How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S5, Ep3 How to Fail: Emeli Sandé

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

This week, I chat to the chart-topping singer Emeli Sandé about life, love, fame...and all the nitty gritty bits in between. Emeli has sold over 19 million singles, won four Brit Awards and is about to return after a three-year break with her hotly anticipated third album, Real Life. Her rise to fame was rapid and overwhelming. Celebrity, she says, took some time to get used to.She joins me to talk about her body image and the long journey to self-acceptance in an industry that frequently made her feel like she was never 'enough'. She talks about letting go of the need to be perfect, and embracing failure. Plus we discuss her visit to Zambia to reconnect with her family there, and what impact that had on her. Emeli also opens up for the first time about the breakdown of her marriage, to a man she had been with from the age of 17, and the feeling of shame she had about admitting she was getting divorced before being forced to confront herself as she really was.Emeli speaks as powerfully as she sings: like an old soul channeling all sorts of wisdom. I'm so grateful she came onto the podcast and I hope you get as much from it as I did. Thank you Emeli!* I am thrilled to be taking How To Fail on tour around the UK in October, sharing my failure manifesto with the help of some very special guests. These events are not recorded as podcasts so the only way to be there is to book tickets via www.faneproductions.com/howtofail* The Sunday Times Top 5 bestselling book of the podcast, How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong by Elizabeth Day, is out now and is available here.*How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Chris Sharp and Naomi Mantin and sponsored by Teatulia. To contact us, email [e-mail]* Emeli Sandé's forthcoming album, Real Life, is out in September and is available to pre-order here* Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayEmeli Sande @emelisandeChris Sharp @chrissharpaudioNaomi Mantin @naomimantinTeatulia @TeatuliaUK    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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As something of a green tea snob myself, I have to say their jasmine has become a cupboard staple in my house this year. More importantly, they sell tea cocktails made with infusions from their tea, which are very delicious and I might add very, very strong. There are books for sale too with selections by Tilda Swinton, Jon Hamm, Lionel Shriver and well me. I picked 10 books that have been important to me and the whole list is for sale now. They also have an excellent online shop and are giving 20% off everything to you lovely listeners. Just go to titulia.com, that's T-E-A-T-U-L-I-A-B-A-R.com and enter howtofail, all one word, at checkout. Thank you very much to Titulia. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding

that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. When Emily Sandé was a child growing up in Aberdeenshire, she used to sing with such power that her neighbours would complain they could hear her singing in the shower. She wrote her first song at the age of 11 and two years later came third in a Council Run talent show. Her performance venues have got somewhat bigger since then. Many of us will remember Sande singing at both the opening

and closing ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympics and many more of us will know her chart-topping singles, Read All About It and Beneath Your Beautiful. Her debut album, Our Version of Events, spent 66 consecutive weeks in the UK top 10, beating a record unbroken since The Beatles. Her third album, Real Life, is released later this year. But it hasn't always been easy. She grew up with a Zambian father and a white British mother. The Sandys were the only mixed race family in their hometown of Alford in Scotland. Astonishingly, their appearance was so notable that there was a newspaper article about them when they moved in. that there was a newspaper article about them when they moved in.

Sandé went on to study medicine before her natural talent for music took over. The rest is history. To date, she has sold 19 million singles and won four Brit Awards. So I think it's safe to say medicine's loss is undoubtedly music's gain. Emily, such a pleasure to welcome you to my flat. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming. And you had so many people with you that I had to ask them to leave because my flat is too small.

Sorry for the invasion there. No, it's very lovely to have you. And I was so interested to read that slightly horrifying fact that was sent to me in the initial email about this podcast about there having been a newspaper article about your family moving into that village is that true yes and you know I'm kind of split on it because I don't know if it's the excitement of having a new teacher from Africa or Zambia in the school or it was just the fact he was African that made the news. I mean, my dad still has a cutout and he seemed quite excited about it. But when I look

back, I think, wow, that's quite interesting. Your dad was a teacher, as you mentioned, and he taught at the school that you attended. Is that right? Yes. And he taught me actually for one year, but I wasn't very good at his subject. So he kind of just kept me at the back and just let me kind of do my own thing. But he's a very popular teacher and he still teaches now so I was kind of known as Mr. Sande's daughter for most of my like high school. Were you well behaved? Yes I was I mean I always spoke too much and you know that was always the complaint from the teachers but apart from that I think I was a good student yeah. So do you remember the first time you found singing? What's

your earliest memory of singing? I remember being quite young, maybe three or four and hearing harmonies for the first time and just thinking, you know, really revolutionized my world when I heard that. And then I remember when I was seven singing, I Can't Live Without You by Mariah Carey. And that was when my dad really noticed I could sing. And he says, oh, I think you have a really talent. And he started coaching me on how to give the emotion when you're singing. And I remember the whole family coming around to watch me perform this song. And I think that's when I thought, oh, if my mum and dad think I can do it, then I think I could be a singer. And it's quite a leap from that to then studying medicine to then having this extraordinary level of success yes how has

it been for you becoming famous a big learning curve really you know growing up I was very shy and I don't know if I think that's probably because I felt quite different and wasn't sure where I really belonged yeah I was quite shy I found it very difficult to talk to people and I think that's why I loved music so much because because it gave me an expression. So then to go from being quite quiet, then moving to this big city, London, to pursue music, and then it all happening quite fast. It was really learning on the job. You know, how do you communicate beyond just being on stage? And, you know, now I feel I've come to grips with it. But at the time, at some points, it was quite daunting. And finding yourself on stage at the same time as

trying to do interviews and scrutiny and all of these things were very new and quite a little bit overwhelming at times. So would you describe yourself as an introvert? In some ways, yes. Like I like to observe people and I, you know, I think that kind of feeds my writing as well. But it's hard because when I was a kid, I was quite extroverted. I loved entertaining and kind of showing off and all the singing. But naturally, I do think I'm quite quiet and I enjoy kind of just taking a backseat and looking at everything and sponging, you know, everything in really. As I mentioned that you grew up in this village in Scotland, but I understand that your new album deals with a lot of you finding your identity in a different way. And you had a trip to Zambia, is that right? That was very influential.

Yeah, I mean, the first time I went to Zambia was in 2014. It really fulfilled a lot within me. It was the first time I'd met my grandmother, it was the first time I'd met my grandmother. It was the first time I'd met my Zambian side. I felt strangely just very grounded there. And a lot of things began to make sense because I'd gone from a kid up in Scotland who just out of nowhere just was obsessed with music. And when I went over there, all of my family were musicians

and naturally gifted with music. So that began to make more sense. And also just having that connection with them. Yeah, it just felt like this kind of gap, which I hadn't realized was there, suddenly felt filled. And then I went back in 2016. And at that point, it was less of kind of a shock. So I feel like I was able to embed myself a bit deeper. And some of the songs in the new album were finished there. There's a song called Survivor. And there's a line that says, look how the flowers bloom right up from the dust. And I remember I was seeing the dust of rural Zambia. So that song is very special for that reason.

Is it a very matriarchal society? Yes, I mean, definitely where my grandmother is. she's in charge of the village and you just see all the kids looking up to her so much and kind of this the hierarchy of the women and the men are there doing more of the manual labor but you could definitely see my grandmother was in charge yeah. Am I right in thinking that you did medicine because although you loved music you wanted to have something to fall back on? I really loved school and I loved science. So when I went to uni, I was either going to study physics or medicine. And I really fell in love with the Glasgow med school course.

So I ended up going there. So, yeah, I mean, I always knew deep down inside I want to be a musician and this is what feels natural to me. But the more I studied, the more I thought, well, this is what feels natural to me but the more I studied the more I thought well this is an awesome career and you get to you know challenge yourself mentally but at the same time connect with people and be of service and can heal but you know music was just something from childhood that I was so into but yeah it would have been a lovely kind of plan b. Did you specialize in neuroscience? Yeah, well, I did an intercalated year. So I did three years of medicine.

And then on the fourth year, I did my intercalated, which was looking mainly at neuroscience. And then that's when I graduated with that intercalated degree and then decided to take a chance on music at that point. So that was really tough. Actually, that was very interesting. But the brain is so intricate and mysterious and that's what drew me to it but it's quite a in-depth subject so one of the previous guests i've had on this podcast is a man called mo gaudat who's phenomenal man who claims to have developed an algorithm for happiness and part of what he says is that you must remember that you

as a person exist separately from your brain and that your brain is an organ that produces thoughts as organic matter in the same way as your heart produces blood as organic matter. Do you agree with that from a scientific background? Because he was being more philosophical about it. But is that? I mean, wow. I've never thought of it like that. I've never thought of thoughts as organic. Well, as kind of organic matter.

I've always thought they come more from, you know, the psyche and the mind. But, I mean, he sounds like he must be an expert in it to make those claims. That was the interesting thing. When I was studying, we'd go into the kind of the anatomy lab and there'd be a brain there with kind of flags on this is where this part and this is what happens here and there. But you're looking at it thinking this is organic matter and where have the dreams gone where has the thoughts gone you know I've always thought of thoughts as something more creative rather than biological

that's beautiful way of putting it yeah sorry I got slightly off the beaten track there you're like I've just come to talk about failure and you're asking me about neuroscience and brains let's get on to your three failures. Your first one is really interesting and it does really relate in a way to the body and the study of the body in that your first failure is working hard to lose weight and then regaining it. So tell me about that because you sit here today and you're so beautiful and small. Thank you.

Sender, I mean. but talk to me about that process yeah that was maybe about five years ago and initially it was quite a healthy journey just going to the gym and eating right and I quit drinking so I found that quite easy but during that time I went through a divorce and then I think my body started to kind of reflect how I was feeling internally, which perhaps I was in denial about. So then I just lost an unhealthy amount after that, because it was no longer a healthy routine of working out and eating right. It was more just kind of neglecting what my body needed. So then that whole process was going on. And there was a real imbalance in my emotions. And I guess I wasn't really addressing them in a healthy way.

So then the flip happened and then I started gaining weight because I wasn't in a routine. So I kind of went from healthy weight to then underweight and then gained a lot of the weight back. And slowly, without kind of noticing, this was all happening. Looking back now, I can see that my body was telling me how it was from my hair and my skin and my weight. It was just showing that there was something that I needed to really dig into on a deeper level emotionally. It was a difficult time. And then recently, you know, over the past maybe year or so is when I started to then get back into more of a healthy routine. And I think I'd addressed a lot of the emotional issues.

What were the underlying emotional issues that you had to address? I think it was, you know, I'd gone through this big separation, but hadn't really dealt with it. I think I'd stayed very busy. You know, I had a friend of mine who I'd grown up with since Aford, Aberdeenshire. And she said it was really weird because you were just like, I'm fine, totally fine. And she said, but you've gone through such a massive thing in your life.

How can you be fine? I think it was one understanding what had happened, losing somebody that I truly did love and had been my best friend for the last 10 years of my life. And the only really relationship I had been in since I was 17. So I think that sudden loss and readjustment to the world was a big shock. And then not really coming to terms with it in a very realistic way was being reflected in my weight up and down. And also, I'm guessing that this was happening at a time when you'd become extremely successful and famous.

So was a lot of it being lived out in the public eye? Yeah, in a sense, I tried to, you know, just out of respect for him and everybody's families. I didn't think it was my place to speak about these things publicly. But then also that kind of brings the problem of, well, who do you speak to? And who do you confide in? And so I guess it's loneliness was a big emotion and isolation, I kind of withdrew from a lot of things that I would usually have loved. Now, in retrospect, I can see I was going through a depression. There's lots of anxiety and it was all just kind of inside manifesting and I didn't really know how to unravel it. And because I was

so busy, there wasn't really time to. So thankfully, I had time to step back and be around my family and process a lot of things. And a lot of that was done through songwriting. I'm quite lucky to have that as a therapy for myself. I mean, if you listen to the second album, I think it was very introspective and dealing with a lot of these emotions. There's a song called Sweet Architect. I'm very spiritual and praying is a big part of my life. So reconnecting with God was a real breakthrough for me. And thankfully, just getting through it step by step and being patient with myself and learning how to be kinder to myself and take time to really process things properly. Are you able to do that for yourself? So were you able to see eventually

this is not healthy and I need to take a step back and I need to create some time for myself to do that for yourself so were you able to see eventually this is not healthy and I need to take a step back and I need to create some time for myself to do this yes I could see that but also you have to have a team around you that respects that and I think that's why my family being around me was so important because beyond me being a singer or anything like that they care about me on a very real level so So my sister and my mom kind of are my new time checkers. You know, if they think the diary is getting too busy, they'll let people know. And it's just nice to have a genuine love from them. And, you know, now I live with my sister. So it's great. And just to be able to talk and cry and release it all and not try

letting go of this control or feeling like you have to be perfect. And that was a big breakthrough for me. I was like, oh, okay, cool. It's nice just to be human. And just to, even to say you failed in something is a new thing for me because beforehand it was all about doing well in school and getting into med school. And then you have to pass the med school exams and, and then you want to release an album and then it does well and all of these things that essentially you're validating yourself through is unhealthy yes i so agree with you because if you're good at school you get so used to sitting the exam and doing well and getting validation and praise for that yeah and then you get into adult life and there's no clear exam yes yeah tell yeah. Tell me where the A is.

Yeah, you have to put it into different things, like controlling what you're eating, and that's very unhealthy. And so I'm so glad that you have music as a way of handling it. But given that you are in an industry which I imagine places an enormous amount of pressure on women to look a certain way, I mean, I don't know, maybe it's changed,

but was your relationship with your body a hard thing to handle in that way in a sense I've always been a bit overweight growing up so it was never it's something I'd always just accepted as part of myself but thankfully I've always had a team that had never asked me to change how I was you get comments here and there it was something I was aware of. So I'm not sure, I guess, in some senses, yes, you know, when you're going on TV all the time or when people make comments, but I don't remember it ever being a major because I'd never sold my music through my image apart from, you know, the hair or whatever. The quiz. The quiz. The Sunday quiz. I wanted to be healthier.

I wanted to feel happier. And my ex-husband played a big role, actually, in me getting more healthy. We go to the gym together and he was a real gym fanatic. So I really had him to thank. And then when we separated, I think that was me then. I knew it was me facing the world. Okay, how do I handle myself as an individual, as grown woman now and how do I grow up quickly because prior to that really I'd been in school you're quite protected and then within an industry you have managers that do things for you that really grown-ups should be

able to do for themselves so it's a big learning curve for me and I'm so even though it was difficult it was like a crash course of real life I'm so happy I was kind of forced to go through that because if I hadn't have been then I think I would have still been quite immature in my mind and wouldn't have had the stability I have now you know I feel like I can face so many things and I know myself on such a deep level. You mentioned there people making comments and we live in an age where everyone has an opinion and a means of expressing it and when you're famous I imagine that that's a difficult thing to cope with. Do you have strategies in place for dealing with that white noise? Are you very good at not looking at social media like what's your relationship with all of that?

Now yes I think I have a great strategy in that really unless I'm talking about music with anybody I don't see the point of putting yourself through it because there's always going to be people that don't like you or you just you just annoy them for some reason and I think why sit and go through it because I was thinking about social media and I do love it because it's a way I can connect freely with my fans but you know social media is like the scary thing is it's all silent it's everybody way I can connect freely with my fans. But, you know, social media is like, the scary thing is it's all silent. It's everybody's thoughts just out there. It's like a massive brain.

That's such a good way of putting it. You know, and it's just all these thoughts, these silent thoughts that perhaps would never actually be made into real vibrations and said out loud. So you've got your mind to deal with, with all your thoughts, and then you add it to kind of the psyche of the world, and you're in this massive brain that could use some therapy. The world's brain could really use a good therapist right now. I've literally never heard it so well expressed.

I'm going to steal that definition. It's so good. Yeah. And when I started thinking on that level, I thought these are their opinions. And because you could see so many positive things that people like, and you see one or two negative comments which are usually quite harsh and they'll stay with you whether no matter how strong you I think once you've seen it it'll always be in your mind so I thought if this is going to disrupt my happiness and my mental health and also affect me as a performer and my own confidence what's it worth really and so nowadays I just try and stay around positive people as much as I can and try and build an environment with my fans

where it's we encourage one another and anyone who's not doing that then has to go so your failure to lose weight and then regaining it and that cycle what do you think that that has taught you now what's your relationship like now with your oh so much healthier I'm so much more gentle on myself in that so lost the weight gained the weight then the second time around when I really started to I was just like no I need to kind of get back in like full health maybe about a year ago after last summer and I started yoga which was really a breakthrough for me because it got me out of my mind I didn't realize how much I was just cramming my whole existence in my mind and I'd always believed that my thoughts were real whereas when you learn more about meditation and yoga kind of teaches you to separate yourself from

your thoughts and that you are not actually your thoughts so in that sense I agree with that guy yeah you know they're not actually real in a sense so when I really began to understand that and let them float by as they say I was like wow I'm thinking all the time it's very intrusive within my own skull so when I began to work on that a a lot of things changed. And yoga was a gentle way of, you know, I felt like I was losing weight, just slower, but more sustainable. Instead of doing like an hour and 20 minutes full on cardio, I'd just be doing some nice run and a bit of yoga and it's nice and gentle. And I found that I could do that every day without dreading it. I haven't eaten meat for

about five years. But the first time I went vegan was so out of the blue. I hadn't educated myself on what my body needed. So this time around, my sister, she's so knowledgeable about foods and her veganism. So she's taught me so much and she cooks now for me. This time around, I thought if I want to keep myself at a healthy weight, then need to be educated and it's more now bringing my mind into things and also nutrition so yeah even though it was a bit of a rocky road at least I know now that there's a healthier way to do things and you know more self-love is needed to keep it how you want I so speak your language in terms of yoga because it was also really good for me for exactly that reason i spend so much time in my head at my laptop right that it was super

important to reconnect with my body and then the other thing that yoga teaches you is to have acceptance and compassion for your limits and to like be your own guide and i have to say looking at you emily like i think that there is a superficial beauty that we're all aware of in this world that we live in. But I really believe that true beauty, which you so epitomize, comes from an ease with yourself. And it feels like you found yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And I always thought when I heard people say that, I was like, OK. But it's true.

When you really relax, essentially when you're alone, you're the only person that is in control of what you tell yourself. I was watching Sophie Turner talk on Dr. Phil. I really enjoyed that interview. And he was telling her that your mind tells you things so many more times than you can actually say it with your mouth. So whatever you're repeating in your mind is with you times 20 of what you could actually say. So your mind is a very fertile and very powerful place. And I think until you really take that time to talk to yourself and talk to that voice and really get some clarity on it,

then you're kind of stuck there. So when I really relaxed and realized it's not about others' judgment on you or competition, it's really about the relationship you have with yourself beyond and before anything so when I realized that it's like okay let me get to know myself let me have a good nice conversation with myself every night and it feels good yeah I sometimes say to friends of mine to be as kind to themselves as they are to me like to extend the same kindness to your own conscious self yeah and maybe that leads us on to your second failure actually which might be related I don't know but to the feeling how you felt about your body which

was not appearing in the video to your first released single which is the chipmunk diamond rings video in 2009 so tell me why you chose that as a failure it was my first lesson in the industry really like now chipmunk and i are totally cool and he was very young at the time and i think it was more his team that had made those decisions but i just remember the pain of your passion is music and you you work hard on becoming a better writer and a singer. So when someone tells you, we want to use your voice and your lyric and your melody, but we don't want you, you like physically. Wow.

So how do you kind of process that? And that was the first thing I'd ever done in the industry. It was a big kind of like blow. I mean, the saddest thing is when I think back they had sent everything they'd sent the video treatments we had the date I assumed I was going down to London I think it was more of the humiliation because I told everybody in my med school I remember being in the med school library I was like we're gonna do this and look at that it's gonna be amazing and then to be told the night before literally literally when I thought I was going, my manager just said, listen, I hate to tell you this. Like, I don't want you to think the rest of the industry is going to be this way, but they said they don't want you in

the video. So I just remember my heart, like, you know, shattered. I was like, oh, and then you start thinking of questions. If I look like this person, if this happened, like, is it my skin color? Is it my weight? Is it like, what is it about me that's not good enough? It was, yeah, it was really tough. And I was very upset. And then also just what to tell people the next day. So it was kind of, oh, they changed the date and it's when we're having exams. So I can't, and just kind of making up this lie that I'm sure most people knew I was lying. And then the video to come out and you're not in it, it was very painful. But I think it made my skin a lot thicker for coming into the rest of it. Yeah, it was a big challenge from the very beginning. How old were you then? I think I was about 21, 22.

And to be clear, in the video, there is a woman pretending to sing. Yes. And it's to sing. Yes. And it's not you. Yes. And have I remembered this correctly? Is she a white woman? She's just lighter skin than me, but I think she's, well, mixed race. Yeah, okay.

Because I was struck there when you said that one of your questions to yourself was, am I not good enough? Is my skin the wrong colour? Right. Do they not want... And I was like, oh, that's such a devastating thing to have to think yeah you know I can be quite a proud person so you don't really want to share these emotions with everybody and you also feel like you failed your family or this and all of these things everybody

was excited so you kind of just have to keep this faith that eventually you'll get your time but you don't know this was at the very beginning of everything you just hope that eventually you'll get your time. But you don't know. This was at the very beginning of everything. You just hope that eventually you'll get time where you can say what you want and you can represent yourself. And I think it gave me the determination and drive to do that. And also to own my talent. It made me see that you have to be careful that people don't come and take what they want from you and leave the rest or allow them to hurt you in that sense. But since then, I mean, that was a long time ago and he sent me a lovely letter kind of apologizing and that he didn't understand what was going on and it's a big one at the beginning it feels like the world has changed an enormous amount in those 10

years yeah for the better thank goodness yeah but as a woman of color I mean talk to me a bit about your third album because I understand that the influences are myriad and include everyone from Malcolm X to Nina Simone and how much of that was about staking your claim to have a valid strong presence in music definitely when I watch Nina Simone's performance or listen to speeches by Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm Malcolm X. And also, you know, Angela Davis. It's so empowering to hear the passion in what they're saying and also the freedom. And the way that I approached this album was really

in a more vein of performance. We didn't do a verse and then stop, try to perfect the verse, go into the chorus. The producer I was working with was like, okay, we want to perform this. I want you to give me the emotion. So we would do three, four takes of the full song. And then if there are areas we needed to hone in on,

we'd go back in on them. But I wanted it to be natural. I wanted everything about this album to be very authentic and real. And I wanted it to match the journey I'd been on with myself physically. With my hair, I wanted to say, well, this is my

natural texture. These are my natural curls. Only in doing that is how I can be a true artist. And I'd watch a lot of Janis Joplin performances and Woodstock performances, and there was just a pure energy radiating from everybody because they really took that leap and they had the bravery to be completely themselves so yeah this album was made in that spirit in a spirit of sharing and connecting people regardless of your color your gender I want people to feel connected and to feel human again just as we're talking about getting out of your head and getting out of this kind of digital dimension just for a second to ground and root ourselves in, we are of the animal kingdom,

and we are naturally connected to this earth. And everything I was trying to do was trying to reconnect with that and hopefully remind people of their greatness and of the mystery of being alive and being conscious and how much good we can do together and how powerful love actually is. And that greatness comes from authenticity. you said this beautiful thing about amy winehouse which i want to quote where you were saying that you were listening to a lot of her music and you

said there's so much emotion in the mistakes i love that so much emily because it's so everything that i believe in this that this podcast is about that by allowing things to go wrong that's almost where you find your truest self yes I mean I'm such a huge fan of Amy and hopefully that doesn't come across wrong wrong way mistakes because everything's kind of beautiful but I have learned a lot of lessons recently in that perfection is now it's all the time there isn't this kind of goal of perfection everything that happens is supposed to the way she wrote her lyric was so free and she put everything out there she wasn't trying to give us one side of her she was clearly very happy in being every side of herself and saying what i've seen before about my friends saying oh but you said you said you're fine, but you've gone through all this stuff.

And this front we put up of, I'm fine. Everything's great. I'm on my way up. I'm going to be successful. You know, eventually ends up in a bit of a car crash because that's impossible. And opening up, I found that being vulnerable and opening up has just opened me to so many more people and so many more discussions and getting to know people on a much deeper level. Because I think once you open up and they trust you, you can trust them back. so many more people and so many more discussions and getting to know people on a much deeper level

because I think once you open up and they trust you you can trust them back and it just makes life so much more richer and colorful perfection is now I want that on a t-shirt that leads us on to your third failure which is a big one and I am so grateful to you for talking about it and I relate to it because I've also been through it right your third failure is the failure of your marriage yes yeah yeah that was a big one because like everything else in my life I really wanted everything to go perfectly and I'd really bought into the dream of you get married and you you know this is my first ever partner and we were in love from 17 and then we get married and then for it to end was really quite devastating and for it to end without a real well this happened and this and this and that there wasn't

really any we couldn't point any fingers it had just become not the right place for either of us really. For that to end was a big blow to me and a big blow to my ego and everything I'd set up. My career was going great and I was married and I remember getting married and just thinking, okay, that's it. I can relax. I can fully be myself now. And so for that security to kind of disappear I think that's when I really had to face myself looking back now thankfully I had to face myself but it was yeah it really shook my world that one so you were together from the age of 17 to how old 17 and then I think I was 24 when I got married that's the only person I'd ever been with. And we got married soon after everything kind of started to build in my career. And it was hard for us to even have time to

continue to get to know each other as we were growing up. He's a very smart guy. He's a marine biologist and he had his career and I had mine and we're spending more and more time apart. had his career and I had mine and we're spending more and more time apart and I think we just had to accept that at some point we had grown into different lives so yeah that was a that was a tough time and was it a mutual decision and realization yeah I mean I'd say so I feel like I came to more of a realization but I think deep down both of us knew that we would be happier and we would have more time and to really get to know ourselves outside of the marriage it's just difficult to kind of accept that failure of it did you feel as I did a sense of? Because I actually think the shame that we feel when a marriage ends is misplaced. Right. But I do think that one battles sometimes

with that feeling. Did you feel it? Yeah. And especially because it was something I felt at some point I was going to have to speak about publicly because I'd spoken about being married publicly. So yeah, I did feel shame. And I mean, one shame that hadn't worked. And two, just the word divorce. I don't like the sound of the word, like beyond what it means. I just don't like how it sounds on my ears. Divorce, and that's on you for the rest of your life. You have been through a divorce. But it was the first time I really had to think beyond what other people thought of me. And I think that was the first time I really had to think beyond what other people thought of me and I think that was the biggest lesson I learned in that you can't continue something which may end up hurting more people just because of what others think so it's the first time I stepped out and just did something which did go against the grain and my idea of success then finally I had to look

at myself underneath all of these kind Then finally I had to look at myself underneath all of these kind of labels I'd given myself and whether it be student or married woman or married woman, wife. Beyond these labels, who am I? And that's when it was really hit me that I don't know and I have to start from scratch. If I wasn't good at school and I wasn't successful in music and someone hadn't wanted to, you know, to get married, who am I?

And thankfully now, I think that's why I'm so at peace with myself now and I have a true sense of happiness because I feel like I finally know. And I feel that if I fall in love again, it will be in complete love. You know, I will love myself and they will love them. And we will kind of come together in a stronger, more honest connection. I'm nodding so vociferously as you're talking because I had exactly the same thing where I had not been with the same person since the age of 17. But I'd been in a series of long term monogamous relationships from the age of 19 to when when I got married in my early 30s and then I got married and that marriage ended after three years and age 36 I found myself single for the first time yeah as an adult yeah and as you say forced to confront myself as I really was rather than the performance I was putting on as someone's perfect partner yeah

yeah and I too had to confront that idea that people wouldn't like me. Yes. My ex wouldn't like me, his friends wouldn't like me because they wouldn't necessarily understand the decision or the motivation. And it's really traumatic, but I'm grateful for it now. Yes, yeah. It's hard. I never thought I'd get to a point and be able to say,

wow, that was actually good for me on a very deep level. But I think without that, you never really have to face yourself because you kind of lose yourself in a relationship. And it was wonderful. It was, you know, there were some incredible times. But like you said, it's very hard to explain to somebody when you don't even understand it. When you're like, I don't know what's happening. I just don't. There's a feeling and it's very instinctive. But when you don't really understand it, how do you explain? And you can see you're hurting somebody or you're disrupting something. It's not just you and that other person that invested in it. It's the whole family. It's the whole wedding. It's the whole thing.

And you feel like you've wasted people's time and you've wasted people's emotions. So taking on that on top of it. But to do do it it has to feel something that's coming from very deep and what advice would you give someone now listening going through something similar how did you get through the devastation of that what did i do i think honesty is a big thing it took me quite a while it took me quite a few actually, just to be honest with myself and to really say, you know what, I'm not fine, for one. And two, I need time to really take this all in. I mean, it's easier said than done because there's so many ways we can distract ourselves

and pretend. But I would just say, yeah, try and be as honest as you can and also feelings of guilt or shame all of these things you may be feeling them but try and separate it from the relationship you have with yourself because that's the thing you need to work on that's urgent for you to work on that and try and be as kind to yourself as possible and understand that these labels society have put around, they're great. And when they work, it's wonderful. But essentially, you've come into this world as a human being and with emotions, and you're the only one that truly knows your journey and

trust yourself, trust your feelings and trust that you deserve happiness and true happiness, not something that you may be either pretending or kind of trying to make work. Just try and be kind to yourself first. What is your relationship with your ex now? We're friends, I'd say. We haven't spoken for a while, but I randomly bumped into him last week. And it was lovely. It was really lovely to see him, and I think that spark and that kind of connection we used to have, it was lovely just to feel that we did have it, and it wasn't in our heads.

It wasn't a fantasy, but it's lovely to see that he's happy and he's doing what he loves, and me just about to release this album, I'm doing what I love, and I think when you're with someone from such a young age, perhaps you just need that time to grow and take time in isolation almost and really get to know yourself before you can kind of enter such a serious commitment to somebody else. I'm a firm believer in the idea that a relationship might fail to continue, but that doesn't mean that the relationship itself was a failure yes yeah i'd

agree with that everything has a time and a place in your life and the support we gave each other before we went to uni and through exams and as we were growing that was so essential and i've learned so much from him and hopefully some things i've been able to give to him. So, you know, I think we were so important in each other's initial growth. So that's why it's just so lovely to see him and reconnect because he was such an important person in my life. And we shared so much. I think to deny that is the wrong route to go down. It's hard when you go through these breakups. There's a lot of emotions and a lot of things go on.

But to kind of come back now as adults and in a calmer, more happier place, I felt grown. I felt like I'd grown up. What have your experiences, if there have been any, of falling in love subsequently been like? Because for me, I really questioned my own judgment for a really long time after that. I'd lost faith in my own judgment. Yeah, that happened to me as well. And not having that trust in yourself is quite scary because if you can't trust your own compass, then, you know, where are you going? You could be spinning around in circles.

I think it's also accepting that you might have to spin around in circles for a while. You're not going to find this deep new relationship all of a sudden. And until the storm is fully over and everything, it is going to be a bit of a trauma. There's going to be debris and there's going to be a bit of a mess and accepting that that's okay. And also feeling vulnerable enough to open up and share that kind of experience with somebody else and take down the guard. So I'm learning to do that and letting people in, just learning to trust again. It has been a challenge, but I think I'm making progress. How old are you now, Emily? I'm 32.

Oh, so young. So young. I don't want to make myself sound like a sort of ancient elder. Who is the most exciting famous person you've met since becoming famous yourself recently I met Sophie Turner which I was quite like well that's so cool because she's like probably one of the most famous people in the world right now I worked with Alicia Keys which and being a fan of her since I was a kid was really exciting I hung out with Stevie Wonder in his hotel room so and my parents were there as well my dad was teaching him Zambian words and so that was pretty mind-blowing and Jay-Z didn't you meet Jay-Z and get tongue-tied

I met Jay-Z and completely reverted back to like 10 year old me I was like oh he was like do you want to sit down no my manager was like do you want to sit down she was like coaching me what to do like stop acting weird and go and like chill out but my mum was amazing it was my parents first time in America and they came to New York and just happened to be in the office when Jay-Z walked in and my mum was making conversation making jokes about the plane so I've got to give it to my mum there she really held it together when I just crumbled and what do your parents make of your success? This Emily, well, I know your real name is Adele.

So this little Adele, 11-year-old singing in the shower, neighbours complaining that they could hear you. What do they make of it? Do they always expect this to happen? I mean, they must have seen quite a drive and focus in what I wanted to do. But I mean, it must be quite bizarre for them, especially because they've seen me quite a drive and focus in what I wanted to do but I mean it must be quite bizarre for them especially because they've seen me from a baby you know recently I've been filming a documentary up in Scotland so we've kind of been following my journey

while we're looking for buskers on the street they were interviewed and we went through all these old pictures and I don't know how it is for them. It must be really mind-blowing, to be honest. And my mum especially is very protective. She, to see me kind of go out there knowing there's going to be a thousand opinions on what I'm doing, I think she does worry about me. But I think now she sees that I've got my shit back together and she's just so lovely. She's the person that really got the boss rolling.

They bought me a piano for Christmas one time when I moved to Glasgow halls of residence I remember them dropping me off with the piano and my mum just said you know don't forget you're a musician we love you doing medicine it's fantastic but remember deep down you're a musician and I just I'm so thankful that she said that and I had that support and then she started sending CDs down to One Extra and she really believed in me and pushed for me. So I think they're very happy,

but probably, you know, pinching themselves as much as I am. And is your dad still the disciplinarian who tells you off? Kind of. I mean, my dad, now they've just become grandparents. So they're so like soft now. And I think he's definitely chilled out. But he'll still put his two pence in. And there's a song on the album he loves.

It's called Honest. So he's like, I think the album should be called Honest With Yourself. And I had to tell him, like, ten times, Dad, no, we're going with something else. They're lovely. And so much, they're just really chilled out now honest with yourself maybe for album four yeah perhaps yeah what a lovely note to end it on emily sanday thank you so much for being honest with yourself but honest with us it was such a

beautiful interview and i so honored that you came on this podcast thank you for having me if you enjoyed this episode of how to fail with elizabeth day i would so appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe apparently it helps other people know that we exist