Music, Therapy, and Finding Your Voice

In this episode, I talk with Daniel French, one of the founding members of Las Cafeteras, for a conversation that moves beyond music and into meaning.

We explore the power of music as healing, the overlap between creativity and therapy, and how Daniel’s work has evolved over time from performing on stages to helping others find their own voice, purpose, and sense of connection.

This is a thoughtful, grounded conversation about art, service, and what it means to use your gifts in ways that truly impact others.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

All right, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Finding Your Voice. Once again, I am Jason Crosco. Really, really happy to be here with you today, and I really want to thank all of you. The person I have speaking today is not only somebody that is very inspirational to me for a lot of different reasons, and you'll find out the reason why, but we are also related. I want to say just briefly, I'll keep it short, but I want to say how many years ago was it? Like 12, probably 12 years, 15 years. About that much. Yeah. Probably about 12 or 15 years ago, we were able to meet at my aunt's house when we were starting to all get together to talk about the family tree. I'm on the Carrasco side of our family, and Daniel was on the Galindo side of the family. Not to get confused with Daniel French, but yeah, so, anyways, makes me extra excited to be here and to be able to do this interview. So, once again, thank you, Daniel, for being here. Daniel does a lot of amazing work. He was co-founder. Some of you probably have heard of the band Las Cafeteras. He was a co-founder for them. Now he's doing his own musical work. He's been doing that probably for about the last four years, I believe, going solo. He does storytelling, he's a coach, he's a musician, he does all sorts of different workshops. I'm sure that we're gonna hear about. And he does a lot of things for his own personal growth as well. So welcome, Daniel.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Hey Cus, what's going on?

SPEAKER_03 1:32

Yes, very happy to very happy to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

It's kind of standard practice for me now to introduce myself in in Mohawk. Is that alright?

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Oh, court, please, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

You know, reconnecting with my tribe on my dad's side, my mohawk side, learning our language, and have a long way to go, but it's it's standard for us to introduce ourselves in language, and so I want to take the opportunity to do that and and practice it and bring it to the space. So Gwegwe, uh Daniel French, you and Yats, Ganyat Gahak, and they will go and jo the ga na wagani de wagenu danu Los Angeles Gitardun. My name is Daniel French, I'm Mohawk from a place called Ganawage on my dad's side. I'm super happy to be here with y'all today. I'm also uh Chicano, I'm also Italian. I'm a bit of a remix, remix, and I'm so happy to speak, speak in that language because it's it's a beautiful thing. Because you and I both understand each other in that language. I think it's important no matter where we are, no matter that we speak our languages, that we speak the languages that we know, that we learn the languages of the places that we come from. Even if we live here in this beautiful city of LA, you know, I don't speak Gabrielino Tongueva, I don't speak the the language of the native people here, but I I want to speak my language where I can. So thanks for letting me do that. And super happy to be here with you today. Now, if you could just give me that question one more time and I'll recalibrate.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Yeah, no, and thank you. I just want to thank you so much for introducing yourself and in your native tongue. You know, I agree that that's so important. And and to me, you know, you representing and choosing to keep that piece of your culture and to carry that piece of your culture with you is amazing. So thank you for doing that. And to go back to the first question, it was kind of going back to the beginning. What was the moment or maybe the experience that made you realize that music was gonna be such a big part of your life story?

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Wow, okay. I think the beginning. So this memory comes from my mom. I was two and a half years old, two years old in Germany, in France. My dad is in the army. Me and my mom are living with my dad. My dad is on leave, right? So leave is like you get you get days off. And we're in in France watching a band called The Gypsy Kings.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

Yes, the Gypsy Kings. Amazing band.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

And they're they're doing their bambole, you know, they're doing their thing. My parents are, you know, probably sipping their wine, enjoying the music, and while they're they're all in the vibe, I snuck off, I ran away in this big auditorium, and I I like sped off looking for the front of the stage, and I've been getting lost in the music ever since. Ever since I was a little kid, I've just couldn't help but get closer to where the sound was coming from. And so today I find that I can't help but listen to sounds. It's like sound itself, like the birds chirping in the morning outside my window, the sound of a metal gate. If I like you walk by a gate and you tap the little metal and it goes, zoom. You know, I I'm obsessed with sounds, and and then you put sounds together on purpose, and then you start making this thing called music, and then it just does something to my spirit, like like it makes my head nod, and wow, you get a little rhythm, and then my body is wiggling, you know, and then there's a tune, and then I start humming along, and it's just become this thing that I'm it's like me, like it's not even a separate thing. Like music is just another way of expressing this beautiful gift of being alive.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

When you first started yourself, right, was it with was it with singing by yourself? Did you did you pick up an instrument at an early age? What what first kind of was it a combination of things?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Right. So, okay, so I told you about when I was a little baby. Fast forward, I'm in middle school, I'm in sixth grade. My mom is watching the kids at church, and she had to be at church really early. And I'm in the youth room on this old 70s corduroy couch, and I look at the a pair of bongos that are in the youth rooms. I mean, it's just me. It's so early, no one's even around yet. And I just walk up to this thing and I just start going, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just pounding away, banging away on these drums, like a Manu Chow. Suddenly, the door opens, and this guy is like, Hey, have you seen uh Randy? And I'm like, or have you seen Pastor So-and-so? And I'm like, No. And I, bro, I swear I was so worried because it was like I was playing God's drums without permission.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna get it now. They caught me, you know? And he just looked at me and he's like, Oh, this looks weird. Okay, and he closed the door and he left. And I went back to banging away. So people start to come in. It's now like time for the youth service to start. They do the youth service, the youth band plays, and at the end, after the church service, the pastor, the same guy who had walked in on me, he says, Hey man, remember, I'm in sixth grade, bro. So I'm in sixth grade, and this guy tells me, Hey, um, do you know any percussionists? Because we're looking for percussionists for the youth band. And I looked at him like, why would I know a percussionist, bro? I'm in sixth grade. Like, I I played in I play Nintendo in my free time. What are you talking about? And so I said, No, I don't, I don't know, sorry, I don't know any percussionists. And he said, Well, what about you? He said, I you were you were playing? I said, I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. And he said, Well, how about you keep not knowing what you're doing with us?

SPEAKER_03 7:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

He invited me to the rehearsal. I I just sat in, I was just watching faces to see like, do they make any like scrunchy, like, oh, he he sucks faces? And you know, not too bad. I kept playing, and they they said, Yeah, you're in the band if you want. And my first gig was the youth church band gig playing bongos. And from there, I I then this this is really how I learned how to play music. I was in band for a year, uh for two years. I played flute, I played clarinet. But really, I didn't like honestly, I didn't like the overly structured part of band. I started picking up guitar. We went out of high school, I picked up guitar and I was watching people. Hey, what chord is that? Oh, that's a C chord. Okay, and I write it down. Okay, a C chord looks like this, a G chord looks like that. And then I would I would, you know, just learn songs, learn how do you play Under the Bridge, how do you play Lenny Kravitz? I mean, I just started like learning by watching, and so my journey in music has been very much learning by doing, learning by asking questions. I have had very little professional training. Yeah, so that's been my journey. Just like messing it up. Are we cussing on this podcast, by the way?

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Are we doing cussing for you're how however you want to be is perfect, so yeah. However, however you choose to express yourself, 100% good.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Just remember you said that later.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

Talk about the community you grew up in and maybe how that also shaped your how you chose to play the instruments you played. I mean, you said that you went to the church and you you were in band a little bit. Were there any certain artists in the community, or were there also, you know, different experiences that kind of shaped the way that you started to play and express yourself?

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Totally. I was so lucky that at the church I went to, there were there were creative people who were to again. I was like 16, 17. I thought these people were old. They were like in their mid-30s. Not old, but they were old to me.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

And they were creative. I had an amazing visual artist, professional visual artist in that group. I had an MC, a hip-hop artist in the group, and so he was the first guy, Michael Parham was his name, and he was the first guy to take me to an open mic night. It was it was a place called a mic and dim lights in the arts colony in Pomona. And I mean, I walked into this spot, I think it was a Tuesday night, and it was a Thursday night, pulled up. I mean, smoke is billowing out of this spot, you know, people are smoking weed, which is fine. I grew up around weed smoke, so you know I think I had a contact time my whole life. And people are saying all these poems, man. I never heard people use words like this. Like they're sharing um poems about sex, they're sharing poems about politics and the you know, the government and war, they're sharing politics about silly human things. And I've started to fall in love with words, yeah. So so now I've got this this church band thing. Now I'm falling in love with spoken word. And I grew up listening to Tupac, right? I was listening to Biggie, I was listening to KRS1, to Ahmad, and you know, all these like LA gangster rap. And now spoken word became like, oh, like I can play with words too. Right before you're even a rapper, you can just play with the words with no time, with whatever structure you want. So then I started I practice. I you I would always play with him, like we would always have word games that we would play, and that led to me going into college now. I'm writing spoken word poetry, I'm I'm moving from just like writing words to like writing rhymes, and and I started freestyling. So now I'm like wrapping off the top of the dome, just making up stuff.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

And now I'm performing in college. I even went back to the place that I first that spoken word spot in Pomona and sharing my own poems, and and I'm realizing, wow, I can move a room with words. I can I can compel, I can take people on a journey. Like, wow, they're right there with me in this sad time and this happy time. They're they're they're just like when you're watching a movie and you see the lead character and the music is is going and they're about to like vanquish this dragon or this big villain. Like you're with them in the movie, and I could do that through words.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

So so that became this next step. I was surrounded by artists in in high school and then in college, and I connected with the open mic uh event that we would do uh at Azusa Pacific University and Citrus College, so right there in what I call West Cochina, Glandora. And that whole event, it was called Revolution 626, and the idea was community through art, right? This revolutionary idea of uniting us through storytelling and in all the different forms. So fast forward from there, a couple years, I go on some trips, we could talk about that if we want, and I meet some people playing this kind of music at a garden in South Central LA, and it's going and it's this cool rhythm I never heard before, and they're playing son Harocho music. It's music from Veracruz, Mexico, it's Afro-Indigenous Mexican music, and La Bamba comes from there. The song that I heard growing up from Mariachi's is their song, and that music captivates me. And I meet a crew. The long story made short is I meet a crew of friends, we're all in love with this music, and we find some friends to teach us. It grows into a band out of a community center. We start a band, and that band takes me and my bandmates around the world a few times back for the next decade. My whole 30s was on the road telling stories through music with a band and trying to compel people to remember what it feels like to be human, to to to to move and shake and laugh and find their power again, find their agency to to stand up and be who they're supposed to be. So that's that's a you know, you you asked for the short story. I gave you a long story.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

No, but I I love how you put into your words and how you describe the power of music and the power of words, and what impact that can have on other people and what it can do for other people, not just for the person that is the artist, right? That's creating, that's the creator of this, what it brings to that audience, to those people that are listening, what I'm hearing can all connect and can all be related and can all be human beings together.

SPEAKER_04 14:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:32

Um, and that's that's a beautiful thing, right? Instead of our differences, we're all here as as one people, we're all here in this rhythm together. We're all feeling these emotions together. One of the things sometimes about society right now is is this individualism. And I think it's great, right? We all want to be individuals and we want to be proud of that, we want to honor that. But I think sometimes that shared sense of us all being connected sometimes is lessening a little bit, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah. You know, every every man is an island unto himself until the lights go out.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Until the power stops working, until the grocery store starts running out of food. When a tidal wave or a big earthquake comes, all of a sudden, hmm. It's kind of hard to stand on your own two feet, just you as an island. So we often don't realize in the US how much our ideas about ourselves are built on the resources that we have available to us. I don't need that person. I don't need nobody. Okay, you don't need nobody until you twist your ankle and you still gotta get to work today, right? Or until you slip on a banana peel. Now all of a sudden you need help. Who are you gonna call upon when you need help? Are you already in relationship with people? You know? And I think that's why I think music is so important to your point, because it reminds us of that shared, like, oh wow, this feels so good, man. When you feel uh when your song is just like you're out, like wherever you are, you're at a club, you're at the bar, you're at a park, you're at a cookout, and you hear your song, right? You're at a ceremony, wherever it is, you hear your song, woo, some just wakes up inside you. And if other people have that, if that's their song, man, all of a sudden you're like family now. For that three minutes, y'all are like from the same exact block all of a sudden. And I love that music can do that. I've seen it, dude. I traveled to New Zealand, seen playing music with the Maoris, uh playing music with people from Taiwan, people who are in Tennessee, Michigan, uh, people who are, you know, more right wing leaning, people who are more left wing leaning. And I've seen people everywhere in between come together because the beat, the beat just hits.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

You got the beat, let's go. I don't care what you say, let's go.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

And and that's ancestral. Like before music was recorded, music served a social function, a ceremonial function. That's why you see in those in those war movies, people are banging drums.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

And they're blowing horns. Because that's it's communicates, it's power. That's why the Spaniards and other European uh colonizers uh took the drums away from the Africans that they enslaved. That's why they that's why the US and Canada made it illegal for Native Americans to practice their songs and ceremony until very recently. Yeah, because they know there's power in music. They know that you stop believing all the lies about yourself and about other people when you have a shared experience. That's why church is so powerful and ceremony is so powerful and big concerts, because it make it puts us in a place where we're all in this together. Whether you're singing to Beyoncé or, you know, an old song where in that's calling a spirit or calling out your spirit, music has power. It's medicine. And if we if we can separate it from like money, like the business of music is another thing, right? But at its essence, it's medicine. And for me, that's what it is. It's it's a way for me to connect with people. I don't even have to speak the same language as you. We both speak music.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

Absolutely. Yeah I'm I'm kind of curious. I mean, obviously, you know, you've talked about your your role as a musician. I don't want to say your role as a musician, you still are a musician, right? I'm sure you always will be an uh musician, but this has been something that's continued to evolve for you. Like you said, first there was the spoken word, there was the music, and it seems like now there's been a newer evolution of kind of what you're doing. You're doing, it seems like you the workshops on storytelling. I believe you're also doing some social impact leader. Can you talk about how that evolvement has been for you? And and what No, let's let's just do that first. I don't wanna I don't wanna put too much in there. How how has that been evolving for you with the workshops and the storytelling?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Sure. I think today I see everything that I do as storytelling. In therapy, one of the things we talk about is what is the story that Daniel has about himself? What is the story that Daniel has about this other person? In music, I'm trying to tell stories that move people, that that where people can see themselves in the story, in the song, and find something that uplifts them or makes them feel something, even if it's dark, but that they feel it. I found that when you're performing, like as a performer, if I'm just doing a concert, I can entertain. And entertain is its own special thing. It's beautiful. You make people smile, you make them have a good time, help them lighten their whatever they were thinking about, they're not thinking about that. They're just like, oh wow, cool, fun. Oh yeah. You're getting them to engage with you and participate in certain ways, clap or whatever. Or you get the grandma to come out of the crowd and everyone's like smiling because look at like this grandma is dancing now. A step further is is that I I think I've always been looking for is how can I move this from just entertaining you, like I'm an entertainer to entertain you to like light the lighten the load, but also how can I make this a space where we're all participating more? Where where you have where you sing along, maybe you maybe now you're dancing, maybe, maybe we'll get somebody to stand up on the stage with me, right? I would always uh during Las Cavetera shows, if I could, if there wasn't some legal requirement not to, I would always try to bring people up to dance La Bamba with us, however they dance it, because I want people to see that this stage, there's nothing special about the people up here on the stage. It's just it is elevated so you can see what's happening, but that doesn't mean that there's anything more special about those people, except that they're sharing from their heart, and you should come up here and share it from your heart. I started doing workshops with my band Las Cafeteras, and sort of my contribution to that was creating spaces for creative writing, for people to dialogue, to hear each other, to tell their story. And now it's 2026, I'm really focused on that because it on creating experience I'm really focused on creating experiences for people to uh tell their story, to write their story, to s to witness their story and see it as something that is pliable. Okay, you had this upbringing, you had this stuff that you went through. Now You can be a victim or you can be a victor. You can be a victim or you can be a survivor. There's so many labels that you could put on that experience. And that is pliable. You can go back to your past even and edit maybe not what happened, but how you see what happened, how you interpret what happened. And that can make all the difference. There's a famous quote that says, Even impossible says I'm possible.

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Nice. I love that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

And so I create workshops where people get to know each other, they build community, and they get to witness themselves. And then if I'm when I'm effective, that people can see that their future and their past is all pliable. It's all in the same way you can cross a line out and write a different one. You can say, Okay, I haven't done this thing yet, my goal. I haven't climbed this mountain, but I could. Or I haven't climbed it yet. Right? The the power of words, the story we tell ourselves kind of sets in motion our brain chemistry and and the way that our brain works, like from a scientific level. If you say you can, then you can. And if you tell yourself you cannot, that's that also shows itself in the ways that you act in life. So that's why I have like storytelling workshops, uh workshops based on ancestry. How do you find the story of your past like before you? Because that also shapes you.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

Yeah, genealogy.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Your genealogy, yeah, and even like creativity workshops, just spaces for people to play and dabble and sort of tap into their inner child through art. Because at the end of the day, we're all in this moment. We're we're facing right now, the you know, right now the US government is kidnapping people, they're throwing people citizens and non-citizens alike, human beings. The majority of them don't even have a criminal record. The ICE is throwing people in the back of vans, they're brutalizing people, they're denying people their basic human rights, let alone their constitutional rights. This is an epidemic. Uh this is a fascist takeover. And it's I'm not I'm just stating facts. I'm I'm not, it's not even like my perspective on it. I think my perspective is that that is wrong. My perspective is that I am a human just like those people are human. Even the agents themselves are humans. I think that they're just forgetting their humanity. They they can still come back around and remember that and treat people like they should be treated, like they want to be treated.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Why did I mention that? Because it's even more important for us to examine the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves, the story that we tell ourselves about how this country was founded, the story that we tell ourselves about others. Oh, you know, black people, Asian people, Mexicans, natives, white people. Everyone's got a perspective about somebody else. Uh those the homeless people. Pick pick another group. Pick any group. If that if you don't identify with that group, then you can make a story up about anybody who looks like that.

SPEAKER_04 25:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Now, one, you're losing out because man, there's so many cool people out there. They make good food, they got good music. You're you're not gonna get invited to all the cool parties, so that's your bet. Second, we're all human, dude. Like we're all the same species. Yes. Like, like when the when the the the bomb drops, when the when the asteroid falls, when the tidal wave comes, the earthquake hits, whatever the calamity is, you know who it's not gonna care which which one of those groups you're in.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

And so I think go ahead. No, no. So that's why storytelling is so important to me because it's an opportunity for us to get creative and artful about how we face the realities we face, how to accept it, to claim our experience, like, okay, I live this. Even man, yesterday I made some mistakes. Okay, I made some mistakes. I don't like how I was yesterday, but today's a new day, and I want to change that story. I want to write a new one, and I'm gonna go for it, right? Whether that means changing my own, of course, my own behavior and how what at what kind of leader am I gonna be in this moment? What is what is what is this present moment and what is the future that's coming our way calling me to be, calling you to be? What kind of leader am I being called forth to become or to express in this moment? And I think that's where we get into the realm of like purp what's my purpose here? What's my what what's my choice? I mean, whether you believe in a God or a creator or a higher power or not, it's still up to you what you do with this limited time you have in this body. And do you want it story to be lame and boring and safe all the time? Like make it interesting.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

I don't I don't know what count. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't know if if you realize also what you're doing, but I am hearing you pull from so many different interventions from different modalities of therapy with the things that you're doing. I'm hearing interventions from narrative therapy, I'm hearing interventions from solution focused therapy, I'm hearing interventions from systems theory, and I'm also hearing interventions from cognitive behavioral therapy. Do you realize that you're you're using interventions from these different modalities of therapy?

SPEAKER_01 27:40

It's it's all look, I'm you're the professional, right? You're the professional therapist, all right? But I I I think I'm I'm just pulling from my pursuit of trying to show up each day to be the kind of human that I want to be and to do a little bit better than I did the day before. And that's caused me to look at those things that we just mentioned. And honestly, narrative therapy, dude. I worked with a psychology professor in Chicago area, and he was bringing me out to do some workshops and a concert at his at his university. And and after I did the workshop, he's like, Man, you're pulling so much from narrative therapy. And I was like, What's narrative therapy?

SPEAKER_03 28:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

And now I looked it up a little bit. I'm like, oh wow, that's oh me and narrative therapy, we get along real nice.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Yeah, you do. You get along very nice. So I think you already mentioned this as well, too. You talked about recently, I believe, going to like Glendora to do some workshops. But where have you been doing, you know, these these workshops that you have been doing? Has it been at mainly colleges? Have you been what types of populations have you been working with? What's what what other communities?

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Sure. Yeah. So I'll do I'll do these workshops with staff members at universities, like as a professional development at high schools, middle schools, so a lot with students and and people who are educators. I've done it at nonprofit organizations. Again, same thing, right? The nonprofit is trying to change the story of one issue to another.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

So working in the native community in California around how do we change the narrative around natives in California so that we can win, so that we can win our efforts to change policy. I've done this with with other artists and helping folks play with a story. So yeah, that's that's kind of who I've worked with. I've done it a little bit with small business folks, and I'm definitely hoping to work more in like the corporate field a little bit more. I see it as leadership development, and everyone's a leader. I mean, you all have we all have somebody who sees what we're doing and they follow suit. Whether it's a little sister, little brother, family member, a neighbor, or like if you just if you throw trash out your car, you know what that tells everyone around you?

unknown 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

I guess we just throw trash out the window. You would throw a rock. They have this whole theory called broken window theory. You break a window in a neighborhood, very soon after, other people are gonna break windows and other bad things will will gather because the broken window tells everybody who walks by that this is uncared for, unattended to, and whatever you want. No rules here.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

So so that's why certain neighborhoods look nicer because they avoid that stuff, they they put invest money and resources. And where I live in South Central LA, you know, we have to fight for that stuff, man. I I've I work with my neighbors, we have a block club to get our lights repaired, and we have to like we're creating, we just did a petition to get speed bumps on our block. But it's all storytelling. It's like, okay, the story is that our neighborhood is not invested in, but the story that we're writing together is neighbors are coming together, and we're pulling our power to make a new story where our where our street is invested in, where we do get the things that that we want. Yeah. My neighbor, she says, creamos lo que queremos. We create what we want. I think it's the most poetic statement of everything from the personal story, your personal mindset, to a collective mindset. We create what we want. Or some therapists, I I met a therapist who said, You get what you put up with.

unknown 31:28

Ha ha!

SPEAKER_01 31:29

And that one that one cut deep. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Do they, when you're at these workshops, do they read these some of these stories out loud? Or do they Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Wow. Yeah, so I'll I'll have people write their stories. Though there's a lot of dialogue, so you build trust in the room, uh sharing parts about yourself. It might be asking a simple question like what's a food that reminds you of home.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

So just talking about stuff you know, but that you're an expert in. You're an expert in your own story, and then they'll write, they'll do creative writing, we'll do a process of editing, and then I get people up on their feet sharing their stories with each other in a circle, and then I add music. So it starts to move, even just from like I I'm just saying my story. I have people do it in different tones, do it in different volumes, I have them move around the room. So it the text becomes not like I read this, I wrote this thing and I read it once. It's like I went from whispering this to yelling it, like shouting at the loudest sound my throat can make.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

Powerful.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Declaring. And and I met people afterwards who said, I never said that before. I had people declare that they're they came out to the room. You know, I'm gay, or uh nobody expects a woman to do this, and I'm gonna be the first woman doctor in my family, or I'm gonna be like people just declaring very deep things that moves the energy. Now it's not just on a page, it's in your body.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

And my hope is that we can take, take, uh like use the page, use writing as a way to get out of our head, onto the page, and then get off of the page back into our body, so then we can do the steps, do the next step that will get us closer to that reality that we want. That view. Like you want to run a marathon tomorrow, maybe not, maybe not tomorrow. Maybe you could just like buy some running shoes tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Like maybe walk a block the day after that. That's a great, you know, like the think of just worry about the next step, dude. Because if you look at the whole damn mountain, you're gonna be like, what what the fuck? How am I supposed to climb the mountain? But just worry about the next step.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

I I I mean, I feel the need honestly to say thank you because you're creating a very powerful space for people to create great change for themselves and great change for others. Because when these when certain people get vulnerable and take these risks, it'll help other people get vulnerable and take the risks. It's kind of you know a chain reaction that starts. It's one of the power I think of doing things in the group. But I I definitely feel the need to say thank you for creating the space that you are. I mean, I'm I'm blown away. I think it's I think it's extremely powerful.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Wow, cuz thank you, man. That means so much coming from you, man. You do such important work.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

I I'm sure that you've heard so many stories, right? And there's so many different things that you've heard, but I have to ask the question like of all the stories that you've heard, I'm not gonna say the most, right? Or the one that's impacted you the most, or the one that left the biggest imprint, because again, I'm sure there's so many stories that would impact you at various degrees in different ways. But what's maybe something like at the last workshop you did, right? That maybe you heard or that you remember that just kind of really touched you on a personal level? Or maybe it was a while back. I don't know, but something that maybe kind of let me think on that for a second.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Okay, the first one that comes to mind I wrote a song with my band Las Cafeteras called If I Was President. And one of the things I would do is I would go around during the song, we kind of surprise people. Like they thought we're just doing a performance and you're just watching us. And then we would stop and I would walk around with the microphone and I would ask people, What would you do if you were president?

SPEAKER_02 35:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

And now if you've ever been to a concert, you know, the last thing that's gonna happen is that someone's gonna bring the mic up to you and ask you to say something.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

So we're in Washington State doing a kid's show in the afternoon, and I asked this kid, What would you do if you were president? And I could not believe his answer. I said, I said, hi, uh, hey, what's your name? And he said, My name is Dexter. And I said, All right, Dexter, tell us, what would you do if you were president?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

And he said, Oh, if I was president, I'd bring back the dinosaurs. Right?

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Yeah. If I was president, I would bring back the dinosaurs. Like, that was the most like surreal, imaginative answer. He wasn't like, oh, I like get more video games. Like, he was just thinking so big and out of the box, yeah, that he forever inspires me to just think like so much bigger.

SPEAKER_03 36:15

Like, think big. Think big.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

Big, dude.

SPEAKER_03 36:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Right. That's one. And then the other is a student, I won't say her name, but uh, Arab student that I worked with told me that, like a student m born in the Middle East told me that, you know, it was she hadn't even told her fa some of her family what let me let me try to figure out how to say this. So one of the students I worked with told me that it was a big deal for her to be in college. And as an Arab woman, coming from where she was coming from, it was like looked down upon that she was doing what she was doing. And by the end of our session, she went from kind of whispering her story to shouting it at the top of her lungs. Yeah, I'm gonna be a doctor, I'm gonna be the first woman doctor in my family. And knowing from what she had shared earlier about her experience, this was a declaration. It felt like my my hair was standing up because I felt the power with which she declared. It was like she like reached out and grabbed the apple and ate it. Like she was already in that future, yeah, and like she made it real by claiming it in front of us.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

That's that one just blew me away, and and it made me realize how few opportunities we have in our social settings, in our formal school settings, to really one, be loud, especially as people of color, to be loud without being told not to or getting in trouble, and then to declare who we're going to be, who who we want to be, or what we want to do without people making fun of us. Because you know, coming from a big Latino family, right? Like, oh, oh, you can think you're gonna be be a doctor. Uh uh, yeah, right. Like, you can't even get out of bed on top. Like, right, your families kind of can be there to pull you down in a way. Like, yeah, I I call it bring you down to earth, but sometimes it goes too far and it can be like hard to come up out of that mud.

SPEAKER_04 38:24

Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

And not just your family, but life. Life can just you can go through stuff, man. And and and you get enough mud on your boots, and you start to walk slower, and you start to just be less inspired, and you know, that stuff adds up after a while. You're just carrying all this mud. I was impressed by how much this woman latched on to the opportunity. She was hungry to declare this, and that's what I think the world needs times a thousand. Like, uh, this is my offering. Like, this is me being a weird like artist, educator, trying to create spaces where people can break through and get creative and play, change their story. But we need every kind of person to do their version of that thing. Like, if you're a mathematician, like create spaces where people can like do math that matters, or if you're like a fashion designer, like make something beautiful, like make something that matters. Like, we all have a purpose here, and we all have an opportunity to influence the world around us. You don't have to be a public speaker, you could be the most behind-the-scenes nerdy introvert, and you still have someone around you that you can influence by your leadership, by your exam, by being kind. We need people to be kind more than ever. Not nice, but kind.

SPEAKER_03 39:44

Why do you, why do you what's the difference for because you differentiate nice and kind?

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Because nice is like, oh, I don't want to tell them they got some, you know, got a booger hanging from their nose. Yeah, right. But kind is, hey man, I I see you're about to go on camera. Uh you got a little booger on your nose. Right? Nice is, oh, I wave at the neighbors. Kind is, hey, I saw the ambulance come by. Are you all right? You need anything? And so and and I think about it like this with the way the world is right now, we have a lot to rise up to. The times are calling us to rise. And not everybody's ready yet. So some of us, man, the biggest step is just to like get outside and get some sunshine and take a walk and do one good thing for ourselves, right? And that's part of a path of becoming a uh a growing into a mature person where you can then contribute to other people. There's a spectrum of growth, right? If you got anxiety, right? Like I deal with a lot with anxiety, man. Sometimes, man, you can't even go help nobody because you're just it's so loud in your own head. Trying to go on this journey where we can not only welcome the new neighbor with a pie, hey, welcome to the neighborhood, I baked you a pie, right? Or uh an empanada or whatever, whatever you but if we want to make a change, my mom always said, change starts in the home. Daniel, you want to go out there and make a change, we'll take out the trash. And so in the same way, I think if we want to deal, uh we want to stop wars, we want to stop, you know, stand up for our rights and whatever we want to stand up for in this moment, I mean, it's gonna take a group. We got to do it together. And so, do you have a crew? What I'm learning right now is Daniel, yeah, I I can do a lot myself, but I can do so much more together. And if I want to do big things with my neighbors, with the people in my life, have I done the little things first? Do my neighbors trust me enough to eat a pie that I would bake them? From there, they might trust me to say, hey, let's go to a protest, or let's go build a something beautiful in our neighborhood, or let's paint a mural. Like, trust comes in steps. We have to rebuild our trust with our people closest to us. And then from there, those bridges of trust can grow into more possibilities. Like, like your family, you guys do tamales every year. The fact that you keep that tradition, though those relationships. Now, in family, we're always gonna have beef, we're always gonna have conflicts and things we gotta work through. Yes, but you guys have have continued this tradition, and I was able to participate in it again this year, right? That's that's the fruit growing on a tree that has been well watered for years.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

And now younger cats can still they can come and then they can bring their friends or their new boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, whatever, and show them like this is how this is normal for us. This is our normal. And I think the way I see it in my art, in my music, in my workshops, everything I'm doing right now, it's about how can I create a new normal for myself. I want to feel more joyful, more liked, more loving towards myself and the people around me. And so I'm trying to brick by brick build that trust with my neighbors, with my family. And I'm learning, since one of the themes of this podcast is really about wellness and mental health, one of the themes I'm learning as a as a people pleaser, I was raised as a people pleaser. There was a lot of conflict in my home. Uh, there's physical violence, there was other kinds of violence. And what I I learned, I didn't, I just in therapy I've been learning how I learned to preempt. Oh my god, someone's about to get mad. I knew before they knew that they were about to get mad.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

Some conflict was so I became this like people pleaser. I adapted. And and that served me in some ways. Like I work in like sales, right? I'm like, hey, can you, you know, I want you to hire me to do a concert or workshop, right? So it helps me talk to people, but in a way it caused me to like not be honest with people. Like I I because feelings are dangerous, like, oh, if if someone gets mad, if I get mad, something bad might happen, right? Someone might break something. And what I've been learning is that, and I'm also an Aquarius, so I get in my head a lot, you know. I've been learning that feelings and communicating your feelings is like the greatest way to build a bridge with another human. Right. And I'm not talking about the judgment. I'm saying the feeling. I feel so angry right now. Yeah. You know, and learning how to voice a need. I'm feeling so angry because I need to feel heard. And I don't feel heard. You know, you're looking at your phone while I'm telling you how I feel, you know, whatever. Right. And I want to make a request. I want to request that you look me in the eye when I tell you how I'm feeling. So I know that you heard me. And now all of a sudden they're looking back at me, telling me, like, wow, man, I didn't know you were so angry, so frustrated. I'm realizing how frustrated I was. That's why I wasn't looking at you, you know, because I don't, I couldn't take it no more. Whatever. So now you have a conversation, you're connecting. Yes. Yeah. And I'm learning how to communicate feelings as a way to build a bridge between people. It's not even about the data yet. It's not even about is my story more right than yours. It's like we're just two people connecting on the feeling. And I think that's where it's coming back to music for me. Like, dude, kind of, life isn't so complicated. We're humans and we have feelings. You know, we get frustrated. We and half the time it's because you need like a nap or water or something, you know? And then from there we can get to the bigger story. Like, all right, all right, now that I heard you, you heard of me. I feel a little calmer. I feel hurt. So what did you want me to do again? Man, I just want you to take out the trash, bro. Come on, man. You know? And so then I'm like, okay, I need to work at that, right? I can do that. And now we're getting to like helping each other meet our needs and that we're on the same team. We're roommates, we're family members, we're lovers, whatever we are. We can work together towards a common goal. And that's the foundation of like, I spoke in Mohawk at the beginning. The Mohawk were a part of the Iroquois or the Hunashonic Confederacy, and our whole society is based on making agreements, like mourning our pain, finding a way to pick our heads back up again and to make a deal with the people around us, make agreements and keep them so that we can have peace. And in having peace, we can have power. Because if you and I have an understanding and we have peace, cousin, then you and I don't have to be worried that you're gonna hurt me and I'm gonna like you're gonna kill me and I'm gonna kill you.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Because you and I have peace, now we can focus our energy on building more power, so to speak, like more community with our family. Now, now our family's not fighting against each other. We're looking outward and we're like, okay, what else can we do? There's more like possibility in the room because we have more peace, because we're able to make agreements, because we're able to hear each other, because we shared our feelings. I can't believe I didn't get this lesson in school, man. I I think I think schools need more, we need to have therapy in schools, bro. I I shouldn't have been, you know, 40 years old starting therapy. Like I swear, I feel like a little kid a lot of times. I'm like, I should have learned this in sixth grade.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

Hey, I think, yeah, I agree. I think there's a lot more things that should be discussed in school that aren't aren't discussed in school. And you know, what's amazing is that you're you're doing this now, right? And you're learning this now. I'm one of those people that believes everything happens for a reason and and exactly the way it's supposed to. And if you look at the trajectory of your career, of the things you've done, the evolution of your life, it all has created this. And it's taken this timing. It's take, it's taken this, do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's taken this kind of wave, right, to to kind of get you where you are now, and it's all and everything coming together the way exactly it's supposed to. I I'm curious because I what do you think in terms of, and if you you don't have to get too much into it if you don't want to, but in terms of your own the own the therapy that you've done, right, for yourself individually, how do you think it's helped you the most? I mean, you've talked a lot about the communication, right? And like you you've kind of been more assertive and you've been able to create that bridge. Are there other things for you that you think it's helped with in your healing process for yourself?

SPEAKER_01 48:23

A million percent. So when COVID started, uh, I took a nonviolent communication class that a good friend of mine invited me to, a fellow musician. That class, it was an online seminar. I had just gotten COVID when it started. I was also and it taught me that flow. Share the feeling, share the need, make your request. I feel I need, oh, and get curious.

SPEAKER_04 48:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Like, so that became something that I've practiced over and over and over, and I find very helpful in my my closest relationships because I if I'm all mad, but I'm like, Daniel, your job is to understand what do you need right now? Nobody can help you meet this need if you don't know what the need is, Daniel. And you're only that conflict, conflict means that a need is not being met.

unknown 49:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

So then I realize, oh, the conflict isn't I'm a terrible person, you're a terrible person. It's I'm trying to meet a need and I'm raising my voice because I can't meet it yet. Right? Yeah. Or you're raising your voice or whatever, right? So that class was super helpful and practicing it. Second, I got into therapy because I was in a partnership. We were in couples therapy. Okay. Couples therapist was like, hey, well, your partner, you know, she's in therapy. So she comes to our couples therapy way better able to process your shared stuff because she's had this other resource to focus on her. Right. You, Daniel, you're kind of coming here, kind of coming in a little hot, you know, like a little you you could use the more, you know, kind of processing time on your your own. And so I was kind of pushed, honestly, encouraged to get individual therapy. And so I did. So it's not like I'm like all evolved. It's like I was like really nudged because I wanted this, I wanted to make this relationship work, right? And so I started therapy, and then in that process, it was two things. My therapist was very pragmatic. It wasn't always like, oh, okay, what's your deepest, darkest trauma from when you were your oldest, like like always having to rehash everything all the time. But it'd be like, okay, Daniel, well, you you're you're running late in life. Okay, like you ran late, and then you had all this stressful interaction because you now you're letting somebody down because you're running late. And now you're thinking that you're this terrible person, and then you're thinking all these negative thoughts about how like they must hate me. And I was. I was thinking literally, primo, if somebody wouldn't call me back the same day, I would think I would invent reasons why they hate me. It was so loud in here. Oh, you know, probably because I didn't show up to their birthday eight years ago. Probably because like I would just make any little thing that probably nobody even remembers into like this giant mortal sin. And it was so loud, I would just, I was so practiced at imagining the worst possible thought someone could have about me. And now I'm motivated by dodging that negative thought. What can I do to help this person? Like, remember that I'm not that terrible human being anymore. Like, so now I'm like doing things motivated by avoiding this negative image that I created.

SPEAKER_04 51:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

Right? Like I don't even have the data points. It's not like nobody ever told me, I think you're a terrible guy because you were late. Like, like I'm not, I didn't get that data. I I invented it. So I learned that I was mind reading, like attempting to mind read. I was avoiding the conflict. Little by little, I was practicing. Like, okay, Daniel, well, when you're late, you're running late. Let's try this week texting the person as soon as you know you're gonna be late, say, I am running late. And then I would do that. And then next week I'd be like, Yeah, but then I didn't know what time I would be there, and I don't want to lie again or be late the second time. Okay, Daniel, we'll try. I'm running late. I'm sorry, I don't know at what time I'll be there. Right. I will let you know as soon as I know. So, little by little, we're learning stuff I should learn in kindergarten about communicating through discomfort. Daniel, people are adults. If you know, you let them know so they're not like waiting there for you for an hour. You gave them some heads up, it's okay. And it's not like to justify just being late and ignoring the agreement that you made, but it's like things change. Yeah, and I'll tell you that today, that was one example, but today that volume of that voice is so minimal now. It is, I can't even believe. I like I I can't believe that that was my day-to-day. Like, I was suffering so much under that chatter, and now I'm able to say, Daniel, nobody told you that you're terrible. So you so that's out. I'm able to intercept, like, nope, I see you, I see you, little judge. Little judge, try to get in here. Nope, not right now. You go over there, yeah, and you own your feelings, Daniel. Okay, I am stressed, I'm whatever, and it impacts my music, it impacts my workshops. I would beat myself. One time I gave the dopest workshop with like these cool native youth in Wyoming, and I got all this good feedback, man. I I did a concert, I gave a little talk, kids were dancing, the high schoolers moving in the car. I went back to the place I was staying afterwards, and I was so the most depressed I've ever been in my life. Like, I I'm not gonna say I was suicidal or anything, but I was in a really dark place, and I had it later in reflection, I had only positive feedback. Yeah, but it's like this voice was so loud inside negative self-talk, negative self-talk. Yeah, and so now and and so now I'm like, okay, well, what are we gonna do now? We did what we did. What else would be what would be good for me? And even learning what would be easy on me, that there's no award for being the tough guy doing things the hardest way. Nobody gets a prize for that. And I my mind is blown in how having a supportive person who talks to people like me and not like me all the time, and like my biggest problems are really not that big, and they are able to walk me through some things that have helped me change my daily quality of life. Am I at where I want to be? No, I want to grow so much more, but I am so I'm traveling so much lighter than I was two years ago. And I I want that lightness for everybody because it shows, it shows how much we all need to, especially with everything going on.

SPEAKER_03 55:22

Yeah. Yeah, no, you hear it. You hear it in your voice. You can like, I mean, people can't see us, but I I see it right in your expressions, the the conviction and how much this has impacted you, how much this has changed you. And definitely don't, you know, I I don't know if you are or you're not, but you're doing amazing work and and don't minimize that because you know it's I'm not gonna say it's easy for somebody to show up to therapy. It's not easy, but it's a lot more harder to make the life decisions and do the things that are gonna create the change for somebody, right? You that the client and the therapist come to agreement on that are gonna work best for that individual person. So it's it's tough. I mean, we're reprogramming our brain, right? We're changing thoughts, we're changing patterns, we're changing behaviors that are comfortable, that are have been there since we've been a child, were created when we were a child. So it is really, really, really hard work and it takes dedication, it takes motivation, it takes integrity, it takes purpose, it takes so many different things. So I have, because we're we're coming up on time here, and another thing is I'm definitely I hope I can have you back again at some point because this has been amazing, and there's a lot more we can go deeper into other things as well. Too I love that. What I'm gonna do is these last questions, even though they are really kind of deep questions, right? Kind of heavy questions, but I would like you to try to have your responses be in one or two sentences.

SPEAKER_04 57:00

I love that game. My favorite game.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

Yeah. So here we go. If someone listening feels powerless right now, what would you say to them? If they feel like, let's say, powerless not to be able to change right now or to or to change their life, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 57:15

Can you hear yourself breathing? That means that you can still do something about it. You still have power.

SPEAKER_03 57:22

Breath is power. Nice. Nice. Excellent. Okay. Next one. What's one thing an everyday person can do to make an impact in their community?

SPEAKER_01 57:33

Share food with their neighbors.

SPEAKER_03 57:35

Yes. Comida. Alright, who did you become because of the pain you lived through?

SPEAKER_01 57:44

Say it again.

SPEAKER_03 57:48

Who did you become because of the pain you lived through?

SPEAKER_01 57:53

I became curious, a kind, a payaso, a joker, and a dancer. I learned to put everything into motion. That that was a place where I could process life on the dance floor.

SPEAKER_03 58:11

I agree. I agree with what you've shared about your story, right? And and talking about music and it being movement, right? Because music is movement and that dance of music, and then the dance to the dance of music and the dance to the dance of life. Absolutely, yeah, I would I would agree with that for you. Alright, last one. What do you want your legacy to be? Not your career, but your soul's work.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

I want the people closest to me to know that I love them. When they look back, not that I said that I love them, I want them to know because they felt it so often in so many ways. I want them to know that I loved them. Beautiful. I kind of don't care what people, other people think about me. That's none of my business. Yeah. And I think that helps me focus a little bit, like, okay, like love is an idea, and I'm an Aquarius. I love big ideas. Give me an idea, I'll talk about all day. But bring it down to earth. How am I showing love to the people closest to me in the way they want to be loved? Which is the nutcracker.

SPEAKER_03 59:27

Yes, how they want to be loved.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

I I gotta I gotta get another degree in that in that study, man. Because loving people in the way they want to be loved, man, that's the art form.

SPEAKER_03 59:37

Hey, write that book, and man, it will be flying off the shelf. Flying off the shelf. You know, thank you for for creating change. Thank you for your dance. Thank you for for your songs, man.

SPEAKER_01 59:53

I love that. Thank you for your dance. Like, let's let's do that more in 2026. Let's thank people for their dance, for their weird movement that they make in the world, that's their special, odd thing, and and celebrate that, dude. Thank you. And thank you, Primo. Thank you for your dance. Thank you for creating the space uh for me to share my story, for people to hear stories, uh, for us to learn together about being human.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:26

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Why can I ask you a question? Why are you doing this?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:32

Do I have to have a one-sentence response?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:34

No, you can give me a five-sentence response.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:36

I think ultimately, and I think what I want to do is is in the title of this podcast, Finding Your Voice, is I want this to be a place where whether it's clinicians, whether it's activists, whether it's musicians, organizers, people that are creating change, that are doing change, to be able to share their experiences and to be able to share the amazing work that they do that helps other people to evolve, help other people to change, to be a forum for that, and to motivate and empower people to be able to do the work that they need to do to find their own voice, right, in life is kind of I guess the the essence of of what I'm hoping to create here on this on this forum. And yeah, that's my that's my hope.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

You're all deep, huh? Yeah, I try.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:38

I try. I want to thank you, like I said again, for the work you do both personally that you've shared about, that is now an example, right, to people that can hear, but also what you do collectively. You know, it's it's it's obvious to me that you create an extremely powerful experiment uh experience for the groups that you go to speak with, that you engage with, for the community, for the groups that you run, the workshops. Once this does publish, it'll it'll be on there as well, too. But in the meantime, and and now, how do people find you? How do people contact you? What's the best way for that?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:12

Sure. Just go to my website, DanielFrench.com. You can find me Daniel French.com, you can get all my social media from there. If this is if you're on social media, you can find me at French is Mexican. French is Mexican on social media. But just go to my webs, just go to my website, DanielFrench.com. You can hear my music, you can sign up for a workshop, you can hire me to come uh speak to your staff or bring in a creative experience to your group, whether it's students, whether it's adults, hit me up and I travel.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:50

Excellent. Well, any group would be fortunate to have you.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:53

All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:53

Any last thoughts, last words?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

No, I just use it or lose it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:59

Use it or lose it. It applies to your muscles, it applies to your voice, applies to language, it applies to that that bright idea that you have, that goal that you have. Whatever it is, if you're listening to this, if you're listening to my words right now, just figure out that next tiny step and go do it. Use that energy while you have it. Use that health while you have it. Use that limb, that that voice. I mean, it's the most beautiful thing, and nobody has a voice like yours.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Each one of us, music is even like popular music, like famous people, is made of people who had their own voice. Nobody else sings like nobody else sings like Nat King Cole. Nobody else sings like Chet Baker or you know, Zach De La Rocha from Rage Against the Machine. If you want to call that singing, you know, like everybody has their thing, and there's no right or wrong to it. It's just that we were given this special something to express, this unique voice. And that's our gift is to see what we will do with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

Well, what is that song we're gonna sing? So to speak, the the life lived in song and the song of your voice. What will we make of it? So I'm excited. Thanks for having me. I hope as we all uh find our voice and look for our voice and practice it, that we can uh also spread the word about your your important podcast and lift up all the good energy in the world and let's make a better world one one pie at a time.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:35

Yes. All right, well, thank you, and thank you, everybody. Really appreciate you listening to another episode of Finding Your Voice and take care of yourselves.