For the Love of Creatives
Imagine a space where your creative spark is truly seen... a community where people get you.
That’s what Maddox and Dwight bring each week on For the Love of Creatives... a podcast rooted in the power trio of Creativity, Community, and Becoming.
As your hosts and “connections and community guys,” Maddox and Dwight invite you into soul-stirring conversations with artists, innovators, and everyday creatives who’ve faced challenges, found inspiration, and said yes to the next version of themselves.
Whether through storytelling, real-time coaching, or deep dialogue, this is where heart-centered creatives come to explore what’s possible... not just in their craft, but in who they’re becoming.
Expect:
- Practical insights
- Fresh inspiration
- Real stories from the worlds of art, design, dance, culinary, and beyond
If you’re a creative seeking clarity, connection, and the courage to step into who you most want to become, this podcast is your invitation.
Tune in weekly to explore the magic of community-fueled creativity... and start your own journey of Becoming.
For the Love of Creatives
#043: When You Believe in Yourself, Everything Becomes Possible With Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe
From the Paris Opera Ballet School to circus stages and fine art photography, Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe’s path defies convention. Born in France but belonging “to the world,” she shows how saying yes to the unknown can transform your life.
At just nine, Laetitia left home to train at the Paris Opera, where strict discipline built resilience but left lasting wounds around body image. After experiencing the darker side of ballet, she took a leap—accepting an acrobatic role with zero experience. Two years later, she was winning international circus competitions as both a ground and aerial acrobat.
Now a fine art model working worldwide, Laetitia sustains her energy through gratitude practices and mindful mantras: “You are what you eat and you are what you think.” Despite constant travel, she nurtures her online community with care. A recent loss of a longtime colleague reinforced her philosophy: follow your heart and dreams now, because life is short.
Laetitia's Profile
Art Portraits
Website
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For the Love of Creatives Community
and that's the first time in my life when I I said yes to something I didn't even know how to do, except the contract, not having the skills, actually not having the but that woman had the massive faith in us and she's like you can do it, I know you can do it. You're gonna learn, you're gonna be good, like, just do what you want, what you're doing, and then, on the way there during the contract, you're going to learn and you're going to know I'm yes. Thank you for believing.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to another edition of For the Love of Creatives podcast. I am your host, dwight, and I am joined by our other connectionsions and Community Guy Maddox, and today our featured guest is the wonderful Leticia Buffa-Rupp, also known as Leticia Chanel. Welcome to the podcast. We're so glad that you can join us.
Speaker 1:Wow, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor.
Speaker 2:We're so glad that you're here Now. I know that there's a whole lot that you have done over well, not a very long period of time. You're quite accomplished. I know that you have been involved in ballet. You've done aerial acts with the circus and um, circuses and um, you've done things with, uh, incredible beautiful photography. Um, I am just amazed at the, the beautiful art that I I see on your instagram, all of the things that you're doing and the beautiful books that you've produced, the, the latest one being unseen, yes, um, and I I could just scratch the surface, but could you just tell the, the people that are listening, a little bit about who you are and what you're about, just a like a two-minute sketch of of who you are?
Speaker 1:who am I? Uh? So, yeah, like you said, my name is leticia. I come from france. Uh, I am based in spain, but I do travel a lot for um, for my work, and I always did since a little, uh, when I started ballet at the Paris Opera Ballet School and then I did all my ballet school in Paris. I then performed all over Europe in national theatres as a semi-solist, a professional ballet dancer, and then, long story short, a lot happened in the ballet world and I decided to quit ballet and and I transitioned to acrobatics, which has been a big, big change for my body.
Speaker 1:So, yes, like you said, ground acrobatics and also aerial acrobatics with hoop and silks ground acrobatics and also aerial acrobatics with hoop and silks, and I have traveled up to 87 countries performing as a freelance acrobat, winning international circus competition and ballet competitions. And then I had my third transition, um to modeling, um, so this is my, since six years I am a freelance art model and, um, this is, I feel, like the moment where I'm like the most accomplished as an artist, because I get to to link all the skills that I gathered in my life with ballet with acrobatics. I'm also a yoga teacher, so I use the yoga poses for posing. And and now the world of photography is endless creativity, because every time I meet a new photographer, they are just like blooming ideas with locations, with outfits, with lighting, with um. And adding my posing to that, it's just like you feel like you've done it all and you haven't. So, yeah, just amazing way to like continue my artist life.
Speaker 3:Okay, so Leticia, inquiring minds want to know when do you sleep?
Speaker 1:I do sleep.
Speaker 3:That's a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do sleep. I try seven hours, seven to eight hours I try to have every night.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's a lot of balancing, though that's a lot.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is a lot.
Speaker 3:That in itself is a very unique skill to be able to do all the things that you are doing Wow.
Speaker 1:The one part which takes a lot of time, which is like during my lifetime, everything I've done is actually keeping the body in shape. So this is the most hours are spent on that, and everything is related. It's not just the actual workouts, it's also the diet that goes with it, it's also the mindset, the life choices, um.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and sleep is part of body recovery and being healthy and looking good and maintaining everything well, it's a lot and, just as we try to absorb you, you packed a whole lot in there, uh, with your, your entire history. You're you kind of packed in a life story and some of the highlights are I mean, you started this as a child, right? I mean like you were very much headed in a direction and this has been your life this whole time and your pivots are amazing for a lot of folks. I don't think that you even mentioned that you had to deal with a pretty serious surgery.
Speaker 1:Yes, two years ago I had a full hip replacement my left hip. It's been a lot to deal with. I don't know if you want to go in details into that part I can.
Speaker 1:Well are you still able to do the full range of acrobatics with a hip replacement? I'm not allowed to run anymore and I'm not allowed to jump because if I do I'm going to reduce the lifetime of the prosthesis. And before the surgery I was hyper extensive, like I was over split and over everything. My articulations were very, very, very flexible. So my mobility is reduced compared to that flexibility. So my mobility is reduced compared to that flexibility. But I am still able to do all my splits straight, clean lines. I'm not over anymore.
Speaker 3:But if you don't know, you don't know. That's still remarkable. You know, a moment ago, when you were talking about all the components the diet, the keeping your body in shape to do it, the mindset you rattled off a whole list of things that I hear that you really have that down, Like you. You have a system, you have it down and you manage all of it sounds like with ease. Has it always been that way, or was there a time when you didn't have all that in place? And I think that if there was a time when it wasn't that way, I think our listeners would love to hear how it was that you came from where you started to where you are now with all that balance, Because I can't imagine as a child, that you had all that in place.
Speaker 1:But please, yeah, well, as a child, ballet is all about discipline and consistency in training, right? So actually you learn that as a child. At school you learn everything about having the habits. So your day is like, so programmed and so consistent. Every day is the same you eat at the same time, you dance at the same time, you sleep at the same time, and all of that is just engraved in you as a kid. And the habits of like they tell you you must drink that much water, you should eat, that you should not eat, that you should stretch at this moment or don't you know whatever, don't eat sweets. And of course they watch your weight too, like crazy. So all of that it's engraved as a child.
Speaker 1:Because I was at Paris Operas, which is one of like it's actually the number one world ballet school, so it's like military. You have no choice, you just have to follow the program. They know how to train you. They know how to like condition you mentally. You're constantly also told that you are bad, that you are never going to make it, that you are too fat too, whatever. All of that is told every day. So they work a lot on mental strength checking, if you really want it, because ballet is so hard, it's so demanding for the body and for the mind that they test the kids already really young to check if they have really the will of becoming a professional.
Speaker 3:It very much sounds kind of like the military. I mean, I haven't been in the military but Dwight has the stories I hear.
Speaker 1:I've been at the ballet school.
Speaker 3:You know, so many people oftentimes go into the military to kind of get their life straightened out. And I'm hearing that you know, if you want maybe a not quite so extreme thing where the government's running you, if you want to get your life straight, you could take ballet, because it would teach you all those disciplines that you have learned. I mean, I have a close friend that's a ballerina, but she's never talked about it quite like that. I didn't. I mean, I knew that there was some strictness to it, but you're describing it on a completely different level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, paris Opera is quite extreme. Depends to which school she's been or with which teachers. Yeah, I don't know if they still do that Like I was there like 30 years ago or more, so I don't know what now they are allowed to do or not do with parents, and in that time we had no cell phones. There were no evidence of whatever happens. It was a different time.
Speaker 3:They could get away with murder basically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they could, they could, but yeah. So all that discipline with um implementing habits and have daily habits, it all comes from the barbershop yeah, and I believe that the friend you were talking about was featured in episode seven sydney.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, oh, my goodness. Well, and the thing about mindset, about all those things that you brought on board, I know that one thing that we haven't talked about and we should take a chance, take an opportunity to share this. You actually work with people to share some of that, like you. You do coaching now too right now.
Speaker 1:I started coaching um, aspiring artists, uh, dancers, acrobat models, um to to follow the path that I've found as um, let's say like, when you know you have that time when you're on stage and you have that time as an artist, but you're like, okay, my stage time is kind of over, but, um, you still have the skills, you still have the need to create. So, yeah, the way I found with photography is just so amazing. And now I have quite a lot of people following me on Instagram that are like, wow, I want to do that too, and that are messaging me and asking, like, how I do it, how to handle photographers, bookings, travels, all the backside of the business and marketing and all of that so organically came. Just like you know, I started helping and then I started like more like coaching and, yeah, I'm really enjoying now sharing actually all my, my tips and tricks and my knowledge.
Speaker 2:It's uh, it's interesting to see through which struggles they are going through and and and helping and it's oh, go ahead dwight well, and I I just want to say you're really downplaying, uh, the the, the fact that you bring the whole package. When it comes to marketing, you are your master and it's not one of the things that you really toot your horn about, because you are you're doing so. Your marketing is so flawless that it speaks for itself. Like you are the proof. You have everything that you put out. It's curated to make sure that you're sending the message You're showing. This is what the modeling is all about. These are the kinds of things that I can do and, for photographers, this is how you can work with me. Like it's brilliant, it's beautiful, it's timed well. It's all just perfection. People could take a class to look at how it is that you get the word out and let people know what you can do. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Because when you do your own marketing, it's your. You don't see what people see and you don't know. You don't hear often how it's perceived, right like um, so thank you. I don't hear often feedback about this.
Speaker 3:So, leticia, I'm thinking about all of the podcast guests that we've had, and you share a story that's unique in that it sounds like from the time you started, when you were a child, how everything just unfolded smoothly and beautifully. But I think that you know, if we stop there, it may be hard for our listeners to relate, because few people experience just this perfect unfolding, and so I'd love and I think our listeners would too to hear the part of it that we don't often talk about the challenges that you went through through the years with each one of those reinventions of yourself, the hard things, what they were, and then how you moved through them.
Speaker 1:Well, I will say, the first big hit I had was the one at ballet school where we were weighted every day and being told that we were fat. It's something. It's a trauma for lifetime. I think I still have it Like I now don't want to stay on a scale, like I don't want to know how much I weight because I've been weighted all my life. I wait because I've been waited all my life, and that's a long-term trauma which is, I think, never gonna go away. Um, being told that you're fat when you're 10 years old, 11 years old and and and in all honesty, skinny actually yes, you, you've never been fat have you.
Speaker 1:No, I was not fat. I was far from fat being told that. So this is one of the big struggles that I had as a kid. The second one that I had to sacrifice is being away from my family, because the Paris Opera Ballet School was about a six-hour drive away from where my family was living. So at nine years old I had to leave my family and go live alone in Paris. So this is not something every family would agree on and not every kid can handle. So it's been a big, big sacrifice to go to achieve. To be a professional ballerina was a lot of sacrifice as a kid.
Speaker 3:Was that sacrifice that you made to leave your family and live alone? Was it truly your choice or was there other influences?
Speaker 1:No, I truly had the dream of becoming a professional ballerina as a kid. For me, it was like am I really going to be in a school where I can dance all day? Becoming a professional ballerina? As a kid it was something. For me, it was like am I really going to be in a school where I can dance all day? I was like, yeah, I'm going, that's it and I'm going to be a professional ballerina from it. Yes, okay, I'm going, like it was no. But of course, I cried a lot. I missed my parents, I missed my family, I missed, missed. But yeah, there were a lot of sacrifice to to achieve the goal. Right it?
Speaker 3:was where, do you think, that determination that you were just willing to do you know pretty much whatever you needed to do to see that dream. Where did that determination come from?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 3:Are there other people in your life that are like that? Was it modeled to you?
Speaker 1:by friends or family members. I don't know where that determination came from. I just had this huge dream of becoming a professional ballerina. I guess the dream was the drive.
Speaker 3:You were unstoppable, and that's something that most of us find really, really desirable.
Speaker 1:But we made. I had a great support system from my family. They really, really supported my decision and they did everything for me to make it happen.
Speaker 3:Well, and then you probably had even though they told you you were fat every day at school. You had the support at school as well. And now we're talking about an element of community. Absolutely it doesn't matter whether it's friends or family, or whether it's even a paid practitioner. When we have people standing by us and supporting us, that is a form of community.
Speaker 1:It is, I would say, at school. They were not there to help at all the teachers or anybody. They were there to break you and check if you were really made for it. They were there to break your moral and break your mental health. They were not there to help. The support system was outside of the school.
Speaker 3:Wow, that had to be even harder because you were at school all the time.
Speaker 1:Yes, five days a week. It's a closed school. You're not even going out in the street Once you enter on Sunday evening. You don't leave until Friday afternoon. So you're not even in contact with anybody from the street for five days.
Speaker 3:You know, I've never heard of such a thing, I mean, this part of the story in and of itself is quite fascinating. It's like it almost sounds like a you know nuns in a convent or something.
Speaker 1:Pretty much it, yes Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the only thing that I can relate to that comes close is when I went through reception and basic training. There's a period where we're closed off from the outside world.
Speaker 1:No, contact at all. Well, we had at that time. Like I said, we had no cell phones, yeah, we only had like a phone box with a card. Yeah, we were 100 kids in the school and we had four phones. So you could call like for five minutes, right, and it was a line and you spoke more than five minutes and the next kid was behind you and was like, hey, it's my turn. And then you could receive letters, yeah, in packages.
Speaker 3:This was the only way the external world could enter the school. So let's move on to the next big challenge.
Speaker 1:Next big challenge is when I actually became a professional ballet dancer and I met my ex-boyfriend, which used to be an excellent ballet dancer too, and we we auditioned for a company and the director knew exactly that we were a couple when we entered the ballet company and he took us both, gave us both a contract, a one-year contract. In Europe we have this thing that you have a three-month trial period and after the three-month trial period, any party can decide to continue or not. After the three months, then you're entitled to finish your contract for a full year. So after the three months, the director took me to his office and told me that he will keep me, but he would not keep my boyfriend and that basically, I will, he will be my boyfriend, oh yes. And I was like well, that's the deal. Well, he knew exactly that we were hired as a couple and that we were a couple when he met us.
Speaker 1:So that was not the plan. And that's like that's the moment where I lost all my, all my heart into the ballet world, because at that point, all these years of training just showed that, um, it's not only about talent. The ones that dance and the ones that are in front, they dance for other reasons, because at this point everybody finished a professional ballet school, everybody is professional, everybody has the technique, everybody has the, the abilities to be on stage professionally. And if you're the one dancing in front, it means you're doing something else than just dancing and just being talented wow, so there's a form of corruption going on in that whole thing yeah, absolutely it's.
Speaker 1:When you see somebody like because in ballet you have all these grades, you know, like a bit like in the military, actually um coming back. So yeah, when you see somebody going up quickly, you know why, um, it's not just talent that's so dark.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's dark. I lost completely my. I lost my heart for ballet. I was like I'm not going to be playing those games and that's not why I learned what I've learned all those years. And it was not even crossing my mind that I would sleep with a director just to be on stage. So this was the one big turning point.
Speaker 3:So you both left the program.
Speaker 1:Excuse me.
Speaker 3:You both left the company at the same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we both left.
Speaker 3:Good for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would have been a hard choice for a lot of people to make you know, after all, that you'd worked for it. To walk away from it the season.
Speaker 1:Beginning of the season? Uh, ballet season. It starts in september. If you're not booked, if you're breaking a contract at the beginning of a season, you have to wait for season again, so you're basically jobless. If you're quitting in the middle of a season because nobody's going to hire you mid-season- Wow, that's rough. Yeah, the ballet world is not as pink as it seems.
Speaker 3:So is that when you pivoted away from ballet and started to get into the acrobatics?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we tried. With my expo, we danced a bit in Poland and then we did some ballet competitions and then we understood that it would be extremely complicated as a couple to find contracts. And yeah, we had, we got a really strange opportunity to do an audition in Paris for an American company and then it was a strange circumstances Actually, we didn't even want to do this audition. Our friends wanted to go to that audition but they had no car and we had a car like can you drive us to the audition? And then after the drive we felt like, oh, it would be good to stretch and move. And we're like, let's just do the audition and take a class. And while we did that, we actually got the job. So it was a very strange coincidence. And then they were hiring dancers.
Speaker 1:There was an audition for dancers and then after that was an audition for how they called adagio. So in ballet, adagio is when a man and a woman dance together and a duo and very slow music. It's like very lyrical, and with my ex-husband we used to do that in ballet, we used to do adagio. So when they they mentioned the adagio audition after dance audition, we were like, well, we can do that too. So we stayed and we auditioned for adagio.
Speaker 1:And then we realized when we stayed at the audition that actually they were not looking for ballet adagio, they were looking for acrobatic adagios. Because all those couples arrived and did crazy tricks which we've never seen. We were only doing the ballet lifts, you know like the basic ballet stuff. And then here we go, like there was this big guys flipping women around. We were like what is going on in here? That's not, we don't know how to do that, and um and yeah. But this woman, she was very curious about us and she was like I want to see your ballet adagio, and I really like ballet, I want to see it. And we did our ballet adagio, anyway, left the audition not expecting anything really, and two weeks later we got the call that we got the job as acrobatic adagio.
Speaker 3:So you had to learn acrobatics fast.
Speaker 1:Yes, in two weeks. In two weeks yeah, just the time to do the, the visas for usa and uh, and and hop on to learn shows.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was crazy so one minute, one minute. You don't even see it coming.
Speaker 1:In the next minute, the trajectory of your life has been altered and that's the first time in my life when I I said yes to something I didn't even know how to do, accepted the contract, not having the skills, actually Not having the. But that woman had a massive faith in us and she was like you can do it, I know you can do it. You're going to learn, you're going to be good. Just do what you're doing. And then, on the way there during the contract, you're going to learn and you're going to know. I'm like, okay, thank you for believing. And she believed in us and actually, two years later, we won international circus competition as an acrobatic duo.
Speaker 3:Amazing, okay. International circus competition with as an acrobatic duo so amazing, okay. So let's see, you said yes to something that you didn't even know about, and we actually have a podcast episode earlier right probably knows the number where the, the, our guest, talked a lot about saying yes to things without even knowing what he was going to be doing and how it opened up things in his life. So I kind of want to hear you know did that change anything for you, saying yes to something that you didn't know anything about and having it unfold the way it unfolded? Have you found yourself in the years since then saying yes to more things that you didn't know anything about? So speak to that a little bit please.
Speaker 1:Yes, first of all, she asked first time about acrobatic adagio. We're like okay. And then the year later she was like well, I have another contract for you, but then you need to be doing aerial acrobatics. We're like, okay, fine, never touched an aerial acrobatic equipment in my life. But we said yes again a year later and I learned hoop and I learned silks, and again I won international circus competition as an aerial hoop artist afterwards. And then it happened again with photography, because my first professional photo shoots I got. I got, um, I got an email on Instagram from a professional photographer, fine art photographer and I have never modeled in my life, I've never had a professional photo shoot in a studio, even even even for me as like just personal, and I just said yes that's beautiful and I and I will.
Speaker 1:I just want to go many times and all this, and all those saying yes changed my life completely. Love it. Those moments just shifted everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I can't help but think of that episode that Maddox was referencing. We actually put in the title of saying yes. It was episode number eight with Michael Alves and it's very, very similar circumstances where he was just willing to say yes with an opportunities presented themselves. And this sounds very, very similar.
Speaker 3:So, leticia, you mentioned mindset earlier and now, being much farther into your story, there is a definite pattern, and that pattern is you have a winner's mindset, you have won and you have won, and you have won and you have won, you've won in every category of every different facet that you have extended yourself in. I'd love to know, like, from your internal experience, you we could get any kind of answers, but your answer, what is, for you, that winner's mindset? What are the things that you do internally, whether it be in your head or in your heart, that keep you in that winner's mindset?
Speaker 1:Well, like I said earlier, I'm also a yoga teacher, so I practice journaling. Every morning, I have a gratitude journal and I write everything at least three things that I'm grateful for as the first thing in the morning, meaning like my alarm ring, I have my gratitude journal and I write. I don't do anything, as before, like I don't touch my. I touch my phone just to switch off the alarm. Um, I put the light on and I write what I'm grateful as I wake up. And also I use mantras. I'm not sure if you know what they are, but it's like I repeated a sentence that you repeat multiple times and it becomes a meditative thing and I change them according to my state of mind and what I'm into my life at the moment. But one is I am happy, I am healthy, it's my like every day.
Speaker 3:Yes, please share a couple more of your mantras so people really have an understanding.
Speaker 1:And when I had my hip surgery, I think my mantra helped me so much for my healing. So it was I am happy, I am healthy, I am healing. I am happy, I am healthy, I am healing. And I repeated that a hundred times a day, like just sometimes out loud, sometimes just quietly, and I used to write it too. And, yeah, I always come back to that mantra.
Speaker 2:For me it's like a I can see how your gratitude practice translates into the way that you bring others along as well. I'm thinking about the works that you publish. You're very intentional about making sure that you send the business to a printer of your choosing. You send the business to a printer of your choosing and you know, it's kind of like a whole AJ Jacobs experience. You know, thanks a thousand. He wrote a book about all of the people that were responsible for bringing him his cup of coffee. But I can see how you're very conscious about all of the supply chains involved in producing one of these books.
Speaker 1:Yes, very, I print locally. My printer is like 10 minutes away from my house. I would not go and print in China or anything like that. No, I like to have the connection with the people who I create with. It's very, very important. I like to have the connection with the people who I create with. It's very, very important. During the lockdown, they had this weird thing in the photography world where they did online photo shoots and it was a way for models to still shoot with photographers and vice versa and still stay creative. But I I refused. I said I need to be in person in the room with the person. I cannot be creating through screen, it's just. I need the connection, uh, the physical connection with the person to be creating.
Speaker 3:And yeah, I would love to have you talk a little bit more about. I mean, you obviously have experienced a great deal of success and you sound quite fulfilled in all that you do. It's demonstrated in your gratitude and your mantras. Talk a little bit more about how community has played a role in your journey oh, my god, community is for me, like so, so important, like my instagram.
Speaker 1:I'm now at 103 000 followers. Uh, since 2018, I've opened it and I welcome every follower I get every day personally personally from day one.
Speaker 1:I mean maybe some days I have skipped some because I was busy or something, or there were too many in one day and I didn't manage, but I do my best. I welcome personally, not a bot, Because actually this action you cannot automatize. I checked Instagram. Don't allow you to automatize this action, so you will get a thanks for following me message if you're following me and this thanks for following me message. Some people just read it and do nothing. Some people just double tap and put a heart on it and some people answer and then a massive conversation starts.
Speaker 3:So it's more than just following. It's connecting right.
Speaker 1:So I try to connect with every single person that follows me. I, I do the first step and then I see what happens. But it's, it's showing like I mean the my. I don't have hate messages, I don't get any. You know, my community is so supportive of my work. The comments, the likes, the shares, everybody's just like so genuine and so nice. Um, and then I have okay, this is my followers Instagram, but I have also like a more private community on Patreon where my fans are supporting me to see more exclusive content and more videos and more photos. And this community is even stronger, like I have some fans since six years there and they are like they become my friends.
Speaker 3:What about local community away from social media?
Speaker 1:I don't have that because I travel so much, I'm everywhere and for me it's very hard to actually connect with people locally, besides my print shop, which is really important, besides my print shop, which is really important. But, um, yeah, I don't have a local community like physical community. Um, all my communities are online, but they're really strong. I feel more connected to some of my community members than with my family or friends, like they know more about me, they know me better, they know yeah you know, if you travel that much, it's what you have to work with, do you?
Speaker 3:do you think about a time when you might travel less and and be able to have a local community? Does that appeal?
Speaker 1:uh, I don't know. Like all my life I've been traveling. Since, yeah, since I was 16 years old. I've been on tours for shows, tour for and my, my friends, and my life is like worldwide, I am like I belong to the world. I don't feel like I belong to my, to my city, to my, even to my village. I don't know I I belong to my city, even to my village. I don't know. I have a bigger picture about community than just and I don't think I could find that many people right where I live that I could connect really with like I do with all the people that I connect with online.
Speaker 3:That's fascinating. I mean, I experienced some of that during the pandemic, when I was locked in my house for two years by myself, when we had not been together yet, and so I experienced some of that. I had most of my community, my relationships and my social activity were over Zoom with people far away, many of them that I'd never met in person, and it sustained me in a beautiful way. I think I would have committed Harry Carey if I hadn't had those people that I could connect with. So I've had a glimmer of that, and so I kind of understand that.
Speaker 1:Like I have friends all over the world. I can like just message someone and then go take a flight and I have so many people all over the world that I can meet with and connect with.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. When you go to faraway places, do you meet them in real life sometimes?
Speaker 1:I do. Yeah, I've met some of my community members.
Speaker 3:So you do have in real life community, it's just not local.
Speaker 1:It's not local right, but I do meet some people in person.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:While I travel.
Speaker 3:That's beautiful.
Speaker 2:I travel. That's beautiful. Well, I know that if you ever find yourself around Dallas, the connections and community guys would love to spend some time with you.
Speaker 1:I've been in Dallas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be amazing. You know, I want to know where all your energy comes from, because if you can put it in a bottle, I'll buy it.
Speaker 1:My energy. You are what you eat. That's one of my one of my mantra and one of my mottos. I have two mottos.
Speaker 3:One is you are what you eat and the other one is you are what you think, and yeah, true, truer words have never been spoken.
Speaker 1:Yes, your energy comes from what you eat. It's like a car you know if you put bad gas, that's not gonna go that far. If you put the wrong gas, it may go anywhere. So, um, the body is the same. It's a machine. You have to maintain it Like you maintain your car. You have to bring it to service. You have to give it good food and good thoughts, and that's where you come from.
Speaker 3:That's a great metaphor. Great metaphor. Yes, most of us care for our cars better than we care for ourselves. Great metaphor, great metaphor. Yes, most of us care for our cars better than we care for ourselves.
Speaker 2:Most of us care for our stuff better than we care for ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, it's a scary thing, because what you put in is what you know.
Speaker 3:Shit in, shit out, as the saying goes.
Speaker 1:Yes, better to die. So the quality of your food. When do you eat your food? How do you eat your food?
Speaker 3:All of that. It's part of the energy. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, mr Dwight, have you got the big question ready for?
Speaker 2:leticia. Well, I have a couple um. First I I want to make sure that this has been a meaningful exchange for you, and I don't want to exit this conversation without making sure that you have an opportunity to express everything that's on your heart, everything that's on your mind, and I know we covered a lot of ground, but is there anything that you would like to share with someone that might be listening?
Speaker 1:Follow your heart and follow your dreams, because life is short, um.
Speaker 1:You don't know if you have tomorrow, so don't wait for taking action oh and I know, I know someone needs to hear that a lot of someone's probably need to hear that, not I sometimes need to hear that, yes, we don't have tomorrow until it's here I I say that because I've been recently in a really, really, really traumatic experience where I showed up at the photo shoot with a photographer that I have shot already for four or five years. We knew each other very, very well and when I arrived at the photo shoot he was dead.
Speaker 3:So, sorry.
Speaker 1:It's not just light words, it's from recent experiences and it makes you rethink life when you're into this situation. He was a young man. Yeah, his wife was waiting for him for dinner.
Speaker 3:I can feel your, I can see and feel your feelings right now the loss of him.
Speaker 1:He didn't make it that day, so yeah, wow, wow.
Speaker 2:That is heavy, heavy to hear and heavy to feel, heavy, heavy to hear and heavy to feel. But I would like to steer things toward another way of thinking. So we never know who it is that might be listening, and a lens provides a platform where you could speak a wish into being, and the big question that I'd like you to consider is what is one thing that would make it so that it would open doors for you and make it so that, if there's any kind of a barrier, any kind of obstacle, if you had a wish that could be granted, what would that be? What would that look like?
Speaker 1:A wish to be granted. Wow, big question. Um, I wish for peace in the world. I I know it sounds very cliche, but I think it's needed.
Speaker 3:That would change all of our experiences, wouldn't it?
Speaker 2:It would, and I love the way that you took time to consider your answer to that question and I think the place that you went speaks to how you have done a lot to work on yourself, right like I, knowing all the things that you've accomplished and the way that you move about in the world. You're sharing all all that you have to give. You're pulling others along the way that you're intentional about using your local print shop to deliver unseen and the prior publications.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they've all been printed at the same print shop.
Speaker 2:Amazing.
Speaker 3:I mean your whole story and and now your, your wish for work for peace. It's very much an indicator of how important our own personal growth is, not only in our own life, but then in the lives of those that we touch. When we don't do our own personal work, it would be short-sighted to think that that only affects you, the individual, when you don't do the work that you need to do. But when you don't do the work you need to do, it affects every person you touch and every person that that person touches. The way we reach that world peace is by all doing our work, our own personal work. It starts in here. Peace starts in here and then moves out here.
Speaker 1:Yes, because if you don't have peace in yourself, you can't spread it Right.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's why that personal growth work is so important. Leticia, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much. Feel so honored that you were willing to come and share your story with us and our audience.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me.