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

Sia — The Alchemy of Blockbuster Songs, Billions of Views, and the Face You’ve Never Seen | Brought to you by Athletic Greens http://magicspoon.com/tim, LinkedIn Jobs http://linkedin.com/tim, and Thrive Market http://foursigmatic.com/tim. “I don’t think that I’m necessarily like a super-talented songwriter. I think I’m just really productive. One out of 10 songs is a hit. So where a lot of people will spend three weeks on one song, I will write 10 in three weeks.” — Sia Sia (@sia http://twitter.com/sia) is an Australian singer, songwriter, director, screenwriter, and pop icon. Her current single, Together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnfGni4_RlI, is from her forthcoming album and motion picture, Music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_(2020_film), due out later this year. In 2019, Sia partnered with Diplo and Labrinth to form the group LSD. Their debut album, Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present…LSD https://open.spotify.com/album/0ujHQ5WCLuKJQXOqXpGtpf?autoplay=true has one billion+ streams to date. She released the Grammy-nominated This Is Acting https://open.spotify.com/album/77jAfTh3KH9K2reMOmTgOh?autoplay=true (Monkey Puzzle/RCA Records) in 2016 to 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. Sia has more videos in YouTube’s Billion Views Club than any other female on the planet. Her massive single Cheap Thrills https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYh-n7EOtMA was a multi-format global radio hit and one of the longest-running singles in the Top 40 in 2016. Along with her own successes, Sia has written global smashes for today’s biggest acts, including Beyoncé, Kanye West, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, and many more. Please enjoy! This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim. I get asked all the time, “If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually Athletic Greens https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. Right now, Athletic Greens https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim is offering you their Vitamin D3/K2 Liquid Formula free with your first purchase—two vital nutrients for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim https://www.athleticgreens.com/tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free D3/K2 bundle with your first purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product. * This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs https://linkedin.com/Tim. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs https://linkedin.com/Tim can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer. Using LinkedIn’s active community of more than 690 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs https://linkedin.com/Tim can help you find and hire the right person faster. When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. You can pay what you want and get the first $50 off. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim https://linkedin.com/Tim. * This episode is also brought to you by Thrive Market http://thrivemarket.com/tim, which saves me a ton of money and is perfect for these crazy times. Thrive Market http://thrivemarket.com/tim is a membership-based site on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. You can find all types of food, supplements, nontoxic home products, clean wine, dog food—just about anything. Members earn wholesale prices every day and save an average of $30 on each order. I personally saved $39 on my most recent order. Go to ThriveMarket.com/Tim http://thrivemarket.com/tim to give Thrive Market a try! You can choose the membership model that best fits your lifestyle. Choose a free gift, up to $22 in value, when you join today http://thrivemarket.com/timand purchase the one-year membership. *** If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tim-ferriss-show/id863897795?mt=2/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast https://tim.blog/podcast/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast-description. Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday https://go.tim.blog/5-bullet-friday-1/. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts http://tim.blog/transcripts. Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Please fill out the form at tim.blog/sponsor http://tim.blog/sponsor. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books http://tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss https://twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss https://instagram.com/timferriss/ Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss https://www.facebook.com/TimFerriss/ YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss https://www.youtube.com/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show http://tim.blog/podcast include Jerry Seinfeld https://tim.blog/2020/12/08/jerry-seinfeld/, Hugh Jackman https://tim.blog/2020/06/26/hugh-jackman/, Dr. Jane Goodall https://tim.blog/2020/04/16/jane-goodall/, LeBron James https://tim.blog/2018/11/27/lebron-james-mike-mancias/, Kevin Hart https://tim.blog/2020/05/20/kevin-hart/, Doris Kearns Goodwin https://tim.blog/2018/09/07/doris-kearns-goodwin-leadership/, Jamie Foxx https://tim.blog/2015/12/06/jamie-foxx/, Matthew McConaughey https://tim.blog/2020/10/19/matthew-mcconaughey/, Esther Perel https://tim.blog/2017/05/21/esther-perel/, Elizabeth Gilbert https://tim.blog/2020/05/08/elizabeth-gilbert/, Terry Crews https://tim.blog/2017/12/20/terry-crews-how-to-have-do-and-be-all-you-want/, Sia https://tim.blog/2020/08/12/sia/, Yuval Noah Harari https://tim.blog/2020/10/27/yuval-noah-harari/, Malcolm Gladwell https://tim.blog/2016/06/21/malcolm-gladwell/, Madeleine Albright https://tim.blog/2020/05/27/secretary-madeleine-albright/, Cheryl Strayed https://tim.blog/2017/03/30/cheryl-strayed/, Jim Collins https://tim.blog/2019/02/18/jim-collins/, Mary Karr, https://tim.blog/2020/11/11/mary-karr/ Maria Popova https://tim.blog/2014/10/21/brain-pickings/, Sam Harris https://tim.blog/2020/05/15/sam-harris-2/, Michael Phelps https://tim.blog/2021/01/21/michael-phelps-grant-hackett/, Bob Iger https://tim.blog/2020/01/16/bob-iger/, Edward Norton https://tim.blog/2019/10/31/edward-norton-motherless-brooklyn/, Arnold Schwarzenegger https://tim.blog/2015/02/02/arnold-schwarzenegger/, Neil Strauss https://tim.blog/2014/06/24/neil-strauss/, Ken Burns https://tim.blog/2019/09/12/ken-burns/, Maria Sharapova https://tim.blog/2017/08/26/maria-sharapova/, Marc Andreessen https://tim.blog/2016/05/29/marc-andreessen/, Neil Gaiman https://tim.blog/2019/03/28/neil-gaiman/, Neil de Grasse Tyson https://tim.blog/2019/10/03/neil-degrasse-tyson/, Jocko Willink https://tim.blog/2016/09/21/jocko-willink-on-discipline-leadership-and-overcoming-doubt/, Daniel Ek https://tim.blog/2020/12/03/daniel-ek/, Kelly Slater https://tim.blog/2020/09/08/kelly-slater/, Dr. Peter Attia https://tim.blog/2019/11/27/peter-attia-fasting-metformin-longevity/, Seth Godin https://tim.blog/2016/02/10/seth-godin/, Howard Marks https://tim.blog/2018/09/25/howard-marks/, Dr. Brené Brown https://tim.blog/2020/02/06/brene-brown-striving-self-acceptance-saving-marriages/, Eric Schmidt https://tim.blog/2019/04/09/eric-schmidt/, Michael Lewis https://tim.blog/2020/05/01/michael-lewis/, Joe Gebbia https://tim.blog/2018/03/08/joe-gebbia-co-founder-of-airbnb/, Michael Pollan https://tim.blog/2018/05/06/michael-pollan-how-to-change-your-mind/, Dr. Jordan Peterson https://tim.blog/2021/03/01/jordan-peterson/, Vince Vaughn https://tim.blog/2017/05/31/vince-vaughn/, Brian Koppelman https://tim.blog/2020/04/23/brian-koppelman/, Ramit Sethi https://tim.blog/2019/05/07/ramit-sethi/, Dax Shepard https://tim.blog/2020/11/18/dax-shepard/, Tony Robbins https://tim.blog/2014/10/15/money-master-the-game/, Jim Dethmer https://tim.blog/2020/05/18/jim-dethmer/, Dan Harris https://tim.blog/2020/11/19/dan-harris/, Ray Dalio https://tim.blog/2017/09/13/ray-dalio/, Naval Ravikant https://tim.blog/2015/08/18/the-evolutionary-angel-naval-ravikant/, Vitalik Buterin https://tim.blog/2021/03/08/vitalik-buterin-naval-ravikant/, Elizabeth Lesser https://tim.blog/2021/03/16/elizabeth-lesser/, Amanda Palmer https://tim.blog/2019/04/18/amanda-palmer-2/, Katie Haun https://tim.blog/2021/02/18/katie-haun/, Sir Richard Branson https://tim.blog/2017/10/09/richard-branson/, Chuck Palahniuk https://tim.blog/2020/09/02/chuck-palahniuk/, Arianna Huffington https://tim.blog/2017/10/18/arianna-huffington/, Reid Hoffman https://tim.blog/2015/08/31/the-oracle-of-silicon-valley-reid-hoffman-plus-michael-mccullough/, Bill Burr https://tim.blog/2017/09/17/bill-burr/, Whitney Cummings https://tim.blog/2015/06/26/whitney-cummings/, Rick Rubin https://tim.blog/2015/05/15/rick-rubin/, Dr. Vivek Murthy https://tim.blog/2020/03/26/vivek-murthy/, Darren Aronofsky https://tim.blog/2017/09/09/darren-aronofsky/, and many more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Tim Ferriss?

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Can I ask you a personal question?

• 0:08Speaker 02

  No, we're just seeing an appropriate time.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 0:24Tim Ferriss?

  This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market. Thrive Market saves me a ton of money and it's perfect for these crazy times. Thrive Market is a membership-based site on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. You can regularly save 25 to 50% off of normal retail prices with member-only prices for anything you can imagine, really, whether it's keto, paleo, gluten-free, vegan, whatever. You can sort by that. You can find all types of food, you can find supplements, you can find non-toxic home products, clean wine, dog food, just about anything. And let me give you a personal example of just how much you can save. So my last order, I ordered Primal Kitchen Mayonnaise, which is made with avocado oil. It's delicious. Justin's

• 1:07Tim Ferriss?

  Almond Butter. And the first was 25% off. The Justin's Almond Butter was 30% off. Rouse Homemade Marinara Sauce, which is awesome, 26% off. All said and done, at the end of my shopping, I saved $39 on my order. So, members, and I'm a member, can earn wholesale prices every day and save an average of $30 on each order. I'll come back to that. And through Thrive Gives, their one-on-one membership matching program, every paid Thrive Market membership is matched with a free one for a low-income family in need. So go to thrivemarket.com/tim today to give Thrive Market a try. You can select the membership model that best fits your lifestyle.

• 1:49Tim Ferriss?

  They have one-month and 12-month membership options. Choose a free gift, up to $22 in value when you join today and purchase the one-year membership. And just remember, Thrive Market membership is risk-free. You can take the first 30 days to decide if Thrive Market is right for you. If it's not, just cancel within those 30 days and get a full refund. This is what I offered my mom. So, again, that's thrivemarket.com/tim. By the way, my mom kept using it. Thrivemarket.com/tim. Check it out.

• 2:21Tim Ferriss?

  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 if you get it wrong. I've certainly had that experience and 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 hire, LinkedIn Jobs can help you screen candidates with the hard and soft skills that you're looking for. They'll match your position with qualified members so that you can find the right person quickly. Using LinkedIn's active community of more than 690 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster.

• 3:04Tim Ferriss?

  So, when your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. You can pay what you want and get the first $50 off. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim. Again, that's LinkedIn.com/Tim to get $50 off your first job post. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot, what I would take if I could only take one supplement? And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients.

• 3:49Tim Ferriss?

  In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out, go to drinkag1.com/tim. That's drink A-G-one, the number one. Drinkag1.com/tim. Last time, drinkag1.com/tim. Check it out.

• 4:22Tim Ferriss?

  Well, 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. You can find her on Twitter @Sia, S-I-A. Sia is one of the most fascinating people I have come across in the last few years. So unorthodox, 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,

• 5:07Tim Ferriss?

  due out later this year, 2020. Last year, she partnered with Diplo and Labyrinth to form the group LSD. Their debut album, Labrinth, Sia and Diplo present. LSD has 1 billion-plus streams to date. She released the Grammy-nominated This Is Acting in 2016 to 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 has 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, Sia has written global smashes, and we're talking 100-plus

• 5:50Tim Ferriss?

  songs, for today's biggest acts, including Beyoncé, 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 @Sia, Instagram @Siamusic. And without further ado, please enjoy a very wide-ranging conversation with Sia.

• 6:18Tim Ferriss?

  I'd like to start in a weird place because, like you...

• 6:26Speaker 03

  Like, before you press record...

• 6:30Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  ...I'm like, "We're in a weird place." Because 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 what I'd said or something like that.

• 6:43Tim Ferriss?

  Of course.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  And you very kindly, and I said, "So I could do this interview on ketamine?"

• 6:51Tim Ferriss?

  It's true. You absolutely could.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  If only I'd known.

• 6:56Tim Ferriss?

  And if only you'd known, and you know, as I said, when you mentioned 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.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  Well, I actually do get ketamine infusions for my chronic pain. So, but in LA, they do it where you're totally out. So you don't feel you're not lucid at all and you don't have

• 7:22Tim Ferriss?

  Really?

• 7:23Speaker 03

  The trip at all. But here, here in this other place where I'm at right now, trying to maintain the modicum of privacy. They're more east meets west. So it's a doctor and they do 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? Like, well, weren't the pain to turn from red to blue or blah, blah, blah. And I actually had lucid experiences. And that, as a sober woman, has been really fascinating.

• 8:01Tim Ferriss?

  I imagine so. I did a sequence of five intravenous ketamine infusions over the span of two weeks because I had read about its application to suicidal ideation and chronic pain separately.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 8:17Tim Ferriss?

  And wanted to have the firsthand experience, not because I was suicidal, but because to recommend it to anyone who might come to me with suicidal ideation, I wanted to have the firsthand 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 miraculous. What, what, what has been your experience and what?

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's my experience too. And I mean, that was my experience even when I wasn't doing, in LA, when I was doing it not lucidly.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  And then when I s- and as a sober woman doing it lucidly, that was very confronting. And I I thought I was gonna have a bad trip. I'm like, I'm a bad tripper. I'm a bad tripper. I'm like, I've never had a good trip. I like anytime I did acid, it was bad. Like, I don't, I like, I'm a bad tripper. Make sure you give me lots of Versed, which is like a, you know, a sedative. And then he explained to me that the more Versed he gave me, the more ketamine he would have to give me. And then give me Versa- less Versed, he'd give me 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 L A, but he also gave me half the dose of uh Versed. And I had just a wonderful time.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  I had a wonderful time. I was like, he writes down everything you say. And so afterwards, uh, he was like, okay, so here we go. Here's the things that you said. Here's the things you said. Um, I am a microbe. Am I, am I upside down? Am I upside down? Oh, okay. Am I dying?

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Oh, okay, I'm not dying, cause like, like they'll, they'll lift the earphones off, cause they've got like, uh, like uh, theta wave music and stuff going on in your ears and stuff. And they'll say, no, see, you're not dying. You're just focus on your intention. And with the one in L A, I would never wake up or even be conscious enough to know or to say, am I dying?

• 10:50Speaker 03

  And so I found it quite, I, as someone who has had suicidal ideation, wha- what worked for me actually was Prozac in the end. I had, but I didn't, I hadn't tried ketamine for that. But I did, I had complex P T S D. I, I believe my, I may have gotten through it in the last three years. I've done so much painful work, but yeah, I barely left the house and I would only go to, I would only go to like Yeezy's Sunday service, because I love the singing so much and I love, and I fell in love with the Kardashians. They're so nice. And I felt safe around them. It was such an interesting experience.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  And so I would stay at home mostly and um just I have a projector that projects television or movies, whatever, on onto the ceiling. And I a- above my bed. And so I basically just lie prone. And is that the word prone?

• 11:53Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that would be, uh, let me think about this. Prone supine, I believe prone. I believe you got it right. Is that right? I think prone might be stomach down, like if you're in a prone position. In any case, you're on your bed on your back.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  I'm on my bed on my back with my face up. Looking at this enormous projector screen, pretty much sixteen hours a day for three years.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  And I leave the house on Sundays to go to the Sunday service and sing my heart out and clap and dance and dance around. And I was um having a lot of suicidal ideation and um because of this chronic pain and because I guess I have an attachment injury 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 attachment theory if if if anybody's interested. I think it's the cutting edge of, it's it's based on science and it's the cutting edge of um of of where psychology is going and should be going.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Is attachment theory and it's pretty new.

• 13:12Tim Ferriss?

  Well, let's let's talk about it because uh 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 the book Attached.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:22Tim Ferriss?

  And I believe.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Wrong stuff in there. That's the only reason I don't recommend it. It also just refers to you, it it it's like it's the baby version. So, yes, as baby, you're either ambivalent, avoidant or preoccupied. But as we grow, we develop these strategies that happen in the first ten months about of our life. Based on the care that we're given, we develop one of five strategies and sometimes disorganized, lo- all of them, like maybe maybe all five. So, so the strategies are uh dismissive.

• 13:59Speaker 03

  Preoccupied, fearful avoidant, which is now called disorganized, unresolved, and secure, which nobody in Hollywood is. Actually, that's not true. I think John Legend might be secure.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  He's so nice.

• 14:22Speaker 03

  Um, but yeah, there's, um, so I, I took an A I, which is called an attachment assessment inventory. I send it off to Harvard and they, you know, there's like three people that work in that department and they uh, study the, the interview and the language and the tone, cause it's recorded as well. And then they um, report back this uh, attachment theory, which is started by John Bowlby in the uh, forties or something. And then, but really only came to, to light in nineteen eighty four or eighty five, I can't remember. I'll say a lot of wrong things here. Um.

• 15:03Tim Ferriss?

  That's okay. That's, that's what show notes are for. Don't worry.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  But I do know that in the first ten 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 ten months of your life, based on the care that you're given. So I was complexly disorganized when I met George Haas, who has been helping me with my attachment repair. And I mean, I'm so excited because I'd got, one of my son has had an attachment assessment interview and he was less complexly disorganized than me and I was so happy for him.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  Because I've actually managed to like earn some secure categories. So there's different categories. There's like seven categories. I don't know what they are. I'm not that smart, but I just know that I have two left on me that, that aren't secure that are both fear related. The last time I took an attachment, but I started with only one secure feature, so out of seven. And now I have. I have five.

• 16:22Tim Ferriss?

  Seems like a big improvement.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, so and and also 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 that occurred in the first ten months of your life. That doesn't mean your parents were bad or mean or cruel. 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 may have been preoccupied or unable to care for you, unable to give you the things that you needed for your brain to develop properly securely.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  So, yeah, it was about fifty percent, I think, of the population is secure. That's if you take out poverty and then otherwise it's about thirty percent.

• 17:17Tim Ferriss?

  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 it seriously. What are the, yeah, what are the outcomes that you've seen in your life, the changes?

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Well, I'm I'm not afraid anymore. I've spent my whole entire life being extremely afraid. Uh, 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 fearful avoidant. And now it's called disorganized. And I was complexly fearfully avoidant. And and um, what that means is that the care was inconsistent. So you just don't know what you're gonna get. So you keep turning around and putting your arms out. If you imagine a toddler, so you put your arms out and you say, maybe this time they'll pick me up.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  No, 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 um, you know, so there's just a, I mean, I may not say to my parents, kick me in the chest. That's an extreme. Extreme analogy or metaphor, what is it, is it analogy or a metaphor, I don't know, parallel.

• 18:43Tim Ferriss?

  Well, it it depends, I guess, if they literally kick you in the chest or not, since since they didn't, I guess.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  I don't think they kicked me in the chest, I'm pretty sure they did. But um, you know, you just like, or if they didn't come, when you cried. If they didn't come, there's 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, or it needs to eat, or it needs its nappy change. Or it's uncomfortable, is it, the 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 look confused. And then they'll whimper, and then they'll, I think it's a, they'll intermittently cry. I I think that's what's next, and then that's when you should definitely pick them up.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  When they're in intermittently crying, then the 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 shutdown. Because it thinks it's gonna die. So people who sleep train their babies who think that it works. Yeah, it works, cause your baby thinks it's going to die and it gives up on life.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  And stops crying. Uh, so it only works if you go back in there at that intermittent crying point. And if you go in when they're intermittent crying, and you you say, I love you, baby's name, let's say, George. I love you, George, but it's time to go to sleep now, but we're just right out here. And that creates object constancy, which it ma- makes for way less psychos in the world.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  And way way less like, but you know, people like waiting by the phone, waiting for the text, waiting for the text, waiting for the text. Um, like, so what happens to people who didn't get picked up during the intermittent crying phase or didn't get. Like, um, just at least reassured during the intermittent crying phase. If they were left and they got into the limbic shutdown now as adults, when someone that there. Has captured their projection, like a a person, like a partner, like a love interest 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.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  And what's actually happening is just the same thing as when you're a baby. It was uh the seventh stage of limbic shutdown. So all the same neurochemicals. That were dumped into your body when you're a baby and you thought, I'm gonna die, cause nobody's coming. That happens as an adult, the same, exact same brain chemistry happens. And so all these human adults are, you know, sitting at home waiting for a text, feeling like they're gonna die. Like.

• 21:48Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  Uh uh 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, fearfully avoidant, they do. And they suffer greatly because of it. And it's merely because. Nobody came and reassured them at the intermittent crying point when they were a baby. That they're okay, it's time to go back to sleep now. And they leave the room. Then the baby, if it does a thing, it does a cry, you know, the cute 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 crying part.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  But if you leave a baby to cry, just cry it out, you're damaging them forever and ever. And actually, you're creating an addict, not knowing.

• 22:42Tim Ferriss?

  Let me ask. If I could, just because you mentioned the, you're talking about upbringing, you're talking about, on some level, it seems like unpredictability as a factor, that's one of the factors that might lead to this fearful, avoidant, now disorganized complex of sorts. Could you speak to, in the course of doing homework for this conversation, I came across a discussion of, and this is not to pin everything on a single parent, or either both parents, but your dad having two different personalities with two different names. Could you speak to this?

• 23:22Speaker 03

  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 from being angry and he'd be like, sorry about that, sorry about Stan's behavior, sorry about that darling, sorry about that. And so, you know, when I grew up, I thought, oh, watching all the movies, I thought, oh, he has multiple personality disorder. And finally, when I was 25, I thought everyone's dad 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

• 24:06Speaker 03

  called multiple personality 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, DID, is dangerous, or mean, or angry, or actually, they can be angry, but they're all basically parts of a constellation of an abused child that have split off to protect the original soul.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  Like, from the user. So they're all there just simply as protectors. Um, so when we watch movies like Split, we really, we sort of demonize people with D I D. And I also now think, I don't know if my dad had D I D. I don't, I, 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, I asked him recently. We had a really good repair. I asked him recently, cause he mentioned Stan in a text message. And I said, hey dad, when you, when you talk about Stan.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  What happens to me is that I get a whole bunch of fearful neurochemicals that dump into my body. And it makes me super anxious and then I get shaky. And it makes me, it takes me about at least twenty minutes for my liver to be able to process it all. And, um, could you do me a favor and could we never talk about Stan ever again? And he said, yes. And then he wrote a really beautiful message that was something like, I'm sorry. That must have been really painful for your fragile young psyche. And I'm ashamed and embarrassed, um.

• 26:01Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  And I'm sorry. And that was such a powerful moment. And then he sent me a picture of him standing by my crib. When I was born.

• 26:09Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  And I was like, I burst into tears. It was like.

• 26:15Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 26:15Speaker 03

  It was that he, he was showing me the father that he'd wanted to be, you know? And, and so, I can't. I can't, he, I, I believe he was my primary caregiver. I can't, I don't really know. I know my mum got really depressed after I was born because she had lo- previously lost a baby. And she got postnatal depression. And so I think some of that, the depression, so, so if you have a blank face when you're staring at your baby, it's really scary to them. Just so know, people.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  It's really, and I didn't know that, but apparently if you've 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 uh delight, showing delight is really helpful. And they need, your baby needs eye contact for the first ten months from six to twelve inches from their face. They need eye contact, love, delight, hugs. And uh just love and attention, you know? And then you end up with a secure baby. But you can also smother them and then you'll get a preoccupied.

• 27:29Tim Ferriss?

  We gotta, gotta find the Goldilocks approach. I wanna, 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. The way you, the way you phrased it was sort of textbook, not in a bad way. I mean, it really.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  I did watch it. It was six hours. I watched a.

• 28:01Tim Ferriss?

  It's a Marshall, I'm blanking on his last name, but the.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, the nonviolent communication guy.

• 28:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, 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 uh avoiding the type of, or mitigating the likelihood of somebody having a really strong defensive response.

• 28:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I wa- I guess I learned if you say, I feel, and then at the end you say, what do you think? Or you thought, well, this is what makes me feel, this is how it makes me feel, or um. And I, if I use science, which I'm getting smarter at now in terms of neurochemistry and um the brain and pain and psychology, um and also, you know, parenting and, and attachment parenting and that sort of stuff. I just am so in love with it because I, it's going to create a, you know, I wanna help people create secure babies so that we have so many less people, you know, in pain.

• 29:09Tim Ferriss?

  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 people 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 oftentimes

• 29:32Tim Ferriss?

  has been written by you. It's really astonishing how many songs I have on playlists that when I finally had my, you know, my Kobayashi, like Kaiser Sose moment. And I was like, oh my God, like it's everywhere. Sia's work is ever in my life.

• 29:53Speaker 03

  I'm like cobwebs, babe.

• 29:58Tim Ferriss?

  So that's, 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 How Sia Saved Herself, which was in Rolling Stone.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I wrote that.

• 30:20Tim Ferriss?

  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, right? Without just destroying your serenity. And, and we're gonna talk about that. I just wanted to give that story because How Sia Saved Herself, I think in order to save your kids, whether, even if they haven't been born yet, it's important to work on yourself. And, but 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.

• 31:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:02Tim Ferriss?

  Came up a while back.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:04Tim Ferriss?

  And, and, and it. Relates, well, it makes me think of a novel that really caught my imagination when I was a young kid, and that was Around the World in Eighty Days. And I thought, well, maybe I'll start with Around the World of Sia in Eighty Tattoos. You have quite a few tattoos. I wanted to ask about a few of them.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 31:25Tim Ferriss?

  And I haven't seen all of these. I've just read about a few of them. So tell me if they're not accurate. But do you, do you have a tattoo that says, "Don't think"?

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was before I actually got into meditation and realized

• 31:40Speaker 03

  the irony of that tattoo.

• 31:47Speaker 03

  Because telling yourself not to think is thinking.

• 31:51Tim Ferriss?

  You're right. Don't think of the pink elephant. Don't think of the pink elephant.

• 31:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I realized, so for 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 ten, and just feel, be present with that feeling of the air touching your nostrils, and do that, 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 you 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.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  And then there are all sorts of other practices that you can sort of like delve into after that. But it is, just even just concentration practice is so good for your brain and so good for your heart and your spirit. And the thing is, is when I hear people say, oh, I can't meditate, I'm not good at it, there is no being good at it, because it's a practice. You can't be bad at it, actually. The only way of being bad at it is not doing it. My George, George Hass is my meditation teacher.

• 33:14Speaker 03

  There's periods where I get, I've gotten extremely low um over the last three or four years. And there were periods where I totally dipped out on meditating. And i- if he'd come over, I'd be crying, I'd be whatever, like super, super suicidal, whatever. And he'd come over and he'd go, uh, have you, have you thought about meditation?

• 33:41Speaker 03

  It's, it's free, um.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  There's data that says it will, it will help you, um.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  And I'll be like, fuck off, George.

• 33:59Speaker 03

  And oh, how we laughed.

• 34:03Tim Ferriss?

  What does your practice look like? Uh, the, the mutual friend who introduced us. When we finally started communicating directly, has a TM practice, right? So uh, I'm s- I'm sure it does many other things, but has a transcendental meditation practice, twenty minutes, twice a day.

• 34:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:19Tim Ferriss?

  The first to be done.

• 34:20Speaker 03

  But I don't think you should have to pay for meditation. And also, I know that, I know the secret.

• 34:29Speaker 03

  I know what they do, and I'm sure you do too. Um, that, 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 for. I don't believe that it's anything you can be given. I think that it should be done a process and that it should be by donation only. That's just my personal opinion, um, because.

• 35:03Tim Ferriss?

  What does your practice look like?

• 35:05Speaker 03

  Oh, so my mind is just like about like probably twenty minutes a day. I will either listen to George's podcast, at least once a week, I listen to George's podcast, which is, I think, Met- Metagroup. Uh, George has, I don't know, attachment there, something, um.

• 35:24Tim Ferriss?

  I'll find it.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  I'm gonna put it in the links, um, but it's very heady. I've said to him recently, George, we you need to do like an attachment repair for dummies because they like, 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 it myself. And that's with him repeating himself for three years, over and over again.

• 35:49Tim Ferriss?

  It's meditation times attachment, meditation X attachment with George Haas, H A A S.

• 35:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh, yeah. So, um, okay, my practice looks like this. Uh, well, I can do, I'll do concentration practice where I count, or I'll do, so Shenzhen is George's teacher. So I guess I'm do, I'm I'm using Shenzhen's model. And that model is also like I do of it's feel in, feel out, so you can, like what you're feeling in your body, or or what you can feel on the outside of your body. Or here in, here out is what you can hear inside your head, or what you can hear outside of your head. Exterior noise, like um, external noise. And then there's see in and see out, so that's like visual imagery, or um, or you can look at a leaf and watch it just wave and

• 36:40Speaker 03

  I, the best one for me is hear out. So, what's what I do? And I think that's the best one for people who have extreme, like, complex trauma. Because it's externalizing in a way and keeps you grounded in the present moment. So right now, let's say, okay, I'm gonna, I'm meditating right now. So I'm listening to the sound of my air conditioner and the sound of your breathing.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  And that's hear out.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  And that's, and then I just, when I get carried away with a thought, I just come back to hear out, like the, I, that's what I do. So here, here out is, is the one that I find the most easy, which is just focusing on all the noises around externally that are, that it in our, in this um, perceived reality.

• 37:42Tim Ferriss?

  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 Four 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 engineered to help fill the nutritional gaps in your diet. So I always try to do things through whole foods, but this covers my bases. Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their vitamin D3 K2 liquid formula free with your first purchase. Two vital nutrients for a strong immune system and strong bones. So simply

• 38:26Tim Ferriss?

  visit athleticgreens.com/tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free D3 K2 bundle with your first purchase. That's up to a one-year supply of vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product. Again, that's athleticgreens.com/tim.

• 38:47Tim Ferriss?

  Let me take a leap to something that I think is possibly related. You have written more than 100 pop songs for people like Beyonce, Britney Spears, and Rihanna, who's Diamond's hit number one, and so much more. I mean, the list is extremely long. You have, of course, then so much of your own work, the performative sense on top of that. And what people might not realize is some of your songs that, and this has a personal meaning 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.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:30Tim Ferriss?

  And so, we're gonna talk about that. And 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 playback a recording of coming up with the, I guess it was maybe the melody and some of the lyrics for Diamonds.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:53Tim Ferriss?

  Which everybody would recognize.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:55Tim Ferriss?

  And you sounded like you were almost channeling, because you're kind of mumbling nonsense syllables, and then it just fell into place.

• 40:03Speaker 03

  That's how it is for me, and that's how it is for Labyrinth, and that's how it is for, I think, Eddie Benjamin, who's going to be the next Justin Bieber. It's just like a form of channeling, and like words, 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, also will 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, you know, and that I'm allowing it to just flow through. But yeah, for me, it's just getting out of the

• 40:43Speaker 03

  way, getting out of the way, and just trusting in the present moment that what I do next is going to be what is supposed to happen.

• 40:55Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm going to ask a whole bunch of questions about process, because I know my listeners love process, I love process.

• 41:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:02Tim Ferriss?

  And I have a bunch of questions. The overarching question is, and the reason I asked about the taking of the drugs and the vodka and so on, is you seem to me to be very sensitive. That is, and not in a bad way.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 41:18Tim Ferriss?

  This means that as an empath, it's like if you were a scale, you wouldn't just be a body weight scale, you'd be like a jewel scale, where you have, you have a lot of sensitivity, and I wonder...

• 41:30Speaker 03

  I am a highly sensitive person.

• 41:33Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, 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? I'd just love to hear you speak to that.

• 41:48Speaker 03

  Interesting that you ask because I always just figured, oh, it's because I, uh, something wrong with me. I'm broken. It's my early trauma or I'm an addict or I'm just like, I don't belong in this world. I don't know why I'm here, but what's, you know, I'm just different. I, 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, I now know due to the first 10 months of my life. But I didn't know that then. And so I attributed it to all sorts of whatever I could, really. I'd 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, um, uh, certainly that night, um, that I wanted to die.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  You know, I can just remember just wanting to die, like just thinking I was, but so broken that nobody could fix me. And then waking up in the hospital and feeling very embarrassed because you can only, you can't commit suicide. With Valium, you can commit sleep.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  And you know, like a pussy, because I think I must have called people, like, I don't remember, but I must have called people because obviously someone came and took me to the hospital.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  So, you know, there's, 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 in pain. And not the real me, not the real actual me. Who, um, has levity and, um, has found levity. Um, I, I've always had some levity, but I, I also had that extreme sensitivity. And I had some, yeah, just chemical issues in my brain. Just I didn't have the right biochemistry going on. Um, so I had like a broken, what's the frontal one called? For quite a frontal cortex, frontal.

• 43:49Tim Ferriss?

  Prefatal cortex?

• 43:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, that one.

• 43:53Speaker 03

  I've broken prefrontal cortex.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, 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, it's actually a way to regulate emotion. So I would feel extreme sadness. There's 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 twenty two. 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.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  I have a broken brain. I've got to take medication. And when, as soon as I started taking medication for Prozac, I took, um, six days later, the suicidal ideation was gone, completely gone. And I was sad for myself that I hadn't done it sooner.

• 45:03Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 45:04Speaker 03

  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.

• 45:18Tim Ferriss?

  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, 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 is a famous Czech born psychotherapist, uh, who's done a lot of work with LSD assisted psychotherapy. Developed something called holotropic breathwork also as a substitute. But he, he's been on the podcast. He was on at age eighty five or eighty six, but one of the things that he's written about is the desire to kill oneself being.

• 46:01Tim Ferriss?

  A desire to kill the ego, but the only form that most people recognize for doing that is killing the physical body.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:10Tim Ferriss?

  And that there are other approaches, right? You can, there are prescription options in some cases. Ketamine is particularly, and I, 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.

• 46:41Speaker 03

  It's usually PTSD that causes those loops, the broken prefrontal cortex.

• 46:48Tim Ferriss?

  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 yourself without the loop. And I think that you then can have the type of realization you did six days later saying, oh.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  I am a microbe.

• 47:27Tim Ferriss?

  Why didn't I do this or I am a microbe, I'm a microbe, I am upside down.

• 47:35Tim Ferriss?

  So let's, if we could, and I, and I know this, it 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 tightly it was done, given you had a, a plane to catch and a car waiting for you.

• 47:53Tim Ferriss?

  But but you you have these expressions and and you have a 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 to Google, right? In the case of Chandelier.

• 48:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:09Tim Ferriss?

  Uh, milking the metaphor. I mean, you you think about this very concretely. Can you just give an example of your process?

• 48:18Speaker 03

  Um, yeah, well, I mean, now it's sort of changing, but uh, when I first started, my manager said, well, he said to me something that, uh, you know, was monumentally important, which was basically what I needed to be doing was be writing high concept, he was calling it. I think he was calling it high concept. I think that's what he said. And then I Googled it and then it didn't make sense to me because it was talking about Big Brother. I was like, well, I get it. And I called him back and I was like, what do you mean exactly? And he 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?

• 48:59Speaker 03

  And he was like, yeah. And I was like, oh, okay. I think I've got it. All right.

• 49:06Speaker 03

  Like, because I'm more, I don't want to be your piggy bank, like, you know? And he was like, yeah, that's kind of it. Not it, but it.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  I was like, oh, okay. And then like, I don't know, a week later, I wrote Titanium. And that was the first one I wrote. And then so I started, I always just channel the melody. But then I was, I was consciously writing down things that I thought would be good titles, Googleable titles, or that would be good metaphors or catchy. Um, and so that was started to be a fun game. And so that's what I did for a long time. Um, but yesterday I wrote a song that is just on the verge of cheesetastic.

• 49:55Speaker 03

  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 the song. And it's so silly and fun. And I, in that one, I almost freestyled the entire thing. So, yeah, I don't know. Like, some days I'm very formulaic and some days, um. And I, some days people like give me very specific, you know, what they want for an end title. Or, you know, of a movie, wha- what they need, or, you know, or, you know, what Rihanna's looking for at the moment.

• 50:39Speaker 03

  Sounds she's looking for, or here's a track that she really likes. You know, so sometimes I get direction and I take it. I just take it. And if, I u- 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 fifty percent or thirty percent or whatever of the publishing.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  And if I can dissuade them from saying something 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, I'll challenge them to some degree if it's very, very bad. Um, but otherwise I'm just there to support them. But that was really helpful to me because of, that helped me, I think, in terms of becoming a director.

• 51:46Tim Ferriss?

  Right, right. And we're definitely gonna talk about that. I, eh, for, I just wanna pause bookmark for a second. For people who don't understand the.

• 51:55Tim Ferriss?

  Peculiarities or the intricacies of the the music business. And you said the the percentages of publishing. Can you explain eh what that means for folks, just so they understand how different people make money in the music world?

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, so publishing is really the only growth industry in music. I mean touring, if you're a Coldplay, you'll make money or U2. But touring usually, you know, musicians will make a loss. Um, so, um, really the only, and merch, you can sometimes make money. But really, the the best way to make money in music, if you're going to be a musician, is to write to the music. And so there's a couple of different ways. There's pop splits and there's urban splits. Um, and I can, I can tell you that, so I guess an urban split is like whoever's in the room. Or whoever does even one tiny word or something, it all gets split between you maybe equally.

• 52:54Speaker 03

  I think, I think that's an urban split. But I don't do that.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  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 he's like, he did a whole bunch of Katy Perry hits and he's just writes hits galore. Hits galore, hits galore. He stopped counting after he had ten top number ones, you know what I mean? Um, so anyway, he was, he was writing me and he was like, why are you? Because he was working with a partner um on producing a song. And I I believe that if I write the melody in the top line, I get fifty percent of the song. Um, and if you write the chords, you get fifty percent of the song. And do the production, you get paid for your production um separately, aside from getting paid for the writing.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  So a producer, a good producer these days will make thirty, forty grand for producing a song. That means, producing a song means putting all of the sounds in there. All of the piano sound and then it'd be a violin sound or a or the sound of the bass and the and the beat. That's called production. The songwriting process is literally just chords and melody and lyrics. So chords are worth fifty percent of publishing. And lyrics and melody are worth fifty percent of publishing.

• 54:20Speaker 03

  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. Um.

• 54:30Tim Ferriss?

  Can you explain what that means? Cause I think chords and I think strumming like a C uh or a D on a guitar, but I don't, I don't know if I'm thinking of the same thing.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right. That's about it. Like it's so a chord is um, I guess it's three fingers on a piano.

• 54:45Tim Ferriss?

  Um, yeah.

• 54:46Speaker 03

  And they make a chord and so you go like the then I'm doing up, but I'm doing the root note of a chord. So it'll be like um then then then then that's four different like and they're they're just four different notes, but I

• 55:04Tim Ferriss?

  I got it. And then you you give that to the producer, they put it, they take that, they put it in, just since you mentioned the the piano.

• 55:11Speaker 03

  Only Chandelier, this that was Chandelier I did, I did write the chords. Um, but I then I sent them to Jesse Schatten 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 twenty five percent of the publishing, but I'm I'm not, 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 forty thousand dollars, let's say.

• 55:38Tim Ferriss?

  And and melody is the sound of the voice or the

• 55:45Speaker 03

  That's just the

• 55:46Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  Whatever.

• 55:49Tim Ferriss?

  Right, like improv jazz, yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, it's that's melody. And then um, once you add lyrics to that, it's called top line.

• 56:00Tim Ferriss?

  Uh.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  Melody and lyric together is called top line.

• 56:04Tim Ferriss?

  Got it.

• 56:05Speaker 03

  And so I am a top line writer, but I actually now I guess I I'm also, I can write some chords. But I'm I'm pretty shabby at it, but I do, I do like playing clang away on the piano occasionally and send Jesse like videos of me playing the piano so he can see which chords I'm playing.

• 56:28Speaker 03

  And then he will build songs out of those and I and because I appreciate him and I know I couldn't do it without him, I always give him twenty five percent. But but again, in another world, he he wouldn't be entitled to that, he would get a production fee. So but I I like to be generous.

• 56:48Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and when somebody says, for instance, if you were to say, I I have fifty percent of publishing. What is that fifty percent of? Is it is it specifically what radio stations pay?

• 57:01Speaker 03

  Okay, yeah, it is. It's it's across the board. It means so like, okay, on a really highly listened 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 Shandali gets paid played, they pay my publisher a dollar, right? So now I get seventy five cents of that and Jesse gets twenty five cents of that. And um and my um my publishing company, I think they'll take uh I think they take fifteen percent or something um as an admin uh fee.

• 57:40Tim Ferriss?

  Second book agent, yeah, fifteen percent.

• 57:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it used to be thirty that uh because I used to 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 songwriters or artists. I don't need the services that they offer. So I only need them to collect money for me. So um so that's how I managed to get um it down to fifteen percent.

• 58:10Speaker 03

  Cause mo- most people are still paying thirty percent of their to their publishers.

• 58:15Tim Ferriss?

  So do you get paid when albums are sold digitally as well or is that completely separate?

• 58:20Speaker 03

  I do, but I don't know how. And that would be a question for my manager. I really have.

• 58:27Tim Ferriss?

  No problem. We don't have to.

• 58:30Speaker 03

  Royalties and I don't understand that one at all.

• 58:34Tim Ferriss?

  Now, process wise, 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 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, I don't think that I'm necessarily a super talented songwriter. I just think I'm really productive. One out of 10 songs is a hit. So where 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 as successful as just one of the 10 that I wrote." Is that, is that still true?

• 59:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's definitely still true, but I also think I've gotten a little bit better at picking 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,

• 59:37Speaker 03

  which is all the music, all the sounds, the, the, 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 press play and record on my computer and I'll sing along to it and see if I can intuit where it's going. And if I manage to intuit where it's going and it sounds good and

• 1:00:17Speaker 03

  something works, then I, I'm just better at picking now what I think will be a hit or what will be 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.

• 1:00:45Speaker 03

  What's what a diamond mean when music was good?

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  No, there's still great music out there, but I've never I never hear it.

• 1:00:56Speaker 03

  Apparently, but I don't listen to music. I just watch television and movies. So that's probably why the only person I listen to is labyrinth.

• 1:01:06Tim Ferriss?

  Is that true? You you don't you don't ever listen to background music?

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  No. Oh, yeah, I'll put into um because I just got Apple Music. I don't have Spotify or Pandora. But I just got uh um Apple Music and so now I just type in beta waves or beta waves or alpha wave and I'll 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 listening to music. It's not what I do.

• 1:01:38Tim Ferriss?

  That's very interesting.

• 1:01:39Speaker 03

  I

• 1:01:39Tim Ferriss?

  Has that always been the case or did that at some point just be feel too much like work to you or you can't listen to it without breaking it down and thinking about the top line and the this and that and the other thing?

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  No, it's weird. It's just I did it very much. I was obsessive as a child um around it. I would listen to, and I've said this a billion times, so apologies to those who've heard this before. Um but I would listen to that part in the Doors um song where in a Doors song where it goes

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  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 fifty times onto a thirty minute tape. And I would literally just listen to that over and over again. And I would sing along to it. And and the same with the this Chrissie Hynde one, the Don't get me wrong, wrong, wrong. I still can't do it. I can't do it. 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 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, cause I love not being able to do something.

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  Um, at least. Cause I was sort of recently thinking, oh wow, I've met all my professional and personal goals. What like, what do I do now? Is nihilism or is it full engagement, you know?

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  So, um, but yeah, I was, so I guess I could still keep trying that. Fucking Chrissy Hyde, lick.

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was super obsessive um with music as a child, um. I didn't have a television until I think I was ten or eleven and then I became addicted to television. But I still listened to music, some music, not much, usually what whatever my parents were listening to. And that was like Soul to Soul and Malcolm McLaren and. Well, earlier, my dad, when my dad was around, it was all sixties, like Motown and girl groups and. Um, really just fun and pop, that sort of stuff. And then when he left, it became, I think my stepfather, he more, I think he brought the Malcolm McLaren and the Soul to Soul. Into the house and um and so Karen Wheeler, um.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  Oh, Terrence Trent Darby, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Chrissy Hyde. And Annie Lennox sort of became these voices that I, when Mariah Carey actually. These voices I just started to mimic. I just wanted to, so the obsession for me as a child was I would mimic these artists. Until I thought I sounded exactly like them. So then I guess when I, when I sang the first original song ever. But um I I just, I had the voice that was an amalgamation of all of those people that I had studied. And I, and I didn't, it wasn't very good. I mean, there's an amazing video of me when I'm twelve, I'm really a bad singer.

• 1:04:51Speaker 03

  And I wanna, I'm definitely gonna put it out sometime, um. I want people to know that you like I was no Christina Aguilera like she was incredible. Like when she was ten years old, she's doing these insane technical runs. I was a very mediocre singer at twelve 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 North got sad because she could, Kim Kardashian told me that North. Um, got sad because she couldn't sing Chandelier as well as I did it.

• 1:05:33Speaker 03

  And I, so I sent her the video of me when I was twelve and.

• 1:05:39Tim Ferriss?

  That's amazing.

• 1:05:40Speaker 03

  I said, look at this, this was how, this was, I couldn't sing at all when I was twelve. Like, you're only little, like, you're gonna be an amazing singer and. And, and I mean, of course, they're so nice and funny, but it was, it's pretty hilarious videos. Like, I'm, I'm, I might have a rat's tail.

• 1:06:03Tim Ferriss?

  I'd love to. Oh, that makes, that makes two of us. I had a rat tail at twelve on Long Island, but I, I wasn't, I wasn't doing any singing.

• 1:06:12Speaker 03

  I couldn't have had my legs further apart.

• 1:06:23Speaker 03

  It was like I was doing the splits while I was singing a song about someone having muscles. They're muscle bound and uncontrolled.

• 1:06:37Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I would love to see the video, so please do put that out.

• 1:06:40Speaker 03

  I do, I'm definitely gonna do that, because I want, I want kids to know that. You know, I don't know, it, I wasn't always a good singer. And that I, I, I, and I've gotten better, and I think even just over the years, last twenty years, I think. I, I didn't really belt, that means sing out really big loud, um, for the listeners. I didn't really belt until I was, uh, maybe six years ago, ten years ago.

• 1:07:11Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, very recent.

• 1:07:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, because. Yeah, it was my whisper album.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  I had yet to find my voice.

• 1:07:24Tim Ferriss?

  So you you've honed your voice and we're gonna talk, I wanna ask you about the movie. Before we get to the movie, I have to, 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. And I'll just read one paragraph and then I have a couple of other additions. 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 on Wikipedia. Made Sia 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.

• 1:08:06Tim Ferriss?

  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 covered. Why did you make these decisions?

• 1:08:26Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  Well, it's really, I really can't really 100% remember the genesis, but I've got this vague recollection that I thought, all right, I'll put this blonde, I'll sing 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.

• 1:08:58Tim Ferriss?

  Does she pronounce her last name Ziegler or how does she?

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Tim Ferriss?

  Maddie, Maddie. So for people who don't know, this is an incredible dancer.

• 1:09:06Speaker 03

  Unbelievable and actor, by the way. She.

• 1:09:09Tim Ferriss?

  An actor.

• 1:09:09Speaker 03

  Oscar-worthy. It's crazy. So she was, I didn't realize was gonna be so engaging and wonderful and lovable. And that I was gonna want to immediately like have her in my life all the time. And so I guess in the beginning you'll see um. There are pictures of lots of different people wearing the blonde bob in the artwork for, I think, a thousand forms of beer, I think. Cause originally I was just gonna have other people like and celebrities, like I I asked Tanya if he would just wear the bo- blonde bob and sing my song or whatever. Or I just I thought, oh, I'll I'll ask Robert Pattinson or I'll just I'll ask other people if the I'm just gonna ask Robert Pattinson if he would do the cover of Rolling Stone.

• 1:09:54Speaker 03

  Um like if I could just use put his face over my face on a stick, you know. And I so I had all these ideas like how I it would be funny like to like hide from celebrity. Or just ask other people if I could borrow their celebrity just for the day. And um and so that never really evolved because of my partnership with Maddie. Cause 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 wanna work with anyone else. I love this person. She's so wonderful. And um and that and so I guess she became a almost an avatar.

• 1:10:39Speaker 03

  And I know a lot of, most of the tweens and little people think that she is is Sia. When they meet me, they're so disappointed. And actually of often we're 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. She's not supposed to be in town or no one's supposed to know where she is. Cause it's it's getting gnarly for her of people, I mean, um 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. Uh would you mind taking a picture? They they think I'm her mum.

• 1:11:23Speaker 03

  Which I love, cause I, I mean, and I was so like, you know, and I dated a couple of celebrities, you know, over the last few years, but like, I loved that one time I was on date with someone and, and they recognized the person I was on the date with and they were like, oh my god, could you take a s- a picture with, with him, uh, with me, like me and him, and I was like, of course, and so it was just so, I loved being the plus one. I was like, I lo- I would love to be a plus one.

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  Um, uh, cause I like being entertaining and fun and nice and friendly to my friends. And obviously to my fans or whatever, or to you, or like, you know, people who are 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. And so celebrity is is this huge gaping fame. It's like just a huge disappointment. Like 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.

• 1:12:42Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, that's the best way to put it. It's not what you think it is.

• 1:12:47Tim Ferriss?

  Highly accurate.

• 1:12:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:12:50Speaker 03

  So, I don't know. But yeah, I fell in love with Maddie and then then the big wig was actually, I think my ex-husband was like, you should 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

• 1:13:09Tim Ferriss?

  I would say that.

• 1:13:09Speaker 03

  And my Halloween costume and um, and then Maddie also became a Halloween costume in chandelier. And that was conscious. I was like, I want to always make outfits of or um, 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. So.

• 1:13:34Tim Ferriss?

  I had no idea.

• 1:13:35Speaker 03

  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?

• 1:13:47Tim Ferriss?

  Well, we've alluded to the movie a few times now. Why don't we tell people more about it?

• 1:13:53Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:13:53Tim Ferriss?

  Could you, what's, what's the genesis story? Why do a movie?

• 1:13:56Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, I don't know. I was very.

• 1:14:01Speaker 03

  I was about, I don't know, maybe fifteen, sixteen years ago now. I don't know. I thought of us, I just had a story come into my head. Uh, I wrote it down and then um many years later it evolved into a screenplay and then it was a a kind of mediocre, pretty good indie screenplay, but my best friend who is a screenplay writer. He said, I mean, this is great, nice indie, 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, a serious director.

• 1:14:38Speaker 03

  Oh, I was really, because I really thought that they think I was a wanker and it would be like a, it was just like a vanity project or like an actor making an album or, you know, I was scared of judgment, basically. And um, and then he said, oh, we could make this, I could, I could help you with this and we could make it better. So I started from scratch with Dallas Clayton. And he's my best friend, the one I was talking to before I talked to you, just so I could go get some co-regulation in. Because I was nervy. Um.

• 1:15:10Speaker 03

  And um, and it worked. Twenty minutes. Oh, that's a top tip. Twenty minutes of co-regulation with someone that you trust and that trusts you. That is like you have a fifty fifty relationship with. Twenty minutes of conversation with them will make you not want to do a drug, smoke a cigarette, gamble. Have sex, porn, shop, like it, it's the cure to addiction. It's connection. Twenty minutes of co-regulation with a person that you trust. That's um, that's the solution. Um, and yeah, Bill, Bill Dalwee, um, from AA, he just sort of happened upon it like accidentally, I think. But now it's proven science, you know. So anyway, back to the movie.

• 1:15:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, uh, we wrote it and I was too scared to make it. Then some person uh went through a divorce. You know, I think he had wanted to ju, he wanted to like put babies in me and me not to be working so much and, and I.

• 1:16:14Speaker 03

  I realised I was I was in the wrong relationship. And so I, yeah, that was very devastating and that. It's been about a four year recovery from that divorce. And to help me through it. I guess Dallas, my best friend, he was, he 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? Cause I loved it. And he was like, yeah, you could totally do that. And I was like, you really think so? Cause I'd always directed with a partner. Called Daniel Askill. Um, 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?

• 1:16:57Speaker 03

  But it turned out Lena Dunham and Dallas, they said to me, you can do it. You can do it. We, like, you'll totally be able to do it. And ah because of who they are to me, good friends that I trust. I guess they gave me the self-esteem that I was lacking. And so I called up Vincent Landay. Who had been producing, he's produced nearly all of Spike Jonze's movies. Um, and he's one of my favourite directors. And um done adaptation and being John Malkovich and and I I said.

• 1:17:37Speaker 03

  Can we try again? Cause we were, we talked before. And he said, yes, okay. And also someone. Like maybe three people had said to me, also 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. I finally I caved. And you know, and of course then ah the budget like went from four million to sixteen million.

• 1:18:05Speaker 03

  So but I did a good deal. I I just I got to um to record labels in a bidding war. And then um for my albums. And then I just said whoever's gonna lend me sixteen million is who I'm gonna go with.

• 1:18:20Tim Ferriss?

  Nice, nice.

• 1:18:23Speaker 03

  So that's what happened. And I um I love the movie. I'm proud of it. It's it's a beautiful film. It's um.

• 1:18:32Tim Ferriss?

  What's the name?

• 1:18:33Speaker 03

  It's it's called Music.

• 1:18:35Tim Ferriss?

  Dig it.

• 1:18:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, and um that's um actually Maddie Ziegler plays a character called Music. Who is a teenager who's um suffering severely from autism. And she's quite low functioning. She she is nonverbal, although she does. Have echolalia, so she 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 I can I cast everyone basically off Twitter. I I just was looking. Who can sing? Who can sing? Who doesn't sing like a like a white, like like musical theatre major? Who like who who could sing?

• 1:19:20Speaker 03

  When I I basically just tweeted the people I wanted in my movie and I said yes.

• 1:19:26Speaker 03

  And um and then I and I and then Maddie was really scared because I based the character on a a guy called Stevie, who. I used to sit next to in an A A 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 um and I sat next to him and I don't know, I just I fell in love with him and. I'd already had this story in my head. And so. The character was always um suffering from autism in my or or suffering or I don't know, flourishing. From autism, depending on how you view it. And then.

• 1:20:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, when I 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. I remember the first day that her and Kate Hudson were gonna come to rehearsal and she got there. I bought a house across the road for her to live in um 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. Um, so, um, so she came over, well, crossed the road. And she came over, she came over and I could see something was off.

• 1:20:52Speaker 03

  And um, I said, 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 them. And she is such a sensitive, beautiful person. And I just said to her, I will never let that happen. I will not let that happen. I will, you can, and you can have fun, say, over the car. Like, I will never let that happen. And then we spent three days working on all of like Stevie's utterances and vocalizations and tics. And um, movements. And um, and so, yeah, I've got so, I have Stevie to thank for this amazing character.

• 1:21:36Speaker 03

  That you'll see in the movie. And then inside of her head takes place all of these musicals. Where she's unburdened by any of her, you know, physical disabilities. Um, the tics and the pain and the, and so she, she is, her body is free from au- au- from, from autism. And um, and all the associated co-morbid collection of things that you can have. And everyone with autism is different, every single one. There's no two that are alike. So, when we sent it off to the Child Mind Institute to make sure that we had done a good job. Representing the autism community, um.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  I was really hopeful that we've done a good job. I felt proud I thought we had. But they came back with a hundred, a hundred percent um approval. And that to me was uh the day that I cried. And felt relief and thought, okay, I've made a movie that's meaningful and that is interesting and moving and fun and funny. And that's what I'd wanted to do. So, uh you know, it definitely, it's a, it's a, like you bring your Kleenex, but you know, you get your, you get your Hollywood endings, so don't worry.

• 1:23:10Tim Ferriss?

  Congratulations. I mean, it sounds like a real.

• 1:23:13Speaker 03

  It's the hardest thing I've ever.

• 1:23:14Tim Ferriss?

  A real journey, a real journey.

• 1:23:16Speaker 03

  I think that's why I've also been in bed for three years.

• 1:23:23Tim Ferriss?

  What keeps you, what, 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 want.

• 1:23:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've got no goals.

• 1:23:40Speaker 03

  Just being a mom. I just adopted two kids.

• 1:23:44Tim Ferriss?

  How did you decide to do that?

• 1:23:45Speaker 03

  I saw one of them on a, on a HBO. So yeah, I'm, I'll tell you, I'm so obsessed with television. That's why I'm friends with Kardashians, like Kathy Griffin and like my, my interior designer was on Million Dollar, like designers or whatever on Bravo. Like my, I'm friends with Bethenny Frankel, for fuck's sake. Like, I'm, I'm into television and reality TV. And I, 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. So, and then I've got my regular friends, my regular circle of friends. But I'm only friends, the only celebrities I'm really friends with are reality TV stars.

• 1:24:30Tim Ferriss?

  Now, when you say safe, that just means that they're they're so aware of the public and exposed to the public that nothing weird related to your

• 1:24:38Speaker 03

  Well, just even

• 1:24:39Tim Ferriss?

  fame will happen?

• 1:24:40Speaker 03

  No, just psychologically not fucked, like not gonna happen, but they're just good people. Like they're good, well meaning people.

• 1:24:50Tim Ferriss?

  And how how do your kids, how do how does the adoption fit into this?

• 1:24:54Speaker 03

  Oh, um, well, um, uh, yeah, how does it? Why?

• 1:25:00Tim Ferriss?

  You mentioned HBO somehow.

• 1:25:02Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. So, eh, so that's exactly right. Um, so H, so I was watching a documentary on HBO, uh, I E, reality TV. Um, but it was about the foster care system and I saw a boy on there and he was sixteen at the time and I thought I can be his mother. And what a hilarious, uh, like overstatement that was. Um, and I found him. I found him and he was eighteen 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. Um,

• 1:25:39Tim Ferriss?

  He's too what?

• 1:25:40Speaker 03

  He's too pretty.

• 1:25:42Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, pretty.

• 1:25:43Speaker 03

  Yep. And, um, and I said, yeah, okay, because I had two spare bedrooms. And, um, and I, like an absolute maniac, took them home that day.

• 1:25:55Speaker 03

  And they were both eighteen at the time. And the last year has just been, uh, you know, an absolute roller coaster. But just the most rewarding and the best, best thing ever, you know, like being a mummy, uh, like a god mummy to Maddie is like, has been the most meaningful thing to me over the last, you see, what, eight years, six, seven years? And now being a mummy to my boys is now the most meaningful thing to me. Like, that's all I got. That's all I got. I don't care about anything else. I just wanna make sure they don't end up in the five percent that end up, you know, because they they statistically should be, end up in jail for murder.

• 1:26:38Speaker 03

  And, um, with the histories that they have, the trauma histories that they have, and, um, I wanna keep that up. I wanna fuck the system. I think the system is fucked. And I'll help keep them out of jail so then they could change the world.

• 1:26:53Tim Ferriss?

  Hmm. Well, 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 multifaceted 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, she and her partner were planning on adopting one child and they came home with three.

• 1:27:22Speaker 03

  And then they wrote a movie about it.

• 1:27:29Speaker 03

  I wrote my homework.

• 1:27:34Tim Ferriss?

  This was a different, different couple, but similar idea, I suppose. 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 imaginable and certainly all the more so, I would imagine, when you are picking up where the system has left off, I would imagine.

• 1:28:01Speaker 03

  I mean, I have a newfound, complete, like, newfound respect for all parents. Any, like, you know, I, I feel like I'm lucky because they, they, I mean, they had structure, but they had trauma. So my job now is to use what I've learned in my attachment repair therapy with George Haas and use that with them to create a secure base for them and to help them, their brains to neuroplasticity of their brains to be able to become secure as well. That's my only goal at the moment is to help my children earn secure attachment. Because, yeah, they've been in at least eighteen different homes, each of them.

• 1:28:46Tim Ferriss?

  Wow.

• 1:28:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and, and they've been treated abominably. And, yeah, I just really, so I'm just lucky I'm able to, I have the resources that I can get them the kind of help that I really need. And I'm, and I'm grateful that it only took a year for me to, like, get them on board. You know?

• 1:29:10Tim Ferriss?

  It's incredible.

• 1:29:11Speaker 03

  It was a tough year.

• 1:29:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, I bet.

• 1:29:14Speaker 03

  I was, I was an Al-Anon ninja.

• 1:29:21Tim Ferriss?

  Well, Sia, I know we're coming up on time. You're, 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, at S I. Instagram is at Sia Music. Of course, I'll link to everything that we've

• 1:29:49Speaker 03

  I don't really, I don't, I mean, I occasionally tweet, but I don't really run any of those. They're, they're more marketing things. You're being very nice. Thank you.

• 1:29:58Tim Ferriss?

  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 soup in your hands to eat it with your palms up. And then when you have your hands facing down or away, 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 supine. Just to come full circle, prone and supine.

• 1:30:28Speaker 03

  I just love learning. I don't care if I'm wrong.

• 1:30:35Tim Ferriss?

  Sia, is there, is there anything else that you'd like to, to say before we bring to a close this first conversation on the podcast?

• 1:30:43Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I just, I mean, I feel like we could talk for seven hours.

• 1:30:48Tim Ferriss?

  I bet we could. I bet we could. We definitely could.

• 1:30:51Speaker 03

  Thank you for all of the good things that you're bringing to the world. I really appreciate it. Really, really interesting, um, and broad, um, coverage of, you know, what's globally of importance, I guess. I appreciate what you, um, saying.

• 1:31:13Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you taking the time. So, thank you, thank you, thank you. Once again.

• 1:31:21Speaker 03

  Of course, of course.

• 1:31:22Tim Ferriss?

  And hopefully, uh, once this, uh, pesky virus gets handled, we'll have a chance to actually spend time in person at some point.

• 1:31:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, that'd be awesome. I'll bring Dad.

• 1:31:35Tim Ferriss?

  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 tim.blog/podcast. As usual, you can just search SIA. It's very memorable, very easy to spell, S-I-A, and I would imagine almost every language. So you'll be able to find it at tim.blog. And until next time, thanks for tuning in. 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 from me? Would you enjoy

• 1:32:17Tim Ferriss?

  getting a short email from 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 I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric, as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've 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

• 1:32:57Tim Ferriss?

  fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com, all spelled out, and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I 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 if you get it wrong. I've certainly had that experience and 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 hire, LinkedIn Jobs can help you screen candidates with the hard and soft skills that you're looking for. They'll match your position with qualified members

• 1:33:40Tim Ferriss?

  so that you can find the right person quickly. Using LinkedIn's active community of more than 690 Ninety million professionals worldwide. LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster. So when your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. You can pay what you want and get the first $50 off. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim. Again, that's LinkedIn.com/Tim to get $50 off your first job post. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market. Thrive Market saves me a ton of money and it's perfect for these crazy times. Thrive Market is a membership-based site on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. You can regularly save 25% to 50% off of normal retail prices

• 1:34:25Tim Ferriss?

  with member-only prices for anything you can imagine, really. Whether it's keto, paleo, gluten-free, vegan, whatever, you can sort by that. You can find all types of food. You can find supplements. You can find non-toxic home products, clean wine, dog food, just about anything. And let me give you a personal example of just how much you can save. So my last order, I ordered Primal Kitchen Mayonnaise, which is made with avocado oil. It's delicious. Justin's Almond Butter. And the first was 25% off. The Justin's Almond Butter was 30% off. Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce, which is awesome, 26% off. All said and done, at the end of my shopping, I saved $39 on my order.

• 1:35:09Tim Ferriss?

  So members, and I'm a member, can earn wholesale prices every day and save an average of $30 on each order. I'll come back to that. And through Thrive Gives, their one-on-one membership matching program, every paid Thrive Market membership is matched with a free one for a low-income family in need. So go to ThriveMarket.com/Tim today to give Thrive Market a try. You can select the membership model that best fits your lifestyle. They have one-month and 12-month membership options. Choose a free gift, up to $22 in value when you join today and purchase the one-year membership. And just remember, Thrive Market membership is risk-free. You can take the first 30 days to decide if Thrive Market is right for you. If it's not, just cancel within those 30 days and get a full refund. This is what I offered my mom.

• 1:35:53Tim Ferriss?

  So again, that's ThriveMarket.com/Tim. By the way, my mom kept using it. ThriveMarket.com/Tim. Check it out.