationship with this character? Because it might be a different song if he was singing to the dog or to the the shopkeeper. Right. And so I could have a kid write an essay about that which writing is important, but, you know, to have that musical element.
Genein Letford: [00:26:58] So what tempo are you going to choose? What’s the rhythm? Is it for four or is it three, four? You know, I’m teaching the music elements, but he’s the child. The student is still doing the work. Um, and then, uh, Katherine Applegate actually came to our school, right? The author of The One and Only Ivan and the kids compose the movement piece, and it’s actually online. Um, and I can send you that link if you want to put it in the show. Show notes. Sure. And and Katherine Applegate was in the back of the gym crying, you know, and and I told the, the, the students like, yeah, you took her work and then you interacted with it and you gave it back to her in a way she’s never seen before that movie. And to this day, that was in 2000 and, I don’t know, nine or something. She, you know, I’m still in contact with her now, and she still says that’s one of the best school visits she has ever experienced because she’s never experienced anything like that. And that’s what the arts do. They change the brain in positive ways and they increase memory tenfold. And I’m still in contact with my students who are, you know, in their 20s. A few of them are married and have kids now. And they remember those times, right? They remember that’s what the arts do.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:10] Wow. So tell me a little bit more about that. That’s you said that’s what the arts do. How did you come from? I mean, if we even go back to college, you were a college athlete. So you have a background in that. When you were an educator, it wasn’t a music educator, right? It was like general education. So how did you go from that background to being so passionate about what the arts and especially music, just because that’s our focus here on this podcast. But how did you become so passionate about the ability of the arts to develop these skills, these life skills in people, but also brain health in dementia prevention?
Genein Letford: [00:28:51] Well, I say, um, that, you know, life has a funny way of teaching me because it takes me through the experience to, to learn it. So I have to see it firsthand. Um, you know, it’s good to learn by watching other people, but I learned it firsthand. As I said, I mentioned before, I have a speech impediment. I stuttered all through through my my life. There’s times when I woke up and couldn’t even say my name fluently. And I have a twin sister sister who won speech debates and everything. And then here I am. Can’t even speak or say my name. And it was music that gave me my my voice. I don’t know if you know about the brain and music, but for people who stutter especially severely, they don’t stutter when they sing, right? And there’s there’s many neurological reasons for it, but I would think, you know. And then my mother and my mother. Brilliant. Gwen Jefferson, brilliant woman who really was aware of this. She’d she didn’t really have a music background, but she knew she said a professor told her, and when she was in school, she was like, whatever you do, put your kids in music. And then he turned around and kept, kept teaching. But she never forgot that, right? And I’m so grateful to whoever that person was. Um, and so she put us in music, um, in elementary school.
Genein Letford: [00:29:56] And that was a game changer for me. I picked up the trumpet, and the trumpet became my voice while I was still trying to figure out where my voice actually was. And she put us in theater. And I realized when I memorize were lines, I. I stutter less, right. Um, and and we were in dance and so and and that’s why if you ever see a keynote of me, I’m very I move a lot because movement helps me speak more clear clearly. So I would not have known this had I not struggled. And you know, a friend asked me, you know, Jeanine, if you could be born again without your stutter, would you do it? And of course, the initial answer is. Oh, yeah? Who wants to deal with that? But I wouldn’t be the woman who I am today had I not went through that struggle. And now that struggle and that discovery helps me. Advocate for arts editor for all. Because whoever’s listening to this podcast, you have a student or a child or a niece or nephew or a kid down the street who needs the arts in order to start their developmental discovery of who they are. Right. Mhm. And so that’s really what got me passionate. And then I just started connecting the dots of seeing what the what was happening to the brain.
Genein Letford: [00:31:09] So I’m going to throw out a few names if people want to go look. Doctor Nina Kraus is showing that the brain overlaps with the language part and the music part. The music activates multiple areas of the brain at the same time and language aspect. So there’s the opera model, and that’s Doctor Annie Patel. Hell of of the part of the language brain and the music brain overlap. And so I tell people, and this is what I did with my kid in the womb, build their auditory system first. And the best way to do that is music. My kid has very sensitive pitch discrimination because I built his auditory system first, so it helps with his reading, his prosody, his his rhythm. Do not teach kids how to read if their auditory system hasn’t been been adequately trained. You know, because reading and language is just sounds right. You connecting graphs to sounds. So that’s that’s huge. And so yeah, to answer your question, I saw it in my own own life earlier on. And then I saw it with the research. So Doctor Nina Kraus, Doctor Annie Patel, Doctor Charles Lim is a huge advocate for for the arts. And of course, you know, Doctor Daniel Levinson, just to name a few.
Mindy Peterson: [00:32:22] Yeah. And Doctor Nina Kraus has been on this show a couple of times. I’ll put links in the show notes to those episodes. She has a book out. Um, so yeah, lots of great resources. So thanks for bringing those up. Yeah, well, so fascinating. You also have your own podcast. You have a blog. Tell us just a little bit about your podcast. It’s called Create and Grow and Grow Your Brain Capital.
Genein Letford: [00:32:48] Yeah, I… like you, which I’m assuming this is for you, I just like talking to people. To people.
Mindy Peterson: [00:32:52] Yeah, yeah. Yes. This is also my passion project.
Genein Letford: [00:32:58] Yes. And I just. I just need to get a team to do all the work on the back end. But let me just talk to people. Right. Yeah. Because I do edit. I mean, I’m the photographer, the editor, the video editor. I could do it all, but I don’t want to do it all. But what I have figured out and, uh, doc, doctor Lisa Feldman Barrett talks about this. When you talk to people, especially people with a different live background, just your brain structures and kind of goes along with their experience, like like you were with them, right? Or like you are them. And that is healthy for your brain. Because my brain, just with me meeting you and hearing you from Minnesota and me sharing with you all my my Prince connections, right? My brain needed to restructure in order to fit you in in there, right?
Mindy Peterson: [00:33:42] And that is an empathetic, vicarious experience somehow.
Genein Letford: [00:33:47] So we’re asking our leaders to be empathetic, but we’re not giving them the neurological, Jim, to do so. You know, and empathy rests on in-group outgroup, right. But the more I meet people, especially now, you know, when I was doing my podcast, I had to sit with people in the same room until the the pandemic hit. And now I do all my podcasts all over line, you know, because now I can connect with people around the world that I never, never dawned on me to do it before the pandemic. Right? Sure. So that limited my access to great minds. Um, and and what we do in the podcast is I have people just tell their story. I have neuroscientists and just people from all walks of life artists, non artists, business entrepreneurs, um, people who deal with Alzheimer’s and dementia as well. But my job is to pull out the creative gems. I’m like, oh, you just shared that story. Did you know that was an example of, uh, perspective shifting or hey, did that was a great example of taking risk, you know, in, in a new environment. So they’re like really, you know, they and that’s what I did with my students, with my first nonprofit alumni. 360 I’m like, you have all this gold in your narrative, and you could be using this to write for scholarships, you know, to go for, for awards and internships. And they’re like, what? So that’s my my job is to pull out the gems and then to to communicate to the audience. These are different ways people show up creatively, because we have a sometimes limited thinking of what creativity looks like. It’s not just artistry. You know, my mechanic, my car mechanic is very creative. He doesn’t dance, but he’s very creative and really opened people’s mind to that. They are creative and they could be artistically creative as well. We all should, should be. And it looks different for different people. But let’s own our form.
Mindy Peterson: [00:35:43] Mhm. Yeah. Love that. Well I’ll definitely have links in the show notes to all of these different outlets that you have for sharing your message about building up cognitive reserve, brain capital, preventing dementia, whether it’s for adults, for kids, for college students. Your podcast, your blog, your books, your speaking, all of that. Um, and I even saw as I was digging into this that you have a connection between arts and finance and, uh, I was like, oh my goodness, what doesn’t she talk about?
Genein Letford: [00:36:14] Yeah. Well, that was my very first book. Um, from Debt to Destiny. Um, creating financial freedom from from the inside out. And our quote is your creative health affects your financial wealth. So anything you’re going to leave on this earth that’s uniquely you and some of your ideas, especially your entrepreneur ideas, are going to be born from your own creative thinking. And so there’s that that tie.
Mindy Peterson: [00:36:34] Okay. Well, you also have the Ted talk. Brilliant. Yet broke the missing tools our kids need to succeed. So I was like, oh my goodness are so, so much treasure here to to mine. So I’m sure listeners, whether they are parents with kids in music classes, whether they’re college faculty, whether they’re K through 12, teachers, parents in general, you know, everybody can find something here to learn more about developing your own cognitive reserve. And it was interesting. I just saw an article today about how music training develops cognitive reserve. And that particular article was geared toward, uh, adults who have dementia and music training in their past. And their background really helped to build up their cognitive reserve so that in this situation, the study was specifically geared toward them being able to pick out aurally sound and differentiate between speech and background noise and noise.
Genein Letford: [00:37:29] Yes, sound and noise.
Mindy Peterson: [00:37:30] Yes. Which I know Nina Kraus has done a lot of research that she has, but just love all of the the research that you have done on these topics and the different mediums that you’ve made the message available in, whether it’s keynote speaking, workshops, books, curriculum and on and on. I just want to read one quote that I loved from one of your books. This is from the future classroom of intercultural creativity. And in that you said the arts, I feel, should be a part of everyone’s education and brought into everyone’s adult life. In my perfect world, we would all be consumers and producers of art, and not because we wish to be professional artists, but because we are human and desire to reach our full creative potential. If creativity is largely about seeing unambiguous connections than having artistic training will train our eye to see beyond convention. Love that quote. Boom! There we go.
Genein Letford: [00:38:31] Mic drop.
Mindy Peterson: [00:38:32] Yes, yes, the book is worth buying just for that right there.
Genein Letford: [00:38:36] And the word idea. I always look up the etymology of words. The word idea is form and pattern. And what is the arts about? Write your music. Tons of patterns. Tons of form. That’s one of the L elements. So think about it. If you want great ideas, train your brain to see forms and patterns and connections in the arts that we feel are the best ways to train your brain.
Mindy Peterson: [00:38:59] Mhm. Love that. Well Genein, this has been great. As you know, I ask all my guests to close out our conversation with a musical ending, a coda by sharing a song or a story about a moment that music enhanced your life. Do you have a song or a story that you can share with us today in closing.
Genein Letford: [00:39:17] Purple rain, purple rain. I am in the deep studies of Prince Rogers Nelson, and we are, you know, using his his work to to teach in the amount of genius and care and just justice and kindness, compassion that this man has shown, um, is an unmatched. And for me to just represent him to the world in this new way is an honor. And I want to end with that. Because for me to to give to the world, uh, the amount of work that he gave to to the world, I don’t even know if that’s possible, but that is definitely a goal. And and he really encouraged people to give what they have to the world. So I just want to leave you all with that. What do you have to give to to us? For? We are waiting in the purple rain to get through this thing called life, right?
Mindy Peterson: [00:40:12] Yes, yes. And someday you’ll have to come to Minnesota and we’ll go to Paisley Park together.
Genein Letford: [00:40:17] I’m gonna hold you to to to that.
Transcribed by Sonix.ai