Jenn 0:00
Hi, I'm so glad you're here with me for this episode with Freddie morass, founder of mindstream. Mindstream and the Center for trauma and embodiment are embarking on a partnership where we're exploring how music can be a central part of our embodied healing experiences and journey. Mindstream is going to be bringing individualized, choice based musical experiences to our upcoming annual conference on trauma and embodiment. This conference is happening on April 10 through the 12th. To learn more about this fully virtual, interactive conference, you can head to heal with cfte.org/conference, thank you for being a part of this exploration with me. Let's jump on in.
Welcome to on trauma and power. I'm your host. Jen Turner, co founder and director of the Center for trauma and embodiment, I'm so glad you're here with us. Each episode, I sit down with powerful leaders, educators and survivors from around the world. Join me for these empowering conversations rooted in whole person, embodied experiences where trauma meets power and healing takes shape. Let's dive in.
Hey, Freddie, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. So glad that you're here, and I'd love to share with our community a bit more about who you are from your bio, and then we can dive on in. Freddie Maras is an award winning leader in the wellness industry and founder of mindstream, a leading distribution and service company dedicated to unlocking the power of music for health and well being through mindstream, Freddy is pioneering the use of high quality functional music in both clinical and commercial settings. Mindstream partners with major platforms like Spotify and Amazon, and works with brands ranging from independent spas to global names like Hyatt and Hilton, and is known for soundtracks like Stranger Things, whiplash and bridgerton mind string brings entertainment level music strategy into the wellness space and collaborates with leading artists, scientists and institutions, including the global wellness Institute, where Freddy serves on the advisory board, building an evidence base For how sound can enhance health, client experience and brand impact. That is quite a unique bio. Thank you for being here, Freddie. And typically, as I shared, we start our podcast with sort of some kind of opportunity for listeners to drop into their body, to drop into the present, and you have something a little
Freddie 2:59
unique for us. Yes, unfortunately, my bio does not include talent to be able to help you drop into a moment. So I get the great privilege of working with those who have it and share their stories and the way that they help people achieve a certain outcome. So for today, given we're going to be talking a little bit about creative experiences and the outcomes they can drive for you, we selected a collaboration we worked on with an incredible breath work artist that I'm a huge admirer of. I'm very lucky to have met and worked with a couple of times to this point. He's a chap named Jamie Clements, based out of London, and he's going to guide you through an experience which I find to be incredibly powerful. And one thing I'll say about Jamie before I let you enjoy the experience. Is one of the reasons I like working with him is he's such a balanced, creative thinker. He cares deeply about the science and the artistry in equal measures. He spends a lot of time educating himself and educating others on the power and techniques that you can utilize within breath. And he spends he really puts the effort in to ensure he's delivering the most functional the functional experience he possibly can. So when you combine that with very intentionally designed soundtracks, it can create something quite special. So without a further ado, I'll let you enjoy a little bit of Jamie Clemens, mindstream, breath work experience. Beautiful. You.
Jamie Clements 4:24
When you feel ready, gently close your eyes as you begin to settle,
be mindful of your body and your thoughts. Give yourself a moment here to land,
not trying to force or change anything right now, just finding some stillness in the body and allowing yourself to be with whatever is present in your experience. Nothing. Else to do, nowhere else to be.
This practice is designed to act as your inner brake pedal. It's an opportunity to pause, to slow down, and to shift from that constant state of doing and moving to simply being, take a deep breath with me in through the nose, hold it gently at the top, and sighing out, releasing exhaling out through the mouth, and with it, releasing the weight of the day and anything you might be holding on to and again, inhale, hold and release, letting the shoulders soften away from the ears, and letting go of any tension that you might still be holding through your face or your jaw with each breath, give yourself permission to be here in this moment, we're now going to move into an extended exhale breath to calm the nervous system further and drop you into a deep state of relaxation. I invite you to take a deep, slow inhale through your nose, and this time exhaling slowly and gently back out through the mouth, like you're blowing through a small straw, repeating that breath here, and with each exhale, feeling the body soften and the mind quieten, right now, we begin to shift the Balance a conscious, intentional choice to flip the switch to move from your current state to a state of deep presence and deep calm.
Take two more full cycles of that breath in through the nose and slowly out of the mouth. And as you reach the end of that second and final round of that breath, allow the breath to come back to its natural rhythm. Take a moment to notice everything that you can feel here and tune in to this felt sense of deep relaxation.
Let's move through one final technique together, working with a 448, breath to slow things down even further. This will be an inhale through the nose for a count of four, a hold at the top for four, and a slow exhale, again out through the mouth for a count of eight. So following me here, we'll breathe in, 234, Hold, 234, 234, out, 2345678,
in 234, hold, 234, three, four, out, 2345678,
breathing in, holding and and exhale, taking two more rounds of this breath here, breathing in, holding and exhale.
Last round here, breathing in, holding and exhale.
And as you reach the end of that exhale, just allow the breath now to come back to its natural rhythm and notice how in even just a few minutes, you can create a profound shift in how you feel simply. With your breath, you're now ready to enter back into the day with a sense of clarity, peace and presence. Whenever you're ready, begin to bring some small, gentle movement back into the body and in your own time, gently blinking open the eyes and coming back into the space. It's a
Jenn 10:34
beautiful track. I was able to listen to that this morning, and I'm excited to share it with everyone so we can kind of jump into our conversation. I'm wondering if you can just start kind of giving kind of giving us the 30,000 foot view of, you know, saying a little bit more about what exactly mindstream is and how it came to be.
Freddie 10:51
Yeah, happy to so at mindstream, we bring music as a really intentional component of experience into various environments where you're trying to use it as a functional tool. So you mentioned some of our spa relationships as an example. What we're trying to do is, is displace this idea of Sonic wallpaper or the same CD playing on loop for the last 15 years. We want, we want music to provide the variety it should, whilst being a really intentional soundtrack to enhance an experience. We know music is an incredibly powerful tool. We know we all have our own relationships with music, and one of the things we spend a lot of time with at mindstream is trying to understand how you can optimize music to achieve a function. So being really considered around what's that guest coming into the spa for? Are they trying to be deeply relaxed after having had a long, stressful flight. And as such, what journey should you take them on, and what role does music have to play in creating that journey and taking them from A to B? So a very intentional part of experience, we designed a software in order to be able to distribute that around the world, and we have a label function with many incredible artists on it who are creating music with us all the time, very considered with why they're creating that music, which I think so often one of the most clear differentiators to how we experience music, usually, which is really an expression of arts and entertainment, whereas here it's very much an expression of utility and function. So it's a great privilege to be able to work in that kind of environment and to touch on kind of how it came to be that part of the question. You know, we were born within my family's business, which is called cutting edge group. My father, both sisters, actually work in business as well, but my father and and the cutting edge team have managed to build the greatest or largest provider of music for film, television, advertising and gaming globally. So music for media. You mentioned a couple of those, those titles Stranger Things and bridgerton and whiplash, I think were the three, which you mentioned in the bio. But we're the custodians of incredible soundtracks like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and a bunch of really notable IP and I got to grow up watching them build this empire of music, or what I like to call magical music moments on screen, and seeing how you can shift people into different worlds and universes with just a few notes. You can know you're in Hogwarts just by closing your eyes and listening to the music, which is a beautiful thing to be able to do, and so mainstream was essentially born when I had my chance to join the business. I'm the youngest child desperate to prove myself finally allowed into the family business, after many years of knocking at the door and I was working on a sell side transaction in their m&a department, I'm a chartered accountant by training, so this was how I landed, and I had the opportunity to sell a wellness catalog and label we had bought a little bit earlier, and I was looking at these, these stories, of these artists who are on this label that we had essentially become the home of them for. And I was just, I was really intrigued as to why, in the state of the music industry as it was, this was in 2020 why these stories weren't known as well as they could have been, why there wasn't a relationship between the artist and the listener to the degree that I felt there, there might be down the road and and how Could we support that artist to earn in slightly different manners. There was so much reliance on the major streaming platforms, on editors behind the scenes, so that when you said, Alexa, play me something to sleep, you were praying that that editor, and there's one who sits behind the curtain at Amazon, was going to program you on the sleep playlist. And if you did, your artist would do very well. And if you didn't, you wouldn't. And I felt like that Reliance was something we possibly could disrupt. And I thought that the fact that when you say, Alexa, help me, help me sleep, you don't know that it's liquid mind playing, or Peter cater playing, because it's a relatively faceless transaction between the listener and the the platform and that point, and there's a lot of beautiful stories. An authenticity behind that music, which I think is quite valuable. So those two things combined made me start thinking about, how can we create a business where we could control distribution and build more opportunities for artists to earn and engage with other people in a much more consistent and intentional manner, which would allow them to develop those relationships? So yeah, without wanting to just ramble at you for the full extent of this podcast, I will, I will sort of pause for breath there, but that was kind of the beginning, the genesis of my stream
Jenn 15:29
that's that's really powerful, and I I love to hear more about how it is that you kind of create that link for the artist and the listener. What does that look like and and how might I if I'm if I'm seeking breath work, how would I interact or learn about the voice behind that, the the creative behind that? Yeah, I
Freddie 15:52
think it's a shift in how the platform's designed. So when you look at like a Spotify and Amazon and as an example, they're the best user experiences you could possibly imagine, like particularly Spotify. It's the best user experience you could possibly imagine. When you want to find music that you love and that you're going to be entertained by, it knows how it knows your preferences and your profile, and particularly if you've been listening to it for a while, it can serve you new music. You know, if you're searching for something, you're going to find it in three seconds or less. It's a phenomenal platform when you know what you're looking for and when you have taste as the kind of main factor. So in that principle, engagement skip through rates, that's all that matters, really. But when you apply those same fundamentals to functional music, which is now, you know, as a listener, you're in a very different need state, you know, you think about when you're actually seeking out functional music, it's at a time of need. I can't sleep. Help me sleep. I feel anxious. Help me, you know, regulate my emotional moods. I feel stressed. Help. You know that word help, it came up time and time again, and, you know, we asked ourselves, well, are these the right metrics to be validating ourselves off of? Is it really just engagement, which is the core determine of whether or not we're being a good experience to that listener? Are we the right music to be playing at the right time for those ears? What do we need to think about above and beyond what the major streaming platforms tend to assess themselves on. And it came to things like because of that structure, when we're looking at supporting a Spotify on Amazon, for instance, which we still do, we get about 100 million streams a month on those platforms. So we're a relatively significant partner in those places. And when we're supporting those, we're thinking about, how do we make sure that we sound exactly like they need us to sound, and we're gonna fit perfectly within the track level. So we're not going to be changing key, we're not going to be changing dynamics. Everything's going to be just smooth, and you can just plug us into the sleep playlist and we'll do the job. And that's fine, but I have a big question, should it be should we be delivering tracks of music for this purpose, or should we be thinking about? How much time does the listener have? Five minutes? Okay, let's service them with the best five minutes possible, taking into account the mood they're in, the energy levels they have their you know, BPM, all the all the various different measurable inputs that we can have that clarify or qualify the state they are when they start the journey, then understanding how much time we have with them in that moment, to the state that they want to be in when they leave the journey and deliver a not not a track, but a soundscape, a piece of music that allows them to get there to the best of our ability, as an example, so immediately, that's one shift that takes you away from This kind of faceless, kind of Playlist approach more towards here's an artist who understands you and your journey, and here's how you craft something that's going to fit what you're looking for at this time. So if I, if I give you a kind of sleep as an example, and maybe this goes to why the stories matter. Is many people struggle with with sleep in different ways on our planet. And artists are no different. And there was one, one particular artist who I was quite drawn to on our label, is this Chapman, liquid mind. He's the most commercially successful sleep musician of all time. You know, billions of streams to his name. He's a chap in his 70s, now called Chuck Wilde, who goes on to the Monica liquid mind. And I always say this when you start thinking about wellness, wellness music, you don't learn your instrument often. There are many, maybe some outliers that I'm possibly generalizing here, but most children learn musical instruments and decide I want to be a musician, thinking that they're going to be the next Michael Jackson. I want to be playing stages. I want to be doing tours. I want to be Taylor Swift, right? You know, they want to entertain people. They want to move people in that way, right? And so it's very what usually turns out to happen is, you know, musician goes through the motions of becoming musician, and life happens. There's usually a catalytic moment in their own life. Where they start valuing health, they start valuing mental health, and usually it's through an experience, and that's that's the truth of it. And so what happens is, then they start using the art, the craft, that they've honed over their career, to start helping themselves and then helping others. And that's what often shifts people into the gear of, I'm now a wellness musician, as opposed to just, I'm a musician, musician, and liquid mind is a really good example of this. Because when he started his career, he was, you know, he went, he was in the Vietnam War as a Navy veteran. He toured America in a pop punk band called Missing Persons. He was the keyboardist, and then he created music for ABCs, hit TV show, Max Headroom. As a composer, he was an engineer on Michael Jackson's Thriller project, right? So this is a proper musicians, musician, if you will. And he had a complete breakdown, a panic attack, exceptionally high anxiety and stress from being burnt out and overworked. And he thought he was dying with a heart attack, and was rushed to hospital. This would have been in the the 80s, early 80s, and at the hospital, he met a very forward thinking doctor who prescribed him counseling as well as also some medication. It was the 80s, and that counselor essentially explained to chuck that he'd fallen out of love with music, you know, he'd commoditized it to the nth degree, and he was working exceptionally hard. What if you try to use the love that you used to have for music to help yourself? So he sat on the beach and kind of created, tried to create some still in his life again, and started writing music to help with the main thing he was struggling with, which was to help himself fall asleep. And so that's how liquid mind was born on the beach, trying to help himself fall asleep. And then he drove around America, handed CDs out to everyone who would listen. And turns out he was pretty good at it, and after 20 studio albums and many decades of helping others fall asleep and countless testimonials thanking him, he found an incredibly gratifying career and became the best in his space. But to me, that's an example of a story which is just so emotive and powerful. To come back to the actual question you asked me, How do you start building that relationship? How do you start allowing artists to kind of express themselves in this way? I think it's about understanding the intention behind why you're seeking this music out, and how the artist the other side of the headphones has discovered their power to help you through those moments and being appropriate with the packaging, the storytelling, the moments that they get to understand through it. So what can you do to help the listener understand and set intention before they start listening? Is it something that you want to ground them, that you know that the other person who's recorded this has been where you are? Maybe, is it that it's being clinically validated in a sleep study? Maybe depends what the listener is looking for, or is it a mixture of the two, often? So I think taking a bit more control of the software and the journey and understanding how you can intention map that gives you the flexibility to be, yeah, to really drive a bit of impact through, through the listening, which, which is what excites me,
Jenn 23:07
it's incredible. And I think that that's the story for me as you're describing it. Also, there's, like, a couple directions. Maybe we can choose your own adventure moment here. But like, I am curious about you know, how that story resonates for you as someone who grew up in the music industry in a way that, you know, I'm sure there's so many complex layers of it, as much as you can talk about the experience of, you know, when you hear that, like bell sound or whatever, and you're like, oh, that's Harry Potter, you know, I'm there. I'm there. And the experience of being a large, you know, seeing that and growing up around that. So I guess what I wonder, or one of the things that's coming up, is, like it, how did, how did music become personal to you? Or like, what is your personal relationship with music? Because so much I think of what drives us to do the work in the world is often around things that really resonate with us and speak to us. Yeah, I think
Freddie 24:01
music became my crutch in many situations when I was growing up. I grew up around it. I tried. I grew up playing lots of different instruments and trying my hand at it. And, you know, I was, I was constantly picking up a new instrument and putting it down and trying the next one. I think that was probably a problem, because I never got great at any of them and but I found love in all of them, which was, which is quite an interesting balance, but really music listening for me became the thing that I kind of got completely taken hold of, or took hold of me, mostly in terms of how one I found, I found a lot of a lot of joy in it. I used to go to a lot of gigs. My first, one of my first jobs was going to gigs to try and scout talent. And I love that. I got to go to three or four gigs a week in London. And lots of energy, lots of cool things. I thought I was really cool being able to be here talking new bands. And that was pretty much my whole personality for. For a couple of years there, and, you know, brought me a lot of happiness. And at the same time, in the moments where things got tough, grief, if when that came through, new friendships, breakups, all these moments where there were moments of challenge in my life, I found a lot of a lot of support in music. I found a lot of I felt heard in the lyrics. I felt moved by songs. I felt like music was the was something which was never going to be confrontational or criticizing or it was there for me throughout my life in different ways as an individual. And having grown up seeing someone I respect and idolize in my father build a business in the world of music, I knew it was valuable, right? So I knew I could feel the power of it, and I could see the commercial value in it. And I always grew up relatively entrepreneurial, wanting to build a business here or there, or any competition I could enter I was in, anytime I could try and spin up an idea and sell something. I was doing it. And I just, you know, that kind of mentality of those two things that really mattered to me. It felt almost kind of like it was a serendipitous, destined to be moment when I happened to be in a space where I got to make the I got the opportunity to build a business around helping people understand the true power of music. And that's been, yeah, a really exciting moment in my life, but probably comes from that duality personal passion, grip and aspiration to create commercial value in it.
Jenn 26:38
Sure. No. And what's so powerful also, to me about both as you're speaking and the story that you shared around liquid mind, and it's really, for me, is the ways that what you just said around that music is not it's not going to judge you, it's not going to criticize you. You know, as when we step into the therapeutic world or helping world, right? There's a lot that we're wrangling with, where there's another person at the other end of that that has their own sets of bias, beliefs, whatever. You know, we're making ourselves vulnerable to that. When we are interacting with music, there's so much more choice and agency, I think, involved. It's like, oh, that doesn't quite fit. Oh, let me try this, or let me try that, and that it's not cognitive in the same way, right? Like it's not verbal, we're not talking, we're feeling, we're sensing. To me, music is such an embodied experience as well. So I think that is so fascinating. I love that you're researching this as well. I know that's part of the work that mindstream does, but like being able to kind of meet the whole person in a way that I think so much of helping and mental health and and wellness doesn't always quite capture. But when you use an intervention essentially, like music, it's, it's this whole person experience.
Freddie 27:57
Yeah, I had this really special moment, maybe was, I want to say, four years ago now I so in the lane of researching, I had reached out to a music psychologist who I really respect here in London called Professor Adam ockelford. I had essentially stalked his work and harassed him until he let me have a coffee with him, and I wanted to pick his brain on on the things that we wanted to do and how to do it right. And he invited me into his his studio, and his specialism is helping teach neurodiverse blind children how to use music as a communication mechanism, really. And I sat down and I listened to one of his students, who's been with him now for over 40 years. And his name is Derek paravicini. He's a musical savant, and they call him he's done he's done a 60 Minutes. He's done a TED talk. He's done a whole bunch of really cool stuff. He's been exceptionally, exceptionally well, well renowned at this point for his amazing musical gifts. But they call him the the human iPod, because if he has got this incredible ability, not only absolute pitch, where he's able to recognize any note or any series of notes immediately, but he's got this memory and imagination in tandem, and you can play him something, and he'll be able to play it immediately, or he'll be able to improvise off of it, and it's quite a special thing to see. But he was sat at the piano next to next to Adam, who was, who was kind of helping him play. And on the other side of the room was another piano with another non verbal autistic girl called Romy. And these two individuals obviously have their whole lives, and I was sat next to Romney's father, and we were listening to them play to each other. And this is a girl who can't speak, but was going back and forth and exchanging phrases of music with Derek. And they would, they would play for a little bit to each other, and then they would. Of burst out laughing in unison, and I didn't really understand what was going on. Adam had to explain it to me and to Romney's father, who'd seen this a few times now, and so he was kind of helping me through it, too. But what I learned is they were communicating to each other humor by changing key. They would move into the B flat key in order to express humor, and all of a sudden you realize that music to them was what language is to us. And that is, it was a complete perception shift to me, because I realized that I didn't understand nearly enough about this thing that I felt moved by that other people around the world have different experiences and interactions with and if you can start understanding how other people can process or enjoy or learn or experience music in a certain way, you can start really driving a lot of incredible behavior and change through so a lot of the work we've done since is just being trying to understand it more and get the right thing for the right people, which is pretty cool. So, yeah, no, I've actually had the privilege of speaking on stage now a couple times with Derek and Professor ockelford. We did so at the Global wellness summit in 22 and the Forbes travel guide summit in 24 and we've had great experiences throughout and every time anyone sees Derek play, they're just, you know, standing ovations and tears, because it is. It's one of the most powerful musical experiences you can see when something is so pure. And the way that Derek plays is just, yeah, it's it's embodies his personality. It's purity that's amazing.
Jenn 31:33
We'll definitely link to some of that too, in the in the program notes. I wonder too, if you know, I'm thinking about how we can talk about sort of different lanes, you know, whether we're talking about kind of clinical application or even sort of, you know, user experience of seeking out music. But then I'm wondering, too, I know that you work with, you know, hotels or different, different kinds of brands to think about creating their environment with music, you know, can you kind of share about that and even bridge a little bit the gap for maybe some of our listeners who are clinically oriented, but then thinking about, okay, if I'm stepping into a hotel lobby, you know, why does it matter there, and what's and what's the responsibility of the hotel to create an environment, or, you know, All of that kind
Freddie 32:21
of stuff. Yeah, great questions. I might, I might go hotel first and move clinic, if that's okay, just because it's probably a little easier for me to start that way around. So we just, we're just coming off the bat of the back of the Forbes travel guide Summit, which is a luxury hotel hospitality event in Monaco. And I sit on that committee now, and have had the great privilege of of trying to learn how audio can be a more important part of the standards that are set to qualify for five and four stars, and they haven't been that critically important historically, thankfully, that's changing, which is good news, but one of the things that we started talking about a lot is What's the power of music to anchor memory as an emotional landmark. And this is one of the things we know very well in film and television. So it comes out of the core component of our DNA and our infrastructure. It's the sort of thing like this idea of, if I start playing you hedwig's theme from Harry Potter, you're going to start knowing and feeling like Hogwarts. Or you might start thinking about your daughter, the first person you watched or read Harry Potter to, and all these sorts of things that are so you have associations that accompany music. That's kind of layers to music. You have kind of the intention behind it. I can write something in a very, you know, simple major key and try and emote happiness, but you as the individual will have your perception of that music based off of your experiences. So you might have listened to that piece of music that's very major key and very happy in a traumatic event, and now all of a sudden, it's going to trigger a stress response. And those are kind of the layers that accompany any aspect of composition. So coming back to what that means for a brand, if you walk into a hotel lobby and you're playing Taylor Swift as an example, most of us on the planet at this point will have a relationship with Taylor Swift music, and we'll have music, and will have associations with Taylor Swift's music. So you're essentially sacrificing your ability to control the audio environment to whatever those relationships may be. You don't have the ability to influence thoughts and create your emotional landmarks through audio, and do all the things that audio has the power to do by essentially not controlling that environment, by not having your own brand associate into the environment, doesn't mean you should always have a brand. It's really good to play tailors with sometimes and make sure people are happy and generally enjoying good music. That's that's definitely something that should be programmed. But there are certain moments where impact through audio can be critical, and there are brands who do this brilliantly. You know, if I say I'm loving it, you know what I'm talking about? Don't have to say it's McDonald's, but you know, or if I talk about, you may not know what that one is, but all of a sudden you might feel a bit of joy, and that's because it's Coca Cola sonic logo, and it means happiness. And what you can see with a. The way that Coca Cola reply, the use of a sonic logo as an example is this incredible campaign in the World Cup in 2012 in South Africa, where they got a an artist, an article canon. This is for the football, I should say Soccer World Cup for my American friends listening. What they did is they got Canon to write the World Cup anthem, which went and then they re recorded it 18 different times different to represent different cultures. And they found that they had immediate 5% quarter over quarter growth in direct sales for cook cans. They also happen to enjoy streaming royalties to this day, over 13 years later on, every single one of the masters that they put out, which is in collaboration with Kanaan. So here's a successful way of building brand equity, subliminally through audio to some degree, whilst also driving direct revenue. So it's been done beautifully well in film, television and FMCG branding as an example. So question is, how do you do it in hospitality, to create your own version of your landmarks whilst being appropriate and relevant to your geography, your culture, the things you want to represent your stories. So the thing we did for the travel guide was we wrote a sonic logo for them last year, the full travel guide, summit logo, I think you can find it on their website this year, over the last five, sort of over the last year, in between our first day as the official audio partners them to last week, we essentially spoke to five different country ambassadors. So Forbes does this incredible thing where they have these Ambassador campaigns representing different countries and continents. And we went to there was a fantastic Argentinian named Leandro who was in Hyatt, and then there was someone from Madrid and someone from India and someone from America and someone from Jamaica. And we kind of had these conversations, and we said, Okay, well, how does music make you feel of home in hospitality? We're always traveling. We're always away, and one of the things that we love about music can take you back to where you grew up. It just can transport you there immediately and make you feel of your family or make you think about home. So we wanted that story, and we I did this, I ran around the stage and gave him like a microphone, and they told their story about how they grew up, and then we had this quartet play a quick 32nd snippet of the song that they had chosen, which the USA was a bit of Bruce Springsteen, and Jamaica was Bob Marley. And we had a bunch of, I think it was Spanish, was mediterrano, and it was some beautiful music that was very culturally relevant. But then, at the end of this kind of these stories that we were telling that made people remind I was asked a question, which you asked, which is why I've gone on this rambly story, which popped into my mind, which is cool, you can do that with music you already know and love and that you associate with family, but how can you associate with a brand? So what we did is we took the fourth travel guide, Sonic brand that we had created previously, yeah, and demonstrated in Monaco, to give a feeling of kind of Monte Carlo, a little bit cool, a little bit Mediterranean. It was quite a fun, fun kind of rhythmic beat. And we then took it to the countries of every single one of those five who presented. So we immediately took it to India and gave it kind of this cool percussive feel that felt distinctly Bollywood. And then we went to Argentina and gave it some sort of tango flare. And then to Madrid and to America, and then to eventually finishing with some steel drums in Jamaica. And by the end of it, you know, you realize that if you have something identifiable, that's yours, and you have the intention behind where you want people and how you want people to experience it music. You can take people on journeys with it. You can take people anywhere you would like with it. You just have to think about what you want them to feel and how you want them to feel. And the point about being a brand is, all you're trying to do is make people feel stuff. So understand how you're going to do that with audio. And if you want to do that with Justin Timberlake or Taylor Swift cool, just think about it beforehand, because you can do it and own it as well. So that's that'll be the point around hospitality. So to answer the question you asked in terms of, do hospitality have an obligation to do this? No, they can do whatever they want to do, from a from an audio perspective, they want to play Taylor Swift and just kind of take a hand off. That's absolutely their their discretion. I'm sure people still have a lovely time going to that property and seeing it. Do they have an opportunity to do something more and do something which becomes distinctly theirs and deliver a unique experience. For me, I don't think you can be a five star property without going that extra mile and thinking with that hat on of how I'm going to make something that you can't experience anywhere in the world. For me, that's what five star means, and that's that's the epitome of of experience. It's where you've had everything considered and audio is a very important sense which has been way underutilized in hospitality. So I don't say it's an obligation. I say it's an opportunity, maybe because I'm an optimist, but I think there's an incredible opportunity for hospitality at this point in time to take a sense which has been grossly underutilized across the board. Do something incredible with it, because we can see it being done everywhere else, in other industries, like in film and television, where we come from, like in advertising, where we've operated a lot as well. I'll just use those couple of those examples and apply it into an industry where all of a sudden you have more sensors available to you, and you can create more powerful experiences as a result. So that would be my hospitality answer. Hopefully it answers your question. I didn't just ramble too far off the beaten path.
Jenn 40:25
Absolutely, yeah. And then curious too about, like, you know, the five star experience, of course, is limited to a very small, potentially, percentage of the population. It's like, what do we how do we understand and think about music for the wider population, for people that are seeking help and care, knowing that, you know, the reason that I even ask about the hospitality piece is because so many of us are seeking help and healing, and we, one might not even call it that, right, like we're traveling, we're doing a thing, we're landing in a place, And we're carrying our burdens. We're carrying our trauma wherever we go and when we have clinical spaces, or we're thinking about using music clinically. I'm curious just to hear more about that line of your work.
Freddie 41:13
Yeah, and I think the reason I wanted to start with the hospitality side of my answer is because all of those processes and structures, they apply in the way you should think in clinical but the outcomes slightly different, and also the delivery mechanism, the kind of, I guess, the limiting factors and the hygiene checks are slightly different. So instead of having to create unique experiences, which is what I would say is the bar and luxury hospitality, it's more about intentional experiences that are validated and functional. That's the bar in clinical as I would see it. So like, we work with the Hyatt and Hiltons of the world for experiences, and that's not just, you know, the waldorfs. It's also, you know, all forms of brand. We want to make sure music successful. Not everyone needs to do Sonic branding and put the whole whole nine together. It's, it's more about just making sure that people are thinking in a way of, what could the most valuable form of audio be for me, for my experiences, for my expressions, much like we do that in hospitality. You know, we did this deal with with Mayo Clinic last year, where we started really thinking about a couple of key things, not only how to validate content and understand, you know, okay, if our music's being used in a chemo Ward as part of an oncology care program, right? You know, what, what kind of dosage of music should we be thinking about? How often, you know, what kind of music for what kind of person? All these different things, right? So, these are things that we're we're learning, we're validating as we, as we kind of go through the processes of conducting this type of research, guided by the experts who can support us. But also it's one thing to create great content that's relevant. You also have to get it into their ears, right? You need to be able to distribute it. Otherwise, what's the point of creating something great? So the other part, which we're really helpful, we're really grateful to Mayo for helping us with, is, where do we integrate at what points, you know, is it something that a clinician prescribes with a click of a button from their EMR, you know, as an example, like, is it just, you know, do we take into the inputs of the electronic medical records that we have access to to understand how to personalize, not only based off of your Spotify listener history, but also based off of the inputs and outcomes that we know that you As a patient are trying to seek, is a question we ask, and clearly that spits back a lot of answers around HIPAA compliance and ensuring that you're doing things in the appropriate safeguarding and taking only the appropriate amount of data at the right time, and these different things that we start learning about, and we say, Okay, well, what's actually useful information versus now superfluous? And so you start, all of a sudden, beginning to build a picture of in a clinical setting, what standard can we hold ourselves to whereby we're actually building something that's of value to the end patient and to the clinician to achieve an eventual goal of mission, and our mission, you know, whilst we started in the spa space, and we, you know, we want to be the best spa music business in the world, much like we Want to be the best. You know, music for hospitality business in the world, that's always, you know, we're holding ourselves to standards. But we didn't start off just saying we want to, we want to be in Spa. We our mission was we believe music should be a prescribable part of care. We believe it's a powerful tool. And so we built infrastructure, software, infrastructure, that would allow us to grow into these healthcare spaces and settings. And so we've, we've established ourselves in in pockets within that and we're doing the hard work we have to in order to ensure we do so at the level that allows us to achieve the ambition and goal that we have. And so to come back to your question, which is, you know, when you're thinking about these clinical spaces, what can we do to utilize music as a functional tool. I think it comes back to the exact same principles, which is understanding the intention behind the music and generally the creative so the breath work piece is a really good example. Sometimes it can be guided or unguided. Sometimes it can be packaged as an active listening session versus not. And the software that we build. To deliver that it needs to be appropriate to be able to understand exactly what you're delivering over what period of time, for what amounts of time, so that clinician confidence builds to the point where they want to use it as a part of their care. So I'd say those are the barriers that we're navigating and getting through at the moment with great partners, particularly in the US. We spend a lot of time with great institutions, some in primary care and clinical care like mayo, and others in the academic institutional space, like MIT and NYU. And we're learning a lot as we go in terms of what kind of creative is the best for what purposes. And we're also learning a lot about what kind of product is most useful for the various different stakeholders who need to be aligned. It's certainly not easy, because you have to try and figure out the different and often sometimes differing needs of the patient, the clinician, the administrators, and you have to try and solve problems for all of them. But that's kind of where it becomes fun, because you get to actually create impact while solving some hard challenges. And anyone who's ever wanted to be an entrepreneur, the only thing they want to do is solve really hard challenges. So we're on our way
Jenn 46:06
for that. It's so powerful to think about, like I'm thinking about the experience of even seeking out oncology care. You know, that sort of the example you were citing, and and how music is a container, or can be a container in a way that, you know, if I'm going in for treatment, in a hospital or seeking care, you know, I'm sort of like coming and going, but it's always with me. And how music can potentially be this, like, it's like a way to encapsulate the experience, but also change the experience, link to the experience. I mean, I think so much of clinical care for myself as a provider can be like, how do I help clients? Have more resources. How do I help them? Have, you know, not just this one hour with them, and have like, you know, something they can carry with them. And to me, music is such a potent thing, especially because we can just have it on us, like all the time, right? And we can pop it in our ears, and can help us in our transition. You know,
Freddie 47:10
people are comfortable trying it as well, which is helpful, you know. And you know, there was a study which was done not too long ago, 33,000 plus participants across 20 countries, so huge sample size, very diverse, and we found 86 and a half percent of them were actively using music for pain management as an example. So here you have a tool that's already been utilized by a patient population. You as a care provider, are seeking to deliver an extension of care wherever possible, and even just being able to have a relationship between you know, when are you? When is someone seeking music for pain management as an example, how often are they seeking music for pain management? How helpful could that data be in order to inform the way you think about care as a clinician? So just even just changing nothing, the music is the exact same that someone's already listening to, but now we are able to track not only performance and royalties to the artist, but also performance to the clinician who's actually delivered the concept? All of a sudden, it might be able to enhance the way that you think about the way you're delivering care as an example, just another data point as as a very crude example and very high level. Clearly, you need to get a little bit more into the weeds around some of the safeguards about that. But the point is that we're moving into a into a world where care is becoming, for instance, of pioneering a phenomenal at care, home at Home program, you know, as are many of these amazing, amazing institutions. And so in doing so, when you're when you're going through chemo in your living room, all of a sudden there are so many other barriers and problems around, you know, distance from the trusted, credible experts. How do you help instill a sense of confidence and trust and help support that patient as they're at home. These are all challenges which audio and music has an incredible potential to help solve to some degree. And so our view is in clinical practice, if you know you have a tool that people want to use, you know that it's accessible and relatively affordable, and you can see some of the potential behind the power that it can hold when programmed intentionally. For me, it becomes quite a clear no brainer. So you got to do it right. You got to do it in a way that actually makes it adoptable, particularly within US healthcare, because there are many stakeholders and many hoops that you need to jump through, and they're there for a reason. You need to ensure it's appropriate and safeguarded and responsibly programmed to the support of others and asymptomatic in the right ways. And so we spent a fair bit of time positioning ourselves and getting ourselves in the right sort of space so that we are capable of being able to do it at the level that we want to do it. Because these things don't happen overnight. You have to do it to the right level. So I'm really excited about what's going to come, because as soon as you start thinking about the impact you can make in clinical care, it's certainly what keeps a lot of the incredible people here I get I'm lucky to work with. It's what keeps them excited, and it keeps them here on this journey with me. Because you don't keep brilliant people unless you're. Are solving incredibly hard and incredibly impactful problems, in my view, and we're certainly solving a few of those on a daily basis. We're trying to, at the very least, over here, so it's I'm excited about what's going to come in the coming months. That's fascinating.
Jenn 50:17
One other thought that I had was sort of like a curiosity around. Are there things that you think about when you're considering healing as something that's ambient, that's sort of like in our environment, versus something that's more appointment based, or more like consent based, like, I'm seeking healing, I'm seeking help, versus it just happens to be in the water or in the in the in the sound around me?
Freddie 50:41
Yeah, it's it's a really interesting question, and I think I'm being exposed to that way of thinking far more than I had been before. Through the advisory board position with the wellness Institute. We're trying to understand Holistic Health constantly, at this point, all the different influences and all the different design decisions that affect our physiology and change the way that we think, feel and heal. And I think, you know, the more that we can control those environments for the positive, the better. I think it starts with with understanding and learning and information and trying to do so in a way that's structured without being overwhelming, because there are so many influences that are out of control today. So there's a phenomenal professor I've I've been able to work with, called Professor Anjan Chatterjee, who's based at UPenn. We've done a couple, a couple research projects together, and he sits on the GWI board with me. And, you know, I've always been a huge admirer of how he thinks about neuro esthetics, the way that design shapes the mind and influences the mind. And he writes beautifully in many research reports that I'd encourage anyone to read, because he understands the importance of some of those more kind of, call it ambient or passive healing mechanisms, and trying to trying to understand how you can use them or leverage them for the good. So yeah, my view is we're affected by everything all the time. So for me, information is power, and the more that you know how to leverage the things that affect you for the better, then you're probably going to be in a slightly better place. But to do so without trying to be overwhelmed is sometimes very challenging, because at least for me, I know that when there's when I start thinking existentially about all the various things that are around me that I don't yet understand, I realize what I understand is often very little, and that is scary. So to do so in a balanced frame of mind, where you control the things you can control and all those sort of things. I guess that's the tension. But yeah, the more you can move yourself towards improving your environment for the good and the good of health, the better love that
Jenn 52:50
love that, I think, for me, the kind of final thing that's been on my mind as we've been chatting and that we spoke about, I think, in the past, is really also, you know, here we're so interested to talk about how power moves, how we not only do the work, but how we show up as leaders, providers in the work. And so, I guess I wondered too, you know, you, you have worked in a family business, right, with a strong directive leader, as you've described, you know, how, how do you think about leadership, and your relationship to kind of leadership power as someone who's, you know, running business, who's leading a charge around this really innovative work, how do you show up In the work, as, as, as who you are.
Freddie 53:44
You know, I won't even, I won't limit this just to work actually, because I'm, I'm someone who believes that kind of bring your whole self into the work you do and be as true and authentic to the mission as possible. So really, it's also, it's my family, my my wife, my two kids, my friends, everyone around me, it's these are all things I'm thinking about in this answer, as it were, as well as also the incredible people I get to work with who join me on this journey as as part of the team. So, you know, I think it's really, really hard to be a good leader. I think it's almost impossible to do it perfectly, but I think it's one of the most incredible things to strive to do as well as you can. And it can be very draining, and it can be very, yeah, it can be very tough to be proud of yourself to do that well, because it's a lot of soft skills. But the thing that I've always found a lot of solace in and I've, again, I've had the great privilege of watching people who I really respect build great businesses and be great people, whilst building great businesses is holding your values and your principles and holding yourself to account to them and. And if you want to be, if you want to be the person you know you want to, you want to try and have a view of for me, at least, you know, I hold myself to an expectation that I want to be that person who, one day, the people who worked with me at this phase of the journey will be able to grab a beer with their friends and say, you know, I work with this good leader, this guy, Freddie, who had a vision and he What would I want them to speak about in that regard? Would they? What would I want them saying that I was, you know, this mad genius who was chaotic and running around? No, of course not. I want them just to say that I, you know, was a good guy who had, you know, good ideas, hopefully, and I was willing to listen to them, and I made them the best version of themselves. That's that's what I want people to be able to say in five years time. So therefore, do the thing that you want them to say, right? You know, empower them to be the best version of themselves. Lead authentically. If you want them to communicate with you. Communicate with them openly, honestly and transparently. Be vulnerable even when it feels hard. These are the things which I'm not necessarily getting right all the time, but I find I'm happy I regret less when I've been open and honest about the position I'm in to the extent that I can be because obviously there's some things as a leader, you're always trying to protect others from you know when, when you can be as as open as you, as you, as you are able to be. I find myself glad that I have been so even when it's confronting, even when it's tough, even when you're not sure how it's going to be received, and even if sometimes it's not going to end up with the right thing for you. I'll just, I'll finish on one quick story on this. You know, wasn't too long ago that I had one of my executives. He's been a really incredible part of our journey to date. He decided he wanted to go off and build a company. He wanted to go and be a founder and an entrepreneur. And he's, he's, you know, being part of us for a couple of years and an incredible part of the journey, and he's going to leave an incredible legacy behind. And you know when, when you are in a family business, these things feel personal, and so when I first heard that, I was like, Ah, it hurts. You know, this is this is painful. But you know, you listen to why, and you realize that he's done what he he's been so he's given so much of himself to us for the last couple of years. It's and now he wants to go do something great. All you can do is respect that and appreciate it and be thankful for it. So but I'm super conscious that other people who are now in the company seeing an important executive leave, they're going to feel fear and anxiety. What's happening in the business is everything going wrong? Should I be going to all these things that start spinning around people's heads when there's change? Because change is scary. Instead of shying away from it, what I decided to do in that moment was speak to every individual person myself, explain that this guy was going to be going, and why he was going to be going, and why he was leaving us in a great position and why I respected his decision, and why and how I wanted to support him in his next phase, right? And I was able to have those conversations because I believed it one. I'm exceptionally grateful to what he's built already with us. I'm grateful for the way he's leading us, and we're in a really good position to grow from it. So thankfully, it's all honest. Maybe you can't take this approach. If it's not, I don't know, but I was able to have really open conversations with everyone in the company, give them the chance to feel anxious and scared and and also, you know, question and why is this happening? And, you know, all these different things. And I left after, you know, call it 40 or so conversations back to back over the course of a day and a half. I was exhausted. I was so drained of having really heavy, emotional conversations, having canceled my day to my days, and postponed lots of things, and had to make space for those things. And I'm so glad I did it, because I got to be able to look in the eye of everyone who's with me on the journey and make them feel confident in where we're going, despite a leadership shift, which is tough, and so to that point, in those conversations, I was vulnerable, that I was afraid of change and what was going to happen. Yeah, and I don't have all the answers, but I have an idea of what's next. I think I know what's going to happen. And now, a few weeks on, we're really good spot, and transition has gone really well, and we've got some great people coming in, and I couldn't be more in, and I couldn't be more excited. So, you know, we you then work to actually make it happen. You can't just say it, you can. Got to deliver
Jenn 59:29
on it, right? So it's a great example, yeah, yeah. So you
Freddie 59:33
I probably could have summarized it in three very simple words, which is lead by example. So apologies for everyone who's had to listen to me ramble, if you've managed to get to this point on the podcast, I thank you. I also apologize, but that's, that's, I think, the example that I've always, I've always been shown by my father, and I always aspire to show to those who I get to work with. So it's, yeah, lead with gratitude, I think, is probably how. I'll leave it.
Jenn 1:00:01
That's great, yeah. And I think that and bringing it to life matters actually. I really appreciate you telling that story, because I think that's, that's one thing to say, right? And it's another thing of, like, what does that look like in action? And what I hear in that is that you, you took the time and space to also come to your own inner work around, like, Okay, I'm I'm freaked out. I don't really know what's going to happen. I have feelings. I'm upset, or I'm angry or whatever. I'm going to sit with that so that I can show up for my team and and hold space for them and be with them in it. I mean, like you said, not have all the answers, but I've, I've tended to my stuff first so that I can be with others.
Freddie 1:00:40
Yeah, and, you know, as much as I wanted to kind of solve everything immediately, I think, you know, in moments like that, there isn't a direct and immediate solution. You have to, kind of, you have to build to it. So what I decided to do is, you know, I gave, I gave myself the night, I had a glass of wine, called a few friends and listened to some music, cliche, and by the morning, I was ready to be energized and start making some steps in the right direction. And that's when I sat down with everyone and started going through it. So I gave myself 12 hours to process, feel, do all those things, and then when I was having those conversations, I said, Look, these are the feelings I had last night. This is why I feel excited today. Now we're going to go figure it out, and you know, thankfully, the team have enough trust in me at this point that they know that I'm going to I'm going to work to make things happen, and I'm not just going to leave them holding any any form of bag. So hopefully, it's one of those things where you earn the respect you get, and I'm a firm believer in that you've got to be able to execute and deliver and build confidence in those who are around you. That's how you retain talent. So never do anything. You won't say, won't, never say, you're going to do something and not actually deliver it, right? You got to actually execute. So all of this is a privileged environment to be able to lead from if you if you can deliver, but showing up and allowing people to feel and know that you're not a robotic leader who's just kind of going to solve everything for me, it's it's the more human way, and it's the way that feels honest and authentic. Because I'm not a robot, and I absolutely do not have all the answers. Usually I have many more questions than answers. That's why I hire people, because they usually have better answers than me in their field. And so it would be silly for me to think, you know, I know better than them, or know everything when I'm always heavily reliant on them. So in that moment, it was a nice it was a nice binding experience where everyone came together. And I must say, you know, like even, even newer people who had just arrived at the business, and there were a couple of new hires who are maybe a week or two into their into their role at this moment, they stepped up beautifully. And the others who'd been around there maybe call them mid level managers with one or two direct reports, they were emailing me or calling me in the days following, being like, hey, just so you know, I'm going to do this. I want to step up and do this, if I can do anything else, let me know. And what I found is actually in being the leader that I wanted to be there, where I gave space for those who are around me, it gave them the opportunity to showcase that they had their leadership capabilities, and they could step up in the way that they wanted to. And you get to the point about examples, you get to see what you give a little bit in that regard. And what I was exceptionally proud of is that the team responded in a moment which could be fracturing, you know, you could easily get anxiety or siloed conversations in the shadows. And maybe those things did happen. I don't know. I won't know, but what I do know is that the everyone who I got to speak with, and where I've been fed back to afterwards, their heads were held high. They were having conversations and supporting one another, and the energy levels were exceptional. The morale has been great. And so we come out of that happy and proud and moving forward with good momentum in a moment which possibly could have been distracting. So I'm proud of that moment, because it's a soft skills leadership moment, which I had to challenge. And it was I described this to my my wife, a little bit, where I was like, you know, it's really hard doing hard things, and that was a really hard thing, but those are the moments you become proud of, because that's when you get to earn it. You know, those are the things you want, because that's where you get to earn it. And so if one day I'm ever going to be called someone who was good at anything, it's because I did stuff like that and beyond. So, you know, for anyone who's worried about failure or things like that, which is often things that go through many people's heads at the early certainly, certainly my perception shift that I found living these types of things is that that these are the moments, the hardest stuff, the things where you can fail, that's the chance you have to succeed. What if you could succeed? What if? What if it goes well? I mean, goodness, that's that's what it's all about. That's why you can create a legacy. So I got, I get excited about the hard stuff now, more than I used to, because it's the time where you get to earn being great.
Jenn 1:05:00
Well, thank you so much. Freddie, it's been so great to have this conversation with you. I could definitely keep chatting. I want to honor your time, but I really appreciate you. I'm excited about future projects that we have going on with you, and you joining us in the conference, in terms of creating all of this experience for our attendees. So more to come. Huh?
Freddie 1:05:20
Amazing. Thank you. Reach out. We've got a website if you want to check us out and reach out if you want to have a chat, lots of fun things to come. Great. Thanks, Jim.
Jenn 1:05:39
Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of on trauma and power. If this conversation resonated with you or you want to hear more, we'd love for you to subscribe, share or leave a review. Your support helps these stories reach more people. For more information about today's guest, visit heal with cfte.org/podcast, follow us on Instagram at on trauma and power, to stay connected and continue the conversation, to learn more about all that we have to offer here at the Center for trauma and embodiment, including training and education for mental health movement practitioners and community leaders interested in innovative, body based interventions, head to heal with cfte.org, thank you for being a part of This exploration with me. Until next time, take care. You. You.
