We all reach a point, perhaps on more than one occasion, where we wonder what our mission is in life. What is our purpose, why are we here. Daniel Reis already knows the answers to these questions. He has done since high school.
“There was this band contest at the end of the school year. We wanted to take part so we put together a band. I went up on stage, looked out at the faces in the audience, and I suddenly thought this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to inspire people, make them happy.” Soon his band were organizing concerts of their own. However, there is one small detail we almost forgot to mention. “Eventually, my friends took me to one side to have a quiet word. They said: Daniel, you’re just not a good musician.” He laughs. Was he upset? Not really, because he had long since discovered a passion for production. While the others were working their instruments, Daniel was at the controls. “Buttons and music. I still love them now.”
One day the band was unexpectedly left in the lurch by the sound engineer they had booked for that evening. They stood in the hall with no replacement and only two hours until the show. “I just had to step up and take care of the sound production myself. Okay, it sounded awful but I thought I could improve with a bit of work. Since the training opportunities in Brazil were unfortunately pretty limited at the time, I had to go to shows, network with professionals and, most importantly, never stop asking questions.”
Daniel quickly progressed to become one of the country’s leading monitor engineers. He toured with Asa de Aguia, a world-famous Axé (Popular music genre originated in Salvador, Bahia – North of Brazil) band, performing during over a dozen editions of Carnival and touring around the world, visiting countries such as Japan, the USA and Europe among others. In 2009 Sennheiser desired him to work on an advertising campaign as a brand ambassador. “I still have some of the magazines I appeared in for Sennheiser,” he smiles. Daniel later visited Sennheiser as a regular customer and was impressed by the way Peter Arasin explained everything about Radio Frequency technology to him and the other customers. “I would lay in bed at night and couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking: I would love to get such an enthusiastic response from my fellow sound engineers!” It was that same burning feeling he felt back in high school. Daniel became part of the Sennheiser family, giving training courses, visiting customers and passing on his knowledge. Today he is the Head of Sales in Brazil. He is fulfilling his life’s ambition every single day. Whether he is creating music, knowledge or positive customer relationships, the result is always the same—he makes people happy.