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The Tim Ferriss Show
#452: Sia — The Alchemy of Blockbuster Songs, Billions of Views, and the Face You’ve Never Seen
#452: Sia — The Alchemy of Blockbuster Songs, Billions of Views, and the Face You’ve Never Seen

#452: Sia — The Alchemy of Blockbuster Songs, Billions of Views, and the Face You’ve Never Seen

The Tim Ferriss ShowGo to Podcast Page

sia, Tim Ferriss
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Aug 12, 2020
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0:00
Optimal mental this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking and oils with living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
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3:20
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3:25
Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs, this is Tim Ferriss and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss show where it is my job to attempt to deconstruct world-class performers of all different types to tease out the habits thought processes best practices creative flow process Etc that you can apply to your own lives. My guest today is Sia and find her on Twitter at CSI. A Sia is one of the most fascinating people I have come across in the last few years. So unorthodox.
3:55
Gets away with so much and is the inveterate experimenter. I find her fascinating. She is an Australian singer-songwriter director screenwriter and pop icon. Her current single together is from her forthcoming album and motion picture music due out later this year 2020 last year. She partnered with Diplo and Labyrinth to form the group LSD their debut album Labyrinth Sia and Diplo present LSD has 1 billion plus streams to date. She released the grammy-nominated this
4:25
Is acting in 2016 too much critical Acclaim and cemented her role as one of today's biggest stars and sought-after live performers with her sold-out nostalgic for the present headline tour. She is more videos in YouTube's billion views Club than any other female on the planet her massive single Cheap Thrills was a multi-format global radio hit and was one of the longest-running singles at Top 40 of 2016 along with her own successes see has written Global smashes, and we're talking a hundred plus songs for
4:55
Day's biggest Acts including Beyonce Kanye West Rihanna Britney Spears, Katy Perry and many many more. She's really polymath. She has worked on herself. She has saved herself in more ways than one. Once again, you can find her on Twitter at Sia Instagram @ CM music and without further Ado. Please enjoy a very wide-ranging conversation with see ya.
5:21
I'd like to start in a weird place because like you.
5:30
Before you press record. Oh, yeah burning room. We replace this before you press record. I was like you were telling me that I had if I wanted I could edit anything if I had felt embarrassed about half what I said or and something like that course and you very very kindly and I said so I could do this interview Academy.
5:54
It's true you absolutely
5:56
could
5:59
and if all
6:00
You know it and you know, as I said when you mention that speaking of someone who may or may not have experience with ketamine that you often sound better to yourself than you do to other people.
6:12
Well, I actually do get ketamine infusions for Mike. What are you doing? So but in but in La they do it where you're totally out so you don't feel you're not lose it at all. You don't have really trip it all but he here in this other place where I'm at right now.
6:31
Trying to maintain some modicum of privacy. There are more East Meets West so it's a doctor and they do the the infusion but they also do like a sort of intention and they hit the hit the metal bowl and say what's your intention well want the pain to turn from red to blue or blah blah blah, and and that I actually had Lucid experiences and
7:00
That as a sober woman has been really fascinating.
7:03
Hmm. I imagine so I did day a sequence of five intravenous ketamine infusions over the span of two weeks because I'd read about its application to suicidal ideation and chronic pain separately and wanted to have the first hand experience not because I was suicidal because to recommend it to anyone who might come to me with suicidal ideation. I wanted to have the first
7:30
And experience to see what the effects and side effects were like at different dosages and I found it to have a very surreal dissociative effect. Just subjectively what I didn't expect because I wasn't thinking about it for the chronic pain. I had this acute pain in my mid back this neurological pain that had plagued me for years and then I noticed a few weeks after ending the ketamine no pain in my mid back. It was it was near
8:00
Miraculous what what type of what has been your experience in
8:03
what? Yeah, that's my experience too. And I mean that was my experience even when I wasn't doing well in La when I was doing it not lucidly and then when I say and as a sober woman doing it lucidly that was very confronting and I thought I was going to have a bad trip. I'm like, I'm a bad rumor. I'm a bad Tripper. I'm like, I've never had a good trip. I like who anytime I do that said it was bad. Like, I don't know.
8:30
Combat Ripper. Make sure you give me lots of Firsts ad which is like a you know, a sedative and then he explained to me that the more of a sad he gave me the more ketamine who would have to give me and then there's that last verse add he can be less ketamine and that that would be nicer for my body. And so he ended up giving me half the dose that I get in LA, but he also gave me half the dose of verse at and I had just a wonderful time.
9:00
I think time I was like he writes down everything you say and so afterwards he was like, okay. So here we go. Here's the things that you said. Here's the things you said. I am a microbe. I'm I am I upside down am I upside down? Oh, okay. Am I dying?
9:31
Okay, I'm not dying cause like he'll they'll lift the earphones off because I've got like like theater wave music and stuff going on in your ears and stuff and they'll say no seeing you're not dying. You're just focus on your intention and with the one in La I would never wake up or even be conscious enough to know or to say am I
9:50
dying
9:53
and so under quiet is someone who has had suicidal ideation.
9:58
What worked for me actually was Pros active me and I had but I didn't I hadn't tried ketamine for that. But I did I had complex PTSD. I believe my time may have gotten through it last three years. I've done so much paid for work. But yeah, I barely left the house and only going to hold on we go to like Yeezys Sunday service because I love the singing so much and I love and I fell in love with the Kardashians. There's so
10:30
Sniper round them fasting Miriam's and so I would stay at home mostly and just I have a projector that projects television or movies whatever onto the ceiling and I above my bed. And so I basically just lie prone and is that the word prone?
10:56
Yeah, that would be
10:58
let me think about this prone supine. I believe prone. I believe you got it, right. Is that right? I think Pro might be stomach down. Like if you're in a prone position in any case you're on your bed on your back.
11:10
Oh my back on my back with my face up.
11:13
Look at this enormous projector screen pretty much 16 hours a day for three years, and I'm leave the house on Sundays to go to this amazing service and sing my heart out and clap and dance and dance around and I was having a lot of suicidal ideation and because of this chronic pain and because I guess I have an attachment injury.
11:42
Yeah, and I'm really into attachment Theory and so but I believe I may may have earned secure attachment which is going to mean nothing to so many of your listeners. Yeah, I mean we could talk about tax went theory if anybody's interested. I think it's them Cutting Edge of it's based on science and it's The Cutting Edge of where psychology is going and should be going is attachment Theory and it's
12:12
Pretty new
12:15
let's let's talk about it because I've had a book recommended to me a number of times. I've not read it fortunately for me. I have a girlfriend who synthesized it for me, but I booked
12:24
attached. Oh, yeah, and I believe wrong stuff in there. That's the only reason I don't recommend it also just refers to you as like it's the baby version. So yes, it's baby. You're either ambivalent avoidant or preoccupied but as we grow we
12:42
up these strategies that happened the first 10 months about of our life based on the care that we're given we develop one five strategies and sometimes disorganized what all of them like, maybe maybe all five. So so there's strategies are dismissive preoccupied careful avoidant.
13:06
Which is now called disorganized.
13:09
unresolved
13:11
And secure, which nobody in Homewood is actually that's not true. I think John Legend might be secure so nice, but yeah, there's so I took an AI which is called an attachment assessment inventory. I send it off to Harvard and they know there's like three people that work in that department and they studied.
13:41
The interview and the language and the tone was it's recorded as well. And then they report back this attachment Theory which is started by John Bowlby in the forties or something and then really only came to to lighten nineteen eighty or eighty-five. I can't remember. I'll say a lot of wrong things here.
14:06
That's good. That's that's what show notes are for don't worry.
14:12
But I do know that in the first 10 months of your life, you are basically told who you are and what to experience in the world and how to behave and how to respond in any situation. It all happens in the first 10 months of your life based on the care that you're given. So I was complexly disorganized when I met George heart is
14:41
I mean helping me with my attachment repair. I mean, I'm so excited because I'd go one of my son at has had an attachment assessment interview and he was less complexly disorganized and me and I was so happy for him because I've actually managed to like earn some secure categories. So there's different categories is like seven categories. I don't know what they are. I'm not that smart, but I just know that I've to left on me that
15:11
Aren't secure that are both fear related the last time I took it an attachment but I started with only one secure feature. So out of 7 and now I have I have five seems like a big Improvement. Yes, so I don't know so I guess I should say that attachment injury is addiction. It causes addiction. It's not in a genetic disorder. It's not a disease. It's an attachment injury, but occur.
15:41
In the first 10 months of your life. That doesn't mean your parents were bad or mean or cool. They may have been benignly neglectful or maybe their dog died the day that you were born or you know, there's so many reasons why your primary caregiver might have been preoccupied or unable to care for you unable to give you the things that you needed for your brain to develop properly the securely so yeah. It was about 50%
16:11
Sent I think of the population is secure that's if you take out poverty and then otherwise, it's about 30%
16:20
How have you found studying attachment Theory doing the assessment doing the work has impacted your life. I mean, it seems like you've certainly made a study of it and taken as seriously. What are the what are the outcomes that you've seen in your life the
16:34
changes? Well, I'm I'm not afraid anymore.
16:38
Oh, I've spent my whole entire life being extremely afraid I've been and it's especially in personal relationships interpersonal relationships. I've had the attachment strategy that I have had was, you know, previously called peripheral avoidant and now is called disorganized and I was complexly carefully important and what that means is that
17:08
Care was inconsistent. So you just don't know what you're going to get so you keep turning around and putting your arms out. If you're making a toddler, so you put your arms out and you say maybe this time they'll pick me up. Okay, maybe this time and you keep imagining it toddler turning around and putting their arms in the air and maybe they'll get kicked in the chest or maybe they'll get picked up. You never know and you know, so there's just I mean, I might not say my parents kicked me in the chest.
17:38
Every frame of training analogy or metaphor. What is it is an analogy or metaphor out of that parallel.
17:46
Well, it depends I guess if they literally kick you in the chestnuts out since since they didn't I
17:51
guess I mean the chest I'm pretty sure they do but you know you just like or if they didn't come when you cried if they didn't come this these seven stages like a baby, right? So the baby looks cute first thing it does when it wants it needs something or it's in pain.
18:08
Pain or needs to eat or it needs it snappy chain or it's uncomfortable. Is it first thing it does is it looks cute and the second thing it does is when that doesn't work to get the attention of the caregiver they refused and then they'll whimper and then they'll I think it's a they'll intermittently cry. I think that's what's next. And then that's when you should definitely pick them up when they're intermittently crying then.
18:38
Next one will become crying and then next one is tantrum this full screaming like anger rage like why is nobody coming to get me and then the baby's brain goes into complete limbic shut down because it thinks it's going to die.
18:59
So people who sleep train their babies who think that it works. Yeah, it works because your baby thinks it's going to die and it gives up on life.
19:11
Stop crying. So it only works if you go back in there at that intermittent crying point and if you go in when they're intimate and crying and you say I love you babies name, let's say George. I love you George, but it's time to go to sleep now, but we're we're just right out here and that creates object constancy, which it makes for way less psychos in the world.
19:40
and when way less like but you know people like waiting by the phone waiting for the text waiting for the text waiting for the text like so what happens to people who didn't get picked up during the intermittent crying phase or didn't get like just at least reassured during the intermission crying phase if they were left there and they got into the limbic shut down now as adults when someone that their has captured their projection like a person like a partner like a love interest or
20:10
or something a person of great interest to you captures your projection and you text them and then if they don't text you back you start to feel sick and panicky and what's actually happening is just the same thing as when you were a baby. It was the seventh stage of Olympics shut down so that all the same neurochemicals that were dumped into your body when you're a baby and you thought I'm going to die because nobody's coming that happens as an adult the same exact.
20:40
Same brain chemistry happens and so all these human adults are you know sitting at home waiting for a text feeling like they're going to die. Like there's so many of them and it's like, you know, it's not everybody secure people don't feel that way but people who are preoccupied or or disorganized people avoidant they do and they suffer greatly because of it and it's merely because nobody came and reassured them at the Inn.
21:10
Intermittent crying point when their baby that they're okay. It's time to go back to sleep and leave the room then the baby if it does the thing it does right, you know that Q confused whimper intermittent cry, then they go in reassure them again, then time to go to sleep George and if you do that, that's actually healthy sleep training as long as you do that at the intermittent praying part, but if you leave a baby to cry just cry it out.
21:40
You're damaging them forever and ever and actually you creating an addict not knowing let me ask
21:47
if I could just because you mentioned the you're talking about upbringing you talking about on some level. It seems like you know, unpredictability as a factor. That's one of the factors that might lead to this fearful avoidant. Now just disorganized complex of sorts. Could you speak to in the course of doing homework for this conversation?
22:10
My came across a discussion of and this is not to pin everything on on a single parent or either both parents. But you are Dad having two different personalities with two different names. Could you speak to this?
22:25
Yeah you yeah, he had his real name is Phil but he had a bad temper sometimes and when he would have his bad temper he would if he would seemingly turn into a different person and then he would come back.
22:40
From being angry and he like eating like sorry about that. Sorry about Stan's Behavior. Sorry about that darling. Sorry about that. And and so you know when I when I grew up I thought oh, I'm watching all the movies. I thought oh, he has multiple personality disorder. And finally when I was 25, I thought everyone's dead had two personalities until I was like 25, but then I realized that no, I don't know whether it was and it's now called dissociative identity disorder. It's not called multiple personality.
23:10
He disorder it's also misrepresented hugely in the media because nobody who has multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder, which is what it's called. Now the ID is dangerous or mean or angry all actually, they could be angry, but but they're all basically parts of a constellation of an abused child that have split off to protect the original.
23:40
So like from the user so they're all they're just simply as protectors. So when we watch movies like split, we really we sort of demonize people with d ID and I also now think I don't know if my dad had d i d. I don't know I think maybe he just maybe he was just smoking too much weed or you know, I don't know. I really don't know now, but we've talked about it. I fire.
24:09
I asked him recently. We had a really good repair. I asked him recently has he mentioned stand in a text message and I said hey Dad when you when you talk about Stan what happens to me is that I get a whole bunch of fearful neurochemicals that dumped into my body and it makes me super anxious and then I get shaky and it makes me it takes me about least 20 minutes for my liver to be out of process at all.
24:39
And could you do me a favor and could we never talk about Stan ever again? And he said yes, and then he wrote a few really beautiful message. That was something like I'm sorry. That must have been really.
24:56
Painful for your fragile young psyche and I'm ashamed and embarrassed. Wow, and I'm sorry and that was such a powerful moment and then he sent me a picture of him standing by my career when I was born and I was like by first years it was like wow that was that he was showing me the father that need wanted to be you know,
25:25
And so I can't I can't he I believe he was my primary caregiver. I can't I don't really know. I know my mom got really depressed after I was born because she had a lot previously lost her baby and she got postnatal depression. And so I think some of that the depression so if you have a blank face when you're staring at your baby, it's really scary to them. Just so you know people
25:54
It's loose and I didn't know that but apparently if you got a blank face when you're staring at your baby, it's really scary to them that to be animated is really helpful to them and Deluxe showing Delight is really helpful and they need your baby needs eye contact for the first 10 months from 6 to 12 inches from their face. They need eye contact love Delight hugs and just
26:23
Going to tension, you know, and then you end up with a secure baby, but you can also smother them and then you'll get a preoccupied
26:32
gotta gotta find the Goldilocks approach. I want to I want to mention before I lose the observation that the delivery you just recounted to your dad that phrasing seemed to be a really good use of textbook nonviolent communication way you
26:53
Ooh, yeah, the way you phrased it was sort of textbook not in a bad way. I mean it really
27:00
I did watch it was six hours. I watched
27:04
Marshall. I'm blanking on his last name the
27:07
yeah, the non-public education guy.
27:10
Yeah. Yeah. It's very subtle and very powerful when it's when it's used well which which it sounds like you did when you spoke to your dad in a way of avoiding the type of
27:23
Or mitigating the likelihood of somebody having a really strong defensive
27:27
response. Yeah. Yeah, I'll I guess I learned if you say I feel and then at the end she said what do you think or you can't buy this is what makes me feel. This is how it makes me feel over and I if I use science in which I'm getting smarter at now in terms of neurochemistry and the brain and pain and psychology.
27:53
And also, you know parenting and attachment parenting and that sort of stuff. I just I'm so in love with it because I it's going to create a you know, I want to help people create secure babies so that we have so many less people, you know in pain
28:12
and it seems like one way or a very important way of doing that is working on yourself, right? And I just want to provide a little bit of context here for
28:23
All who are listening and that is I've loved your music both the music where you are a performer and then the music unknown to me often times has been written by you. It's really astonishing how many songs I have on playlists that when I finally had my yeah that my Kobayashi is like Keyser Soze moment and I was like, oh my God, like it's everywhere. She has work is ever
28:53
in my life that
28:56
I'm like cobwebs by
29:01
that's that's part one and then a reader of mine named Brian Elliott recommended after I wrote a blog post on a lot of the downsides of being public facing and having an audience recommended a profile of you called House CSI saved herself, which was in Rolling Stone. Yeah.
29:21
Well, right.
29:23
That's right. And it completely captured my imagination and talked about many of the decisions you've made which to borrow some phrasing that I've heard you use has allowed you to use your gifts without hurting yourself without just destroying Your Serenity and and we're going to talk about that. I just wanted to give that story because how see a saved herself. I think in order to save your kids whether even if they haven't been
29:52
Born yet. It's important to work on yourself and you're clearly doing and have done a lot of that. I want to ask you a this was where the I want to start somewhere weird. Yeah came up. How cool oh, wow, black and and it relates. Well, it makes me think of a novel that really caught my imagination when I was a young kid that was Around the World in 80 Days and I thought well, maybe I'll start with around the world of SIA in 80.
30:22
Is you have quite a few tattoos?
30:24
I
30:25
wanted to ask about a few of them and I haven't seen all of these have just read about a few of them. So tell me if they're not accurate. But do you have a tattoo that says don't think
30:36
yeah, that was before I actually got into meditation and realize the irony is of that because telling yourself not to think his
30:52
Thinking.
30:54
All right guys, don't think of the Pink Elephant don't think of the pink. Oh,
30:57
yeah, so I realized super all your listeners who don't meditate meditation is just a practice. It's nothing fancy. It's just breathing. It's like you could just if you can just breathe and feel the air going in your nose and out your nose like and count to 10 and just feel be present with that feeling of the are touching your nostrils and do
31:22
That's a practice and then if you have a thought that's okay, and it takes you away like in a car like say you get in the car with the thought and it takes your for a drive. That's okay. Just when you realize just go oh whoops and go back to one and start counting from one again. And that's practice. It's just concentration practice and then there are all sorts of other practices that you can sort of like delve into our after that, but it is just just even just concentration practice is so
31:52
Good for your brain and so good for your heart and your spirit. And the thing is when I hear people say, oh, I can't meditate. I'm not good at it. There's no being good at it because it's the practice. You can't be bad at it. Actually. The only way of making bad at it is not doing it is my meditation teacher and this period where I get I've gotten extremely low. I'm over the last three or four years.
32:23
And now periods where I totally duped out on meditating and he'd come over I'd crying I'd be whatever like super super suicidal whatever and he come over and he'd go haven't ever thought about meditation. It's free. There's data that says that
32:52
we'll help you and I'll be like fuck off George and oh how we laughed.
33:06
What is your practice look like the the mutual friend who introduced us when we finally started communicating directly has a TM practice, right? So I'm sure does many other things but has a transmittal meditation practice 20 minutes twice a day. Yeah.
33:22
I don't want to
33:22
You've done but I don't think you should have to pay for meditation and also it I know that I know the secret I know what they do, and I'm sure you do. Yeah, but you know, your Mantra is just related to your age and I think if anything helps you do it and if that's that's what you found and great and it helps you then do it, but I don't believe that meditation should be paid.
33:52
A for I don't believe that it's anything you can be given I think that it should be done a process and it should be by donation only that's just my personal opinion because
34:06
what is your practice look like?
34:08
Oh, so my mom is like about like probably 20 minutes a day will either a listen to George's podcast at least once a week. I listened to George's podcast, which is I think meta group
34:23
George has I don't know attachment prepare something. I find it. I'm putting links but it's very heady. I've said to him recently George we you need to do it like an attachment repair for dummies because it like they were anyone I send to your podcast that it's really hard for them to understand. It's really heavy and it did take me two or three years to understand myself and that's with him repeating himself for three years over and over again.
34:52
It's
34:52
Meditation times attachment meditation X attachment with George ha chaa
34:58
s yeah. Oh, yeah. So okay my practice looks like this. Well I couldn't do I'll do concentration practice where I count or I'll do so she didn't Zen is Georges teacher. So I guess I'm doing I'm using shims ends model and that model is also like I do of its feeling feel out so you can like what you're feeling in.
35:22
Your body or what you could feel on the outside of your body or a here in here out as what you can hear inside your head or what you can hear outside of your head exterior noise like external noise and then they're seeing and see out so that's like visual imagery or or you could look at a leaf and watch it just wave and I the best one for me is here out. So what's what I do and I think that's the best one for people who have extremely complex.
35:52
Stroma because it's externalizing in a way and keeps you grounded in the present moment. So right now let's say okay. I'm going I'm meditating right now. So I'm listening to the sound of my air conditioner and the sound of your
36:11
breathing last year out. I just when I get carried away with the thought I just come back to hear out. But that's what I do. So here out is is the one that I find the most easy. It just is focusing on all the noises around externally that are in our in this
36:41
seek reality
36:45
just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by athletic greens. I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement the answer is inevitably athletic greens. I view it as my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in 2010 in the 4-Hour Body and I did not get paid to do. So, I've used it ever since developed from a complex blend of 75 vitamins minerals and Whole Food sourced ingredients athletic greens is a greens powder engineer to help fill the nutritional gaps in
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let agreeance.com Tim.
37:50
Let me take a leap to something that I think is possibly related. You have written more than a hundred pop songs people like Beyonce Britney Spears and Rihanna who is diamonds hit number one and it's so much more. I mean the list is extremely long you have of course then so much of your own work in the performative sense on top of that and what people might not realize is some of your songs.
38:20
That and this has a personal maid to me because this one has been on my playlist Maybe the longest and that is breathe me the night you wrote that you tried to kill yourself with 22 Valium and a bottle of vodka. Yeah. And so we're gonna talk about that in the question is because I heard you on for instance Howard Stern in 2014 and around the 16-minute Mark if people are interested you play back a recording of coming up with
38:50
The I guess it was maybe the melody and some of the lyrics for diamonds. Yeah, which everybody would recognize we're and you you sounded like you were almost channelings your kind of mumbling nonsense syllables and then it just fell into place.
39:06
That's how it is for me. And that's how it is for Labyrinth. And that's how it is for I think a NE Benjamin who's going to be the next to Justin Bieber. It's just like a form of channeling and like word.
39:20
Sounds sort of come out and then sometimes if you're lucky, well the melody is pure channeling and then the lyrics if you're lucky. Oh so we'll come out. That's awesome. When that happens when that accidentally happens. That's then I think I'm really getting out of the way of you know, and that I'm allowing it to just blew through. But yeah for me it's just getting out of the way getting out of the way and just
39:50
Staying in the present moment that what I do next is going to be what is supposed to
39:56
happen. So I'm going to ask a whole bunch of questions about process because I know my listeners love process. I love process and I have I have a bunch of questions. The overarching question is and the reason I asked about the taking of the the drugs in the vodka and and so on is you seem to me to be very sensitive that is and not
40:20
in a bad way - means that as an empath like if you were a scale you wouldn't just be a body weight scale you be like a jewel scale you have you have a lot of sensitivity
40:31
and I am I wonder I highly sensitive person
40:37
and so I wonder how much of the drug use and the suicidal ideation and so on is from an overwhelm of input or is it from other things?
40:50
Love to hear you. Speak to
40:51
that thing that you ask because I always just be good. Oh, it's because I something wrong with me. I'm broken. It's my early trauma or some an attic door. I'm just like I don't belong in this world. I don't know why I'm here. But what's been I'm just different. I feel like an alien. I don't know how people will be happy. I don't I just didn't have the right chemicals in my brain going on and that was just an I now know due to the first 10 months of my life, but I
41:20
Didn't know that then and so I attributed it to all sorts of whatever I could really I just try and attach it to anything and be like that's why I'm like this or this is why I'm like, oh that's why I'm like this and certainly that night that I wanted to die. You know, I could just remember just wanted to duck like just thinking I was so broken that nobody could fix me and then waking up in the hospital and feeling very embarrassed because you can only be can't
41:50
It to the side is Valley and you can commit sleep like a pussy because I think I must have called people like I don't remember but I must have Google code people because dumb obviously someone came and took me to the hospital. So, you know, there's a there's always been a part of me that wanted to live and I think the part of me that I wanted to kill was the part of me. That was it.
42:20
In pain and not the real me not the real actual me who has level tinny and has found levity. I always had a some levity but I also had that extreme sensitivity and I had some yeah just chemical issues in my brain just I didn't have the right but II chemistry going on so I had like a broken lips of frontal but one call.
42:50
Quite a frontal cortex frontal
42:52
prefrontal cortex.
42:53
Yeah, that one the prefrontal cortex that one I had that that was broken. And so I was just the suicidal ideation was just it was like a broken record going on in my brain. It was actually at it's actually a way to regulate emotion. So it would feel extreme sadness there.
43:20
This idea that I if I killed myself I had power over it. So if that I could stop the pain, but what I was afraid of was dying as well. It was such a catch 22. It was like it's a very peculiar place to be in and I and then I realized oh, I don't want to kill myself. I I want to live. I have a broken brain. I've got to take medication.
43:50
And one as soon as I started taking medication for a Prozac, I took six days later. The suicidal ideation was gone completely gone and I was sad for myself that I hadn't done it sooner. Yeah, I'd had that broken brain for so long that thought that there was something just very very wrong with me. So I can't even remember the question you asked but that answer
44:21
You know the question my questions are really intended as prompts. They're not so it was more intended to open up what just came out. So you get so yes, you did answer it and what you said makes me think about a phrase or an expression that I heard from someone named stanislav. Grof who famous check born psychotherapist who's done a lot of work with LSD assisted Psychotherapy developed something called holotropic breathwork all
44:50
So as a substitute, but he he's been on the podcast. He was on a age 85 or 86 but one of the things that he's written about is the desire to kill oneself being a desire to kill the ego, but the only form that most people recognized for doing that is killing the physical body. Yeah, and that there are other approaches right you can there are prescription options in some cases.
45:20
Ian is particularly and I was very grateful. I went through my testing of ketamine because literally two or three weeks later a friend of mine reached out who's a police officer who was suicidal and he had battled depression and really the suicidal ideation was I think in part because he had these Loops that he could not interrupt these endless loops and he just wanted to stop the loops.
45:46
That's day that causes those stem book broken frequency.
45:50
Kids
45:51
and ketamine is I would view it not to belabor ketamine, but just for people who may be hurting out there and at the end of their rope ketamine is not additive in my experience like some other compounds. Let's just say psilocybin in looking at treatment resistant depression. I think is more additive but it is subtractive in the sense that it it hits pause on these loops and it allows you to experience
46:19
Ants yourself without the loop and I think that you then can have the type of realization. You did six days later saying, oh,
46:29
I'm a mic. Why did I do this Earth?
46:31
I'm a microbe. I'm microbe. I'm upside down. So let's see if we could and I know this doesn't have to be this example, but to talk about process the diamonds example is is a fun one I think because of how
46:50
Tightly it was done, but given you had a plane to catch in a car waiting for you. But but but you you have these expressions and you have very clear thinking around your songwriting and you've talked about I've heard you talk about strong titles and the you know, the ability to Google right in the case of chandelier milking the metaphor me you you think about this very concretely. Can you just give an example of
47:19
A process.
47:21
Yeah. Well, I mean now it's sort of changing but when I first started my manager said, well, he said to me something that you know was monumentally important which was basically what I needed to be doing was Be Riding High concept he was going and I think he was calling it high-concept. I think that's what he said and then I Googled it and that it didn't make sense to me because it's talking about big brother. I was like when I get it and I called him.
47:50
Kunal is like what do you mean exactly was like, well, you take something and then I was like, oh like hang on. Do you mean like Piggy Bank? Like I'm not I'm not your piggy bank and he was like, yeah and I was like, oh, okay. I think I've got it. All
48:07
right.
48:10
I don't want to be your piggy bank. Like, you know, he was like, yeah, that's kind of it. Not it but it's okay.
48:22
And that was the first one I wrote and then so I started always a channel the melody but then I I was consciously writing down things that I thought would be good titles the global titles or is it would be good metaphors or catchy. And so that was sad to be a fun game. And so that's what I did for a long time. But yes.
48:50
I wrote Aslam that is just on the verge of cheese testing, which is I wrote a song about New Year's Eve. It's called three minutes to midnight. So you put the song on three minutes to midnight and then everyone can count down together. So if you just press play at three minutes to midnight, it's like I want everyone to play this song and it's so
49:19
so silly and fun and I know that one I almost freestyle the entire thing. So, yeah, I don't know like some days. I'm very formulaic and some days, you know, some days people that give me very specific, you know what they want for an end title or you know of a movie what they need or you know, or you know, what Rihanna's looking for at the moment the sound she's looking for here's a track that she really likes but you know, so sometimes I get direction and
49:50
I get I just take it and if I you, I don't work so much with artists anymore. But it was so helpful to work with artists because like I am really good at like being of service so I could totally eat shit sandwiches all day long, like if they were like divas or whatever and because I knew I would still be getting 50% or 30% or whatever of the publisher dissuade them from saying something.
50:19
Being extremely silly or bad then I've done my job, but you know that if they wanted to sing a song about something that I found banal or stupid or that that was fine that I'm just there to support what they're trying to do. And yeah, and I'm our challenge them to some degree if it's very very bad. But otherwise, I'm just there to support them. But that was really helpful to me because of that help me I think in terms of becoming a
50:48
director, right, right.
50:49
We're definitely going to talk about that. I for I just want to pause bookmark for a second for people who don't understand the peculiarities or the intricacies of the music business. And you said the percentages of publishing. Can you explain what that means for folks just so they understand how different people make money in the music world.
51:12
Yes, uh publishing's really the only growth industry in music. I mean touring if your Coldplay you'll make money on
51:19
To but touring usually you know musicians will make a loss. So the really the only March you can sometimes make money but really the best way to make money in music if you're going to be a musician is to write the music and so there's a couple of different ways there's pop splits and there's Urban splits and I can I can tell you that so I guess an Urban split is like whoever is in the room.
51:50
Or whoever does even one tiny word or something. It'll get split between you may be equally, I think I think that's a nervous but I don't do that and it was really funny because Benny Blanco like wrote me and was like, why don't you why don't you he's a producer. He's that like he did that old bunch of Katy Perry hits and he said that's right hits the law gets Galore hits the law. He stopped counting after he had
52:19
10 top number ones and on me anyway, and he was he was writing me and he was like, why are you because he was working with a partner on producing a song and I believe that if I write the melody in the top line, I get 50% of the slot and if you write the chords you get 50% of the song and do the production you get paid for your production separately aside from getting paid for the writing. So a producer a good producer the
52:49
days will make 30 40 grand for producing a song that means producing a song means putting all of that sounds in there all of the piano sound and then I'll be a violin sound or or the sound of the bass and the and the beat that's called production and songwriting process is literally just chords and Melody and lyrics so chords are worth 50% of publishing and lyrics and
53:19
Elodie are worth 50% of publishing and then if you go and produce it you get a fee for producing. So I'm so lucky. I wrote the chords to Chandelier.
53:33
Can you explain what that means? Cause I think cause I think strumming like a C or D on a guitar, but I don't know if I'm thinking of the same
53:42
thing. That's right. That's about it. Like it's so important. So I guess it's three fingers on a piano.
53:49
Yeah, and they make a core and so if you go like this, I'm doing up the but I'm doing the root note of a cause they'll be like that's four different like and they're just four different notes, but I can
54:07
and then you give that to the producer they put it they take that they put it in just since you mentioned the
54:13
piano honest and clear this that was chandelier. I did I did right?
54:18
The courts but I then I sent them to Jessi shatkin and I said can you make a song out of this and he did all the production and I'm nice. So I gave him 25 percent of the publishing but I'm not required to do that. Like I could have taken a hundred percent of the song and paid him his production fee of $40,000. Let's
54:41
say and and Melody is the sound of the voice or the
54:48
That's just the wow. I don't know know whatever. I like Kevin King Crab jobs. Yeah, it's that's Melody. And then once you add lyrics to that, it's called Top Line.
55:04
Melody and lyrics Heather is called Top Line.
55:07
Got it. And so I am I talk Line Rider, but I actually now I guess I'm also I can write some chords, but I'm pretty shabby at it. But I do I do like playing clanging away on piano occasionally and send Jesse wait videos of me playing the piano so you can see which chords I'm playing and I because I appreciate him and I know I couldn't
55:37
Without him I always given for any bugs in but gonna get in another world. He wouldn't be entitled to that you would get a production fee. So but I like to be
55:49
generous. Yeah, and when somebody says for instance what if you were to say, I have 50% of publishing what is that 50 percent of is it is it specifically what radio stations pay?
56:04
Okay. Yeah. It is. It's across the board it.
56:07
Means so like okay on a really highly listen to commercial radio station. Let's say and I'm just this is a random number. That's not necessarily correct. Let's say every time chandelier gets pay played. They pay my publisher dollar right? So now I get 75 cents of that and Jesse gets 25 cents of that and and my my publishing company, I think they'll take
56:37
I think they take 15% or something as an admin fee
56:43
occasion. Yeah.
56:45
Yeah, and I used to be 30 that because I used an need a publisher but I don't actually need a publisher now because I don't need them to introduce me to any songwriters or other song writers or artists. I don't need the services that they offer so I only need them to collect money for me. So so that's how I managed to.
57:07
To get it down to 15% because most people are still paying 30% of their to their Publishers.
57:18
Do you get paid one albums or sold digitally as well or is that completely
57:22
separate I do but I don't know how and that would be a question for my manager. I
57:27
really am no problem. We don't have to
57:33
tease and I don't understand that what metal?
57:38
The process was you're talking about the volume of work that you do and I found a an interview you did with the guardian in 2016. This is a while ago. So I this may have changed, but I'd love to hear.
57:53
You expand on a little bit and here's the quote. I love the idea of how fast we can make the song but I don't Nest I don't think that I'm necessarily super talented songwriter. I just think I'm really productive one out of ten songs is a hit. So we're a lot of people will spend three weeks on one song. I will write 10 in three weeks. Maybe the song that they sculpt is going to be a successful as just one of the 10 that I wrote. Is that is that still true?
58:18
Yeah, that's definitely still true. But I also think I've gotten a little bit better at picking.
58:23
Tracks that are hits so sometimes people send me tracks. So okay. So for the people listening tracks are when someone a producer sends you a already fully done bottom line.
58:40
Which is all the music all the sounds of the beat everything the chords it's all there that so they would that's 50% right there. They send you 50% of a song and if I hear the way the chords move and think that it's a smash because I actually record myself to everything. I listen to the very first time. So I press play when I listen to something for the first time I pressed.
59:09
I am record on my computer and I'll sing along to it and see if I can into it where it's going and if I meant to into it where it's going and it sounds good and something works then I I'm just better at picking now what I think will be a hit or what we catchy because I do believe now that pop music is really just indoctrination, which is sad because it used to be music used to be good.
59:48
What what a diamond when music was good now it is still great music out there, but I've never died never curious, but I don't listen to music. I just watch television and movies. So that's probably why the only person about isn't just
1:00:06
Leverage.
1:00:09
Is that true? You don't you don't ever listen to background? Music?
1:00:13
No. Oh, yeah, I'll put into because I just got Apple music. I don't have Spotify or Pandora, but I just got Apple music. And so now I just type in so you don't waves or beta waves. Well Alpha way and I just press play on one of those and then I'll meditate or whatever. But if I'm not watching television, I'm talking to a friend. I'm not usually
1:00:39
Listening to music. It's not what I
1:00:40
do. It's very interesting. Is that always been the case or did that at some point just by feel too much like work to your you can't listen to it without breaking it down and thinking about the top line and that this about anything.
1:00:52
No, it's weird. It's just I did it very much. I was obsessive as a child around it. I would listen to and I've said this billion times. So what's apologies to those who've heard this before but I would listen to that part in the doors song.
1:01:09
In a door somewhere goes no no, Anna Anna nana nana nana nana nana nana nana nana nana and I like that part so much but I just didn't care about the rest of the song. So I just recorded that part like 50 times onto a 30-minute tight and I would literally just listen to that over and over again and I would sing along to it and in the same with the this Chrissie Hynde one the yeah, man. All right.
1:01:39
Right. I still can't do it. I can't I can't do it. I've never been able to do it and I can't like I can't do it like she does it and I would try so hard and I just technically could not do it and I still can't do it. And so that's exciting because I love not being able to do something and leave because I was sort of recently thinking aloud metal my professional and personal goals.
1:02:09
What like what do I do now? It's nihilism or is it full engagement, you
1:02:13
know,
1:02:17
so but yeah, I guess I guess I could still keep trying that but fucking pretty slick. Yeah, super busy with music as a child. I didn't have a television until I think I was 10 or 11 and then I became addicted to television but I still listen to music some music not much.
1:02:38
Much usually whatever my parents would listen to that was like soul to soul and Malcolm McLaren and well it earlier my dad when my dad was around. It was all 60s like Motown and girl groups and really just fun and pop that sort of stuff and then when he left became I think my stepfather he more I think he brought the Malcolm McLaren and the soul soul into the house and
1:03:09
So Karen wheeler Terence Trent D'Arby Stevie Wonder Aretha Franklin Chrissie Hynde and Annie Lennox sort of kind these voices that I when Mariah Carey actually these voices. I just started to mimic. I just wanted to sort of the obsession for me as a child was I would mimic these artists until I thought I sound exactly like so then I guess when I when I sang the first original song ever
1:03:39
But I I just I had the voice that was an amalgamation of all of those people that I had studied and I didn't it wasn't very good. I mean there's an amazing video of me when I'm 12. I'm really a bad singer and I want to definitely put it out sometime. I want people to know that you'd like I was nine Christina Aguilera like she was incredible like when she was 10 years old. She's doing these insane technical runs.
1:04:09
I was a very mediocre singer 12 and I went on this talent show and super mediocre. I sent it to basically this is silly again. I'm bringing up the Kardashians, but I sent it to North because Kim told me that Norris got sad because she cooked Kim Kardashian told me that North got sad because she couldn't sing chandelier as well as I did it and I so I sent her the video.
1:04:38
Video of me when I was 12 and that's amazing. I said, look at this. This was how this was I couldn't have seen at all when I was 12. Like you're only little like you're going to be an amazing singer and and because they're so nice and funny, but it would it's pretty hilarious. I might have a rat's tail.
1:05:06
I'd love to
1:05:08
That makes that makes two of us. I had a rat tail at 12 on Long Island, but I wasn't I wasn't doing any singing
1:05:15
I couldn't decide my legs further.
1:05:27
Doing the splits song about zoman have muscles. They're my soul bound and I'm gonna troll
1:05:40
well, I would love to see the video. So please do put that
1:05:43
out. I'm definitely gonna do that because I want I want kids to know that you know, I don't know I wasn't always a good singer that I
1:05:56
And I've gotten better and I think even just over the years last 20 years. I think I didn't really belt that means sing out really big loud for the listeners. I didn't really belt until I was maybe six years ago 10 years ago. No Taylor Isa. Yeah because quite still yeah. It was my whisper album. I had to find my voice.
1:06:27
So, uh, you found your voice and we're going to talk. I want to ask you about the movie before we get to the movie. I have to it. I have to ask you about the decision to at least in many cases hide your face and get away with a lot right? Because and I'm reading here this piece from the Rolling Stone profile. It was read one paragraph and then I have a couple of
1:06:54
Editions, but the success of titanium which is a whole story unto itself that we won't get into right now, but people can people can look up the song Wikipedia made see a one of the most in-demand songwriters in the business, but she needed to put out one last album to get out of an old publishing deal. She said she'd do it on the condition that she would have artistic control and do no promotion. No touring no, press no media appearances. All right. Now you've also sung with your back to audiences. You've been on the cover of magazines with your face entirely.
1:07:24
Covered why did you make these decisions?
1:07:32
Well, it's really I had really kind of really hundred percent remember the Genesis but I've got this vague recollection that I thought. All right, I'll put this blonde all things with my back to the audience and I'll put this blonde bob on other people and then everyone can be the pop star and then I cast Maddie in Chandelier and she was so incredible and engaging and lovable
1:08:01
disappear.
1:08:02
Your last name Ziegler or how does she look? Yeah, Maddie Maddie so that for people who don't know. This is an incredible
1:08:08
dancer, unbelievable and actor by the way she and actor Oscar worthy. It's crazy. So she was I didn't realize was going to be so engaging and wonderful and lovable and that I was going to want to immediately like have her in my life all the time. And so I guess in the beginning you'll see
1:08:32
There are pictures of lots of different people wearing the plum Bob in the artwork for I think a thousand forms of fear, I think because originally I was just going to have other people like I'm celebrities like I ask Kanye if he would just wear the one Bob and sing my song or whatever or I just thought. Oh, well, I'll ask Robert Pattinson or I'll just I'll ask other people if that I was going to ask for a patents and if he would do the cover of Rolling Stone, I'm like if I could just use put his face all over my face on a stick.
1:09:02
You know.
1:09:06
And I so I had all these ideas like how I it would be funny like to like hide from celebrity or just asked other people if I could borrow their celebrity just for the day and and so that never really evolved because of my partnership with Maddie because I fell madly in love with her as a person and as an artist and as a collaborator and so suddenly I was just like I don't want to work with anyone else. I love this fruit, and she's so wonderful and
1:09:36
And that and so I guess she became almost an avatar and I know a lot of most of the tweens and little people think that she is see it when they meet me, they're so disappointed and actually often wear out me and her together and often people will come and most of the time I try and bodyguard her and I'll be like, oh, unfortunately we can't do photos right now.
1:10:06
She's not supposed to be in town or no one's supposed to know where she is because it's like it's getting gnarly for her people. I mean selfies and stuff like that now but on the rare occasion that it's a very sweet little tiny person. They'll say you know of would you mind taking a picture? They think I'm her
1:10:25
mom.
1:10:27
ha ha ha
1:10:30
which I love because I mean and also like, you know, and I dated a couple of celebrities, you know over the last few years, but like I love that one time I was I'm date with someone and and they recognize the person I was on the date with and they were like, oh my God, could you take a picture with with him with me like me and him and I was like, of course and so I was just so I loved being the plus 1
1:10:56
I was like, I'll I would love to be a plus one because I like being entertaining and find a nice and friendly to my friends and obviously to my Burns or whatever or to do like, you know people who are trying to make the world a better place, but like I don't care about adulation from people. I don't know or who I don't know. I just I get my validation elsewhere.
1:11:26
And so celebrity isn't is this huge gaping pain is like just a huge disappointment work for those of you who are listening who want to be famous just do something else. It's not what you think it is. It's it's toxic.
1:11:45
Yeah, that's the best way to put it. It's not what you think. It is highly accurate.
1:11:54
But yeah, I fell in love with Maddie and then then
1:11:56
We was actually I think my ex-husband was like you to wear a really big wig like like an anime character and so I did that at the Grammys and then that became kind of I guess iconic and then I would say that and my Halloween costume and and then Maddie also became Halloween costume in Transylvania, and that was conscious. I was like, I want to always make outfits of or
1:12:26
Or looks that can be replicated for very little money because I want people to be able to afford to dress up as the pop star.
1:12:36
So no doubt.
1:12:38
Yeah and the same with my movie all of the outfits in the movie. I'm having made for Halloween in like affordable like affordably, you know,
1:12:51
what we've alluded to the movie a few times now, why don't we tell people more about it? Okay.
1:12:56
You what's the Genesis story? Why do a movie?
1:12:59
Oh, yeah. I don't know. I was very smooth. I was about I don't know maybe 15 16 years ago. Now, I don't know. I thought of us just had a story come into my head. I wrote it down and then many years later evolved into a screenplay and then it was a kind of mediocre pretty good Indie screenplay, but my best friend who isn't screen.
1:13:26
Play writer. He said I mean, this is great nice ND you could do this. It wasn't a musical. It was pure narrative. I was very against making a musical because I really wanted people to view me as a serious director. I was really because I really thought that they'd think I was a wanker and it would be like it was just like a vanity project or like an actor making an album or you know, I was scared of judgment basically and and then he said, oh, I we could make this right
1:13:56
I can help you with this some of the make a better. So I've started from scratch with Dallas Clayton and he's my best friend. The one I was talking to you before I talk to you just so I could go get some co-regulation in because I was a nervy and and it worked 20 minutes. Oh, yeah, that's a top-tier 20 minutes of co-regulation with someone that you trust and that trusts you that is like you have a 50/50 relationship with
1:14:26
minutes of conversation with them will make you not want to do a drug smoke a cigarette gamble have sex porn shop like it's the cure to addiction its connection 20 minutes of co-regulation with a person that you trust. That's that's the solution and yeah build out with you for my a he just sort of happened upon it like the accidentally I think but now it's proven science, you know.
1:14:56
So anyway back to the movie. Yeah, we wrote it and I was too scared to make it then some personal went through a divorce. You know, I think he had wanted to just read wanted to like for babies in me and me not to be working so much and and I
1:15:17
I realized I was I was in the wrong relationship and so I that was very devastating and that it's been about a four-year recovery from that divorce and help me through it. I guess Dallas my best friend. He was kept saying to me we went and saw La La Land and he said he just said to me you could do that and I was like you think so because I loved it and he was like, yeah, you can totally do that and I was like
1:15:47
Really feel so because I'd always directed with a partner called Daniel a skill. That's who I directed all my music videos with so I wasn't sure if I was really a director or was I just an artist with good ideas, but it turned out Lena Dunham and Dallas. They said to me you can do it. You can do it wait, like you'll totally be able to do it and because of who they are to me good friends that I trust.
1:16:17
I guess they gave me the self-esteem that I was lacking and so I called up Vincent land a who had been producing use produced nearly all the Spike Jones as movies. And here's one of my favorite directors and done adaptation and Being John Malkovich, and and I said can we try again? Because we would we talked before and he said yes, okay and also someone
1:16:47
Like maybe three people had said to me. Oh, so you're an idiot. You've got to turn it into a musical. You're such an idiot. It's like having a blank Scrabble piece and not using it you're an idiot. And so finally I finally caved and you know, and of course then the budget we like went from four million to 16 million, but I did a good deal. I guess. I just I got to to wreak on tables in a bidding war.
1:17:17
Then for my albums and then I just said whoever is going to lend me 16 million is who I'm going to go
1:17:22
with nice
1:17:24
nice. So that's what happened. And I I love the movie. I'm proud of it. It's a beautiful film. It's um, it's for name, it's not me. It's called music dig it. Yeah, and that's actually Maddie Ziegler plays a character called music who is a teenager. Who's
1:17:47
Suffering up severely from autism and she's quite low functioning. She is nonverbal. Although she does have echolalia so she can repeat what you say, but she doesn't generate her own vocabulary sentences. So anyway, that was really scary for Maddie. I remember in the first day. She came I can I cast everyone basically off Twitter, but just looking who can sing who can sing who doesn't seem like a like a white light.
1:18:17
Like musical theater major who like you could see me when I basically just tweeted the people I want to do my movie and I said, yes.
1:18:31
And then I can die and then Maddie was really scared because I based the character on me a guy called Stevie who I used to sit next to in an AA meeting on Sunday mornings at the Log Cabin. His mother was the deaf interpreter and so he obviously himself wasn't an addict but he was in there with her because she couldn't afford care for him while she worked and I fell in love with Stevie I and I sat next to him and I don't know I just I fell in love with you.
1:18:58
And I'd already had this story in my head. And so the character was always suffering from autism in my or suffering or unknown flourishing from autism, depending on how you view it. And then yeah when Isis met Stevie I was like, oh my gosh, like, oh he's so beautiful and perfect and I love him. And so I taught Maddie all of his mannerisms and his vocalizations and and she got scared. She got scared.
1:19:28
Scared I remember the first day that her and Kate Hudson Moore going to come to rehearsal and she got there beside. Well the house across the road forward to leaving temporarily because she was always here in town doing auditions and things like that and I didn't think it was good for her to always be in different hotels and stuff like that. So so she came over what cross the road she came she came over and I could see something was off and
1:19:57
I see what's going on and she burst into tears and she said I'm just really scared. I don't want anyone to think I'm making fun of her and she is such a sensitive beautiful person. I just said to her I will never let that happen. I will not let that happen. I will you can and you can had final say over the right. I will never let that happen. And then we spent three days working on all of like Stevie's utterances and vocalizations and
1:20:27
And ticks and movements and and so yeah, I got so much. I have Stevie to thank for this amazing character that you'll see in the movie and then inside of her head takes place all these musicals where she's unburdened by any of her, you know, physical disabilities the ticks and the pain and the and so she
1:20:57
Is her body is free from a remote ISM and and all the associated comorbid collection of things that you can have and everyone with autism is different every single one. There's no to that are like so when we sent it off to the child MIND Institute to make sure that we're done a good job representing the autism community.
1:21:26
I was really hopeful that we've done a good job of felt proud. I thought we had but they came back with a hundred a hundred percent approval and that to me was the day that I cried and felt relief and thought okay. I've made a movie that to meaningful and that is interesting and moving and fun and funny and
1:21:56
That woman to do so, you know, definitely it's a it's a like you bring your Kleenex, but you know, you get your help you get your hardly Hollywood endings that are worried.
1:22:13
Congratulations. It sounds like a real is the hardest thing I've ever real journey a real
1:22:18
journey. I think that's why I've also been in bed for three years.
1:22:27
What keeps you what what what keeps you going what gives you the most energy these days. I mean, you've you've seemingly ticked off nearly every professional Accolade and success you could ever
1:22:40
want. Yeah. I've got no go what just being a model. I just adopted two
1:22:45
kids.
1:22:47
How did you decide to do
1:22:48
that? I saw one of the moment. I'm actually I see ya. I'll tell you I'm so obsessed with television. That's why I'm friends with the Kardashians like
1:22:57
Like my my interior designer was on million dollar. This is like designers or whatever Bravo like my friends with Bethenny Frankel for fuck's sake like, I'm I'm into reality TV and I basically audition all my friends through reality TV to decide whether or not they're safe or not. And then I go and find them and ask them to be my friend. It's so and then I've got my regular friends my regular so
1:23:26
Real friends, but I'm only friends the only celebrities. I'm really friends with our realities you Beast
1:23:33
now when you say safe that just means that they're there so aware of the public and exposed to the public that nothing weird related to your I'm just leaving frame will
1:23:43
happen. Look just like a weekly not fucked like not going to hop that they're just good me like they're good well-meaning people.
1:23:54
How do your kids? How does that how does the adoption fit into
1:23:56
this?
1:23:57
Oh, well, yeah, how does it what
1:24:02
banks? Are you mentioned? HBO somehow.
1:24:05
Oh, yeah so a so, that's exactly right. So H so I was watching a documentary on HBO IE reality TV, but it was about the foster care system and I saw a boy on there and he was 16 at the time and I thought I could be his mother and what a hilarious I like overstatement that was
1:24:27
Um, and I found him I found him and he was 18 by the time I found him and I met him and he said can I bring my friend? He won't make it he's too pretty and I see what is to pretty pretty. Yep. And and I said, yeah, okay because I had two spare bedrooms and and I like an absolute Maniac took them home that day.
1:24:59
But I think at the time and the last year has just been you know, an absolute roller coaster, but just the most rewarding and the best best thing ever, you know, like being a mummy like a god mummy to Maddie is like has been the most meaningful thing to me over the last year is a six seven years and now being a mummy to my boys is now the most meaningful thing to me.
1:25:27
Like that's what that's all I got. I don't care about anything else. I just want to make sure they don't end up in the 5% that end up, you know, because they statistically should be end up in jail for murder and with the histories that they have the trauma histories they have and I want to keep that up. I want to fuck the system. That's bigger system is fucked.
1:25:51
And I'll help keep them out of jail. So then they could change the
1:25:55
world. But thank you for doing that. It's something that you know, I can't even I can't put myself in your shoes. Of course. I mean, it must be such a multi-faceted emotional experience. Some of my closest friends have adopted kids and actually one woman. I'm very close to had a somewhat similar situation in the sense that they
1:26:21
Her partner were planning on adopting one child and they came home with
1:26:24
three and then they wrote a movie about
1:26:26
it. Was it different different couple but similar ideas buzz and it's you know, parenting parenting I would imagine I don't have kids of my own but it seems like the most rewarding and most difficult job.
1:26:51
Bob imaginable and oh, I have my doll all the more so I would imagine when you are picking up where the system has left off
1:27:03
imagine. I mean, I have a newfound complete like newfound respect for all parents any like, you know, I feel like I'm lucky because they they I mean they had structure but they had drama so my job now.
1:27:21
Use what I've learned in my attachment repair therapy was George Haas and use that with them to create a secure base for them and to help them their brains to neuroplasticity and their brains to be able to become secure as well. That's my only goal at the moment is to help my children are insecure attachment because yeah, they had been in at least eight in different times each of them.
1:27:49
Well, yeah, and and and there we've been treated abominable and yeah, just really so I'm just lucky I'm I bought two I have the resources that I can get them to kind of help that they need and I'm were and I'm grateful that it only took you here for me to like get them on board. No, but it looks incredible. It was a tough year.
1:28:16
But I bet I was an Ellen on ninja
1:28:25
see I know we're coming up on time your I mean Dad, we don't know each other that well, but the little the little contact that we have had. I've really enjoyed. I love your work. I enjoy your work. I enjoy you and what you're doing in the world people can find you on Twitter at Sia the best handle ever a
1:28:46
Instagram is at CMA Music course, I'll link to everything that we discussed.
1:28:53
I don't I mean I casually tweet but I don't really run it as there are more marketing things. You're being very nice. Thank you,
1:29:00
but I'm mentioning them and also, you know, I just realized as I'm looking at my hands right now that I do know the difference between Supine and prone because when you're doing a chin up and your palms are facing you that's supination, which you can remember because you could put
1:29:16
soup in your hands to eat it with your palms up and then when you have your hands facing down or a way that's pronation. So if you're lying on your stomach that would be prone. And if you're laying on your back, that would be super fun just to come full circle at the Province supine.
1:29:32
I don't care if I'm wrong.
1:29:38
Let's see is there is there anything else that you'd like to say before? We bring to a close this first conversation on the podcast?
1:29:47
No, I just I mean, I feel like we could talk first 7 hours
1:29:51
that we could I bet we could be definitely good.
1:29:54
Thank you for with all of the good things that you're bringing to the world. I really appreciate it. Really really interesting and Broad coverage of you know, what's globally of importance. I guess. I appreciate what you thank you.
1:30:16
Welcome to yeah, I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you taking the time. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you once again first of course and hopefully once this pesky virus gets handled will have a chance to actually spend time in person at some point.
1:30:34
Yeah, that would be awesome. I'll bring down.
1:30:38
I would love it. I would love it and to everybody listening. We will link to everything in the show notes all of the resources all of the concepts the movie certainly all of the handles everything you can imagine. We will link to in the show notes at MDOT blog for / podcast as usual. You can just search Sia that's very memorable very easy to spell SI a and I would imagine almost every language so you'll be able to find it at Tim dot blog and until next time. Thanks for tuning.
1:31:07
again
1:31:09
Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one. This is five. Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email for me? And what do you enjoy getting a short email for me? Every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend and five. Bullet. Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week that could include favorite new albums that have discovered it could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit.
1:31:38
That I've somehow dug up in the the world of the esoteric as I do it could include favorite articles that I have read and that I've shared with my close friends for instance and it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that check it out. Just go to four hour workweek.com. That's four hour workweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you'll get the very next one and if you sign up
1:32:09
Hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn jobs small businesses have unique needs a lot of you know this I know this and even with the uncertainty these days one thing stands unchanged and that is the importance of having the right people on your team, but hiring can be hard. It can be really expensive if you make mistakes very painful to get it wrong. I've certainly had that experience. I'm not eager to repeat it. So I try to do as much upfront screening as possible when your business is ready to make the next higher LinkedIn jobs that can help your screen candidates with the
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1:33:09
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