Finding Your Authentic Voice: Lauren Magnum on Music, Joy, and Self-Expression

Push higher, go deeper, love longer, be stronger. We'll keep climbing up the mountain.

There's deeper than you know. All right, all right, everybody. Welcome back to the Infinite Gold Podcast. It's your show hosts, Bri and Anthony Goldner, and today we have a very special guest of mine. Lauren Magnum. She was one of my mentors as a vocalist. Um, if you didn't know about that about me, I used to sing, uh, for fun, and she really helped me, uh, I guess stretch my limits on my vocals with my singing. I did it in high school, and then I— once I met Lauren, I dabbled in it, and this is where we're at now. So A little bit about Lauren: vocalist, pianist, opera singer, and a vocal coach. Lauren started teaching vocal lessons since the age of 16. Holy smokes, that is some serious talent right there. She started working for herself at the age of 15, 16 years old and began working for herself and doing coaching and vocal coaching. She lived in Germany for a period of time and trained overseas while she was training to be an an opera singer where she actually competed in what's called the Meistersingers. Did I say that right?

Meistersingers?

So if you don't know what that is, I just learned this today. It's basically the Olympics for opera singers. And she got the chance to represent the United States of America at 11 years old. That is incredible. And she's still coaching right now with her vocal coaching. And, and is now getting to work on her own music, and she's starting a podcast. This lady has been busy. She's a very special friend of mine, one of my favorite humans, and I'm so excited to have her on. Welcome, Lauren.

Thank you guys. Thank you for the introduction, and thank you to both of you for having me. I'm so grateful, and I love seeing you guys doing your thing on the Infinite Gold Podcast, and I really appreciate you guys having me on.

Yay!

So let's get started. Uh, tell us about how your journey began.

Absolutely. So when I was 5 years old is when they really knew that I could sing. I remember telling my mom that I wanted to do, um, I believe it was the talent show. My mom's like, what are you gonna do? And I, I told her I wanted to sing. And apparently I would practice at school and I would never sing at home. So the first time they heard me sing was when my dad had one of those old school cameras on his shoulder, and you can hear in the recording when he goes, oh my God, she can actually sing. And I think at the time I sang Beauty and the Beast and I took it so seriously practicing at school at 5. And then it kind of just took off from there. Like you said in the intro, I, I had my first vocal coach at 9 and then one of my teachers said, hey, I want you to try singing this opera piece. And growing up, my dad, he introduced all types of music to me. So I listened to a lot of classical music. We went to operas, we went to see the ballet. So I was immersed in the arts culture at a very young age. So I think that's something that always stuck with me. So I was just passionate about music, and I listened to music in multiple languages growing up. My dad spoke Spanish and German to us growing up, and then English as well. So when somebody— my teacher introduced a piece to me in Italian, I was really drawn to that, and then it kind of took off from there.

That's So cool. Yeah, so you learned Italian to sing that piece?

Yeah, absolutely. So in music, especially when you sing, you need to know what you're, you know, you're singing about. So my teacher would always have us translate it in English, and this was before ChatGPT, this is before the internet, so we literally had to get a dictionary and then word for word translate. Okay, what does this phrase mean? Now you need to you need to understand it before you start singing in a foreign language.

Oh my gosh. How challenging was that?

Honestly, I feel like it became second nature to me since my dad spoke multiple languages to us growing up. I feel like I just gravitated towards that very easily. And when you're younger, it's a lot easier to learn a language rather than being older. So for me, like I said, it just became second nature and I loved it. So from that point on, I started singing in not only English, but Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, German, Czechoslovakian. And yeah, kind of just took off from there. So it was pretty neat and still is. I'm still singing.

Oh my gosh. Bilingual vocally. Oh my gosh. That is so cool.

So how many languages can you speak then?

I say I'm a conversationalist in at least 6 languages.

Wow, that's really cool.

Yeah. So when I was in Germany too, it was a lot easier because you're immersed in the culture. But if I started speaking Czechoslovakian with someone right now, I'd probably get stuck because I haven't spoken it in so long. But yeah, my most comfortable languages, I would say, are Spanish, German, Russian, French. Those are the main ones.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. And honestly, opera sounds— there are operas in English that are written in English, but it sounds so much prettier in another language. Even if you don't know what somebody is saying, if the person is an artist, they evoke the emotion. So you kind of know, oh, this is a happy point in the song. Oh, this is a sad part of the song. So it doesn't really matter what language you speak if you're an audience member. You can still understand through emotion, which is really beautiful. Yeah.

Oh my gosh, that actually drew a memory to me of when I went to a Celine Dion concert in Vegas with my Nana, and she sang this song in— I think it was French.

Yeah.

Um, Je T'Aime Encore, I think is the name of it. I Love You Still. And I remember being at the concert and her singing it, and I was just like, oh my God, I have no idea what she's saying, but I could feel it in my heart and in my soul.

Always.

Like, Celine Dion is definitely one of the greats when it comes to music, and I believe French was her first language. So I love all of her pieces in French.

Oh gosh, I haven't heard any others, so you'll have to share that with me when we're done here. But I would love to listen to that. Um, so, and then now that you've been working as a vocal coach, you got your business all started up and you started that, what, in LA area when you guys were living in California?

Yeah, actually in Orange County. So I had a studio in Orange County. I— so when I first started, like I said, my first teaching job, I was 15. So it was before I even drove, and my mom would drop me off at different houses and I would go in, teach, and I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. I'm passionate about music and I'm very passionate about helping people. So after one lesson, it was so beautiful just to see someone transform after one lesson, I'm like, I gotta keep doing this. Like, we're on to something.

Oh, that's great.

After that happened, I opened my own physical studio in Orange County. Then lovely COVID happened and I had to shut it down, which was devastating at the time but also beautiful because I ended up growing my business even more because I just did Zoom lessons with people. So I have a studio at my house, uh, 90% of my students live outside of Las Vegas. So we do Zoom. So I teach people who are in London, I teach people who are in literally all over the world, from New York to Texas, London, Bali, somebody in Africa before, South America. So the power of social media is real, and it's, it's so beautiful to be able to work with people from all over the world.

That's really cool.

Yeah, my babe's back.

And then it's really cool that you, especially that you can seeing in multiple languages and that allows you to coach people in multiple languages and in different pieces. So like you're not even steadfast in just one location. Like you could literally teach anywhere.

Absolutely. I totally agree with you. And I've worked with people where the, there was a language barrier and I didn't even speak their language, but we just, our language that we understood was music. So we made it happen. It was, it's pretty interesting.

We, we can't talk outside of music, but we are really good talking music right now. I love that.

Yeah, I feel like music, it's its own language. You don't have to speak the same language, but you do music and you're like, no, I get you.

Yeah, truly music is the universal language.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, so beautiful.

Uh, going back to when you were a kid, I loved how your dad engulfed you in like so many different language or so, so many different pieces of music. It's almost like, for example, like when I was a kid or a lot of kids that go through sports, like we play so many different sports. So it really helps, you know, what sports you like, what sports you don't, and there's interlaps in a lot of those sports. So you get better at whatever sport it is you like. So I like how that helped you find out that opera was like your favorite piece because you're able to take in different kinds of musics and then different languages. So I liked how you weren't so pigeonholed into one type of music.

I'm so grateful for him because he came to the United States from Colombia. So he introduced cumbia music, salsa music, which is in Spanish. But then he also had a love for country music. And it's funny because he would never say country. He would say country western, which is so funny. You know, he would be turning on the oldies like Johnny Cash. So I grew up listening to every type of music. And I know that my palette of music is so broad. Like, I don't have a specific genre of music that I love. Like, there are a lot of classical opera singers that just listen to opera, which is beautiful. I listen to hip-hop, I listen to rap, I listen to country, EDM, literally everything that you could think of. I just love sound. But I, I am really grateful for my dad for introducing me to every type of music. Yeah.

Now, look, quick, quick follow-up to that. How does that help you with your writing? You, you mentioned that you're writing a lot more, singing a lot more like, how does that help you with knowing and singing all these different genres?

Honestly, I feel like because I have an ear for music and also because all of my students— I don't just teach classical students, okay? I want to say 2% of my students sing opera or classical music. Everyone else is, you know, country, R&B, pop, the list goes on. So I'm not pigeonholed into one particular genre. So I think my students really help me with that as well because I, I do songwriting with them as well. We do vocal lessons depending on what your goal is. Um, lately I've been working with, uh, Broadway singers, pageant, um, pageant women. So people who have done Miss USA, people who have done the younger pageants, but people who are really taking it seriously. So, um, my students are all people who are professionals, which is really nice and such a breath of fresh air. You do have to audition to be, um, in my studio, but really I feel like I said, my students really have helped me with my writing. Um, there are times I have students who are 8 years old, well, they'll— their imagination is just so broad, they'll think of something off the top of their head, and I'm like, oh my gosh, how did you even think of that? You know? Yeah. But they're, they're not thinking about what we're thinking about— work and paying bills and this and that. They're just having fun. And kids are so just so incredible when you can hear their imagination and what they write as well.

Yeah, well, no, and we've talked about it too, like, you're your most creative self when you're a kid.

You really are. And if you can tap back into that childlike self, that's something I'm working on. I think all of us as adults have to work on. We, we forget about having fun. Yes, it's like a spiritual awakening to have fun. You just feel so good. I have to— I literally have to schedule joy for myself and curate joy. I'm like, today is the day, we're having fun today.

Yes, I love that.

It's so important. Yeah, well, they say if you're not having fun, you're living someone else's story.

It's true, it's true. And I feel like sometimes we want to wait till we get to a certain level to enjoy ourselves. Why, why not now? You have to enjoy the journey. And that's something that I'm working on. I definitely haven't mastered that yet.

I love that. Can you actually tap more into that? Because we have a lot of listeners that are entrepreneurs and/or moms, what are some of those tools that you're using to help you tap into that and do more of it rather than just work, work, work, work, work?

Yeah, I think, uh, work— my work— every year I pick a word for myself. So this year my word— I have two words, it's action and intention.

Oh, I like that. Those go together.

I haven't been really intentional with what I do, and so now I'm a lot more conscious with that, with whatever it is. Okay, today I— or, you know, we don't work 9 to 5s, none of us. We have, you know, multiple jobs, we do multiple things.

Yes.

But there you have to figure out a space and a time for yourself for self-care, for everyone. And it's so important no matter what level you're at. I feel like for your mind, body, and soul, it's just so important. And especially to reach that next level, it's kind of a boost. So when I go into things, I'm more intentional. I know, hey, this is we got to stop work at this particular time. Now we got to do something for myself. And it doesn't have to be— it, it doesn't have to be a big thing. You don't need to travel if that's something you love to do. I love that. I love traveling as well. But it could be just something as simple as going on a walk and scheduling 30 minutes to an hour for yourself and getting outside. The importance of that is real, and you feel so much better even after a 15-minute walk, just getting some fresh air. You guys get it.

Yeah, no, I— that's stuff that I have to do too, especially like being home with the kids. We're like, hey, we've been in the house for too long, time to go outside. We're going for a walk. Like, we need some fresh air, we need some sunshine, we need— absolutely, all the things.

And I feel like so many people, you know, they work indoors, they don't even have windows wherever they're working. So it's, it's important to get outside, it's important to have fresh air, and it's important to not forget about yourself.

So good.

Exactly. Well, that's so that way you can be the best version of yourself and show up the way that you want to and the way you intend to.

Absolutely. And I can't imagine with you being so busy too as a mom. I feel like I am so busy and I do not have children. So hats off to all, to both of you, to all the parents scheduling, managing, balancing. I don't even know if I, I definitely haven't mastered the art of balancing anything. I don't even know if that exists. Balance doesn't exist. Everyone's like, I'm searching for balance, but your balance could look like this. That's what my balance is looking like.

It's not ever level. Yeah. It's not ever level, but I feel like just in motherhood and in the entrepreneurial space, there's no such thing as balance. You just kind of, you work through it. You roll, you roll with the waves, you roll with the waves and make it work every day.

I wish more people talked about that. I love hearing just like the authentic stories because with lovely social media, everyone puts their highlights. I'm, I'm one of the people who put my highlights. I want to look my best. I love, you know, good lighting. I love a filter once in a while. I'm very transparent about that. But I love when people talk about how difficult it is because that's the truth. It's not easy. Anyone who says it's easy is not being— they're lying.

They're lying 100%.

Yeah. So that leads me kind of into my next question. What's been the most challen— what's been the most challenging? What's been the hardest part about your journey? What are some hurdles that you've had to overcome and that have made you stronger at the end of the day?

I think keeping myself accountable, uh, because I am a mentor, because I am a teacher and an educator, I tend to put my students first. So I have to remind myself from time to time that I have to fill my cup up, then I can pour into everyone else's. I think as a mother you can relate, or a parent you can relate as well. You, you know, you want to fill your children's cup, but I always told myself when I I become a mother in the future, I want to fill my cup first so then I can pour into my children's and be, you know, the best parent that I can be. But same goes as an entrepreneur, um, you need to learn when to shut it off. You need to learn when you need to rest. I think the hustle culture and the grind culture has become something crazy. I'm still all about the grind. Yes, obviously you have to work your ass off to get to where you want to be, but you also have to rest. Like, it's very important. I hear some people talking about, oh, I only get 3 hours of rest. I, I can't function on 3 hours.

You're like, that's not—

nobody can.

That's not something to like cheer yourself on about because you're not operating the same.

Not at all. So I think it's very, just very important to have these conversations. And I think it's very important to be authentic. I feel like I gravitate towards people the more authentic they are. And I'm like, hey, oh my God, I can relate to that. And even as a mentor, you put like a lot on your back, like, well, I need to be here always, here always. No, there are days where I am not here, and I tell my students that I am a human being. Any mentor that you have is a human being. They don't always have 10 out of 10 days. No, that's not possible.

No, not at all.

I love how you say that to your students too, because you're being also authentic with them. Like, a lot— I know a lot of mentors or what have you, like you said, they're like, oh yeah, I get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, I got 3 hours of sleep last night, and yeah, this is gonna be a great, uh, session that we're gonna have. It's like, cool, is it really gonna be the best session for them? Or are you just gonna give your half to them, but you're gonna tell them it's your all? Like, that's not authentic. That's not being yourself.

I've had days and, you know, it doesn't happen often, but I wanna say at least 3 days to 5 days out of the year, well, I will hit a student and say, hey, today I gotta take the day off. You know, we're gonna reschedule it because I wanna be able to give you 100%.

Which is awesome.

Exactly.

I respect that so much. And I think they respect it so much more too, because now they know that you're showing up all of you. When you have it in you. And if you don't have any, they're like, well, then why am I coming to class? Because if I, if I'm not getting all that I can out of my coach and get— be able to give the same back.

Absolutely. And I think you just have to be authentic with yourself. You can't keep making that an excuse. And there are days where I'm like, oh, I'm tired, and I'm like, no, this is a day we push through and we get it done. But then there are also days where I'm like, no, today I have to rest. Like my body is telling me something. This isn't a day where we can just push through. Like, you need to take a, take a break.

Yeah, no, and I think of all things, like, our body is one of those that you, that you actually have to listen to and to not ignore things for too long, especially when it's like recurring. You're like, okay, it's time.

Absolutely. You know what's really helped me as well is meditation. Um, that was really difficult to add for me at first. I started listening to— I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with Joe Dispenza. I just listened to some free audios that he had online. And so I started meditating, not listening to anyone, just with 2 minutes per day. I did that for a week and every week I would ramp up the time. So the first week started with 2 minutes every day. 2 minutes, you're sitting there in silence with your eyes closed. You're like, is this ever going to end?

I'll be honest, I need to work more on it, but I've done that same thing and 2 minutes is not even silence for me. It's like, so like if I did that, so then if I can make money over here, do I need to take the trash out? Did I, help Jackson. Do I have work tomorrow? Wait, what's going on? What day is it? Yeah, literally, it's so hard.

Great mental tool for yourself, especially for entrepreneurs, especially for high achievers. I highly recommend doing it. So after the, the first week doing 2 minutes, then the next week I increased it to 5 minutes, the next week I increased it to 10, the next week I increased it to 20. So to be very transparent, I did that for about 2 years and then I fell off. But now I've started again and I'm doing about About 10 minutes per day, but it's so helpful. It just clears my mind completely. Sometimes I feel like my mind is a bunch of open tabs on a computer. Yeah, and I just haven't cleared them. I know we can all relate to that. But I feel that happening. I'm like, we need to go meditate. And there's a quote that I love that I love to share with people. I think it's an old Tibetan quote. But it says, if you do not have 20 minutes a day to meditate, you should be meditating for an hour a day.

Wow, that's actually really good.

Yeah, because most of us are like, we're too busy, don't have the time, don't want to do it, can't do it. Those are the people who should be meditating for an hour a day. If you don't have 20 minutes for yourself, that's me, 100%.

So let me ask you a question on that, uh, for myself as well, because I've done it back and forth. Like, I'll be honest, I'll do it maybe 2 days a week and then I won't do it, and I'll do it 2 days. How, how did you push through the noise? So when you're trying to meditate, your brain is just going wild. How did you push through that and be like, I know I still need this?

So a lot of times I think when people go into meditating, from what I've heard from other people and, and how I've also perceived it, our goal is to not think about anything. That's like physically impossible not to think of anything.

True.

So when I do it and I sit in silence, I would always set a timer for myself. So hey, at this specific time in the morning whether it was like 5:30 in the morning or 6 o'clock, that worked best for me. I knew when my timer went off, we're going to meditate. So I would sit on my balcony, um, I wouldn't even put on headphones, so I would hear cars driving by, I would hear the wind, birds chirping, and I just told myself, you're gonna get through this until your alarm goes off. And who cares if your mind wanders? Let it wander. Don't think about, oh, how am I not going to get my mind to wander? That's the worst thing you can do. Just let it go. And eventually I started— I'm not sure if you're familiar, like, with our third, what we call our third eye, which is in the middle. I would kind of focus on that, and I would pretend like I was just staring at my third eye. And personally, that helps me.

Interesting.

Okay, get rid of the noise. Yeah, I like that. You can definitely try. It might work for you. Everyone is different. Some people love meditation where they're actually listening to someone or they're listening to music. I can do that as well, but personally, I love sitting there in silence.

I like that.

I remember when you had me practicing meditation, when we were, we were working together and you were coaching me. You're like, okay, I want you to start with this. Sit down for 2 minutes. I was like, all right, 2 minutes, piece of cake. I'll sit down here, cross my legs on the carpet, hands on my, hands on my knees. I'm gonna close my eyes. 10 seconds goes by. I'm like, am I done yet?

2 minutes when you first start feels like 5 minutes. Yes.

It felt like eternity. Now I feel like I could probably sit down and easily do my, do 5 minutes cuz now I have I've, I've kind of like mastered a little bit more of the meditation, but I kind of incorporate it with my visualization when I'm visualizing my, my future and what I want everything to look like.

I love that.

And then over time when I continue to do it, it gets more and more like vivid. Yeah. And my focus is that more dialed in. Do you find that helping you with like your, yeah, your focus?

Absolutely. I feel like it just depends on what kind of day it is. It depends what kind of meditation I'm doing, because there are specific days where I'm like, hey, I just want to sit in silence and I want to listen to this calming music, or hey, I want to do a led, a guided meditation where there's somebody actually speaking. And then like I said, I do it where I'm listening to nothing but the birds outside. So it depends kind of like on what the mood is. There are times where it's been a very challenging day where I'm like this is the— when you're having a challenging day is the best time to meditate. Even if you're— I find myself sometimes in my car, I will pull over on the side, or I will pull into a parking lot, do it for 2 minutes, and I'm like, it's like you took a pill of something, you know?

It's just a reset button, a literal reset, and it feels so nice.

It's free, anybody could do it. There's no excuse. You literally just close your eyes.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Now I had a question. Do you— have you ever tried doing like breathing exercises? And does that— not, not necessarily for like your warmups, but doing like something separate that kind of like, does it boost your, your vocals?

Absolutely. So I incorporate meditation and also breathwork into my lessons, but then for myself as well. A couple years ago, I had a lot of anxiety, a lot of social anxiety, and breathwork also helped me. So it's something that we can all do in in the presence of our own home. I love box breathing where you inhale for anywhere from a count of 4 to 10. So I like to inhale, let's say for a count of 5, hold for a count of 5, and then exhale for a count of 5. And then do that 5 to 10 times. Again, that's a boost of energy. It's very relaxing depending on the person. I was actually talking to a student yesterday. Some of my students like to do the box breathing in the beginning of their lesson because it gives them energy. Or if they've had a long day, it kind of relaxes them for our lesson. Some of my students like to do the box breathing towards the end of the lesson because it relaxes them so much that they don't want to be tired for our lesson. So it really depends on the person. But for me, depending on the day, sometimes it, it does calm me, but then there are times where it does give me energy as well, depending on what kind of breathing I do.

Okay, so have, have you done, um, I think they call it like a circular breathing, I forget who it was that was telling me about it. Um, you know what, it was Carly. Carly was talking about the breathing exercises, and I forget the guy who does it, but it's like you're breathing in, and this— when you go to inhale, then you go turning into like an exhale, but it's like it's continuous. There's no pausing. There's— have you tried that?

I have. I've done, uh, I wanted quite a few different breathwork classes and work with different breathwork coaches. So there's so many different techniques. Just think of it as like, you know, remember when we would do vocal warm-ups? There would be, you know, a variety. We probably did 50 different ones while we were working together. So there's, there's probably hundreds if not thousands of ways to breathe. So I'm not, um, I know basics when it comes to the, you know, box breathing. I've done different things. I've done fire breathing before. But I've also taken classes where it's just repetitive nonstop to where you're physically tired at the end. You're like, how did I—

I was gonna say, do you— have you gotten like lightheaded or like—

I have.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, we did that at our women's retreat, and I was just like, I feel lightheaded.

I think I need to lay down. Sometimes you got to take a beat for a second, but it's good to get through it. But yeah, that's very normal to feel like that.

Good to know. Yeah, to know. Now, we talked about you starting your new album, and you, you formulated a lot of music. We haven't released any yet, but when's that gonna be? I want to know.

I don't have a specific date, honestly, and I was telling you before we started recording the podcast, I feel I'm so blessed to have been immersed in kind of like a community of women who produce, who sing, who are in the music industry, who do EDM, deep house, which is something that I'm very drawn to. Like I told you, I have done classical music and opera my entire life. But my passion is to release something in the deep house techno field, which people are like, what? This is a completely different thing. But I am— I'm in love with sound. I'm in love with frequencies. So I want to create something that everyone can listen to, have a good time, something that can raise your vibration. So right now I've met and have started to work with a few different songwriters, um, people who make music for film. And so my goal is to— I don't want to put a particular date, but you will be one of the first people who knows. So I look forward to sharing that with you, and I, I'm, I'm having fun doing and I feel like it's important to bring joy into the space of music. And for a short period of time, I feel like I lost that for myself. I love working with my students. I— that brings me so much joy. But when it came to singing myself, opera was something that I was blessed with and something that I was able to do. It wasn't necessarily my number one passion, if that makes sense.

It does.

Yeah. So I look forward to just being able to share that joy with you guys. Yes. Yay.

That's going to be so awesome.

Yeah, definitely.

How many roughly do you already have?

Um, I have worked, I want to say this year alone, I've probably worked on 4 different pieces. Not too many, but we're, I'll probably release a single first or just like a small EP.

Yeah.

That'll be awesome.

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

I remember when you first started talking to me about it. Not too long ago, and you're like, yeah, I'm working on an EP right now, and then we're going to formulate an album. She's freaking doing this.

Honestly, I feel like my students have definitely have inspired me because the majority of them have their music out. They're professionals. Um, there's a handful that don't have their music out. They're more of like Broadway singers or pageants, so they do a lot of covers. But the ones that create their own music are so talented. So we do songwriting together, and I'm like, you know what, I love sound, I love music so much, like, I gotta put my own stuff out. So it's fun working on that because my whole life I have been given sheet music, I've been given like, hey, here's Mozart, now you sing it. And I feel like opera is almost like a mathematical equation, and it's like, how, how fast can you do it and how good can you do it? It's, it's very interesting. So, um, this is the first time I feel like I don't think I felt this level of joy with music before, which is really nice. So it's definitely a different feeling, and it's interesting to feel like this at 38. I, I've never felt this much joy in creating because, like I said, back in the day I never really created myself. I've always been a creative being and an artist, but it was somebody else's music and composition that I was singing.

You're stepping into that power. Yeah, I could see it on your face.

Yeah, I'm probably cheesing, just so happy. I love listening over and over Don't hold back.

I love that. I'm so excited for you.

Thank you.

And I also hear you got a podcast that's about to launch with your cousin, right?

I do. So we're called the Crybabies Podcast, which has nothing to do with babies. Did we pick the wrong name? Maybe. No, but we're very emotional. We talk about mental health, relationships, healthy and toxic. We're very transparent. We probably say way more than we need to, but it's really nice because my cousin, we grew up like sisters. She's about a year older than I am, so we've just grown up very close. We know everything about one another. She's in the tech field. I am a creative and an entrepreneur, so, um, she's kind of like the yin to my yang. So, so cool. Yeah, it's really nice. So June 20th is when we release our podcast, and I, I look forward to sharing that with you guys and the rest of the universe.

Awesome. Yay, I'm so excited. Yeah, I'll mark my calendar so I can tune in when it releases.

Thank you, I really appreciate that. Yeah, and I feel like we, we also go deep into talking about mental health and just our experiences with it, and it's a conversation that I feel like most don't talk about or dive into. But like I said, we're very transparent about our journeys, how therapy has helped us in numerous ways, and we've we're both just on a mission to transform and evolve, and growth is just a huge part of our, our life. So we just want to share that with people. And if one person resonates with how we feel or what's worked with us and they can try that and that helps them, then we've won. So yes, that's our goal at the end of the day.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah.

All right, now the last thing that we always ask each of our guests are what are 3 golden nuggets that you would give to our listeners?

I would have to say be conscious about being intentional, because that has really, really helped me.

That's a good one.

Um, another one would be, I think sometimes when people go to therapy and let's say a particular therapist says, hey, you're depressed, or hey, you have anxiety, or the list goes on, sometimes we take on whatever that word is and then we become I'm speaking from someone who dealt with both, and I feel like I embodied anxiety. I was constantly talking about it. I was constantly saying, well, I have anxiety. I was making an excuse for myself. But the moment I cut that cord, I felt so free. And I feel like I've been— I haven't had social anxiety for about 2 years because I cut— that's really cool— and I stopped embodying what that is. So that's one. Um, and then the next one would be, let's see, curate joy for yourself. It's so important, especially as an adult. Like, you— I mean, you guys are around little kids constantly. The way toddlers just have so much fun with a stick. Oh my gosh, I love that. I also work with, um, some children and I do music therapy with them. So when I'm around them, it just brings so much joy to my soul seeing them so happy. And I'm like, this is what we lose as adults. Yes. So even if you have to schedule joy, I know it sounds weird, but curate joy and schedule it for yourself. You have to for your well-being. You really do.

Yeah. Our friends say it's weird that it's weird. Yeah. Like, it's weird that it's weird that you have to say schedule the joy for yourself.

Yeah. I feel like I'm—

scary.

Yeah. I'm trying to make— I'm normalizing that for myself. Whether anyone else wants to do it, for me, I'm normalizing curating joy.

I love that.

Yeah, yay!

So good.

I appreciate you guys having me on.

Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for being on. We appreciate it. We know our listeners got a lot out of it. We're excited for everything that you have upcoming— the EPs, the album, the podcast. Um, we're definitely going to tag you in on the video, and then we'll have all of our shorts, we'll have you tagged in on them, and that way people could check you out. If anybody is in the Las Vegas area or literally anywhere in the world, yeah, and has questions or wants to get diving into music lessons, like, definitely reach out to Lauren. She's amazing.

I did them all virtually. When we— when Lauren and I met, I think it hadn't even— COVID hadn't even hit yet, but it wasn't until 2020, the beginning of 2020, that we started doing lessons together, and we never had an in-person.

Yeah, and they're, they're amazing. So definitely check her out, check out our podcast, make sure you like, follow, do all the good stuff. And we're excited to see your podcast and EP come out.

Thank you, guys. I appreciate it. And you guys go and follow the Infinite Gold on all platforms and tune in.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, guys.

We love you. Take care.

Love you guys.