E22: Sarah Bahbah - Addiction, Intuition, Success

In Chapter 2 of Season 2 of The Diary of a CEO I flew to LA to meet Sarah Bahbah, the 26 year old Palestinian-Australian Artist, Writer and Director. Sarah rose to fame after the release of her photography series ‘Sex and Takeout’ was spotted by... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:05Steven Bartlett?

  Sarah Barber is the definition of an artist. I can't remember meeting someone who is so uniquely creative, so unapologetically ambitious, so deeply analytical of their own emotions, with such an inspiring and powerful backstory. I flew to her house in L.A. to chat to her, alone, in her front room, at her kitchen table, and she opened up to me about childhood sexual abuse she suffered, the power of her intuition, a drug addiction she overcame, and much, much more. I think I fell in love with Sarah a little bit after this conversation, if I'm honest with you. And there's a reason I chose her to be the first guest on season two of The Diary of a CEO. She's real, powerful yet vulnerable, and she's already a superstar in her own right.

• 0:49Steven Bartlett?

  She's amassed millions of fans online through her artwork, and through her L.A.-based content creation agency, Posse, the likes of Gucci, Conde Nast, Capitol Records, and even Topshop have joined her movement. She hosts self-funded solo exhibitions internationally with tens of thousands in attendance, and she's had her work displayed in major art exhibitions all around the world with celebrity admirers, including Emma Watson, Katy Perry, Diplo, Sophia Bush, just to name a few. Her powerfully liberating message has caught fire amongst our generation. Her work speaks to love, pain, heartache, rejection, and everything in between. Everything we've all felt. And how did she do it? Why her?

• 1:34Steven Bartlett?

  What makes Sarah so special? How can a 26-year-old Palestinian-Australian artist reach so many people and achieve so much so quickly at such a young age? What happened? What's driving her? Is it luck? You have to hear this. Without further ado, this is The Diary of a CEO, season two, and I'm Steven Bartlett. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 2:06Steven Bartlett?

  Sarah, lovely to meet you. First of all, I just wanted to say thank you so much for the time today. It's lovely to be here in LA with you in your wonderful artistic apartment. I didn't really expect anything less, to be honest. So, thank you, first of all.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Thank you for coming.

• 2:21Steven Bartlett?

  No worries. So, you're obviously incredibly artistic. When I was saying to you before, when I told the girls in our New York office that I was coming here, there was unmatched hysteria. And honestly, they literally went crazy in the office. And before today, I'd seen some of your pieces across Instagram and some of your other work across the internet. But it wasn't until I saw their level of hysteria that I realised how much of a big deal you are to a lot of people. And that's me being completely honest. And so, you know, with creatives and artists like yourself, I always think, and this is again, might be a naive thing to say, that there are things that have happened in your life that have made you view the world through a different perspective, or become more self-aware, or more curious.

• 3:07Steven Bartlett?

  What are those things in your life that you think led you to becoming who you're known for today?

• 3:13Speaker 01

  That's a great question. I think, you know, I grew up in Australia, in Perth, with all my family. And my background is Arabic, I'm Palestinian and Jordanian. And so, I grew up in a very conservative home. And my mom was extremely Christian, she still is. And my dad was agnostic. So, I had two conflicting views, because one parent was telling me that I had to live with the fear of God in my heart. And the other one was just very chill. So, but very strict in terms of like, the culture, the Middle Eastern

• 3:51Speaker 01

  culture, and what that meant. So, I grew up with a lot of restrictions, a lot of limitations, and a lot of fear, that I would essentially go to hell if I misbehaved. And so, with that, there was also things that was happening behind closed doors, that, you know, aren't necessarily...

• 4:18Speaker 01

  A reflection of my culture, but a reflection of

• 4:23Speaker 01

  men who are restricted to um express their sexuality. And so I feel like a lot of the children in my family suffered because of that. Um, and I was, I was a victim of that too. And I wasn't aware of that until I um, you know, I, I didn't feel safe in my home. I had all these people around me and I still felt like I was worrying for everyone and I was constantly in fight or flight mode. I was constantly having panic attacks as a five year old. I didn't understand why. Um, and I, I couldn't feel safety in my home, so I decided to leave.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  And I moved to Melbourne. I'm still very close to my family though. And I moved to Melbourne and I couldn't find safety there either. And, you know, I was trying to constantly escape my anxiety, so I dived into like numbing myself and um, yeah, I don't really talk too much about this, but I um, yeah, I essentially had like this Xanax addiction and it went on for three years and um, it really numbed a big part of my anxiety. And then when I moved to LA for the next chapter of my life, um, I was still in the state where I was constantly battling with myself and I realized like I was just going down this very dark

• 5:48Speaker 01

  hole and I didn't know why. And I didn't know why I had certain desires and why I was behaving a certain way and why I was constantly choosing to escape, not just through drugs, but through you know, alcohol too, and through food. I had, I battled with eating disorders my entire life and and then through like impulsive decision making, I had this weird thing with like first dates and how I would invite random strangers into my bed, but then I wouldn't have sex with them. And so I learnt that that was me reenacting trauma.

• 6:19Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Um, so all these things that I was fighting um eventually led me to go and figure my shit out and I took myself to the desert for ten days. And I went cold turkey on everything. Um, and when I was there, I essentially

• 6:40Speaker 01

  I had reenacted, um, not reenacted, sorry, I had triggered my trauma brain because I was alone in the desert, coming off drugs and waking up to a bed full of bedbugs.

• 6:53Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  And so that triggered that lack of safety again because my space had been invaded. And so my trauma brain was active the entire time I was away while I was coming off drugs.

• 7:04Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  And then I started to remember my childhood in that state. And all these memories kind of came out and I was like freaking out because I was having these flashbacks of being like, oh, I don't know how, I I mean, it's a taboo, but I'm gonna talk about it. Like, I was being molested as a child. And I remember calling my sister and being like, is, well, what am I feeling like? Why, why am I having these memories? And then, um, we, you know, we kept working on it throughout the trip and yeah, I don't know, I went, um, I got back home and I decided to change everything in my life and you know, I went, like I said, I went cold turkey. I went, I started seeing a therapist full time.

• 7:48Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Um, I started seeing a personal trainer full time. I moved houses because I was living with uh, guys who were constantly around drugs and, um, and then, yeah, I was able to uncover a lot about my trauma and you know, it was validated when I spoke to my parents and so all of this stuff came up and I realized that's you know, that that was a big part of my story that I was blocking out. And so when you see my art, you're seeing me before I realized my trauma and then after and you see there's like such a huge progression in the way that I tell my story. It goes from being really innocent and youthful and like very coming of age to really like

• 8:32Speaker 01

  dark and depressing to then me owning my power.

• 8:35Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  And so there is growth in my art because my art is real to me and my art is my story. And so you see me uncover me throughout my art as you go on.

• 8:46Steven Bartlett?

  And on that point of seeing a therapist full time, do you still see a therapist now?

• 8:50Speaker 01

  I do. I only see her once every two weeks though, but I was seeing her twice a week. And then sometimes three times and then over the years as we got, you know, I've been doing the self-work for two years now. Um, but the more we uncovered, the less I felt like I needed to see her.

• 9:07Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Um, and now I'm in a really good place, but you still have to have someone you can check in with. And so I see her still like once every two weeks.

• 9:15Steven Bartlett?

  And you were, you're twenty six now.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:17Steven Bartlett?

  Incredibly young. I'm also twenty six, so I'm actually just talking to myself like that. What age were you when you started to really sort of take control and sort of ownership and understand? The things that had happened previously, the impact that they had had on you and start to, I don't know if that's the right word to say, but like. Understand and therefore.

• 9:38Steven Bartlett?

  Take a little bit more control over the impact they'd had on your life.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, um.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  I, oh, I, I was, I started doing the self-work two years ago, so at twenty four.

• 9:49Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Is that what you mean?

• 9:50Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  And then, um. But prior to that, I was kind of, you know, when I think about. My time on earth, I should say, it's all very hazy.

• 10:01Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Um, I feel like I was kind of living in ignorance and oblivion, um. And so it wasn't until I stopped to ask myself, hey, why are you doing this? Or why, why do you think this way? Or. Why are you choosing to not focus on or spend time with yourself?

• 10:19Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  And when I realized that, I was like, okay, I gotta figure this out because I don't think this is the way to live.

• 10:26Steven Bartlett?

  And what kind of, what kind of person are you in terms of like, you know, some people say that they're confident and they're. Um, motivated and ambitious and creative. If you had to like describe yourself in a couple of words, who is, who, who are you?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Hmm, I feel like. In a couple of words, I'm. Hmm, oh, I'm trying to think of the word. There's, I'm maternal.

• 10:54Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  I'm very protective over. Myself and people in my life, um.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  I'm pretty laid back.

• 11:03Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  I try and really like just go in terms of my personality, I I don't necessarily like to label myself as anything. I I like to just focus on being present and feeling.

• 11:16Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  Um, because feeling is something that I struggled with. I was very apathetic growing up. And so I like to just always try and be here.

• 11:24Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  And react based on feeling and as opposed to intellectualizing feeling.

• 11:32Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  Because that's something I also did.

• 11:33Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Is that, I don't know.

• 11:37Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's, that's what I was, that's kind of what I was asking. Do you, would you consider yourself a confident person?

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:44Steven Bartlett?

  Do you think you, you've, is that something you've had to work on or is it something you've always had or is it?

• 11:50Speaker 01

  I think I've always had it. I've been, since I was little, I was extremely competitive.

• 11:55Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  And but I, it was, I was confident, but I also loved to be alone. And I'm like introverted, extroverted. Like when I'm with the right people, I'm like the loudest one at the table.

• 12:07Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  And then, but then I need to be alone, like seventy percent of my day, I need to just be with myself and not really like give my energy to anyone.

• 12:18Steven Bartlett?

  How, how does, how is that? Because I'm the same.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:22Steven Bartlett?

  Um, I feel like, I feel like a lot of people are, but I'm, I'm, I'm an extrovert and an introvert at the same time. I, I love being on my own with my laptop in a dark room. Um, how has that impacted your ability to like form relationships with people? Because I imagine, and this is just a guess, but with people who are often quite talented and quite inspired and quite creative, they're on one hand, also a little bit different, you know, and a little bit harder to understand. So that sometimes makes it harder to form relationships with them if they're operating on a slightly different wavelength.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:54Steven Bartlett?

  Have you had that problem with friendships and romantic partners and such?

• 12:57Speaker 01

  I really, um, I just allow like my intuition to dictate who I want to connect with and who I don't. And like, it's pretty, for me, it's very easy to identify relationships that I know are going to be immediate and instant. And then other times, if I don't feel a calling to you, I know not to exchange that energy. And so it really does come down to the way I'm feeling in the moment. I can't really decipher it based on anything other than that.

• 13:26Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Um.

• 13:28Steven Bartlett?

  And you you are you are an artist in many senses of the word. Um, I wanna understand the full sort of spectrum of the art that you create. So could you could you take me through that?

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. So with my art, as I said previously, it is um me expressing myself and my story. Um, so my art has is centered around me having repressed my emotions and being extremely apathetic to what I'm feeling, to suddenly feeling everything at once. And it's when I'm feeling everything at once is when a story is about to be told. And so when I sit with myself, and it's usually during a breakup or a grievance or feeling like I've been misunderstood, um, of feeling like this huge desire to just be like, I've I have to like write, I have to tell my story.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  And one after the other, these lines start coming out of my brain, like these one liners. And I write them in my notes on my phone and I could probably pull out like a random one from a while ago.

• 14:35Steven Bartlett?

  Go for it.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Just to give you an idea. So I'm literally, I'm going into my notes right now.

• 14:39Steven Bartlett?

  I would love to see the notes in your phone.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 14:43Steven Bartlett?

  To the bottom.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  People would literally think I'm insane. There's so much like, like, what the fuck is she talking about? Like, it's so, some of them are so deep and twisted and then others are just like sassy and and then, oh, hang on, let me find a page. I even write raps, but we can go into that later.

• 15:02Steven Bartlett?

  What are, in your selection process of showing me which note you're gonna gonna choose, how how are you deciding what to show me? Are you trying to find something that's like a middle ground? People won't.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Well, I'm just trying to find like one where I've got like thirty notes on it.

• 15:13Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Because they usually come like one after the other. There's so many. Um, no, because that's not out yet, so I can't share that.

• 15:23Steven Bartlett?

  On the exclusive.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Okay, so this one, um, this one came, like, I wrote this in September. And it was based on this guy that I was seeing, telling me that he was also seeing someone else and I, I was just like a little bit.

• 15:43Steven Bartlett?

  Prick.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  No, it was okay, cause like we weren't, we weren't even seeing each other, we just have, like, he's a big part of my, like, family community here. And we'd always just end up in the cuddle puddle and make out and whatever.

• 15:55Steven Bartlett?

  You've got to explain what the cuddle puddle is, cause if you, if you think about what you've just said, you don't give that context.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  The cuddle puddle is, um, literally as you imagine it, it is, um, a big giant sheepskin rug. And there's a Tempur-Pedic mattress under it and there's like twenty, thirty pillows on top and then like it throws and it is the spot in my apartment where everyone congregates to cuddle.

• 16:22Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it looks, does look very comfortable. It's about ten, ten feet behind us, um, so.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  And so I, I, there was, the night he told me I'd had a few wines and so I just really needed to be able to check in with how I was feeling, so these lines just started coming out. And so this one I used in the Dear Love series with Noah Centineo. And it's, you've never seen me not want you, are you ready now? So I was like salty, I was feeling like a little bit like.

• 16:49Steven Bartlett?

  That's the wine.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Um, and then he texts me being like, hey, I feel like I didn't explain myself, can we meet up for coffee? And then I, I didn't even respond to him, I just responded in my notes. And I'm like, I'm not gonna let you buy me coffee while you tell me I can't have what I want. So there's that. And then there's, I can't let my energy live in you while you live in someone else. And so I actually sent that to him. And then I don't know what this one means, but my right and my left hand aren't the same people, so.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know that one. I've, that one, I'm drawing a complete blank. But that's just an example of me having been in the moment and asking myself, how am I feeling? Cause that's something I never did. And so instead of like waiting three months into a relationship, I was checking in with myself as it was happening. Because in the past, I was not checking with myself at all. And then I'd sit down and suddenly I had like a burst. And that's when you go through my notes and you'll see pages with like thirty different lines. So yeah, that process has really evolved for me, but.

• 17:55Steven Bartlett?

  And how, how important do you think it is for people to like, to keep track on how they feel? Cause like, cause even doing this podcast, some of these um, episodes are recorded alone at night. So I record them alone at night, three AM in my, in my uh, house back in the UK.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:10Steven Bartlett?

  And I used to say it was like therapy for me because even the way that it used to work is I would record my diary all week. And then at the end of the week, I would share tho- those diary notes and they were very deep, personal things. And upon, you know, getting it out, I would feel like I'd been through therapy or something.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:26Steven Bartlett?

  And I think it's, I think it's so unbelievably important to un- like as you say, like understand um, when things happen to you, how it's made you feel. And if you're able to have that conversation with yourself, you're almost able to control the behaviour.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:40Steven Bartlett?

  As opposed to reacting, you respond.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I think what we are taught to do, or we're conditioned to do as humans living in this society, is to constantly distract ourselves from the way we're feeling. And we do that through our phones, through binging on Netflix, through drinking, through drugs, through everything. We're constantly escaping. And whenever we feel a sense of anxiety or excitement or happiness, we don't just sit with ourselves and we, we don't, we don't feel what we're feeling. We instantly run to our phones to tell people. Or like, if it's sadness that we, we wanna feel, instead of being like, hey, I'm here for you. I, I see you in a child. We, we jump to Netflix to watch like a drama, romance that's gonna make us cry, which is also fine.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  But it's, it's the process and we skip a process and instead of going.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  From I'm feeling sad to watching a sad movie, it's I'm feeling sad. I'm gonna like be with myself and I'm gonna feel what I'm gonna feel and I'm gonna cry if I need to. And then I'm gonna watch.

• 19:44Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  A Netflix show that makes me feel even sadder or helps me express. But we don't have that dependency on ourselves. We have that, we have that dependency with everything around us.

• 19:53Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  And we seek validation through escaping as opposed to finding it within ourselves.

• 19:59Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  And I think it's so important that we, we learn to disconnect from the outer world and connect with ourselves. To tap into how we're supposed to be feeling when we're feeling.

• 20:11Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Does that make sense?

• 20:12Steven Bartlett?

  Makes perfect sense.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:14Steven Bartlett?

  And so, so with all that said, do you think the reason that you've been successful with your art? And it's reached so many people is because you've gone on that journey of understanding yourself. You're clearly very good at the expression part of that understanding, which some people aren't. Some people might be able to understand why they're feeling what they're feeling, but they can't express it in an artistic way. Which then, um, in your case has resonated with a huge amount of people. And really, your understanding of you has helped other people understand them and what they're feeling. It's kind of encapsulated a feeling and allowed them the kind of, uh, the canvas of their own like self-expression, if that makes sense.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. So I think with all of the series that you see on, on my side and in galleries and whatnot. I think, um, they've all come from me having been able to. Trust in my intuition that the time to tell my story is now.

• 21:09Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  And so, you know, when these series come about, it's usually within twenty four to forty eight hours.

• 21:15Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:16Steven Bartlett?

  Have you feeling that something?

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Of me being like, I've got to tell my story now. It's like, I can't sleep. I've got to get it done. I call everyone and I know. With every single series I've done, it's been a twenty four, forty eight hour process. Um, Noah Centeneo, the last shoot I did, Dear Love.

• 21:32Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  We met on. The Friday for coffee, he was like, let's shoot Sunday. I'm like, okay, we're shooting Sunday. And then on Monday, I edited the photos. On Tuesday, he, we had a preview party. And then on Wednesday, they were out online. So that was like, the turnaround is so fast. And it's, it's because I, I can't explain it beyond the universe just giving me a kick up the butt. And it's like, do it now, or it's not gonna happen. And so it's just you trusting your intuition and being like, I've got to get it done. And you'll be rewarded after that. So I think in me trusting, to answer your question now, in me trusting my intuition to create

• 22:13Speaker 01

  and then to express myself publicly is me giving myself voice that I never had. And because the process is so personal and it's so real to me. In a society where we are conditioned to manipulate our image to seem like it's perfection and especially on Instagram, like you see so much content that's so curated and so it's not really real to the person. It's an, it's an ideal of who they wanna be and how they wanna portray themselves. But when you see my work, you're seeing me and me healing from my trauma and me giving myself a voice. And the voice that people are too afraid to give themselves.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  And so I think that's why people stop and pay attention because they're like, I feel that way too. And most of the time, people are like, I see me in your work or this is so me or. You know, so in me he- helping myself heal, I'm helping others to heal too. I'm giving them words that they otherwise can't come up with. And I think that's what, what makes people stop and focus.

• 23:17Steven Bartlett?

  And is that, is that the part that gives you your fulfillment is knowing that you're helping other people heal? Or is that more selfish?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Honestly, I think it's more selfish. I think um my process is so personal and you know, in me creating, I'm healing and then yeah, it's like when I put it out there, it's me giving myself a voice. And if that's empowering others, that's, you know, that is a fucking blessing. I'm so, I'm so happy that I can do that.

• 23:45Steven Bartlett?

  But I imagine that was never your intention, right? And your intention was much more pure and selfish and it just so happens that because your intention was so pure, so real and so honest, you didn't start to try and make a bucket load of money, right? That's why it's been able to really connect with people. And often that seems to be the case with art when it's created from like a real place, you know?

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, you know, to, my intention was never about money. For me, it was expressing my story and the fact that I've been able to monetize is like, it's another blessing, like I'm really grateful for that, so.

• 24:16Steven Bartlett?

  You talk about intuition a lot and how that's guided so much of your like decision making generally. It seems to be a very, you know, common word in your vocabulary.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:26Steven Bartlett?

  How does one tune into my intuition?

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Um, I think it goes back to what I was saying about choosing to be with yourself instead of choosing to be with your surroundings. And I mean, that's fine too, sorry, but it's more like, um, to tap into your intuition, you have to have a sense of your being and you have to know to distinguish your ego from your body, from your soul, because the three entities are completely different. And then some will argue that emotion is its own entity and I, I haven't quite figured out where I stand with that. Because I feel like you can react emotionally through body and you can react emotionally through soul and emotionally through mind.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  So I feel like emotion is like the umbrella and then everything falls under that. But, um, in order to tap into your intuition, it's spending time with yourself and breathing and breathing through your being and essentially meditating. But people are scared of the word meditation for some reason. I feel like people think it's a lot of work and it's like too spiritual. But really all meditation is, is grounding yourself and being like, I am here with me. I'm not here with Netflix, I'm here with me. I keep using Netflix as a reference because that's my biggest game.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  I watch so much TV, but, you know, but it's about, um, yeah, it's about.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Removing everything around you and just being like, hey, how are you?

• 26:03Steven Bartlett?

  How do you meditate?

• 26:04Speaker 01

  By doing that. It's the day I just lay on my couch and I breathe into my belly. And I'm just like, hey, how are you? Like, what are you feeling right now?

• 26:13Steven Bartlett?

  And you talk to, is that like an internal dialogue?

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just, it's honestly just me hanging out with me and it's my mind hanging out with my soul. And those two are having a conversation.

• 26:24Steven Bartlett?

  Got you. Um, one of the things that fascinates me is you've grown a huge following on Instagram. Very, very quickly, it would seem, right? From an outsider's perspective, that's always the way it seems for success. It appears to be very quick. Um, but you're also very self-made. You don't have huge investment backing as far as I'm aware. You you fund your own uh galleries, you fund your own shows and things like that. Can you can you talk me through the the journey you've gone on from like creating your first piece of art? To um where you are now? Was there a moment where you blew up? Was there a break you got or something? Where was the moment where you you you felt that you you, you know?

• 27:06Steven Bartlett?

  This is really working. This is this is kind of working out or this is exceeding my expectations.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a good one. Mine was like a big breakthrough. Um, so Sex and Takeout was my first viral series. And it is a series I created to capture indulgent moments within yourself and with your partner, if you have one. Um, and I wanted to be able to empower women to feel comfortable in these ideas of eating what you want, when you want, without feeling shame or guilt, because that's the conditioning society gave us. Um, so when I was shooting this series, it was about two weeks of me being like, oh, my God, how has no one done this? How has no one done this? This is so genius.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  I just gathered everyone in my neighborhood, like I asked friends of friends if they would just model for me and I was like, look, like, I need you to sign a release form and I never had anyone sign release forms before. And I was just like, it's gonna go viral, it's gonna appear on this and this and this, I just have a feeling. And they were like, yeah, fuck yeah. And so like, we all, I shot all of it. I think it was about twenty different, or fifteen to twenty different um final pieces. And I shot all of it within two weeks. And then I put it, I did an exclusive online with this publication. And I think we released it in October two thousand and fourteen. And it picked up momentum, but it didn't go as crazy as I thought it was, it would.

• 28:40Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  And I was like, hmm, this is interesting. I'm just gonna be patient, I'm gonna be patient. And I was with my, my ex at the time, we were together for almost a year. And um it was almost like the universe was waiting for me to break up with him.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Before I blew up the fucking internet. And um so I broke up with him in December. And in January, I planted um an article on BuzzFeed, just one random night. It was like Tuesday night or something. I planted an article on BuzzFeed Community.

• 29:13Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Where it's like you contribute your own post. And I, I just like set it up like a BuzzFeed article, cause my background was in social media strategy, so I knew exactly how to do it. And, you know, I was like, this is sex and takeout, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I went to bed. And I don't know what possessed me to do it that night, cause I'd been putting, doing it up like for two months. But that night I decided to do it.

• 29:35Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  And I went to bed and I woke up, I'm not kidding, I woke up to like thousands.

• 29:42Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Thousands of emails, notifications, like fifty thousand new followers in twenty four hours. And I'm like, what is happening? Like, what is actually happening to have that, like? And so I quickly jumped on Facebook and all my friends are tagging me in um Elite Daily.

• 29:59Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Cause they were the first to do the post. So they found it on BuzzFeed Community, took it. And then they were like the ones that made it viral. So Elite Daily did it first. And then I was just like, that was the source, as far as I'm aware.

• 30:11Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  And then every other publication that existed did something too. There was Juxtapose, there was Dazed, there was um Huffington Post and Israeli Times, like everywhere. And I'm just like, what is happening? And um, and so after that, I got picked up by a gallery. Um, we started exhibiting the works in internationally, so within um, America, UK and even like Israel, um, and and then, yeah, I guess that's how my art career got its

• 30:46Steven Bartlett?

  And how long ago was that?

• 30:48Speaker 01

  That was two thousand and fourteen.

• 30:49Steven Bartlett?

  Two thousand and fourteen.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  So fifteen, two thousand and fifteen was, January two thousand and fifteen was when it went viral. And the week it went viral, and this is just like a fun little sugar coating, but I ran into my ex.

• 31:01Steven Bartlett?

  Really? Did you tell him to fuck?

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Well, he chased me out of the venue and I was just like, fuck you, I don't.

• 31:06Steven Bartlett?

  I don't need you anymore.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  No, he was just the most toxic human, so it was like my kind of revenge, knowing that. And that's so salty of me, but I was young at the time, so I was just loving the idea that he was seeing me everywhere. That week.

• 31:18Steven Bartlett?

  That's always the best.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Oh, it's so good.

• 31:22Steven Bartlett?

  But on that point, um, something that I hear a lot with people that have success in their own disciplines is that they got lucky, right?

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:30Steven Bartlett?

  And um, people have said this to me, I I actually responded to a comment on Instagram yesterday because I hate that like, that I know luck is a factor, right? But I, this guy commented something about, oh, well, oh, some of my friends, they just get a lucky break and then they're you know, really successful and and they're almost trying to kind of like demean everyone's or like push down everyone's hard work by just passing it off as luck, but also making an excuse for why they aren't there.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's projection though.

• 31:58Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, so have you ever, has anyone ever said that to you? And what's your, what's, what role do you think luck has played? It, actually, before I I'm going to tell you my, my idea of luck in your situation there.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:11Steven Bartlett?

  Right, so one of the, one of the things where I got really lucky, I was up really late at night and I signed up to a website. Reminds me of what you've just said then, sign up to a website when I was eighteen years old and I uploaded my details at about three AM in the morning and then I went to bed. And then two days later, it just so happened this entrepreneur had dropped out, this seventeen year old entrepreneur, they needed someone else. So they went on to that website to find someone, found me, emailed me, brought me to London when I was eighteen and I spoke in front of all of these people. I got three investors and my business really took off, but I was up at three AM signing up to websites when the people who say luck is look, look, look, whatever, they were all asleep.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:50Steven Bartlett?

  And in the same way, you were on BuzzFeed uploading your work when.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  It was probably three AM too.

• 32:55Steven Bartlett?

  Probably, yeah, exactly. And everyone else was asleep.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:59Steven Bartlett?

  So people will look at you and say, oh, well, it was that BuzzFeed Daily article that made you lucky. But really, it was like no one else was uploading their stuff to BuzzFeed.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  No.

• 33:08Steven Bartlett?

  You know, so.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Well, I honestly, I don't think it's, I personally don't think luck exists.

• 33:14Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Um, I think people who call it luck don't know what hard work is.

• 33:21Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  And the uni, like I'm gonna just keep referring to the universe, but it's also energy. So let's just say I dedicated two weeks curating twenty shoots in October. I then strategized the release.

• 33:36Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  And then I went online two months later because it wasn't going where I wanted it to go and I strategized again.

• 33:43Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  And then it took off, but that was four months, a four month process, October, November, December, January. Where I was hustling and I was trying to make this work and I was trying to break through the internet.

• 33:57Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  That's hard work. That's not luck. That's energy. You've pushing all your energy into believing this idea is real.

• 34:06Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  And then getting it done, which is the hardest part. It's the doing it that's hard. Like having an idea. And then executing it is where most people don't, they don't even get to that point. There's so much resistance. I'm re- reading the War of Art right now.

• 34:23Steven Bartlett?

  I saw it on your table over there.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  And it's all about that. It's about breaking through the resistance and the self-talk and the doubt. Doing that alone is like consuming and that is fucking hard. And so when you do that and you believe in something and then you get it done and and then you keep strategizing and pushing it and pushing it until it becomes what you envisioned. Like, that's work. That's not luck. I I really don't believe it's luck at all.

• 34:50Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's one of those things that really pisses me off.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just like, people don't like go to bed and wake up billionaire. That's not how it happens. Like, I've been doing this for ten fucking years. You know, and the same way you've been fucking working, we all are working. This ideal that we wake up successful doesn't exist.

• 35:08Steven Bartlett?

  And that, surely that's because the majority of people, right, because of the nature of your growth and your notoriety, they've only seen somewhere near the end.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:17Steven Bartlett?

  Right? So the majority of people didn't see the other ten years because the other, you know, going back to year one of your, you know, you being an artist wasn't that interesting. And you probably weren't that good, to be honest, in a sense, in in many senses of the world, right? So um I think that's, and that's also, I think, one of the downfalls of social media in many respects is you tend to see the the highlight reel, but also a successful person, you just, they come into the public eye at the end. And I will always remember watching this video of Justin Bieber, because I, you know, I was probably eighteen and a bit salty that Justin Bieber was killing it. And I saw this video of him on on um YouTube and he was about eight years old and he sat on the on these stairs in Canada with a little hat in front of him, asking people to put dollars into it while he's singing his heart out.

• 36:00Steven Bartlett?

  And like, from that moment onwards, it changed my whole perspective of envy and successful people because Justin Bieber is someone that I thought got lucky. You know, he did a little song and dance in front of Asha, became a global superstar, but he was learning, he learned every instrument at the age of like eight years old and then went out on the streets and started playing his guitar when I was probably at home playing with like Action Man or Lego. And so, yeah, um I always think there's a bigger story and I try not to judge now.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 36:29Steven Bartlett?

  What's um, what's something that you're really, really bad at?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Something I'm really bad at, um.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  That shouldn't, I'm singing.

• 36:38Steven Bartlett?

  Singing. Can we, can we, can we hear your singing?

• 36:42Speaker 01

  No, I, you know, it's so weird. Some days I wake up and I have a singing voice and other days I cannot sing in pitch whatsoever.

• 36:50Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, every day I think I have a singing voice, but then it's other people tell me I don't.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. Ah, it's weird, yeah.

• 36:56Steven Bartlett?

  Can you, I bet you can sing, can't you?

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Not.

• 36:59Steven Bartlett?

  See, you can, you're, you're, you're.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Well, I just don't, I don't, I've seen, I've heard terrible singing. I'm not a terrible singer. I'm just not a great singer.

• 37:06Steven Bartlett?

  Will you sing now?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 37:08Steven Bartlett?

  So I'll have to try. I didn't think you were.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Um, what else am I bad at? Um, this shouldn't be a hard question. There's, I'm sure there's a lot of things. I just don't like to. Um, focus on the negatives.

• 37:21Steven Bartlett?

  I mean, like, I'm on, I'm unorganized, um, I can be a little bit selfish.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 37:27Steven Bartlett?

  You know, uh, most of my life has been pretty much about me.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:31Steven Bartlett?

  Those kinds of things.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  I think honestly, I really try, I'm a perfectionist in, in a lot of ways, um. With my relationships, with my work, with even the way I communicate with myself and the way.

• 37:46Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  There's a lot of control there, so I think I'm bad at letting go of control.

• 37:51Steven Bartlett?

  Interesting.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:53Steven Bartlett?

  I imagine that is, um, that has a lot of doubt, like negative impacts on a lot of things in your life.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Uh, it, it's per, it's actually just very, it's between myself with, uh.

• 38:04Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, it's you. Oh, okay. So it's an internal thing. Okay.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:07Steven Bartlett?

  So it's not like you're controlling in a relationship.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't, no one looks at me and thinks I'm controlling. It's just something I've, I know I am.

• 38:13Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Um, personally and privately and quietly. I just like to, I like to control the amount of energy I exchange with people. I like to control my space.

• 38:24Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Um, I like to.

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Control the way I organise things.

• 38:30Steven Bartlett?

  Sure. Oh wow, you are organised.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is just my, we're looking at my personal projects board and I have posted notes for the different personal projects that I wanna complete. So this is completely separate to my commercial work.

• 38:46Steven Bartlett?

  Are you procrastinator?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Uh, typically no.

• 38:51Steven Bartlett?

  Wow.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  But this, the past three months, I have been struggling to complete a project that I know is gonna be successful. And it's only because it's the first time I'm doing this, which is writing a TV show.

• 39:07Steven Bartlett?

  Oh wow.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:08Steven Bartlett?

  Is that a, it, can you tell us more?

• 39:11Speaker 01

  I can tell you it's based on my alter ego.

• 39:16Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, what's your alter ego? Are you able to tell us what your alter ego is?

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Um, I can tell you that there are moments where I'll be sitting in a room and I wanna burst out and do something. And then I just have too much like

• 39:33Speaker 01

  fear to do it. And so this is the alternative me.

• 39:36Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  But through a very strong concept, which I cannot talk about. Yeah.

• 39:40Steven Bartlett?

  Interesting. And when will we be able to see?

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Well, my goal is to have it done before my twenty seventh birthday, which is a month away. So it's not, I'm not writing the entire script. I'm writing the treatment and hopefully shooting the sizzle next month, so.

• 39:55Steven Bartlett?

  Do you, do you have, as like an entrepreneur and an artist, do you have a long term goal? Is there, is there a place you you'll get to where you think, or are you there now where you just think everything is perfect? I've done everything I need to, you know, need to do. I've achieved everything I've needed to achieve. Is there like a finish line for you at all?

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Well, I believe that everything should have an end goal.

• 40:16Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  And I don't wanna be doing the same thing for my entire life. So you know, there's a few more stories I wanna tell through my current way of expressing, which is the subtitles and photos. Um, they involve, you know, shooting more women of colour, representing, you know, my culture in the Middle East and talking more to the taboos around child sexual abuse. And I've already tapped into it, all of it, but I wanna push and I wanna go deeper and darker based on my process and my journey to overcoming

• 40:47Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  a lot of the things about myself. Um, so there's that. And then, you know, beyond that, I don't see.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  The photography element being the thing that I live, you know, I continue to do, it's only, it's gonna be very. It's gonna end soon enough and then I wanna move into this TV pilot and I want that to be my ultimate thing for next year and then. I also wanna ghostwrite for rappers and, you know, I write, I write poetry, I write raps, I, I. I'm so immersed in that world, but at the moment it's just for myself.

• 41:25Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  But I know I, there's so much, there's so much skill there that I wanna, these one liners are songs, they all can easily become songs.

• 41:33Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  And so I want to be able to create a book, which I'll take to a publication. I'm sorry, publishers and just be like, here, put me in a studio with this person, let's go. And like, I'm talking like, I wanna work for Rihanna and like Nicki Minaj and like Lana Del Rey, not Kanye.

• 41:50Steven Bartlett?

  You don't like.

• 41:51Speaker 01

  Oh my god, I wrote the best fucking rap the other day and I'm just like, wait, no, because it's so good. I like, I have to save it, cause I am, see, I'm already manifesting, I'm gonna be in rooms with these people, like. That to me doesn't sound crazy, like, I know I can do it.

• 42:07Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  And so it's just a matter of process and time, but then I, I also have designed my future home. And I wanna win like fucking awards for it because it's so unique, but I'm not an architect.

• 42:19Steven Bartlett?

  You're an artist.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I, I think creativity shouldn't be limited to just one thing and. We should aim to have angles so we can push ourselves to do the next thing and that's where I'm at, so I wanna do so many things.

• 42:33Steven Bartlett?

  Someone that, you said you've, you've been through a lot of stuff, especially in your sort of early years. Usually, and this again is probably sweep, bit of a sweeping statement, but those things will. Not that I would know, like, I can't pretend to know, but would might knock someone's confidence or at least their own belief in themselves. And what you've just said there is, you know, I know I can do it. You are someone that's so, that's been through so much, but for some, um, somehow is also, is also held on to their belief in themselves, if that makes sense. Almost like a pretty, and this is not an offensive thing, cause I feel the same way about me, but like, almost like a delusional perspective. Like, the world would tell you, you shouldn't believe, be able to, you shouldn't believe that you'll be in a room with Rihanna and you'll win awards for your own house.

• 43:16Steven Bartlett?

  But there is zero doubt, I have zero doubt that you believe that. Where, where, where does that, do you know where that self belief comes from? I think self belief is one of the, cause you know, it really leads to like that self doubt, which then fosters regret, is one of the things that most people that message me that wanna do great things are missing. It's that, you talked about execution and idea. That's the thing for me that sometimes takes you from the idea to the execution phase. Where has that self belief come from in you? And what's your like?

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:45Steven Bartlett?

  Do you believe in your, you know?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Okay, my self belief has come from, and we keep talking about it, but it is intuition. And it's me having, everything that has happened to me in my life up until right now, I have foreseen for myself. And whether it's delusional to the state of believing, or if it's actual manifestation and manifestation is real, or if it's I have access to fucking future realms, which I don't know if I do. Like, all I know is that I've always known what I've had to do. And when I moved from Perth to Melbourne, that happened in a week. I'm like, I have to go now, I'll see you guys later. And I moved to Melbourne. And then when I moved to LA, I don't even know why I need to move to LA. I just know I have to be there. I moved to LA.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Sex and Takeout, I don't know why I have to shoot this series. I just know it's gonna go viral, let's shoot it. Um, every other caption series, everything, it's just trusting that I'm supposed to be doing it, not knowing why. And the thing that stops people, the resistance comes from not trusting the uncertainty, but we have to trust it. We have to trust that we don't know what's gonna happen to us. But if there's an inkling in you that's telling you to do it, you do it. Like, you trust that. You don't trust the negative self talk. You trust that little thing that made you like excited for a minute. Because that's real. And that is the universe communicating with you. That is energy communicating with you that you have to do the work.

• 45:09Steven Bartlett?

  What if I fail?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  If you fail, you start again, you do it. But I just, I don't know, cause I, I can't say I have with any of these projects. And is that luck? I'm doing quotes.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  I don't, I, it's, I really can't explain it, it's just trusting. And I, I mean, I have failed with other projects, but then I always almost knew that they weren't gonna be as successful. Cause there was like a resistance greater than. I was aware of, you know.

• 45:38Steven Bartlett?

  I guess it also depends.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, you just keep going because series that didn't take off the way I thought they would. I delayed them and I took like years to actually put them on the internet. Why did I take years to put them on the internet? Because I didn't really believe in it. So it's like you have to believe in the concept. And it has to, and what makes a successful concept? Uniqueness and relatability, bring those two together. Something that's unique and something that's relatable, you have a successful concept. Has it been done? No. Is it relatable?

• 46:11Steven Bartlett?

  You're a bit of a genius, so I can think of some people, and I'm sure you can as well. That will believe in something and it's terrible. Do you know what I mean? Terrible by definition of most people's success, like nobody cares, it doesn't relate. But through their own perspective, and I'm thinking about somebody.

• 46:30Steven Bartlett?

  But they create, they create these ideas and they are hundred percent, they're like, ah, this is it. And I see it and I think, oh no. And then they put it out into the world and it misses. So what is it that's making you hit? And I guess in your mind, it's. From your perspective, it's you're more connected to yourself, you make, I think you have a, a heightened sense of. Of people and self-awareness. Like you, you, you're, you're. You're probably very good at understanding people. Because you're probably quite good at understanding yourself, maybe. Is that fair?

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's fair. I think, um, yeah, it's. When people have bad ideas and they believe it's good, I say good on them because they're still committing to something they believe in. And if it ends up failing. That's gonna, that's, that's on them to deal with that and then to make sure they know that they can carry on with something else. Like, it's just the not giving up part and it's that. The energy we invest into something we believe in. And, yeah.

• 47:34Steven Bartlett?

  What's the, what's something in the next, um. Couple of years that, or the next ten years that you really wanna do, something you really wanna accomplish. We talked about the house. Awards, you're gonna be, um, a rapper and slash ghostwriter.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  I'll be a ghostwriter, I won't be a rapper ever. I, I can't actually rap, I just know how to write them.

• 47:51Steven Bartlett?

  I, when I, when I Googled you earlier, I struggled to find photos of you. And then when we walked in here, Lauren said, oh, can I, can we take a photo? And you're a little bit shy about that. Why is that?

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Um, I.

• 48:03Steven Bartlett?

  Why couldn't I find loads of photos of you on the internet?

• 48:06Speaker 01

  I don't know, it's not even like intentional, I just don't. I like to express through, I like to control the energy that I'm trying to express in my stories. So I don't shoot me, I shoot.

• 48:21Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Other people because I'm able to see it, but if it was the other way around, I couldn't do it justice, so. Um.

• 48:30Steven Bartlett?

  Are you scared of anything?

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Am I scared of anything?

• 48:33Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, what are the things that you you you worry about?

• 48:36Speaker 01

  What are the things I worry about? I worry about my safety, that's conditioning, um.

• 48:43Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  I worry about, but I don't think that's why I don't put, there are photos of me.

• 48:49Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, this is, this is just a different, I went off in a different direction. The two aren't connected.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  No, I I mean, I've I've struggled, I've struggled with anxiety my entire life, so it's. Conditioning based on, eh, sorry, it's a coping mechanism based on my trauma as a child. And so I uncontrollably have anxiety and.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  That comes from not feeling safe.

• 49:17Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  And that not feeling safe triggers fight or flight mode. And so I I have panic attacks, I used to have them daily, now I've reduced it. Based on the work that I've been doing, I've reduced it to like once every two weeks. And it went from being like level nine my entire life to being like two now, which is incredible.

• 49:39Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  And I feel like I will eventually be able to eradicate it completely. But it's not about getting rid of it, it's about checking in with yourself. And instead of numbing yourself to your anxiety, it's meditating and breathing into your belly. And being like, hey, I'm here with you.

• 49:55Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Like, I'm here, let's calm down.

• 49:57Steven Bartlett?

  I was gonna ask, cause I feel like I'd, there'd be people listening now that would want to know how you managed to um bring it down.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Well, it's bringing, anxiety is a coping mechanism, it comes from something, it comes from. Not feeling like you were protected.

• 50:13Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Um, whether it was you fell as a child and you were crying for hours and no one heard you, or whether it is you were sexually abused or. You know, it it's being unheard and being unprotected, and that's where anxiety stems from. So the second you know where it's coming from and why you have it is the moment you can then dive deeper and, you know, use your adult self to heal your inner child. And the inner child is the one that's screaming at you when you have anxiety. And so it's up to your adult self to help your inner child through it.

• 50:47Steven Bartlett?

  We're, we're, we're, well, I, the last person I um interview on this podcast is a guy called Jo- Jo- Johan Hari.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Um.

• 50:55Steven Bartlett?

  He writes, wrote, wrote a book called Lost Connections.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Okay, no, I haven't.

• 50:58Steven Bartlett?

  It's, it's, the subtitle of the book is uncovering the real cures of depression and anxiety. And he talks about a lot of things in there. But one of the things he says is that these kinds of issues, anxiety and depression are increasing in our, in our generation, like millennials and, and younger. Um, I've always wondered the impact that social media has had on that. And is it a causal factor of the increase? Do you think it is?

• 51:21Speaker 01

  I absolutely think it is. I, well, it, like I said, it's a tool to escape.

• 51:26Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  So if you're feeling some kind of way, if you're feeling sad or anxious or unhappy or depressed, and instead of being with yourself, you're being on your phone, and then you're seeing all of these people who are happy and excited and, you know, dressed amazing and face tuning their buddies and,

• 51:45Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  you know, on vacation in the Bahamas, you're just, it, what that does to you when you're feeling that way and you're using that to escape, it's devalidating what you're feeling. It's saying that what you're feeling is

• 52:02Speaker 01

  doesn't matter, and what you're seeing is the only thing that matters. So I think it's making it a thousand times worse.

• 52:09Steven Bartlett?

  Have you brought social media into your art in various ways?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  I mean, I use social media as the platform to share my story.

• 52:17Steven Bartlett?

  Having it with, actually with, as part of the, the storylines within. Is that ever something you've considered?

• 52:22Speaker 01

  No, but I, the themes are all very relative, so they're very, they, the themes are very open to interpretation. So if you're reading something, it could very well come back to social media. Yeah.

• 52:36Steven Bartlett?

  If I, if you became the, the CEO of Instagram and Facebook, right?

• 52:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:41Steven Bartlett?

  What would you do?

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Oh my god, great question. Okay, so.

• 52:46Steven Bartlett?

  She's pulling out a.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  So this is my document, I got it. Um, no, okay, so I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And Instagram and Facebook have

• 52:58Speaker 01

  essentially given everyone indirect permission to plagiarize and um breach copyright of intellectual property. So what needs to happen is we need to take a huge step back or essentially forward and create a system within the platforms to uh, what is the word? To um essentially create the source of original content.

• 53:27Steven Bartlett?

  Like content ID.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:29Steven Bartlett?

  That's what they call it.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like at the moment when someone shares your, because okay firstly, people aren't aware of this and they need to be aware. Years ago, there was this huge viral outbreak that once something's on Instagram, it's owned by Instagram, but that's not true.

• 53:43Steven Bartlett?

  True, yeah.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  In the guidelines, in the by, bylaws or whatever. It states very clearly that if you are the owner of the content. You own it and anyone who wants to use your content needs to seek permission first. And this idea of crediting. Isn't, isn't the correct way to do it. You actually have to seek permission first. So literally ninety, no, I'm gonna say a hundred percent of Instagram users are breaching copyright. And has Instagram made it easy to report? Absolutely not. You can't even do it through your phone. And to prove that you are the original content person is like, that is even harder to do. So it's just like, why isn't there a system in place where

• 54:28Speaker 01

  you can um, who has, who needs to make this technology where? If something isn't the original source and you report it, it gets it's taken down immediately. And it's like a A B C process. It's not like A B C D E F G H I J K.

• 54:42Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  It's like one, two, and it's gone. And I think there needs to be a software implemented into the app. Where it can immediately um.

• 54:52Steven Bartlett?

  Find.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Find the source and then anything else that isn't the source gets removed.

• 54:57Steven Bartlett?

  Um.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Um, and so I think that will change the way we use the platform too. And that will bring artists um more eyes and more success. Because their content is now labelled as theirs as opposed to the internets.

• 55:14Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Um, and something that I've had to deal with for the past.

• 55:20Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Since Sex and Takeout, that's when it really started happening. Um, is thousands and thousands and thousands of accounts. Just using my work and then brands seeing it and brands not knowing that it's it came from me and so they start copying it.

• 55:34Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  And I'm not just talking like little local brands. Local brands do it all the time. I'm talking like the major A league brands.

• 55:41Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Doing my idea and getting other photographers and artists to do it, even though it's mine.

• 55:46Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  And that wouldn't have happened if they knew where the source came from.

• 55:50Steven Bartlett?

  Um hum.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  And so it's just, yeah, I feel it. And that this isn't just on behalf of me, it's on behalf of artists everywhere.

• 55:56Steven Bartlett?

  I can imagine.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:58Steven Bartlett?

  Cause if you think about the the sort of like net loss of that, it's pretty tremendous.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:05Steven Bartlett?

  Facebook and in and Instagram are working on something. Well, they have content ID. But it's it doesn't work in the way that you've described. It's incredibly good at identifying like music and video. The moment, but I've not heard it be at all useful for.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  Well, I feel like um like visual artists are the ones who we we aren't on anyone's radar yet.

• 56:25Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Um, I think we're the ones that are suffering the most in terms of. The plagiarism, um with music, it is, you know, they have all the software to do that. With, yeah, uh what other.

• 56:38Steven Bartlett?

  Videos.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  Videos too, um but with photography. Yeah, and how do you even define IP like? Because you can create something and then someone can create something similar, but that's the IP.

• 56:50Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  So there's still a lot of like grey area and so I feel like there needs to be an institution. Researching like deeply how to define IP laws.

• 57:02Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  And what and then how can that be integrated into social media?

• 57:05Steven Bartlett?

  Would you, do you think social media in terms of mental health impacts and societal impacts, you know, this whole promise to make us more connected, but. We probably spend less time together in person now than ever before. Do you think social media has had a net positive or net negative impact on the world?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  I think it's extremely positive for information and education and raising awareness of. Social and racial politics, um I think it's extremely negative in terms of connection and human connection.

• 57:38Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  So, yes, it's great to keep informed with. What your friends are up to and what everyone's up to and what society is up to, but the second you. Become, you identify through digital instead of identifying through yourself. Then there's a problem because you're relying on the digital world to tell people who you are as opposed to you relying on you to tell people who you are.

• 58:03Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:04Speaker 01

  Um so this weekend actually really fun, my friend Tommy Sobol, he started this initiative called Brick. And what it is, is turning your phone into a brick so you can connect. With everyone in the room, so your phone doesn't exist for however long his events go for.

• 58:23Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, yeah, okay.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  And so this week he. Put like fifty of us in in Joshua Tree.

• 58:31Steven Bartlett?

  Right.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  Um, we put our phones in um V C R cases. And we sealed them with like candle wax and then we kept them in our rooms and then we were all kind of like. Forced to interact with each other like a whole bunch of strangers. And honestly, the most liberating weekend I've had in such a long time.

• 58:51Steven Bartlett?

  All weekend.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  All weekend, three days, well Friday to Sunday. And then there was a ceremony where we put the phones in the box. And then like on Sunday, there's a ceremony to open it again. And you know, it was just, I invited like six of my friends. And then we were all kind of like with all these people and we're like, you know what, fuck it, like this is so fun. And so. By the end of it, we walked away with all these new friends. We walked away so recharged and so connected to ourselves because we were like. We weren't distracting ourselves with these phones and, oh my goodness, it's so life changing. Like you don't realise. How addicted you are until you're off it.

• 59:27Steven Bartlett?

  Do you, did you get withdrawals though? Did you not want to?

• 59:30Speaker 01

  Personally, no, because I I I essentially like, and this is. I think this is something really important to know, just because, you know, my Instagram is very busy. I don't define myself straight at all. And if anything, I try and avoid it as much as I can because I won't get any work done. Um, when I go to bed, I put my phone on airplane mode two hours before bed, sometimes one hour, depending on how long I'm working until. And then when I wake up, I don't turn it on for an hour. Because I wanna be with myself and wake up and feel the morning and feel the air. And then when I'm ready to. Check my phone, I'll turn off airplane mode. And then all the emails come in and all the texts and all the missed calls. And I'm like, cool, I'm ready to face the world because I've spent time with myself.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  And that's, that's like, I I really encourage anyone who's listening to do that because it doesn't only affect your. It doesn't only advance your mental health in a positive way. You're also allowing yourself to rest through the night, knowing that. Nothing is gonna wake you up when you check your phone. And then you're also giving your mind a rest too, because it's the same thing. No one, you know, there's not these people waiting for you until you want them to wait for you, you know?

• 1:00:40Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, things like that I think are so important, but people don't really talk about these things because again, social media is like a new technology, whatever, is fairly new. So there's no education. We're all kind of learning about it from videos we see or articles we read online. Do you think we should teach these kinds of things in schools and in some, in some way?

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, a hundred percent. And yeah, while we're just, while we're talking about schooling, you know, we have been teaching

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  the kids the same thing for the past, however, a hundred years. And we have advanced so much as a society, um. And so I feel like everything the kids are learning in school right now are no longer relevant to how they should survive once they leave school. Or even, like, not even when they graduate, when they leave the premise, like,

• 1:01:30Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  we are not preparing our children the way, the way they need to be prepared. And until this, the schooling system needs to change entirely because it's no longer relevant to learn math, English, science, like, no, like, we need to, like, craft the kids to learn based on behavioural traits and skill sets. And that's not, that doesn't exist. It's like they're all lumped and forced to do every single subject until they get to decide, once they go to college, which ones they want to major in. But it needs to be, they need to be majoring from the start in like whatever their skill sets lead them to do. Anyway.

• 1:02:06Steven Bartlett?

  So you're clearly very passionate about that.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think about it a lot, but I just know, like, I know how much we've changed and it no longer makes sense for a kid who absolutely fucking sucks at maths to do maths. Like, you don't need to do it. We have iPhones now, we have calculators. Like, I'm not saying don't learn, like, learn how to do the fundamentals, but you don't need to learn calculus.

• 1:02:31Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Like, I've never needed to apply calculus into my life. Like, I failed maths in high school.

• 1:02:36Steven Bartlett?

  Same.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  Like it was made like spare subject that I just needed to do. So yeah, but like.

• 1:02:41Steven Bartlett?

  Do you wanna have kids one day?

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:02:43Steven Bartlett?

  And would you send them to a, how many?

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm gonna say two minimum.

• 1:02:49Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, two minimum.

• 1:02:50Speaker 01

  Ten max, no. I'm joking.

• 1:02:53Steven Bartlett?

  Would you send them to like a normal school or would you?

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no. I.

• 1:02:57Steven Bartlett?

  You've already got this plan.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I've thought about this. Um, I think I would want to. I would wanna be, I would wanna raise my children and give them the freedom to express. And I want to be able to observe them and see the things that they're good at. And then have them ultimately decide what they would prefer to do.

• 1:03:19Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  And then hopefully I will be wealthy enough to have specific mentors come in to help them develop their skill sets. But a hundred percent will make them learn five languages.

• 1:03:30Steven Bartlett?

  Really?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:31Steven Bartlett?

  How many languages do you know?

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  I know two. Oh, two and a half. Yeah, Arabic and some Italian.

• 1:03:38Steven Bartlett?

  What five languages would they learn?

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Um, the thing, whatever languages will be most relevant at the time. But I'm gonna say they have to know Arabic, they have to know obviously English and um, Spanish, because Spanish is extremely universal. Um, Ja- I would, I wanna personally learn Japanese. But I feel like Mandarin is probably gonna be the more universal language. Um. And then French or Italian, but that would be up to them.

• 1:04:06Steven Bartlett?

  Wow.

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. But you know, when they're young, they can do it so well. And and I wanna be able to um, move around to different countries while I'm raising my kids. So they are able to um, immerse the li- in the lifestyle of the language they're learning. So.

• 1:04:23Steven Bartlett?

  Why is language so important to you for your, for your kids?

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Because I travel a lot and I don't feel as connected to a city knowing I can't speak the language. And so I want, I want, I wanna be able to give them that power. And you know, my, my life plan is in four years, four or six years, I'm gonna take time off to raise kids and then learn these languages with them. So.

• 1:04:44Steven Bartlett?

  Oh.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:46Steven Bartlett?

  And travel with them.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  And travel with them. Yeah. I'm hoping four years, I definitely can, I would have babies now, I just, I love.

• 1:04:53Steven Bartlett?

  You need to find the right person.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  I mean, I, it's not even that, I, I have too much work to do right now, but in four years, I'm hoping it'll be a bit more chill.

• 1:05:01Steven Bartlett?

  And you need to find someone that's down to travel to all these countries with these babies, teaching them all these languages.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  I, I mean, the partner is optional. I might even adopt, like, who knows, yeah, I'm super independent, like, I don't know.

• 1:05:14Steven Bartlett?

  Do you, are you misunderstood?

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Am I misunderstood? Uh, in what context?

• 1:05:19Steven Bartlett?

  In, I'll just leave it there.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Hmm, um. Hopefully not, because I try to be as transparent as possible.

• 1:05:27Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  You know, oftentimes, I would say when I was struggling with like insecure attachments, I feel like my love language was misplaced, and so, you know, my way of expressing love wasn't reciprocated, and that obviously drove me insane. But I've progressed so much now that I understand we all have different ways of communicating love. And I feel more at ease knowing that.

• 1:05:53Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:54Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, this is my last question.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:56Steven Bartlett?

  Um, it's been very interesting. Um, we're sat at a table now. There are, um, how many chairs?

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  Eight.

• 1:06:04Steven Bartlett?

  There's eight chairs, okay, I'm gonna get rid of two chairs because that's too many, but um, there's, let's say there's six chairs here. Um, one, two, three, four, five, six. The other two have been pulled away, so there's, technically there is six. Me and you occupy two of them. There's four empty seats here. We're gonna have a big dinner party, phone's gonna go into a cassette, whatever, brick, whatever. Um, who do you invite, invite, anybody dead or alive, who do you invite to this dinner party and why? And also, what are we gonna be eating at this dinner party?

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Okay, such a fun question. This actually came up on Sunday and I'm stealing Noah's answers.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  So Noah, Noah and I were playing a game um where we had to ask each other five questions and that one came up, uh who would you bring to an island?

• 1:06:48Steven Bartlett?

  Ah.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  And his answers were so good that I'm stealing them.

• 1:06:51Steven Bartlett?

  Ah.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  This is not original, but um I would bring my five year old self.

• 1:07:00Steven Bartlett?

  Interesting. To the dinner party?

• 1:07:02Speaker 01

  To the dinner party. I would bring God.

• 1:07:05Steven Bartlett?

  No, you gotta say why.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. Okay, so if my adult self right now can talk to my inner child and she's traveling from the past into the future.

• 1:07:16Steven Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  So she gets to go back.

• 1:07:17Steven Bartlett?

  Okay.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  I would love to have her at this dinner table to witness who she would, she she has become.

• 1:07:23Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  And then be able to advise her. And I think in doing that, even though it won't change where I'm at now, it would be healing for me.

• 1:07:31Steven Bartlett?

  And what would you, what would you advise on, what would you say?

• 1:07:34Speaker 01

  Oh, so many things. Um I think the thing that I didn't hear at all and I would have probably saved my uh emotional state, I probably wouldn't have anxiety is just knowing I was safe.

• 1:07:47Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  And I wasn't alone, um because I was in with a, in a room full of people all the time and I felt the most unprotected. And it was because of things that everyone around me wasn't aware of. So I would tell her she was safe, I would tell her she wasn't alone, and I would tell her to fight and use her voice because in our society as Middle Easterns, we are conditioned to stay silent as women. So I think that's, I would love to

• 1:08:21Steven Bartlett?

  Cool.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  tell her that. And then I would invite God.

• 1:08:24Steven Bartlett?

  God.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  I would invite a higher power, whoever that is, and like to just come and hang out. And then I'd probably invite Rami Malik, cause I'm really, I don't know, I have a huge fascinate, fascination with him.

• 1:08:38Steven Bartlett?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:39Speaker 01

  And his characters that he portrays on television.

• 1:08:42Steven Bartlett?

  Interesting dynamic, this dinner party. God talking to your five year old self.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  And then I'd ask who he would invite and.

• 1:08:50Steven Bartlett?

  So you'd let him bring a plus one?

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  You can bring a plus one, but they have to be interesting.

• 1:08:55Steven Bartlett?

  Interesting.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:56Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, well, listen, I'm very inspired by you. I think a lot of people are, as I said, you've. Of all the people that I've brought onto this podcast, the hysteria when people found out that you were coming on was unmatched. And I think that speaks to the the positive impact you're having on people by being your true self. And you're clearly incredibly talented, you're, you know, you're self self built, you manage yourself, as you've said. Um, you do, you're a very self made person. And I think that gives a lot of people a lot of power in themselves and their own self belief. So thank you for being you. Thank you for the time today. And where do people find you and you're, I mean, you're everywhere, but where can people find you if they want to reach out or?

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  Um, I think Instagram is probably the best, the best place. It's just Sarah Baba. But it's actually pronounced Bah Bah, but you can, you can say Baba, that's fine. I've accepted it.

• 1:09:47Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, amazing. Thank you so much.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you for providing a space for me to express.

• 1:09:52Steven Bartlett?

  No worries. Thank you for being so open, you know, it's really refreshingly open. So thank you.