Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Dua Lipa On: Radical Optimism, Falling On Stage, And “Writing Yourself Into A Good Idea”

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Talking creativity and sanity with one of the world’s biggest pop stars.British-Albanian singer-songwriter Dua Lipa emerged as a global pop sensation with her captivating blend of sultry vocals, empowering lyrics, and infectious beats. Born in London in 1995 to Albanian parents, Lipa's musical journey began at a young age, inspired by her father's own musical career. She hosts the podcast Dua Lipa: At Her Service, and her latest album is Radical Optimism. In this episode we talk about:What she means by radical optimism – and how it applied when she literally fell on stageHow she resists the temptation to fully armor herselfHer famous work ethic and packed schedule  Her non-negotiable daily practices, including meditationHer social media hygiene (specially, how to stay sane when nearly 80 million people follow you on Instagram alone)And we have a great conversation about creativity, including how she builds psychological safety with her team in studio and on tourWhy she had to write 97 songs to make this one albumAnd her concept of “writing herself into a good idea” – as she says, “You have to be shit to be good.” Related Episodes:Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, and Leaning into DiscomfortPema Chödrön, Renowned Buddhist Nun, On Her One Non-Negotiable Happiness StrategyThe Science of Hope | Jacqueline MattisHope Is a Skill | George MumfordDiscomfort: A Counterintuitive Source of Hope | Sebene SelassieSign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter hereFollow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTokTen Percent Happier online bookstoreSubscribe to our YouTube ChannelOur favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular EpisodesFull Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/dua-lipaAdditional Resources:Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/installSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, gang, here's a question. Can you maintain your optimism when everything is going wrong? When for example you fall on your ass Figuratively or literally in front of a large crowd of people? That is one of the many issues We're going to talk about today with Dua Lipa the multi Grammy winning singer songwriter Who's out with a new record called radical optimism?

We talk about what she means by radical optimism and how she applies it when she literally falls on stage, how she resists the temptation to fully armor herself given how much scrutiny she endures, her famous work ethic and packed schedule, her non-negotiable daily practices or daily-ish practices including meditation, her social media hygiene, specifically how she stays sane

with 80 million people following her on Instagram alone. We also have a great conversation about creativity, including how she builds psychological safety with her team in the studio and out on tour. In other words, how she makes everybody feel comfortable speaking up, even though she is definitely the boss and is also a panoramically famous person. Why she had to write 97 songs to make this one album, which only has 11 songs, and her concept of writing herself into a good idea. As she says, and I love this, you have to be shit in order to be good. Do a leapa right after this.

Have you ever felt like escaping to your own desert island? Well, that's exactly what Jane, Phil and their three kids did when they traded their English home for a tropical island they bought online. But paradise has its secrets, and family life is about to take a terrifying turn. You don't fire at people in that area without some kind of consequence. And he says, yes ma'am, he's dead.

There's pure cold-blooded terror running through me. From Wondery, I'm Alice Levine, and this is The Price of Paradise. The real-life story of an island dream that ends in kidnap, corruption and murder. Follow The Price of Paradise wherever you get your podcasts, or binge the entire season right now on Wondery+. I'm Afua Hush. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history.

This season we're exploring the life of Cleopatra. An iconic life full of romances, sieges and tragedy. But who was the real Cleopatra? It feels like her story has been told by others with their own agenda for centuries. But her legacy is enduring. And so we're going to dive into how her story has evolved all the way up to today.

I am so excited to talk about Cleopatra, Peter. Love Cleopatra. She is an icon. She's the most famous woman in antiquity. It's got to be up there with the most famous woman of all time. But I think there's a huge gap between how familiar people are with the idea of her compared to what they actually know about her life and character.

So for Pyramids, Cleopatra and Cleopatra's Nose. Follow Legacy Now wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can binge entire seasons early and ad-free on Wandery Plus. Hi, I'm Anna. And I'm Emily. And we're the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And we are really excited about our latest season because we are talking about someone very, very special.

You're so sweet. A fashion icon. Well, actually, just put this on. A beautiful woman. Your words, very special. You're so sweet. A fashion icon. Actually, just put this on. A beautiful woman. Your words, not mine. Someone who came out of Croydon and took the world by storm. Okay, Anna, don't tell them where I live.

A muse, a mother, and a supermodel who defined the 90s. I don't remember doing the last one. Wow, Emily, not you. Obviously, I mean Kate Moss. Oh, I always get us confused. Because you're both so small. How dare you. Obviously I mean Kate Moss. Oh I always get us confused. Because you're both so small. How dare you. We are going to dive back into Kate's 90s heyday

and her insatiable desire to say yes to absolutely everything life has to offer. The parties, the Hollywood heartthrobs, the rockstar bad boys. Have I said parties? You did mention the parties, but saying yes to excess comes at a price as Kate spirals out of control and risks losing everything she's worked for. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Dua Lipa, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks so much, Dan. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Excited to have you on. This is one of the only interviews I've ever done where my nine-year-old son thought I might be approaching coolness. That's very sweet. I think you're very cool already.

I don't think you needed me on the show to make you any cooler. Well, I appreciate that. Let me start with a very unoriginal question, but I'm genuinely curious. How did you get turned on to the concept of radical optimism? And why did you find it sufficiently appealing to name your whole record after it?

Radical optimism was a term that I got introduced to through a friend of mine. We were doing a conversation for his podcast called Are We On Air? And it was something that just really struck me. I was doing my last album tour. And even though it was such an incredible tour, it was 97 shows in the space of a year. So many changes had happened just in my work life, in my everyday, especially after coming out of the pandemic and going full throttle into performing around the world and experiencing different crowds,

and the ups and downs of touring and things arriving, not arriving on time, things falling over on stage, whatever it may be, it was like there was a lot of ups and downs in the midst of the tour itself. And so when radical optimism was said to me, it just really struck a chord of becoming adaptable no matter the situation and staying optimistic even when things don't go your way. And sometimes that can be like the hardest thing to do, is staying optimistic when everything feels like it's falling apart around you or you're in such shaky ground or you're just in a place of, I don't know,

sometimes I say like bad things come in threes, so it's never like one thing that goes wrong, but it tends to be a few at the same time. And it's just kind of staying focused and having a positive outcome throughout it that I felt I really, really resonated with. Do you think there's ever any constructive role for despair? I think it's important to feel every single emotion, whatever comes to us. But it's how you choose to walk through even like the despair and the upset and whatever negative things come your way. I'm not saying to shy away from it, I'm actually saying the contrary is go through it because

there is something positive at the end. You will always learn a lesson. You'll always come out of it stronger. You'll always look at it in hindsight. And hindsight I think is so important. Perspective is so important because so often, I think now, I always just kind of think about things in a way of like, oh, you know, in a month's time, I'm probably going to be feeling so much differently about this and this isn't going to feel as such a big deal. And so I try and put myself in the shoes of hindsight as I'm

in the middle of something really daunting or, you know, scary or negative or whatever. It's just like, okay, this is something that I have to get through. And I see that as being optimistic in itself. We did an interview on the show a couple months ago with a guy who, a researcher who's done some research on how well it can work if you write yourself a letter from the perspective of your future self. And it sounds actually like you're kind of doing a bootleg version of that. Yeah, it sounds like it. I mean, writing a letter from your future self, I think, is something that sounds really

appealing to me, something that I think I'd like to put into practice because, yeah, I love, I think it just makes me feel better when I'm like, okay, if it's bad now, it's going to get better. I'm going to look at this, you know, in a month's time and be like, right, I've grown for this, or this had to happen in order for this other thing to happen, whatever that may be. And so that's been encouraging throughout. I can imagine somebody listening to this and thinking,

well, what could go wrong? What could be bad in the life of a, you know, world famous pop star. How do you actually apply radical optimism in your life? What applies as difficult or, what is relevant in terms of being difficult or challenging? Things go wrong all the fucking time. You can swear as much as you want on this show, just to be clear.

Okay. Okay, cool. For a second I was like, oh no, maybe I'm not supposed to. No, no, no, no, you're supposed to. Yeah, I think things go wrong all the fucking time. Um, I mean, just, just in the lead up to like putting a song out and you go, you make a video or it doesn't happen or things get shelved or you feel like you have a song out and you go, you make a video or it doesn't happen or things get shelved or you feel like you have a whole plan and then all of a sudden something gets leaked

or it goes out the window and you have to reevaluate everything that's happening. You work on something for years and years and then you're about to put it out and somehow somewhere in transit it comes out, people hear it. It's not the way that you intended it to happen. Even when I put out my last record, I put it out in the hype, I guess not the hype at the very beginning of the pandemic, a moment where everything was so uncertain, where I'd made a record that was intended to be heard in clubs and out and made to make people dance. And I guess me like anyone else, I was like, maybe this will last a couple of weeks, a

month maybe. And my tour got postponed for two years. And I didn't even know if I was ever going to be able to tour it. I didn't really know what the new world was going to look like at that point. I didn't know what my career was going to look like, how my album would be heard or listened to. I'm just talking in a work sense, seeing as you asked, but it's those things where it's like the rug gets pulled out from under your feet.

You think you know what you're doing and all of a sudden you have to reevaluate and change everything. And that happens so often. Like, I remember even being on tour just before the Future Nostalgia Tour, and I had a creative director and they just kind of disappeared last minute. So I had to pick up the ball with my tour manager, Pete, who's now my creative director, and we just built everything together. And that was literally in rehearsals, about to go on stage like maybe two weeks or something.

And it's like, all right, let's build the creative. Let's change this up. Can we bring this in? Can we ship this in? How do we make this happen? Anything can happen really. And those are really nerve wracking moments because I'm like, I'm about to embark on this massive tour and things just aren't ready or people can let you down. People surprise you in a number of ways. People who you trust can also let you down. I think you have to just roll with the punches and be adaptable to any situation and be like, okay, this has hurt me. How do I move on from this? How do

I not let this close me up in a way? How do I still remain open-hearted even though I've been burned? And that to me is remaining, I guess, optimistic when things go wrong. Sorry if I was rambling. Not at all. This is a place where rambling is welcome. So don't worry about that. So you've had that experience where somebody

you really trust professionally or personally or both has burned you and you're trying not to allow that to make you kind of fully armored. Absolutely. I think you have to. Of course things are going to upset you and you're going to try and be guarded for a little while, but I think something that I think I like about myself is the fact that I can just remain open-hearted and I just tell myself the worst thing that can happen is they can let me down. They can let me down and I'll just have to pick everything up, back up from that point. And yeah, that is always hard, the refining yourself or picking things back up, but it always tends to be for the, for

the best. Sometimes people end up doing you a favor, you know, and, um, you have to just allow the universe to let people go out of your life. You know, people do fall away naturally. And although it's painful in the moment, it's more often than not for the best. I can imagine there would be a huge temptation to be guarded and armored and closed off in your position, given the amount of scrutiny you face. I mean, how exposed you are on such a wide level.

You face, I mean, how exposed you are on such a wide level. Yeah. And I, I think one thing that I've just kind of come to realize is I can't. Change what people think of me or what they're going to write about me, especially in like tabloids or untrue things, or, you know, for as long as I'm able to. or for as long as I'm able to make my music and tour. For those that are really interested to get to know me a bit better, to listen to different interviews or podcasts like this where they can, I don't know, maybe get a little bit more of a grasp of who I am, maybe that will allow who I am to shine through. There's nothing I can do about that. That's just kind of the price I pay for the job I do, unfortunately. But I'd never want

to stay guarded in the presence of that because then that would just make my life difficult. I think also it goes the same thing. It's like, if I start thinking in that air of paranoia, I probably wouldn't leave my house. What, because someone might take a photo or someone might wanna say something or someone, you know, whatever it is, those stop me from having a very human experience and that's not something that I wanna hide away from, you know?

Also, imagine it might be a problem as an artist to be somebody trying to create raw, meaningful, resonant music if you are spending huge chunks of your life, you know, in a state of paranoia. Yeah, I think so. I think also some people get a real kick out of the tortured artist kind of thing, you know, and the sense of paranoia fueling the art and the creativity, which is totally fine. But for me, I think I need space to breathe and to be and to live life and experience it in a different way.

And it's about the art of letting go. I think that is the crux of it all. Let me just go back to radical optimism for a second. And this may be what I'm about to say might be just complete bullshit, but based on my, you know, reading up on you to prepare for this interview, I mean, it's hard not to notice that your parents made a move that one could describe as a radical optimism of leaving a country that was in the middle of war and emigrating to London, which requires an enormous amount of internal strength, and

then going back to that country, and then you at age 15 convinced your parents to let you return to London on your own in order to pursue, I don't believe, I don't think you told them this, but your, I guess your agenda was to pursue ultimately a career in music. So every part of that narrative that I just gave a tiny bit of, one could imagine that requiring a kind of radical optimism. Am I stretching here? No, not at all. I think, you know, my upbringing really primed me for my job. I think also, I moved around so much as a kid, a kid, like you said, but I also tuned school and went from English to Albanian and back to English and had to make friends in so

many different circumstances. But I've also my whole life grown up watching my parents adapt to any circumstance that they were thrown into. I think that upbringing just really primed me for the way that I see things. I think I've just become an adaptable person throughout that no matter what comes my way, I'm ready for it. It's just, I don't know, kept me really grounded. Because I don't know, there's sometimes as a job can just be so mad. You're thrown into such crazy situations beyond my wildest dreams. And I have to pinch myself a lot and be like, wow, like I'm on this stage, or I'm doing this

show, or, you know, and still keep my wits about me. And I think, yeah, radical optimism kind of flows throughout all of those changes, all of those life changes and keeps me grounded. Did you really fall over on stage? Oh yeah, multiple times. I fell over actually twice in, once in Barcelona and once in Milan in exactly the same place actually. I slipped on

one of my dancers' sweat puddle twice, so then we ended up having to change the routine, the choreography at that point. But I really, I had really hurt myself, but I guess when I stood up the adrenaline just kept me going. I think also just the embarrassment that I felt in front of so many people. So I just kind of got up and carried on, which I guess is radical optimism in itself. It's just like, smile it off and just keep going. But yeah, it happened to me. It was also, I remember being in Detroit and I was going down, I had this thing which I was calling the toaster, but it's basically like an electrical lift that would take me from on top of the stage to underground so I could go and do a quick change of outfits. And the lift didn't go all the way down and I was in such a rush that I was coming out the door and I had smacked my head onto the stage and I was so like woozy in the midst but obviously I have like

a timer on how long I have to be back on stage so I quickly changed my outfit, run on stage, get up, start performing and then I like forget my words and I was just like panicking. I was like, oh shit, like I must have really hit my head really hard and the adrenaline just kept me going. Anyway, I carried on despite the fact that I'd forgotten my words to one of my songs. I then just continued and pretend, I mean, what can you do at that point? It's just like a panic in the moment and then I just pick it back up wherever I left off. But so many things can go wrong, so many unexpected things. You just don't know what happens. Every night is different. You can

preempt performance. You can do as much rehearsal as you want, but nothing prepares you for the real thing. And you just have to be okay with letting go of that and seeing it as the beauty of performing life in itself and allowing yourself to just free fall in the moment and surrendering to it. So wait, did you fire the sweaty dancer or just put this sweat danger further away from your choreographed path? No, of course I didn't. Of course I didn't fire the dancer. It's like, you know, it's inevitable for mishaps to happen, especially after doing shows back to back nonstop. And on the days that happened,

it was like the hottest month of the year and it's a high energy show. You just have to be adaptable, you know? You're like, all right, we're getting too sweaty now, so let's change it up. So yeah, for sure. You know, that's more the way to deal with it. No, imagine if I was like, okay, you sweat too much, we're done. Too much, we're done. Coming up, Dua Lipa talks about her work ethic and her schedule. She has a very intimate relationship with her diary slash calendar.

Her non-negotiables, including meditation, her social media hygiene, and her strategy of posting and ghosting. And then we talk about whether she's spiritual. I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford. And we're the presenters of British Scandal. And in our latest series, Hitler's Angel, we tell the story of scandalous beauty Diana Mosley, British aristocrat, Mitford sister, and fascist sympathizer. Like so many great British stories,

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But what about this practice of stoicism? Maybe you've heard that word bouncing around and I know you're thinking stoicism, ancient philosophy, who cares? Well, stoic philosophy is more relevant now than ever and it's a really powerful tool for helping us with the daily anxieties and problems of modern life. I'm Ryan Holiday, host of the Daily Stoic podcast, where every day I share lessons on how to live a better life through the ancient philosophy of Stoicism, a philosophy of kings and emperors, as well as ordinary people alike in Greece and in Rome. Stoicism is a philosophy designed to make us more resilient, happier, more virtuous

and wise. And like all important journeys, this is one that begins from within. Follow The Daily Stoic on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Daily Stoic early and ad free right now on Wondery Plus. It's Mental Health Awareness Month, and while meditation is good for your mental health, it can also be challenging, but the 10% Happier app makes starting meditation easy. Download the app for free wherever you get your apps.

In reading up on you, as I mentioned that I did last night, while listening to a bunch of, asking Alexa to shuffle a bunch of your songs, many of which I already knew from taking so many spin classes, et cetera, et cetera, where you are regularly played. I love to soundtrack a workout. Exactly.

So one of the things that keeps coming up in reading about you, and it really kind of comes through in this conversations thus far is your work ethic. Mark Ronson, the famous producer talked about how you're like the only big star he's ever worked with who shows up on time.

And if you're two minutes late, you text him and you have this incredible schedule. You're not only making music and performing it but you have a newsletter and your own podcast, and you're very active on social media. You're also commenting a lot on current events. So I'm just curious, you don't have to have that schedule. Why do you do it?

What's propelling you forward? What's it like to manage all of that? What's propelling you forward? What's it like to manage all of that? Well, I think I've made to-do lists and given myself a schedule since I was a kid, like before I even needed a schedule per se in that sense, and I was just going to school, but I just loved the idea of keeping busy or planning. Like I'm a big planner, I always love to just write down ideas and thoughts and dreams. And now, you know,

my schedule is so down to the minute and that's because I love to have time for myself as well. So I love to plan, you know, when I'm working, I'm working and I'm there to do that. And then I know how much time I have to go and see my friends and go out and go out for dinner and make plans and go away and explore and stay curious about the world. And I feel like I've been planting seeds my whole life in different ways about other stuff that I love to do and I feel lucky that like my hobbies have become my job. And you know, I have what I like to call a cultural concierge, which is with my newsletter, Service 95, where I get to commission

stories from all over the world and that keeps me learning about things that are happening and world and that keeps me learning about things that are happening and commenting, I guess, on current affairs is something that, I guess, comes as second nature to me given my upbringing, given things that I just feel very close to and passionate about, whether it's like the refugee situation or women's rights, like those aren't things that I think about. Those are just more natural feelings of stuff that I just want to talk about and express and use my platform to have, I don't know, an opinion and say something that I feel like benefits more people, you know? Somewhere where I can give a platform for voices that aren't being heard in the way that I believe that they should.

And then I have a book club because I just love to read and that's what I do to kind of get off screens and not check my phone and get away from this world and dive into another. And I don't know, I just, I love using up all the time that I have. I feel so lucky to get to do all these things. And so I like to make the most of it. And I also live a busy life and I travel a lot around the world working. And so I like to make time for the people around me and my friends and my family,

because that's really, really important to me. For the last 15 years, I've been lucky enough to have this amazing meditation teacher in my life. It's a guy named Joseph Goldstein. And he talks a lot about, and this is a big theme in Buddhism, and I guess I would consider myself a Buddhist, you know, paying attention or being mindful of your motivation. And Joseph talks a lot about how motivation is, in his view, a range. It's not usually one thing that's

motivating us, it's kind of a range of things. And so if I think about my, like you, I'm very busy. I'm using a term to describe myself that I'm not sure you would use, but I'm over scheduled, over-committed. And so I like to think about, so what's in the range of motivation for me? And I think at the positive end of the spectrum, it's curiosity and altruism, like a sense of service. And then in the middle, maybe it's fun and exciting.

And then toward the lower end of the range, maybe some fear or greed. I'm curious as you think about all of these things you're doing, what do you think are the pushing forces for you? I think the pushing forces for me, I think for one is like the love of it, the kick that it gets the kick that it gives me to be good at something

that I set my mind to. I think that kind of feeling of growing in my performances or as a songwriter, that really gives me validation that I'm getting to where I want to be or something that I've always envisioned myself. I also feel like that sense of service and being there to offer a space for different people to have interesting conversations, to use my platform, not just for my own gain, because that's just not so fun. I feel like I live a very dual life where I love attention when I'm on stage and I'm performing and I'm being

my more pop star self, I guess, but me and who I am at home is very different to that. And that's where the other things that I'm really passionate about come into play. And I think also the other thing is, is I also feel that if I don't work hard, I'm not going to be able to do the things that I love. I think working hard is just the number one. I also have a fear of the rug being pulled out from under my feet at any moment. So I want to make sure that I'm doing things that I'm really proud of and things that make me happy. And, you know, who knows what comes next or how long this will be. I'm hoping for a very long time.

I hope I can make music forever and put it out and travel the world. But I don't know that. So I'm just, I'm going to have fun. I'm going to enjoy every single moment for as long as I can. Yeah, I mean, to state the blazingly obvious, you work in such a fickle industry. I can imagine, you know, a sense of, you know, how long can this possibly last? Right.

Yeah, and I think it's, for as long as I'm doing things that I'm proud of and I'm making music where I feel like I that I'm proud of and I'm making music where I feel like I'm growing as an artist and I'm having fun and I'm seeing the rooms grow and I'm getting to perform around the world, I'm having the time of my life and I'm going to enjoy it to the fullest. I'm grateful that I also have so many other things that I also love to do and that music is a big part of my life, but it's not all of me.

And I have so many other things that I'm also really interested in. I just love being able to do lots of things at the same time. When I have well-known people on the show, I like to ask them about their like non-negotiables, the practices or ideas that are, you know, non-negotiably part of their schedule for keeping their shit together. So I'd be curious to hear what makes the list for you. I noticed in reading about you

that you're interested in meditation and that you had even posted a guided meditation on your podcast feed. So I just, let me start there. Is that, was that a passing thing or do you have an abiding interest in that? No, I really, I enjoy meditation a lot. I try and incorporate it in my day,

either every morning or every night, like before I start or as my day's ending. I have yoga practice as well, which also sends me into a meditative state because I think about nothing else apart from the practice in that moment and moving my body in a way that feels really nurturing. I think for me, it's having time for myself. Like I give a lot of time to my work. Most of my day revolves around my job, but it's just like important for me to have time for myself. That's definitely

a non-negotiable in my schedule overall. Like I will always have plans in the evening that I put in the diary that everyone on my team can see and that's a non-negotiable. That is time. That's for me. Or if I make a plan, I put not available and that's it, that's my time. And I think it's just kind of setting those boundaries where I work and I work really hard and then when it's my time off, it's my time off and I need that evening to myself or that's just, I'm not going to be as available as I am during the hours that I'm working. I'm fully aware that my job requires me to be on 24-7, which is why I need to set those boundaries to just have a little time for myself and make time for my loved ones. So that's where I head in non-negotiables. But I can be swayed.

That's the other thing. It's like if something comes up and it's like an amazing work opportunity, then I sacrifice the time that I've set aside for myself to go in and do the work and have this experience. I do do that. It's not like it's a be-all and end-all and I just won't do something important if it falls on a day where I had made plans to see my family. Everyone's super understanding of the work and its demand, so I do sway, but I think it's important for me and for my own mental health to know that I have this time to just relax and chill and not have to be on all the time. Sounds smart. Let me click on meditation just for a second, just because it is a particular obsession

of mine. I understand that you got turned on to it in a kind of moment, an anxious moment a couple of years ago. I'd just be curious to hear what flavors of meditation you've tried, what you find helpful, how you keep the habit up, any of that stuff. Yeah, I initially got turned to meditation. It was probably around November 2019. And I remember

that because it was a particularly just daunting time as I was releasing new music. And it's just, it's always nerve wracking when you're finally putting stuff out into the world and you're like, okay, everyone's going to have their opinion, everyone's going to say what they want. I had to take myself off Twitter and certain social medias and I was like, all right, I'm going to just practice mindfulness and meditation and just give myself that grace and that time to just zone out and be with my breath and try and take out any intrusive thoughts or anything that I think could be working against me at this time. And I really do guided meditation because it's really helpful for me to listen to someone else's voice or do it through music.

And that really works for me. And the way I keep it up is I put it in my diary and I make sure that I set specific time to do it. And therefore when I see it and it's there and I've set out the time for it, it's going to happen. More often than not, it happens, you know? And it keeps me organized. It keeps me in check. It keeps me... and it's important. You know, sometimes I have to put in time for myself into the schedule, but I get it and I do it and it's super, super helpful.

So that's, yeah, that's how it happens. With these repeated references to your diary, I think over here in the US we call it our calendar. I'm just picturing, what's the name of that movie with Reese Witherspoon where she's like the good student. Election? Election. She played this movie that came out a million years ago where she plays like the goody two shoes, like hyper organized borderline OCD.

I just picturing, I mean, I don't know you at all, but that's what keeps coming to mind. Tracy Flick, I think her name was. Any resonance for you in that character? Well, I haven't seen it, but I think just your brief description sounds on it. It's funny because I was never obsessed with school or anything in that sense. I love to learn things, but I love the idea of school much more now and

learning now that I get to do it on my own accord rather than like what I was told to do. But I've just always been organized. I loved setting things to time and planning and maybe it's an OCD of sorts, I don't know, but I get shit done. I just do. I make use of all the time that I have and it makes me feel accomplished at the end of the day when I'm like, right, I've done everything I have to do. And it's just a thing that my parents would always say, don't leave today's thing for tomorrow. Because things are just going

to pile up and it's so much better to just get things over and done with you finish it, you finish it once properly. You never want to do the same job twice either. So the first time you do it, do it properly. Don't be sloppy because you're always going to have to come back and finish it off. So those are just like life things that I like to live by. Uh, never do the same job twice and never leave today's thing for tomorrow. Those are really important things. And then I can have more time for myself.

How do you talk to yourself as you're doing all of this? Are you tough on yourself, relentless, self-lacerating, self-critical, or are you, you know, supportive and like a nice coach? I don't know. I just, I get up and I just do it. I don't really, I mean, I'm not superhuman, so I don't really beat myself up about things if really like time doesn't permit that I'm able to, you know, finish something off. It's the way that I like to live my life and get shit done today, so you don't have to do it tomorrow. So tomorrow you can have more time to hang out with your friends. It's the kind of thing that you do when you're a kid. It's like finish your homework so I can go outside and play.

That's the way I see it. I think I used to be harder on myself when I first started out, just whether it was like in a writing session or where I felt like I just had to prove myself or assert myself in different rooms. I think now I have more autonomy over the space that I work in. And I don't know, in that sense, I'm much, much gentler on myself. So yeah, I think now I'm in a good space. I'd be curious about your other non-negotiables.

I've heard you mention like spending time with your friends and family that that feels like an important thing for you. What else would make the list? Yeah, time to do my yoga. And yeah, I think just that kind of time for myself. I think everything else. I'm so, I love working. I really, I really do. I love being busy. I thrive on doing lots of different things. So as long as I have a good work life balance, then I'm happy. Like I never shy away from working too hard. I just love to have the other aspect of it as well. And yeah, because that's important. Like I have to put time into my relationships. And I wanna be there. I don't really like missing out on important dates. And I have to, my job doesn't always permit me

to be around as much as I would like to. And so I think it's just kind of figuring out the balance there. What's your social media hygiene like? You mentioned you're getting off of Twitter now, X, a while ago. You have the population of several small nations following you on Instagram. How do you stay engaged without driving yourself nuts based on every comment that comes over the transom?

Well, yeah, taking myself off Twitter was the greatest thing, or X now, is the greatest thing that I've ever done. I think there's just so much energy and negativity and a lot of voices, and I realized that what things were being said on Twitter wasn't a direct depiction of what was happening in the real world. You know, I would go for a walk in the park and someone would come up to me and just be really lovely about something. And I'm like, oh, maybe people don't feel a type of way about me or whatever, which is what I maybe thought from

what I was reading online on Twitter. And yeah, there's nice things, but I feel like the bad things kind of linger in your mind the longest. And so I was like, let me just take myself off it. And all of a sudden I was becoming more productive. I was feeling better about myself. I was working in a really efficient way. And that was just a complete 180 for me emotionally and in my work and everything. So I loved doing that. And then Instagram for me is fun. It's something that I've always had. I use it like a blog and I can just post, you know, pictures from my week and I just, I don't really think about it so much, but I also don't read the comments on there as much and I don't spend very much time on it. So I post and I ghost. And that just really works for me. I don't know.

I just figured it out in a way that allows me to be present, allows me to show a side of my life, my personal life, my work, to be able to connect with my fans, and then to dip out. And that feels good and healthy to me. Yes, that sounds right. I do wanna save a little bit of time to talk about the new record, but let me ask one last question. I'm curious, it's kind of related

to the meditation part of it. Do you consider yourself spiritual? Are you active in any specific faith? No, I'm not active in any specific faith, but I do think of myself as a spiritual person. I think I'm very drawn into, I don't know, astrology and like the beliefs of destiny and being at the right place at the right time and, you know, what's meant to be will be. I think I like to lead life with a spiritual sense and if you see the signs to not shy away from them and that kind of thing. I think it's important to have a

spirituality basis. I like to always think that things have a deeper meaning when they happen. And I think, I don't know, I kind of love the poetry and the beauty behind that. If you see the signs, don't shy away from them, what do you, can you give me an example of that? I think, I don't know, just in life, you meet someone and you feel like you're on the same page and whether that's creatively or romantically or in a work sensibility or just like, okay, that's a brainwave. Or sometimes I

feel like I see angel numbers everywhere, which is like I see the number 22 or 222 and I'm like, okay, I'm on the right path. I'm working towards something or everything is aligning and it feels right. And those things, I feel, I don't know, keep me positive. And I love to see the spirituality and the beauty in that. I also love the idea of crystals and healing powers and nature and grounding your feet into the earth and the power of that and embracing all of those aspects. Yeah, that's kind of how I see spirituality. I also feel like performing as a very spiritual experience and the energy that you get from, I don't know, a massive audience. I feel that. I also feel like if I go into any places of worship, I love to go to temples and churches. Even though I don't subscribe to a particular faith, I find all of those incredibly moving.

I feel energies in all of them. I love to visit them. I love to sit in and I love the idea of prayer. I think it's a beautiful send-off of energy, a form of manifestation, a mantra of some sort. All of those things I find incredibly moving. And so I like to do that. I'm hearing like some mix of intuition, you know, in following some gut feeling when you

meet somebody or encounter an idea and being open to that, and then also kind of a mysticism or curiosity interest in something that science has not yet validated. Definitely. I think there's, to me, I think it's beautiful to think of things being bigger than us, you know, whatever that may be. I'm a firm believer in energy and I love mysticism. And I think it's beautiful, you know, when I talk about places of worship, whether that's a temple, a church, a mosque, whatever it is, the collective idea that people come in and they're praying and they have their wishes and they're sending out their energy into whatever higher power they believe in. I think it's a special place to go to and pray, I guess.

This is a bit random, but you mentioned earlier having a book club and I'm reading a book right now that's just, I'm personally a bit of a hardened skeptic. My parents are scientists and I'm married to a scientist. But there's this book called Our Share of Night. Have you heard of this book? No, I haven't heard of it.

It's by an Argentine woman and it's about, it's technically a horror book. It's about a guy who can see and talk to and work with the dead and has all of these bad, but anyway, it is literature. It's not the normal type of thing that I would read. But anyway, it's just popping into my head as you're talking. That's interesting. I mean, I also think, I think some people are so in tune with that. I believe that for sure.

I think there are some people who can access another energy. I think they can feel things on people. I've worked with very powerful acupuncturists who just hit a nerve at a certain point and you have this whole release of energy or you just you know I think some people have it in them where they can I don't know I think energy is incredibly powerful and I firmly firmly believe that there are people who can tap into the unknown. Coming up, Dua Lipa talks about the process of creating her new album. Actually, I took notes during this. She had a lot of things to say about creativity and

how to run that process that landed for me, especially on the crucial role of talking to yourself in the right way. For more than two centuries, the White House has been the stage for some of the most dramatic scenes in American history. Inspired by the hit podcast American History Tellers, Wondery and William Morrow present the new book, The Hidden History of the White House. Each chapter will bring you inside the fierce power struggles, the world-altering decisions, and shocking scandals that have shaped our nation.

You'll be there when the very foundations of the White House are laid in 1792, and you'll watch as the British burn it down in 1814. Then you'll hear the intimate conversations between FDR and Winston Churchill as they make plans to defeat Nazi forces in 1941. And you'll be in the Situation Room when President Barack Obama approves the raid to bring down the most infamous terrorist in American history. Pre-order The Hidden History of the White House now in hardcover or digital editions wherever you get your books. I'm Shimon Liayi, and I have a new podcast called The Competition.

Every year, 50 high school senior girls compete in a massive scholarship competition. I wouldn't say I have an ego problem, but I'm extremely competitive. All of the competitors are used to being the best and the brightest, and they're all vying for a huge cash prize. This will probably be the most intense thing you've ever gone through in your life. I remember that feeling, because I was one of them. I lost. But now, I'm coming back as a judge, and also a kind of teen girl anthropologist.

Because if you want to understand what it's like to be a young woman in America today, the competition's not a bad place to start. Hopefully no one will die on station night. From Pineapple Street Studios and Wondry, this is the competition. Follow the competition on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to the competition early

and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus. Let's wrap up by talking a little bit about the new record. Congratulations by the way. Thank you. Thanks so much. As we record this, there are only three songs available, which I spent some time with.

And I'm quite a bit older than you and classic indie rock dad. And so I'm quite familiar with Tame Impala and Kevin Parker, who one of your creative partners. And I thought, and I could be wrong about this, and I'd be interested to hear whether I'm right. I thought I heard his fingerprints his kind of psych rock fingerprints on the song Houdini Am I am I right or wrong? Yeah, absolutely. I mean Kevin, uh, I worked with Kevin on all three so Houdini training season and illusion We actually did eight out of the 11 songs that are on the record. We did them together.

So there's a lot more where you can hear his fingerprints throughout. I absolutely loved working with Kevin. He's incredible. And we just, we had amazing creative chemistry and we worked together with Danny Hall and Tobias Gesso Jr. and Caroline Alen and there. Together we formed what we like to call our band and every day was very exciting to go into the room and just experiment and go into a more psychedelic, more organic dance exploration of all of our favorite things and we just had an absolute blast

doing it. It was so much fun. And just spending a year and a half with them in a room and just growing and learning and experimenting, it's just been one of the greatest experiences of my career. So I just, yeah, I've loved every moment. How do you manage the power dynamics in a room like that? You're the boss, but you also don't want to terrify the people working for you. How do you creatively, how do you make that flow? I think we just were very lucky to be in a room.

I think for me, the important thing is to be able to dictate the session in a way that I want it to, to get the best out of myself and be like, this is the story that I want to tell, this is what I want to write about today. Also allowing everyone to be themselves is so important. You want everyone to be completely expressive and be able to say what they think and to have their own opinions. And I think that's the healthiest thing in a creative room

is allowing everyone to be themselves. And everybody is so unique and has such wildly different personalities. And us all being able to let that out in that room kind of helped us make this record. Because I think all of us coming together and creating something completely unique to each of us was so much fun. And so yeah, that's the thing. Everyone had a voice and opinion and we all worked collectively together to try and make the best possible thing we could. But that is like from a management and that is what you're doing.

I mean, this is a work product and you are the boss. From a management standpoint, what you pulled off there over that year and a half is not easy. There's been a lot of research into this concept of psychological safety, which is the ability of the leader of the team to create an environment where everybody feels speaking, uh, feel safe to speak up no matter where they are on the hierarchy. You may be blissfully unaware of all of this, um, but you somehow it appears

managed to create that on your team. Well, I think I like to be able to, I create that throughout, not just in the studio, but with my band, with my dancers, with my life, my touring team, with my management, with everyone. I want everyone to be able to be able to express themselves. For me, that's the only way that I'm going to be able to grow as well as if I have honest people around me.

Like I don't want yes men whatsoever. And so I think allowing people and being very receptive to their ideas as well and understanding that I'm not the smartest person in the room and I'm here to learn as well and I'm just Equally as part of the team. I think that's what what maybe is is the driving force is I like to embed myself within the team rather than Sit on top of it. Hmm. Is it true that in typical overachiever fashion you wrote 97 songs for this record? Yeah, I wrote 97 songs. We wrote a lot of songs, but not all of them are good. You know, that's the

other thing, like I have to write myself into a good idea. So I have to keep writing. And that helps me get to where I want to be. It just pushes me and propels me into writing something that's actually worth other people hearing. I have to get through the shit ones first. I really liked, I'm writing that down actually, write yourself into a good idea, meaning you just, you start somewhere and just see where it goes and eventually by giving yourself permission to create something shitty, something good will emerge?

Yes, I think so. You have to let go of your inhibitions. You have to have that childlike freedom. You have to be shit to be good. You have to get through all those other ideas to then be able to also see when something's great and appreciate it in a different way. Yeah, you just have to be gentle with yourself and allow that free flow to happen. And I think that goes back to the thing where you asked me, who are you to yourself in a way, you know, what kind of person, or how do I speak to myself? And I think in that sense, that's where I really let loose the most. And it's like, hey, it's okay.

Like you have to just get through that. Like it's not the end. Like you're not going to suck forever. It gets better. And then you'll get to the good stuff. You're not going to suck forever. It gets better and then you'll get to the good stuff. You're not gonna suck forever. I am engaged in my own much less interesting creative work. I write books and that is the thought. I don't know if I would have been able to articulate it the way you just did, but that is the thought on days

when it's not working. You do feel like the magic is gone forever. Yeah. And you just have to be gentle with yourself. I used to be so much harder. And I'm like, all right, today the muse is tired. She didn't show up today. She, you know, because when I think about songs, they come from nowhere, you know?

And so you're, and it's the same, I guess, with writing books and stories and you're just plucking things out of thin air and some days it's going to be great and some days it's not. And you have to be gentle with yourself and be like, all right, today it's not working. I'm going to leave the desk or I'm going to leave the room. I'm going to go and do something else. I'm going to go and experience life. I'm going to go and do something fun and I'll come back tomorrow and just see where we're at." And a lot of time, that helps. I also love, like, you write something, you feel like you're going round and round in

circles on the same thing. And then you're like, okay, I don't even know if this is good anymore. So I leave it. I come back with fresh ears tomorrow. Fresh perspective is so enriching because you're like, okay, this is great. Also, you know, I like to play music to people whose opinion I really value. And then I hear it differently. The second I play, I don't even need them to say anything. I hear it critically differently, you know? And so that's really helpful as well. I think all those little things, it's just like, don't be hard on yourself. Like a creative process takes time

and just give yourself that grace. It's so important. Well, I know you well enough now to know about the sanctity of your diary. So I'm gonna be very careful about letting you get out of here on time. But let me ask my two final questions that I like to ask. One is, is there somewhere you were hoping to go that we didn't get to? Um, I don't know. I think it's again, it's like this, this was the this was the conversation that was supposed to happen. These are the things that we were supposed to express and talk about today and I think

that's good with me. Excellent. And then finally, can you just remind everybody of the name of your new record and anything else you want people to know about your podcast? Can you just go into self-promotion mode? Do you mind? Sure. So my new album is called Radical Optimism. And it's probably my most honest, free-flowing body of work where I wrote it kind of like

a diary where every day I went in and just kind of wrote about what happened the day before kind of. And I just let it evolve throughout. And it's the only body of work where I just kept going back and changing it because I think my perspective kept changing. Like a month later, I would hear the song and be like, actually, I don't feel that way. So I'm going to write some more and change it up until I felt like it was perfect in my eyes. And I'm very excited for everyone to hear it. And I'm very proud of it. I feel like I've grown so much

throughout the process of writing it. So I'm looking forward to everyone checking that out. And then the other side of me, the podcast me, the book club me, that I do through my company, Service 95, which is something that I'm really passionate about because that's kind of like the media side of my brain where I get to commission interesting stories from all over the world and stories that people wouldn't necessarily go looking for. And we do a newsletter which goes into your inbox. It's a free newsletter that goes into your inbox

every week and you can subscribe by going on service95.com or you can go on the website and all our newsletters are up on there and we do it weekly. And alongside that I do my podcast, which you can check out wherever you get your podcasts. I speak to really interesting people about their life and their experience and how they got to where they are and how they started. Every single story is so different and so inspiring. I've left every conversation really energized, whether it's with Brian Stevenson or Monica Lewinsky or Elton John or Pedro Almodovar or Greta Gerwig or Esther Perel. I've had such a wide

range of different guests that have just moved me and I've just learned so much. So that's something that I really love and enjoy. And I have a book club where I speak to different authors from all around the world about books that I've read of theirs that I've loved and just to dive in deeper into the stories that they've chosen to tell, which is something that I love doing. I do those monthly with the book of the month that we do on service 95 and those are just a few of the things that I love to do. Dua Lipa, it was great to talk to you. Thanks for making the time. Thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. This is great.

Thanks again to Dua Lipa. Go check out her new record. If you want to hear other well-known folks talk about their non-negotiables, we'll post some links in the show notes to my interviews with people like Bill Hader and Pema Chodron. We're also going to post some episodes on hope or radical optimism that we've done with people like Jacqueline Mattis, George Mumford, and Semenay Selassie. Don't forget to check out danharris.com if you want to sign up for my newsletter where I sum up the key learnings for me of the show each week and also make some cultural recommendations. Thanks to everybody who worked so hard to make this show a reality.

Our producers are Lauren Smith and Tara Anderson, and we get additional production support from Colin Lester Fleming, Isabelle Hibbard, Carolyn Keenan, and Wanbo Wu. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. Kevin O'Connell is our director of audio and post production. And DJ Cashmere is our managing producer. He and I got up at an ungodly hour in order to record this interview with Dua Lipa, who is over in London.

So thank you to DJ for that. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. If you like 10% happier, I hope you do. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Once upon a beat. Remember those stories and fables that would capture your imagination and you couldn't wait to see how they would unfold?

And now when you read them as an adult you think Some of these old tales could use a fresh spin We have a perfect podcast to bring you the stories you remember remix and reimagine For the kids in your life today join me DJ and my trusty turntable baby scratch as we spin up new tales in the new kids and family podcast Once Upon a Beat. Wondry and Tinkercast are bringing you a jam packed, music filled weekly party where hip hop and fables meet.

It's Once Upon a Beat. Follow Once Upon a Beat on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen to Once Upon a Beat early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or Wondry Kids Plus in Apple Podcast.