Adam Torres and Genein Letford discuss Brain Capital.
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Show Notes:
What is brain capital and why should we all be aware of how it will affect our work and health? In this episode, Adam Torres and Genein Letford, CEO of CAFFE Strategies, explore CAFFE Strategies and Brain Capital.
About Genein Letford
Genein Letford is a pioneer in the field of Intercultural Creativity™ and is an national award-winning educator, best-selling author and global speaker on the creative and intercultural competencies. As a veteran TEDx speaker and top creativity trainer, she has inspired many professionals to redevelop their creative abilities in order to produce inclusive ideas for the classroom and workspace. She is certified in the Intercultural Development Inventory Assessment and delivers one of a kind interactive training on intercultural creativity for organizations.
She is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of CAFFE ‘InterCreative Strategies, LLC which trains leaders and employees to unleash their innovative thinking for themselves and in their work while building an inclusive environment. Her book, 7 Gems of Intercultural Creativity: How To Connect, Create and Innovate Across Cultural Lines is due out in the Fall of 2021.
Genein believes creative thinking surrounded by an environment of inclusion are critical skills and she is often called ‘America’s Champion of Creativity’ for her work in reigniting creativity and inclusiveness in our in our workforce.
About CAFFE Strategies, LLC
CAFFE stands for ‘Creative Advancement for Financial Empowerment’ and is the home of the signature Intercultural Creativity®, NeuroSomatic Creativity® and Prismatic Leadership training programs and includes our 7 Gems of Intercultural Creativity and the 16 Diamond Tools for Creative Thinking. With these cutting edge developmental tools, they develop your team members’ ability to be a bridge across cultures and successfully communicate, create and INNOVATE across cultural lines.
Their workshops are HCRI approved and we are certified to administer the researched-based IDI assessments on intercultural competency, which is the global leading assessment that identifies an employee’s ability to adapt and bridge across cultures.
Creative thinking within a diverse and inclusive environment is now the top skill requested by top executives and Fortune 500 companies. CAFFE knows the fundamentals of intercultural creativity and our researched based interactive programs will strengthen the number one skill needed in today’s workforce; intercultural creative thinking.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right, so today’s guest is Janine Letford, and she is CEO of Cafe strategies and also a podcast host and host of the create and grow podcast Janine, finally, we’ve been trying to make this happen.
How long? Welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you on. I’m even more excited to be here. All right. So we got a lot to talk about. So of course I want to get into cafe strategies. I want to talk about what’s going on in brain capital. I know you’re who I go to for this information.
Janine, it was maybe the first time I have you on the show, but in listening to your work, I’ve heard you, your keynotes before you did one for our community. I’ve heard you. Heard you talk before and I just, and I follow your social media on LinkedIn. So I’m in, so just to get us kicked off here today.
I guess let’s talk a little bit more just to start out with cafe strategy. So talk a little bit more about your business and what you do in your mission. we have the idea that we believe has met its time, you know, corporate training is really on the up and up now because people need to re skill and re pool.
But I come from the K 12 background and I understand really how the brain learns. And we’re looking to bring up just the inner gifts and inner abilities and human qualities of people at the corporate level. So how do you do that? And we’re going to do our. Corporate training, a lot of the quote, unquote soft skills, but we call them essential skills.
Right? And we look at self awareness, just a lot of leadership skills, a lot of personal development and professional development skills. But we do a lot of interactive work, a lot of bringing. Of the arts into the training, a lot of interpersonal work because, you know, not too many people can sit there for two hours and listen to a lecture, but experiential learning play.
We have Lego, Play Doh, pipe cleaner, but also dealing with some serious topics and some self reflective topics , in a whole new way. So intercultural creativity and neurosomatic creativity. In prismatic leadership are our main just flagship training programs that we’re just, , no one knew who we were four years ago.
And now we just, , did a keynote for IBM did train 500 leaders at Boston Medical Center. And now we’re around the globe because people want a new way to learn and new ways to really feel and tap into the emotional side of their learning and understand how to better connect with one another.
Amazing. , and again, I’ve heard at least one of your keynotes and , it was amazing. And it was just like, , it was a different approach. And , you just brought multiple things. And I saw one of the, I was in a virtual keynote of yours, but I’ve seen some of the pictures of the in person.
And when you talk about like an experience and incorporating other things, I was like, Oh yeah. For sure. , so today’s topic, so brain capital like , you mentioned that this is a hot topic. I mean, fill me in. , you’re my person. Why so hot? Why now? Well, this is a decade of the brain.
We believe, you know, fMRIs came on the scene when I was coming out of UCLA at the turn of the century. I can’t believe we can say that right in the year 2000, 2001, still new. And, you know, in the past, what, 25 years. The neuroscience field has really gained a lot of ground and we’re able to really see beneath the veil, you know, the brain where there’s so much mysterious aspects to the brain and we’re just now, we’re really seeing what’s going on and just the neuroscientists and this, a lot of research coming from , Dr.
Harris, I, and the Brain Capital Alliance are really saying that there We’re in a negative brain economy, meaning the power of our brains are at a negative state. We’re dealing with two huge issues of brain health, which is anxiety disorder and depressive disorders. And brain capital is really now what people either will be talking about.
We’re looking at how it even affects the stock market. , they’ll be looking . At investing companies that have a high brain capital number of their employees. And basically what brain capital is, it’s this mixture between brain health and brain skills, right? How healthy is your brain and the skills such as creativity, adaptability, resilience adaptability.
Hey, and a lot of cognitive agility skills are to be needed in the future of work. And if people’s brains are not healthy, and then we are lowered in our creative thinking and our curiosity, that’s going to be a huge issue for trying to move this nation forward. And now obviously we’re all talking about AI and that’s all in the discussion, of course, like how does this affect and how does this relate to maybe some of the things that are going on with brain capital and just in general in your conversations?
How does all of that kind of connect? Sure. There, there’s a lot there. And that’s one of the reasons why our brand capital is going to be even more important now than, you know, four years ago. When things were, different. And we know that automation and machine learning, they can do a lot of , the routine things.
They can even do a lot of these intelligent things. Right. And a lot of the creativity, when I say creativity, I don’t just mean artistry, but the process of coming up. But something new, , the innovative ideas that have value, right? And so, , even when we’re looking at check GPT, you know, are we even just if I’m in a classroom or in a team member group, and we’re just putting the same prompt into that, we still need people who are curious and who know how to, how to be flexible around ideas to even put, right.
Really creative prompts into these machine learning devices. So, , just creativity is still going to be needed. And we don’t see it as robots. I heard someone use the term cobots. Like, how do humans AI work together to be even more creative? So not really seeing them as a threat, even though that is a concern.
But really seeing it as a partnership of what does this look like? And that’s why this training that we’re doing for our corporation is so critical, because we’re kind of bringing people back to the basics. Like my dream next year is to bring CEOs out to the Butterfly Museum. And how do you, Be more creative around butterflies or we’re creating a leadership program around Lincoln and the way that he was really superb in intercultural relationships , and just problem solving.
So how can we go to where Lincoln was and go to Springfield and go to, to D D C and be where he is while we do leadership training. So we have to get people in new experiences because that’s how the brain Puts new ideas together, right? We have to get people out of their chairs and out away from their screens and really submerge them into new experiences with new types of people from around the world.
And that’s how you galvanize creative thinking. So you can interact better with the A. I. And use your imagination to see where we’re headed. \ how do people receive these ideas when you propose them, like things like, , getting them out of their, I, you’re, I’m using this word, you didn’t, comfort zone or whatever it is, like just out of their offices and going out to, as you mentioned, with butterflies and things like that.
How do people respond to that? Cause it sounds so much fun to me, but I feel like there might be another side that’s like, you want me to do what? But it’s needed, I feel like. How do they respond? You know, I’m not going to lie, there’s pushback, you know, in my surveys. I get like 97, 98%, , like, oh, this is great, you know, but there’s always that one or two percent that are either Curmudgeon?
Is that the word? I don’t know. I could be wrong. I just like saying whatever I can. I don’t know. Go ahead. But they either constitute as too childish or beneath them or, the research says that even if the information that you gain from someone is heavily biased by who’s presenting it. So if anyone has any type of issue with my demographics of being a woman, a person of color, even a person who’s a neurodivergent, that affects the information that they receive and how they receive it.
And. That’s why I think the neuroscience is so key with what I’m doing because I’m not just saying, Hey, let’s go out, hang out with butterflies, , Oh, by the way, and then I bring in clips from the people who I’ve interviewed, the neuroscientists who are saying, You need to break routine.
You need to get a new experiences. You need to do something different and you need to basically blow your mind , and do something that you wouldn’t even imagine. And that’s how your brain restructures in order for the new ideas to surface. And so when I. it, then they’re like, Oh, okay. , it wouldn’t be bad, , cause like I could say it and I could have all the research, but it’s just, it needs to be done and I’m glad that I’m creating the platform, I’m creating the programs here so when they finally do get on board, Oh, like, Oh wait, wasn’t Janine talking about that three years ago, I’m here ready to go.
So they will go on board cause they will not have a choice. The ability to pull out. Hidden skills and talents and gifts from your team members and going beyond the job description is going to be key because everyone coming to the job is holding on to different strengths and abilities that you have no clue because they’re not listed in the actual job description and companies who really tap into these other facets of their employees are going to be the ones that have the creative ideas and acknowledge them.
The creative ideas and allow people to share them. That’s why it’s like a lot, logical safety is so, so key they’re going to be the ones who are going to be rising to the top and have the highest brain capital. How does this relate to like our creativity? I want to go just a little bit deeper in that part of the conversation, because I feel like we’re using that, well, I’ll speak for myself, I’m using that word differently nowadays, like when I was in finance or other things like that, I thought creatives or creativity, , I wasn’t really thinking from the standpoint of problem solving or this, but , I was thinking like.
Artists or individuals like that are in creative fields. I never thought about like applying creativity and problem solving or otherwise, or new ways of thinking into my day to day within my role at a financial institution. I never really thought that way until , many years later and now having talked to individuals like yourself, but how does this all affect like our creativity on a day to day basis?
Like, how does that work for you? Well, the first, , I have my seven gems of intercultural creativity because I’m, my logo is the, the, the diamond. So I’m all about, but I use it as a metaphor because the brain holds onto story and metaphor very, very well. And the first gem is is, is, you know, a gem journeys about my mindset.
And so like, like you said, we first have to reframe and redefine the word because either a lot of people think creativity is only artistry. So they’ve been saying they’re not creative their whole life. That was me. Yes. Or another group of people, they had someone, maybe someone in an authority position in like the 10th grade or sixth grade say, Oh, you’re not creative.
Or what was that? That’s stupid. Or, , or they attack , their artists, their artistic creativity, or just their production creativity in childhood. And so now you have all these adults walking around with these, I call them creative abuse, right? These, these bruises. And so they don’t think that they’re creative in their adulthood.
And so for a lot of this, because our creativity is key, right? The one thing that will set us apart is our ability to create. And so once people work on that shifting, in fact, I’m working on an online class right now. And that’s the chapter I’m talking about is we need to go back and unlearn a lot of this and heal from some of this , creative attacks, and then start small.
Okay. , the reason why I do love artistic creativity and how it does tie into non artistic creativity, which is just producing things of value that have that’s new is, it shows you the process, , that you’re not going to be perfect coming out the gate. You reiterate, you look at it, you observe, you just evolving it.
Right? And who it was. 10 days ago, it’s different than what you may see today because you’re a different person because of your experiences and your, your relationship. And so allowing people to practice creativity in different areas, , in writing and building something and, and, and artistic creativity as well.
And also intercultural creativity goes into the point that I’m creative. And you’re creative, Adam, but us coming together and sharing ideas, , there’s your , exponential growth, right? So intercultural creativity is how do I respect your creative ideas and build off of them and vice versa?
And how do people from diverse backgrounds come together and create together? So there’s a lot there, but the first thing is to start small and do it daily, you know, just like breathing and drinking water. It should be a daily practice. And it’s a muscle, so no one expects to go out for the Olympics and to go run the 100 meter sprint if you haven’t trained, right?
And so so don’t, so bosses and leaders expect us to show up and be these full creative selves when we haven’t trained, , and we haven’t had some coaching , and some, some losses and some wins, right? Mm. Speaking of training and speaking of reps , and putting time into creativity, , I’m so proud as I look at, like, I’m checking out the website and I’m like, geez, you’re over 120 episodes now in on your create and grow podcast.
Like how does that feel? That’s a catalog. It’s a lot of episodes. Well, it’s beautiful because number one, I, I always, you know, thinking multifaceted. That’s why I love it. A logo. And like I said, I’m courageous. I, you have, creativity has to be paired with courage, right? Because you’re venturing into the unknown.
And that’s why I pair cultural competence with creativity. Because to connect with people from different lived experiences, you have to venture into the unknown. Like, like, you don’t know their routine. You don’t know, you can’t predict their behavior. And that’s why it’s more metabolic. Energy from your brain.
Creativity. You can’t predict the outcome. That’s why it takes more brain power. That’s why brain health and brain capital is so important because if your brain isn’t healthy, your creativity takes a hit, but also your ability to connect with other people from different lived background takes a So just knowing that I get to speak with over a hundred people, but I get to share our creative conversations, right.
With the world, because I could be sleeping or brushing my teeth and there’s someone in China or in India listening to, , I just interviewed , my cousin, who’s a brilliant thought leader on early education and justice work. And , they’re gonna be listening to our conversation at 3 a.
m. in the morning and I have no clue, but our conversation is blessing them to think differently about how they go throughout the world. Yeah, , that’s so exciting. And when you, I’m always curious as for podcasts, especially as they start like more and more episodes, like , what do you hope that your listeners get like in your process of like, so I know on your end, you just mentioned kind of , what you get out of the deal, so to speak, in terms of expressing your creativity and otherwise, what do you hope your listeners get?
It’s the beauty of seeing things differently, you know, just if I get one person saying, Hmm, I never thought of it that way. Bam. I know that I’ve grooved another neuronal pathway in their brain. , I tell people during my keynote, unless you’re totally tuning me out, right? It’s totally ignoring me.
I’m literally changing , your brain, like literally changing , the neuronal pathways, because as you, you bring in new information, your brain is trying to connect this new information with what it already knows, or if it has to make any belief , structural changes for a lot of people, the whole creativity isn’t only artistry is a belief structure change, right?
Your brain , to read, connect some things. , and. I just love that because, because I know I’m affected by great conversations. Like, it’s almost like a third wall. If you’re in the theater, when they break the fourth wall, , and they look at the audience and talk straight to the audience, it’s almost like you’re observing, brilliant, especially with people who are, who are different from me because they have different stories that I haven’t encountered.
And so when you get to do that, it’s almost like I’m living it \ , through them, which is great. That’s exciting. That’s fun. And when I’m talking to people that either are podcasters or want to be podcasters or otherwise, I was, it’s funny. I was coaching one of my, my youngest podcaster that I love to talk about.
His name is Z and he’s out in Orange County. And I was just, I had a meeting with him last Saturday and I’m like, I know his dad. I know his dad for years. So he just graduated sixth grade just to give you some context, but super bright kid, a straight A’s, all that good stuff, like really bright. And he’s just finished his 35th episode.
And I’m like, okay, who’s next? What’s the next one? He’s like, Oh, well, I’m, I’m trying to figure out the things of this, that. So now I got him recruiting his mom, his sister. sister is dead. I said, , it takes a family. It takes a village to raise a podcast. I don’t think he knows what the play on words I was trying to make with him.
He’s young, right? He’s a kid, but he’ll, he’ll get that joke one day, but it really does. It really does take a village or a community to raise a podcast or to do anything. I feel that, of meaning or that’s going to affect a lot of lives. So I’m interested to hear like what’s your thought process around community and around like what you’re doing and how you bring people together?
Like , what’s your thoughts around community? Well, I mean, before I jumped to that, I’m going to touch on what just said, because that’s a powerful statement that I want to make people want to make sure people grasp is the fact that , unlike and I know you’re younger than me, but , I’m just an eighties baby and they’re all only certain, , avenues available to us.
And I tell my young people, cause I do have a nonprofit called alumni 360, where we talk about leadership and creativity, development and entrepreneurship. And I tell them like you can write a book right now and get it published like next year, if you really wanted to. And as you said, you can start a podcast.
You know, the things that are available to them now were not available to me or my mother’s generation, definitely my grandmother’s generation. Like they were gate, gate, Keepers, right? If you wanted to publish a book, you more or less had to be picked and get published. Yeah, and that’s not the case now.
And I tell people, you’ve written books, , any essays you wrote for , your school or for assignments, you can, I told my, you know, niece, like, just put 10 of your essays together and call it Essays by Angie, you know. Love it. Essays by Angie. That’s a good one. Or Angie’s Essays. There we go. Come on.
And then you’re a published author. You know that you can put that behind , your name and it’s just you putting your work together and uploading it and then putting it on, on whatever platform you choose. And so, you know, that’s why I have books with my three year old and now he’s a six year old son.
Like, he is literally a published because I’m quote unquote brainwashing him or training him to say, we learn things and then we can put them in this format and share them with the world. There’s nothing stopping you from doing that. So your sixth grade proto J is understanding that at an earlier age, why does he have to be 25 before he engages in that?
Why can’t he , be 12, you know, , with Proper supervision and things like, like that, but that’s empowering to say, I can produce this and I can share my ideas. And there’s someone off in France listening to it at 3 a. m. in the morning who’s affected , by my creative contribution. That’s the key.
Right. Yeah. And so that’s what we want when we’re creating community is someone oh, yes, you know, I’m the, New York Times best selling author of The Baseball Story you, let me see his oh, Mark McCormick. Oh, yeah, of course, of course, yeah. With , and he spoke on my podcast and he said, you know, Janine, I love following your work because there’s something in it for , everyone, I’m only hitting this small demographic but creativity affects everyone in every field and intercultural creativity really affects everyone because we’re all coming from different cultures.
Backgrounds and lived experiences, yet we still have to work together and create things together. So what does that look like from the neurological level on up? And so I create community by sharing stories, the brain love stories and by sharing losses, you know, the fact that I have a speech impediment.
And I went through speech therapy for years, and I couldn’t even say my name fluently. And, , and now that I’m speaking in front of thousands, like, that hits people. They may not have a speech impediment, but they’ve had something that they’ve struggled with, , and, and it empowers them to say, , well, if Janine can get out there, then I, I can do it too.
Love it. Janine, this has been so much fun having you on the show today and just hearing more. It’s great, first off, to hear your voice other than on the podcast, but I get some response here. I do love the podcast, so I get to hear that all the time. That being said, if somebody’s listening or watching this and they want to learn more about cafe strategies, get further into your work, the books that you’ve published, listen to your show, people connect and follow your journey?
Well, I’m very active on LinkedIn. So if they want to see the new research coming out and how I’m putting this creative lens over it and doing a lot of neurosomatic creativity lens over it. So that’s the most recent just information coming out. And then, of course, Cafe Strategies. It’s Cafe stands for Creative Advancement for Financial Empowerment.
And so that’s C A F S E and then strategies, plural at dot com. And yeah, but LinkedIn is probably the best way follow me, to reach out, and I’m on Facebook and Twitter, and Instagram as well, but LinkedIn is where it’s at, and where I’m at. Perfect, and that’s where I follow you at, by the way, and for everybody listening I’ll definitely put the links to Janine’s website and everything else in the show notes.
You can just click on the links and head right on over and don’t forget, definitely check out her podcast, the create and grow podcast love to support other podcasters. And I think you’ll definitely enjoy her show and to the new listeners that maybe haven’t been with us before. Just so you know, this is a daily show each and every day We are putting out new content new episodes bringing you new entrepreneurs and hopefully new Inspiration to help you along the way with your journey as well if that sounds interesting to you, we welcome you hit that subscribe or follow button because guess what’s coming up tomorrow Another episode and I want you to get that little notification on your phone So you can catch the next episode and not miss it.
So again hit that subscribe button and Janine I’m, so happy that we finally got you on the show. I can’t wait to the next time Thank you so much for making some time for us. Thanks for having me here and go out and be creative and increase your brain capital