The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - E22: Sarah Bahbah - Addiction, Intuition, Success

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

In Chapter 2 of Season 2 of The Diary of a CEO I flew to LA to meet Sarah Bahbah, the 26 year old Palestinian-Australian Artist, Writer and Director. Sarah rose to fame after the release of her photography series ‘Sex and Takeout’ was spotted by...

Quick one, just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly, to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. Sarah Barber is the definition of an artist. I can't remember meeting someone who is so uniquely creative, so unapologetically ambitious, so deeply analytical of their own emotions, with such an inspiring and powerful backstory. I flew to her house in LA to chat to her, alone, in her front room, at her kitchen table, and she opened up to me about childhood sexual abuse she suffered, the power of her intuition,

a drug addiction she overcame, and much, much more. I think I fell in love with Sarah a little bit after this conversation, if I'm honest with you, and there's a reason I chose her to be the first guest on season two of The Dire of a CEO. She's real. Power powerful, yet vulnerable. And she's already a superstar in her own right. She's amassed millions of fans online through her artwork and through her LA-based content creation agency, Posse, the likes of Gucci, Condé Nast, Capitol Records,

and even Topshop have joined her movement. She hosts self-funded solo exhibitions internationally with tens of thousands in attendance and she's had her work displayed in major art exhibitions all around the world with celebrity admirers including Emma Watson, Katy Perry, Diplo, Sophia Bush, just to name a few. Her powerfully liberating message has caught fire amongst our generation. Her work speaks to love, pain, heartache, rejection and everything in between. Everything we've all felt. And how does she do it? Why her? What makes Sarah so special? How can a 26 year old Palestinian Australian artist reach so many people and achieve so much so quickly at such a young age. What happened?

What's driving her? Is it luck? You have to hear this. Without further ado, this is the Diary of a CEO season two. And I'm Stephen Bartlett. I hope nobody is listening. But if you are, then please keep this to yourself Sarah lovely to meet you first of all I just wanted to say thank you so much for the time today it's lovely to be here in LA with you and your wonderful artistic apartment um I didn't really expect anything less to be honest um so thank you first of all thank you for coming no worries um so you're um obviously incredibly artistic when I was saying to you before when I told the girls in our New York office that I was coming here there was

unmatched hysteria um and honestly they they literally went crazy in the office and um before today I'd seen some of your pieces across Instagram and some of your other work across the internet but it wasn't until I saw their level of hysteria that I realized how much of a big deal you are to a lot of people and that's me being completely honest and so you know with creatives and artists like yourself I always think and this is again might be a naive thing to say that there are things that have happened in your life that have made you view the world through a different perspective or become more self-aware or more curious what are those things in your life that you think led you to becoming who you're known for today that's a great question I think um you know I grew up in

Australia in Perth with all my family and And my background is Arabic. I'm Palestinian and Jordanian. And so I grew up in a very conservative home. And my mom was extremely Christian. She still is. And my dad was agnostic. So I had two conflicting views because one parent was telling me that I had to live with the fear of God in my heart. And the other one was just very chill. So, but very strict in terms of like the culture, um, the middle Eastern culture and what, what that meant. Um, so I grew up with a lot of restrictions, a lot of limitations and a lot of fear that I would essentially go to hell if I misbehaved. Um, and so with that, there was also things that was happening behind closed doors

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

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

And I didn't know why I had certain desires and why I was behaving a certain way and why I was constantly choosing to escape, not just through drugs, but through, you know, alcohol too. And through food, I had, I battled with eating disorders my entire life. And, and then through like impulsive decision-making, I had this weird thing with like first dates and how I would invite random strangers into my bed, but then I wouldn't have sex with them. And so I learned that that was me reenacting trauma. Um, so all these things that I was fighting, um, eventually led me to go and figure my shit out. And I took myself to the desert for 10 days and I went cold turkey on everything. Um, and when I was there, I essentially, I had reenacted, um, not reenacted, sorry. I had triggered my trauma brain because I was alone

in the desert, coming off drugs and waking up to a bed full of bedbugs. And so that triggered that lack of safety again, because my space had been invaded. And so my trauma brain was active the entire time I was away while I was coming off drugs. And then I started to remember my childhood in that state. And all these memories kind of came out and I was like freaking out because I was having these flashbacks of being like, Oh, I don't know how, I mean, it's a taboo, but I'm going to talk about it. Like I was being molested as a child. And I remember calling my sister and being like, is, well, what am I feeling? Like, why, why am I having these memories? And then, um, we, you know, we kept working on it

throughout the trip and yeah, I don't know. I went, um, I got back home and I decided to change everything in my life. And, you know, I went, like I said, I went cold turkey. I went, I started seeing a therapist full time. I started seeing a personal trainer full time. I moved houses because I was living with guys who were constantly around drugs. And then, yeah, I was able to uncover a lot about my trauma. And, you know, it was validated when I spoke to my parents.

And so all of this stuff came up and I realized that's, you know, that was a big part of my story that I was blocking out. And so when you see my art, you're seeing me before I realized my trauma and then after and you see there's like such a huge progression in the way that I tell my trauma and then after and you see there's like such a huge progression in the way that I tell my story it goes from being really innocent and youthful and like very coming of age to really like dark and depressing to then me owning my power and so there is growth in my art because my art is real to me and my art is my story and so you see me uncover me throughout my

art as you go on. And on that point of seeing a therapist full-time, do you still see a therapist now? I do. I only see her once every two weeks, though. But I was seeing her twice a week and then sometimes three times. And then over the years as we got, you know, I've been doing the self-work for two years now.

But the more we uncovered, the less I felt like I needed to see her. And now I'm in a really good place. But you still have to have someone you can check in with. And so I see her still like once every two weeks. And you're 26 now? Yeah. Incredibly young. I'm also 26.

I'm actually just talking to myself right now. What age were you when you started to really sort of take control and sort of ownership and understand the things that had happened previously, the impact that they had had on you and start to, I don't know if that's the right word to say, but like understand and therefore take a little bit more control over the impact they had had on your life. Yeah, I think I started doing I, Oh, I, I was, I started doing the self work two years

ago. So at 24, is that what you mean? And then, um, but prior to that, I was kind of, you know, when I think about my time on earth, I should say it's all very hazy. Um, I feel like I was kind of living in ignorance and oblivion. Um, and so it wasn't until I stopped to ask myself, Hey, why are you doing this? Or why, why do you think this way? Or why are you choosing to not focus on or spend time with yourself? And when I realized that I was like, okay, I got to figure this out because I don't think this is the way to live. And what kind of person are you in terms of like, you know, some people say that they're confident and they're motivated and ambitious and creative. If you had to describe yourself in a couple of words, who are you?

I feel like in a couple of words, I'm trying to think of the word. I'm maternal. I'm very protective over myself and people in my life. I'm pretty laid back. I try and really just go in terms of my personality I I don't necessarily like to label myself as anything I I like to just focus on being present and feeling um because feeling is something that I struggled with I was very apathetic growing up and so I like to just always try and be here and react based on feeling and as opposed to intellectualizing feeling because that's something I also did sure yeah is that yeah

no that's that's that's that's what I was that's kind of what I was asking do you would you consider yourself a confident person yeah do you think you've is that something you've had to work on or is it something you've always had or is it I think I've always had it I've been since I was little I was extremely competitive right and but I it was I was confident but I also loved to be alone and I'm like introverted extroverted like when I'm with the right people I'm like the loudest one at the table and then but then I need to be alone like 70% of my day I need to just be with myself and not really like give my energy to anyone how how does how is that because I'm the same yeah I feel like I feel like a lot of people are but I'm an extrovert and an introvert at the same time. I love being on my own with my laptop in a dark room. How has that impacted your ability to form relationships with people? quite talented and quite inspired and quite creative they're on one hand also a little bit

different you know and a little bit harder to understand so that sometimes makes it harder to form relationships with them if they're operating on a slightly different wavelength yeah have you had that problem with friendships and romantic partners and such I really um I just allow like my intuition to dictate who I want to connect with and who I don't. And like it's pretty, for me it's very easy to identify relationships that I know are going to be immediate and instant. And then other times if I don't feel a calling to you, I know not to exchange that energy. And so it really does come down to the way I'm feeling in the moment.

I can't really decipher it based on anything other than that. Um, and you, you are, you are an artist in many senses of the word. Um, I want to understand the full sort of spectrum of the art that you create. So could you, could you take me through that? Yeah, absolutely. So with my art, as I said previously it is me expressing myself and my story um so my art has is centered around me having repressed my emotions and being extremely apathetic to what I'm feeling to suddenly feeling everything at once. And it's when I'm feeling everything at once is when a story is about to be told. And so when I sit with myself, and it's usually during a breakup or a grievance or feeling like I've been misunderstood, or feeling like this huge desire to just be like, I have to like write, I have to tell my story. And

one after the other, these lines start coming out of my brain, like these one-liners. And I write them in my notes on my phone. And I could probably pull up like a random one from a while ago. Go for it, please. Just to give you an idea.

So I'm literally, I'm going into my notes right now. I would love to see the notes in your phone. I'd love to scroll to the bottom. People would literally think I'm insane. There's so much like, what the fuck is she talking about? Some of them are so deep and twisted, and then others are just sassy. And then, hang on, let me find a page. I even write raps, but we can go into that later.

In your selection process of showing me which note you're going to choose how are you deciding what to show me are you trying to find something that's like a middle ground people i'm just trying to find like one where i've got like 30 notes on it okay because they usually come like one after the other there's so many um no because that's not out yet so i can't share that um on the exclusive okay so this one um this one came like i wrote this in september and it was based on this guy that i was seeing telling me that he was also seeing someone else and i i was just like a little bit prick no it was okay because we weren't we weren't even seeing each other we just have like he's a big part of my like family community here and we'd always just end up in the cuddle puddle and make out and whatever you gotta explain what the cuddle

puddle is because if you think about what you've just said you don't give that context the cuddle puddle is um literally as you imagine it it is um a big giant sheepskin rug and there's a tempur-pedic mattress under it and there's like 20 30 pillows on top and then like it throws and it is the spot in my apartment where everyone congregates to cuddle yeah it looks does look very comfortable it's about 10 10 feet behind us um so and so I I there was the night he told me I'd had a few wines and so I just really needed to be able to check in with how I was feeling so these lines just started coming out and so this one I used in the dear love series with Noah Centineo and it's you've never seen me not want you are you ready now so I was like salty I was feeling like a little bit like um and then he texts me being like hey

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

That's just an example of me having been in the moment and asking myself, how am I feeling? Cause that's something I never did. And so instead of like waiting three months into a relationship, I was checking in with myself as it was happening because in the past I was not checking with myself at all. and then I'd sit down and suddenly I had like a burst and that's when you go through my notes and you'll see pages with like 30 different lines so yeah that process has really evolved for me but and how how important do you think it is for people to like keep track on how they feel because I because even doing this podcast some of these um episodes are

recorded alone at night so i record them alone at night three i'm in my in my house back in the uk yeah and i used to say it was like therapy for me because even the way that it used to work is i would record my diary all week and then at the end of the week i would share those diary notes and they were very deep personal things and upon you know getting it out, I would feel like I'd been through therapy or something. And I think it's so unbelievably important to, as you say, understand when things happen to you, how it's made you feel. And if you're able to have that conversation with yourself, you're almost able to control the behavior.

As opposed to reacting, you respond. Yeah, well, I think what we are taught to do or we're conditioned to do as humans living in this society is to constantly distract ourselves from the way we're feeling. And we do that through our phones, through binging on Netflix, through drinking, through drugs, through everything. We're constantly escaping. And whenever we feel a sense of anxiety or excitement or happiness,

we don't just sit with ourselves and we don't feel what we're feeling. We instantly run to our phones to tell people, or if it's sadness that we want to feel, instead of being like, hey, I'm here for you, I see you, inner child, we jump to Netflix to watch a drama or romance that's going to make us cry, which is also fine, but it's the process, and we skip a process. And instead of going from I'm feeling sad to watching a sad movie, it's I'm feeling sad, I'm going to be with myself,

and I'm going to feel what I'm going to feel, and I'm going to cry if I need to, and then I'm going to watch a Netflix show that makes me feel even sadder or helps me express. But we don't have that dependency on ourselves. We have that dependency with everything around us. And we seek validation through escaping as outer world and connect with ourselves to tap into how we're supposed to be feeling when we're feeling. Does that make sense? Makes perfect sense.

Yeah. And so with all that said, do you think the reason that you've been successful with your art and it's reached so many people is because you've gone on that journey of understanding yourself you're clearly very good at the expression part of that understanding which some people aren't some people might be able to understand why they're feeling what they're feeling but they can't express it in an artistic way which then um in your case has resonated with huge amount of people and really your understanding of you has helped other people understand them and what they're feeling it's kind of encapsulated a feeling and allowed them the kind of the canvas of their own like self expression if that makes sense yeah for sure so I think with all of the series that you see on on my side and in galleries and whatnot I think um they've all come from me having been able to trust in my intuition that the time to tell my story is now.

And so, you know, when these series come about, it's usually within 24 to 48 hours. Really? Yes. Are you feeling something? Of me being like, I've got to tell my story now. It's like, I can't sleep. I've got to get it done. I call everyone I know.

With every single series I've done, it's been a 24, 48-hour process. Noah Centineo, the last shoot I did, Dear Love, we met on the Friday for coffee. He was like, let's shoot Sunday. I'm like, okay, we're shooting Sunday. And then on Monday, I edited the photos. On Tuesday, we had a preview party. And then on Wednesday, they were out online. So that was like the turnaround is so fast.

Why? It's because I can't explain it beyond the universe just giving me a kick up the butt. And it's like, do it now or it's not going to happen. And so it's just you trusting your intuition and being like, I've got to get it done. And you'll be rewarded after that. So I think in me trusting, to answer your question now, in me trusting my intuition to create and then to express myself publicly is me giving myself voice that I never had. because the process is so personal and it's so real to me in a society where we are conditioned to manipulate our image to seem like it's perfection and especially on Instagram like you see so much content that's so curated and so it's not really real to the person it's an

it's an ideal of who they want to be and how they want to portray themselves. But when you see my work, you're seeing me and me healing from my trauma and me giving myself a voice. And the voice that people are too afraid to give themselves. And so I think that's why people stop and pay attention because they're like, I feel that way too. And most of the time people are like, I see me in your work or this is so me. So in me helping myself heal, I'm helping others to heal too. I'm giving them words that they otherwise can't come up with. And I think that's what, what makes people stop and focus. And is that, is that the part that gives you your fulfillment is knowing that you're helping

other people heal or is that more selfish? Honestly, I think it's more selfish I think um my process is so personal and you know in me creating I'm healing and then yeah it's like when I put it out there it's me giving myself a voice and if that's empowering others that's you know that is a fucking blessing I'm so I'm so happy that I can do that but I imagine that was never your intention right and your intention was much more pure and selfish and it just so happens that because your intention was so pure so real and so honest you didn't start to try and make a bucket load of money right that's why it's been able to really connect

with people and often that seems to be the case with art when it's created from like a real place you know yeah I you know to my intention was never about money for me it was expressing my story and the fact that I've been able to monetize is like it's another blessing like I'm really grateful for that so you talk about um intuition a lot and how that's guided so much of your like decision making generally seems to be a very you know common word in your vocabulary yeah how does one tune into my intuition um I think it goes back to what I was saying about choosing to be with yourself instead of choosing to be with your surroundings. And I mean, that's fine too, sorry, but it's more like to tap into your intuition, you have to have a sense of your being

and you have to know to distinguish your ego from your body, from your soul, because the three entities are completely different. And then some will argue that emotion is its own entity. And I haven't quite figured out where I stand with that because I feel like you can react emotionally through body and you can react emotionally through soul and emotionally through mind. So I feel like emotion is like the umbrella and then everything falls under that. But in order to tap into your intuition, it's

spending time with yourself and breathing and breathing through your being and essentially meditating. But people are scared of the word meditation for some reason. I feel like people think it's a lot of work and it's like too spiritual. But really, all meditation is grounding yourself and being like, I am here with me. I'm not here with Netflix, I am here with me. I'm not here with Netflix. I'm here with me. I keep using Netflix as a reference because that's my biggest game. I watch so much TV.

But it's about removing everything around you and just being like, hey, how are you? How do you meditate? By doing that it's the day I just lay on my couch and I breathe into my belly and I'm just like hey how are you like what are you feeling right now and you talk to like an internal dialogue yeah it's just it's honestly just me hanging out with me and it's my mind hanging out with myself and those two are having a conversation. One of the things that fascinates me is you've grown a huge following on Instagram very, very quickly. It would seem right from an outsider's perspective.

That's always the way it seems to success. It appears to be very quick, but you're also very self-made. You don't have huge investment backing as far as I'm aware. You fund your own galleries you you fund your own galleries you fund your own shows and things like that can can you talk me through the the journey you've gone on from like creating your first piece of art to um where you are now was there a moment where you blew up was there an a break you got or something where was the moment where you you felt that you you you know this is really working this is kind of working out or this is exceeding my expectations yeah I have a good one mine was like a big breakthrough um so sex and take out was my first viral series um it is

a series I created to capture indulgent moments within yourself and with your partner if you have one um and I wanted to be able to empower women to feel comfortable in these ideas of eating what you want when you want without feeling shame or guilt because that's the conditioning society gave us um so when I was shooting this series it was about two weeks of me being like, oh my God, how has no one done this? How has no one done this? This is so genius. I just gathered everyone in my neighborhood. Like I asked friends of friends if they would just model for me. And I was like, look, like I need you to sign a release form and I never had anyone sign release forms before and I was just like it's going to go viral it's going to appear on this

and this and this I just have a feeling and they're like yeah fuck yeah and so like we all I shot all of it I think it was about 20 different or 15 to 20 different um final pieces and I shot all of it within two weeks and then then I put it, I did an exclusive online with this publication and I think we released it in October, 2014 and it picked up momentum, but it didn't go as crazy as I thought it was. I would. And I was like, Hmm, this is interesting. I'm just going to be patient. I'm going to be patient. And I was with my, my ex at the time we were together for almost a year. And, um, it was almost like the universe was waiting for me to break up with him before I blew up the fucking internet. And, um, so I break up with him in December. And in January, I planted an article on BuzzFeed, just one random night.

It was like Tuesday night or something. I planted an article on BuzzFeed community where it's like you contribute your own post. And I just like set it up like a BuzzFeed article because my background was in social media strategy. So I knew exactly how to do it. And, you know know I was like this is sex and take out blah blah blah and I went to bed and I don't know what possessed me to do it that night because I'd been putting doing it up like for two months but that night I decided to

do it and I went to bed and I woke up I'm not kidding I woke up to like thousands really thousands of emails notifications like 50,000 new followers in 24 hours. And I'm like, what is happening? Like, what is actually happening to have that? And so I quickly jump on Facebook and all my friends are tagging me in Elite Daily because they were the first to do the post. So they found it on BuzzFeed Communityfeed community took it and then they were like the ones that made it viral so elite daily did it first and then i was just like that was the source as far as i'm aware and then every other publication that existed did something too

there was juxtaposed there was days there was um huffington post and Israeli Times like everywhere and I'm just like what is happening and um and so after that I got picked up by a gallery um we started exhibiting the works in internationally so within um America UK and even like Israel um and and then, I guess that's how my art career started to fall. And how long ago was that? That was 2014. Oh, so 15, 2015 was January, 2015 was when it went viral and the week it went viral. And this is just like a fun little sugar coating, but I ran into my ex. Really?

Did you tell him to fuck off? Well, he chased me out of the venue and I was just like fuck you I don't like I don't need you anymore he was just the most toxic human so it was like my kind of revenge knowing that and that's so salty of me but I was young at the time so I was just loving the idea that he was seeing me everywhere that week yeah oh it's so good but on that point um something that I hear a lot with people that have success in their own disciplines is that they got lucky right yeah and um people have said this to me I I actually responded to a comment on Instagram yesterday because I hate that like that I know luck is a factor right but I had this guy commented something about oh well

some of my friends they just get a lucky break and then they're you know really successful and and they're almost trying to kind of like demean everyone's or like push down everyone's hard work by just passing it off as luck but also making an excuse for why they aren't there yeah that's projection though yeah so have you ever has anyone ever said that to you and what's your what's what role do you think luck has played in actually before I I'm going to tell you my my um idea of luck in your situation there right so one of the one of the things where I got really lucky I was up really late at night and I signed up to a website it reminds me of what you've just said then sign up to a website when I was 18 years old and I uploaded my details at about 3am

in the morning and then I went to bed and then two days later it just so happened this entrepreneur had dropped out this 17 year old entrepreneur they needed someone else so they went onto that website to find someone found me emailed me brought me to London when I was 18 and I spoke in front of all of these people I got three investors and my business really took off but I was up at 3am.m. signing up to websites when the people who say luck is, oh, luck, luck, luck, whatever, they were all asleep. And in the same way, you were on BuzzFeed uploading your work.

It was probably 3 a.m. too. Probably, yeah, exactly. And everyone else was asleep. So people will look at you and say, oh, well, it was that BuzzFeed Elite Daily article that made you lucky. But really, it was like no one else was uploading their stuff to Buzzfeed. No. You know,

so. Well, I honestly, I don't think it's, I personally don't think luck exists. Um, I think people who call it luck don't know what hard work is. And the unit,

like I'm going to just keep referring to the universe, but it's also energy. So let's just say I dedicated two weeks curating 20 shoots in October. I then strategize the release. And then I went online two months later because it wasn't going where I wanted it to go. And I strategized again and then it took off, but that was four months, a four month process, October, November, December, January, where I was

hustling and I was trying to make this work and I was trying to break through the internet. That's hard work. That's not luck. That's energy. You've pushing all your energy into believing this idea is real and then getting it done which is the hardest part it's the doing it that's hard like having an idea and then executing it is where most people don't they don't even get to that point there's so much resistance i'm reading the war of art right now i And it's all about that. It's about breaking through the resistance and the self-talk and the doubt doing that alone is like consuming. And that is fucking hard. And so when you do that and you believe in something and then you get it done and, and then you keep strategizing and pushing it and pushing it until it becomes what you envisioned.

Like that's work. That's not luck. I really don't believe it's luck at all. It's one of those things that really pisses me off. Yeah. I'm just like, people don't go to bed and wake up billionaire. That's not how it happens. Like I've been doing this for 10 fucking years, you know?

And the same way you've been fucking working, we all are working. This ideal that we wake up successful doesn't exist and that surely that's because the majority of people right because of the nature of your growth and your notoriety they've only seen somewhere near the end yeah right so the majority of people didn't see the other 10 years because the other you know going back to year one of your you, you being an artist wasn't that interesting. And you probably weren't that good, to be honest, in many senses of the world. So I think that's, and that's also, I think, one of the downfalls of social media in many respects is you tend to see the highlight reel, but also a successful person.

You just, they come into the public eye at the end. And I will always remember watching this video of Justin Bieber, because I, you you know I was probably 18 and a bit salty that Justin Bieber was killing it you know and I saw this video of him on YouTube and he was about eight years old and he sat in the on these stairs in Canada with a little hat in front of him asking people to put dollars into it while he's singing his heart out and like from that moment onwards it changed my whole perspective of envy and successful people because Justin Bieber's someone that I thought got lucky you know he did a little song and dance in front of Usher became a global superstar but he was learning he learned every instrument at the age of like 80 years old and then went out on the streets and started playing his guitar when I

was probably at home playing with like Action man or Lego and so yeah um I always think there's a bigger story and I try not to judge now yeah of course what's um what's something that you're really really bad at something I'm really bad at um that shouldn't I'm singing singing can we can we can we hear your thing no I. You know, it's so weird. Some days I wake up and I have a singing voice and other days I cannot sing in pitch whatsoever. I mean, every day I think I have a singing voice, but then it's other people tell me I don't.

It's weird, yeah. I bet you can sing, can't you? Not. See, you can. Well, I just don't. I've heard terrible singing. I'm not a terrible singer. I'm just not a great singer.

Well, you sing now. No. It's worth a try. I didn't think you would. What else am I bad at? This shouldn't be a hard question. I'm sure there's a lot of things. I just don't like to focus on the negatives.

I mean, I'm unorganized. I can be a little bit selfish you know most of my life has been pretty much about me yeah those kinds of things I think honestly I really try I'm a perfectionist in a lot of ways um with my relationships with my work with even the way I communicate with myself and the way sure there's a lot of control there so I think I'm bad at letting go of control interesting yeah I imagine that is um that has a lot of negative impacts on a lot of things in your life uh it's it's actually just very it's between myself with oh it's you oh okay so it's an internal thing okay very, it's between myself. Oh, it's you. Oh, okay. So it's an internal thing.

Okay. Yeah. So it's not like you're controlling in a relationship. I don't, I don't, no one looks at me and thinks I'm controlling. It's just something I've, I know I am personally and privately and quietly. I just like to, I like to control the amount of energy I exchange with people. I like to control my space um I like to control the way I organize things and like um you are organized yeah this is just my we're looking

at my personal projects board and I have posted notes for the different personal projects that I want to complete so this is completely separate to my commercial work. Are you a procrastinator? Typically, no. Wow. But the past three months, I have been struggling to complete a project that I know is going to be successful. And it's only because it's the first time I'm doing this which is writing a tv show oh wow yeah is that it can you tell us more I can tell you it's based on my alter ego okay what's

your alter ego are you able to tell us what your alter ego is um I can tell you that there are moments where I'll be sitting in a room and I want to burst out and do something. And then I just have too much fear to do it. And so this is the alternative me. But through a very strong concept, which I cannot talk about. Sure. Yeah. Interesting.

When will we be able to see? Well, my goal is to have it done before my 27th birthday, which is a month away. So I'm not writing the entire script. I'm writing the treatment and hopefully shooting the sizzle next month. Do you have, as like an entrepreneur and an artist, do you have a long-term goal? Is there a place you'll get to where you think, or are you there now where you just think everything is perfect? I've done everything I need to, you know, need to do. I've achieved everything I've needed to achieve. Is there like a finish line for you at all? Well, I believe that

everything should have an end goal and I don't want to be doing the same thing for my entire life. So, you know, there's a few more stories I want to tell through my current way of expressing, which is the subtitles and photos. They involve, you know, shooting more women of color representing, you know, my culture in the Middle East and talking more to the taboos around child sexual abuse. And I've already tapped into it, all of it. But I want to push and I want to go deeper and darker based on my process and my journey to overcoming a lot of the things about myself. Um, so there's that. And then, you know, beyond that, I don't see the photography element being the thing

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

but I know I, there's so much, there's so much skill there that I want to, these one liners are songs. They all can easily become songs. And so I want to be able to create a book, which I'll take to a publication. I'm sorry, publishers and just be like here, put me in a studio with this person. Let's go. And I'm talking like, I want to work for Rihanna and Nicki Minaj and Lana Del Rey, not Kanye. You don't like it? Oh my God, I wrote the best fucking rap the other day. Can I hear it?

No, because it's so good. I have to save it because I am already manifesting. I'm going to be in rooms with these people. That to me doesn't sound crazy. Like I know I can do it. And so it's just a matter of process and time. But then I also have designed my future home. And I want to win like fucking awards for it because it's so unique.

But I'm not an architecture. You're an artist. Yeah, but I think creativity shouldn't be limited to just one thing. And we should aim to have end goals so we can't be limited to just one thing. And we should aim to have end goals so we can push ourselves to do the next thing. And that's where I'm at. So I want to do so many things. Someone that you said you've been through a lot of stuff, especially in your early years.

Usually, and this again is probably a bit of a sweeping statement, but those things not that I would know like I can't pretend to know but would might knock someone's confidence or at least their own belief in themselves and what you've just said there is you know I know I can do it you are someone that's so that has been through so much but for some um somehow has also is also held on to their belief in themselves if that makes sense almost like a pretty and this is not an offensive thing because i feel the same way about me but like almost like a delusional perspective like the world would tell you you shouldn't believe be able to you shouldn't believe that you'll be in a room with rihanna and you'll win awards for your own house but there is zero doubt i have zero doubt that you believe that where where where does that do you know where that self-belief comes from i think think self-belief is one of the, because, you know, it leads to like that self-doubt,

which then fosters regret, is one of the things that most people that message me, that want to do great things, are missing. It's that, you talked about execution and idea. That's the thing for me that sometimes takes you from the idea to the execution phase. Where has that self-belief come from in you? And what's your like, do you believe in your, you know? Okay. My self-belief has come from, and we keep talking about it, but it is intuition. And it's me having everything that has happened to me in my life up until right now,

I have foreseen for myself. And whether it's delusional to the state of believing or if it's actual manifestation and manifestation is real or if it's I have access to fucking future realms which I don't know if I do like all I know is that I've always known what I've had to do and when I moved from Perth to Melbourne that happened in a week I'm like I have to go now I'll see you guys later and I moved to Melbourne and then when I moved to LA I don't even know why I need to move to LA. I just know I have to be there. I moved to LA. Sex and Takeout. I don't know why I have to shoot this series. I just know it's going to go viral. Let's shoot it. Every other caption series, everything. It's just trusting that I'm supposed to be doing it, not knowing why. And the thing that stops people, the resistance comes from not trusting the uncertainty,

but we have to trust it. We have to trust that we don't know what's going to happen to us. But if there's an inkling in you that's telling you to do it, you do it. Like you trust that. You don't trust the negative self-talk. You trust that little thing

that made you like excited for a minute, because that's real. And that is the universe communicating with you. That is energy communicating with you that you have to do the work what if i fail if you fail you start again you do it but i just i don't know because i i can't say i have with any of these projects and is that luck i'm doing quotes i don't i it's i really can't explain it it's just trusting and i i mean i have failed with other projects but then i always almost knew that they weren't going to be as successful because there was like a resistance greater than i was aware of you know i guess it also depends yeah you just keep going because series that didn't take off the way i thought they would

i delayed them and i took like years to actually put them on the internet why did i take years to put them on the internet because i didn't really believe in it so it's like you have to believe in the concept and it has to and what makes a successful concept uniqueness and relatability bring those two together something that's unique and something that's relatable, you have a successful concept. Has it been done? No. Is it relatable?

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

but they create these ideas and they are 100%. They're like, ah, this is it. And I see it and I think, no. And then they put it out into the world and it misses. So what is it that's making you hit? And I guess in your mind, it's from your perspective, it's you're more connected to yourself. I think you have an heightened sense of people and self-awareness.

Like you're probably very good at understanding people because you're probably quite good at understanding yourself, maybe. Yeah. is that fair yeah I think that's fair I think um yeah it's when people have bad ideas and they believe it's good I say good on them because they're still committing to something they believe in and if it ends up failing that's gonna that's that's on them to deal with that and then to make sure they know that they can carry on with something else. It's just the not giving up part.

And it's the energy we invest into something we believe in. What's something in the next couple of years or the next 10 years that you really want to do, something you really want to accomplish? We talked about the House Awards. Are you going to be a rapper slash ghostwriter?writer i'll be a ghostwriter i won't be a rapper ever i can't actually rap i just know how to write them i when i when i googled you earlier i struggled to find photos of you and then when we walked in here lauren said oh can i can we

take a photo and you're a little bit shy about that yeah why is that um i why couldn't i find loads of photos of you on the internet I don't know it's not even like intentional I just don't I like to express through I like to control the energy that I'm trying to express in my stories so I don't shoot me I shoot other people because I'm able to see it but if it was the other way around I couldn't do it justice so um are you scared of anything am I scared of anything yeah what are the things that you do you worry about what are the things I worry about I worry about my safety that's conditioning um sure I worry about but I don't think that's why I don't put

there are photos of me yeah this is this is just a different I went off in a different direction the two aren't connected no I I mean I've I struggle I've struggled with anxiety my entire life so it's conditioning based on sorry it's a coping mechanism based on my trauma as a child. And so I uncontrollably have anxiety. And that comes from not feeling safe. And not feeling safe triggers fight or flight mode. And so I have panic attacks. I used to have them daily.

Now I've reduced it based on the work that I've been doing. I've reduced it to like once every two weeks. And it went from being like level nine my entire life to being like two now, which is incredible. And I feel like I will eventually be able to eradicate it completely. But it's not about getting rid of it. It's about checking in with yourself. And instead of numbing yourself to your anxiety,

it's meditating and breathing into your belly and being like, hey, I'm here with you. Like, I'm here. Let's calm down. I was going to ask because I feel like there'd be people listening now that would want to know how you managed to bring it down. Well, anxiety is a coping mechanism. It comes from something. that would want to know how you managed to bring it down? Well, anxiety is a coping mechanism. It comes from something.

It comes from not feeling like you were protected, whether it was you fell as a child and you were crying for hours and no one heard you or whether it was you were sexually abused or, you know, it's being unheard and being unprotected. And that's where anxiety stems from. So the second you know where it's coming from and why you have it is the moment you can then dive deeper and, you know, use your adult self to heal your inner child. And the inner child is the one that's screaming at you when you have anxiety. And so it's up to your adult self to help your inner child through it. Well, the last person I interviewed on this podcast is a guy called Johan Hari.

He wrote a book called Lost Connections. Okay, no, I haven't. The subtitle of the book is Uncovering the Real Cures of Depression and Anxiety. And he talks about a lot of things in there. But one of the things he says is that these kinds of issues anxiety and depression are increasing in our in our generation like millennials and and younger um i've always wondered the impact that social media has had on that and is it a causal factor of the increase

do you think it is i absolutely think it is i like I said, it's a tool to escape. So if you are feeling some kind of way, if you're feeling sad or anxious or unhappy or depressed, and instead of being with yourself, you're being on your phone and then you're seeing all of these people who are happy and excited and, you know, dressed amazing and face-treating their bodies, and on vacation in the Bahamas. What that does to you when you're feeling that way, and you're using that to escape, it's devalidating what you're feeling. It's saying that what you're feeling doesn't matter,

and what you're seeing is the only thing that matters. So I think it's making it a thousand times worse. Have you brought social media into your art in various ways? I mean, I use social media as the platform to share my story. But having it actually as part of the storylines within, is that ever something you've considered? No, but the themes are all very relative so they're very they the themes are very open to interpretation so if you're reading something

it could very well come back to social media yeah if i if you became the the ceo of instagram and facebook right yeah what would you do oh my god god, great question She's pulling out a big binder This is my document, I get it I've been thinking about this a lot lately Instagram and Facebook have essentially given everyone indirect permission to plagiarize and breach copyright of intellectual property.

So what needs to happen is we need to take a huge step back or essentially forward and create a system within the platforms to, what is the word, to essentially create the source of original content, content ID. Yeah. That's what they call it. Yeah. And like at the moment when someone shares your, because,

okay, firstly, people aren't aware of this and they need to be aware. Years ago, there was this huge viral outbreak that once something's on Instagram, it's owned by Instagram, but that's not true. In the guidelines, in the bylaws or whatever, it states very clearly that if you are the owner of

the content, you own it. And anyone who wants to use your content needs to seek permission first. And this idea of crediting isn't the correct way to do it. You actually have to seek permission first. So literally 90, no, I'm going to say a hundred percent of Instagram users are breaching copyright and has Instagram made it easy to report? Absolutely not. You can't even do it through your phone. And to prove that you are the original content person is like, that is even harder to do. So it's just like, why isn't there a system in place where you can, who needs to make this technology where if something isn't the original source and you report it, it's taken down immediately and it's like an ABC process. It's not like A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K.

It's like one, two, and it's gone. And I think there needs to be a software implemented into the app where it can immediately find the source. And then anything else that isn't the source gets removed. And so I think that will change the way we use the platform too. And that will bring artists more eyes and more success because their content is now labeled as theirs as opposed to the internet's. And something that I've had to deal with for the past, since Sex and Takeout, that's when it really started happening um is thousands and thousands and thousands of accounts just using my work and then brands seeing it and brands not knowing that it's it came from me and so they start copying it and i'm not just talking like little local brands local brands do it all the time i'm talking like the major a-league brands doing my idea

and getting other photographers and artists to do it, even though it's mine. And that wouldn't have happened if they knew where the source came from. And so it's just, yeah, I feel it. And that this isn't just on behalf of me, it's on behalf of artists everywhere. I can imagine. Yeah. Because if you think about the sort of like net loss of that,'s pretty tremendous yeah facebook and in an instagram are working on something well they have content id but it's it doesn't work in the way that you've described it's incredibly good at identifying like music and video at the moment but i've not heard it be at all useful for well i feel like um like visual artists are the ones who we aren't on anyone's radar yet um i think we're the ones

that are suffering the most in terms of the plagiarism um with music it is you know they have all the software to do that with yeah what other artists videos videos too um but with photography yeah and how do you even define ip like because you can create something and then someone can create something similar but that's the ip so there's still a lot of like gray area and so i feel like there needs to be an institution researching like deeply how to define ip laws and what and then how can that be integrated into social media. Do you think social media in terms of mental health impacts and societal impacts, you know, this whole promise to make us more connected, but we probably spend less time together in

person now than ever before. Do you think social media has had a net positive or net negative impact on the world? I think it's extremely positive for information and education and raising awareness of social and racial politics. I think it's extremely negative in terms of connection, in human connection. So yes, it's great to keep informed with what your friends are up to and what everyone's up to and what society's up to. But the second you identify through digital

instead of identifying through yourself, then there's a problem because you're relying on the digital world to tell people who you are as opposed to you relying on you to tell people who you are. So this weekend actually really fun my friend tommy sobel he started this initiative called brick and what it is is turning your phone into a brick so you can connect with everyone in the room so your phone doesn't exist for however long his events go for okay yeah okay and so this week he

put like 50 of us in in joshua tree right um we put our phones in um vcr cases and we sealed them with like candle wax and then we kept them in our rooms and then we were all kind of like forced to interact with each other like a whole bunch of strangers and honestly the most liberating weekend I've had in such a long time all weekend all weekend three days well Friday to Sunday and then there was a ceremony where we put the phones in the box and then like on Sunday there's a ceremony to open it again and you know it was just I invited like six of my friends and then we were all kind of like with all these people and we're like you know what fuck it like this is so fun and so by the end of it we walked away with all these new friends we walked away so recharged and so

connected to ourselves because we were like we weren't distracting ourselves with these phones and oh my goodness it's so life-changing like you don't realize how addicted you are until you're off it did you get withdrawals though did you not want to personally no because i i i essentially like and this is i think this is something really important to know just because you know my instagram is very busy i don't define myself through at all. And if anything, I try and avoid it as much as I can because I won't get any work done. When I go to bed, I put my phone on airplane mode two hours before bed, sometimes one hour, depending on how long I'm working until. And then when I wake up, I don't turn it on for an hour because I want to be with myself and wake

up and feel the morning and feel the air. And then when I'm ready to check my phone, I'll turn it off airplane mode and then all the emails come in and all the texts and all the missed calls. And I'm like, cool, I'm ready to face the world because I've spent time with myself. And that's like, I really encourage anyone who's listening to do that

because it doesn't only advance your mental health in a positive way, you're also allowing yourself to rest through the night knowing that nothing is going to wake you up when you check your phone. And then you're also giving your mind a rest too because it's the same thing. You know there's not these people waiting for you until you want them to wait for you, you know?

Yeah, things like that I think are so important, but people don't really talk about these things because, again, social media as like a new technology whatever is fairly new so there's no education we're all kind of learning about it from videos we see or articles we read online do you think we should teach these kinds of things in schools and or in some in some way yeah a hundred percent and yeah while we're just while we're talking about schooling, you know, we have been teaching the kids the same thing for the past however 100 years, and we have advanced so much as a society. And so I feel like everything the kids are learning in school right now

are no longer relevant to how they should survive once they leave school. Or even, like, not even when they should survive once they leave school or even like not even when they graduate when they leave the premise like sure we are not preparing our children the way the way they need to be prepared and until this the schooling system needs to change entirely because it's no longer relevant to learn math english science like no like we need to like craft the kids to learn based on behavioral traits and skill sets. And that's not, that doesn't exist. It's like, they're all lumped and forced to do every single subject until they get to decide once they go to college,

which ones they want to major in, but it needs to be they need to be majoring from the start, in like, whatever their skill sets lead them to do anyway so that you're clearly very passionate about that well i don't think about it a lot but i just know like i know how much we've changed and it no longer makes sense for a kid who absolutely fucking sucks at maths to do math like you don't need to do it we have iphones now we have calculators like i'm not saying don't learn like learn how to do the fundamentals but you don't need to learn calculus like i've never needed to apply calculus into my life like i failed math in high school same like it was my like spare subject that i just needed to do so yeah but like do you want to

have kids one day absolutely and would you send them to uh how many oh i'm gonna say two minimum okay two minimum would you send max i'm joking would you send them to like a normal school or would you no no no no no i you've already got this plan yeah no i've thought about this um i think i would want to i would want to be i would want to raise my children and give them the freedom to express. And I want to be able to observe them and see the things that they're good at and then have them ultimately decide what they would prefer to do. And then hopefully I will be wealthy enough to have specific mentors come in to help them develop their skill sets but a hundred percent will make them learn five languages really yeah how many languages do you know I know two two and a half yeah Arabic and some Italian what five languages

would they learn um the thing whatever languages will be most relevant at the time, but I'm going to say they have to know Arabic. They have to know obviously English and, um, Spanish because Spanish is extremely universal. Um, I would, I want to personally learn Japanese, but I feel like Mandarin is probably going to be the more universal language. Um, and then French or Italian, but that would be up to them wow yeah but you know when they're young they can do it so well and and I want to be able to um move around to different countries while I'm raising my kids so they are able to um immerse in the lifestyle of the language they're learning so why is language so important to you for your kids?

Because I travel a lot and I don't feel as connected to a city knowing I can't speak the language. And so I want to be able to give them that power. And, you know, my life plan is in four years, four or six years, I'm going to take time off to raise kids and then learn these languages with them. Oh, and travel with them to the'm hoping four years I definitely can I would have babies now I just I love you to find the right person yeah and I mean I it's not even that I I have too much work to do right now but in four years I'm hoping it'll be a bit more chill and you need to find someone

that's down to travel to all these countries with these babies teaching them all these languages i i mean the partner is optional i might even adult like who knows yeah i'm super independent like i don't know do you are you misunderstood am i misunderstood uh in what context i'll just leave it there um hopefully not because i try to be as transparent as possible. Oftentimes, I would say when I was struggling with insecure attachments, I feel like my love language was misplaced. And so my way of expressing love wasn't reciprocated. And that obviously drove me insane.

But I've progressed so much now that i understand we all have different ways of communicating love and i feel more at ease knowing that sure yeah okay this is my last question okay um it's been very interesting um we're sat at a table now there are how, how many chairs? Eight. There's eight chairs. Okay. I'm going to get rid of two chairs because that's too many. But there's, let's say there's six chairs here. One, two, three, four, five, six.

The other two have been pulled away. So there's technically there is six. Me and you occupy two of them. There's four empty seats here. We're going to have a big dinner party. Your phone's going to go into a cassette, whatever, brick, whatever. Who do you invite? Anybody dead or alive, who do you invite to this dinner party, your phone's going to go into a cassette, whatever, brick, whatever. Who do you invite, invite anybody dead or alive? Who do you invite to this dinner party and why? And also what are we going to be eating at this dinner party?

Okay. Such a fun question. This actually came up on Sunday and I'm stealing Noah's answers. So Noah, Noah and I were playing a game where we had to ask each other five questions and that one came up. Uh, who would you bring to an Island? And his answers were so good that I'm stealing them. This is not original, but, um,

I would bring my five year old self. Interesting. To the dinner party. To the dinner party. I would bring God. No, you gotta got to say why. I want to know why. Okay.

Okay. So if my adult self right now can talk to my inner child and she's traveling from the past into the future. Sure. So she gets to go back. Okay. I would love to have her at this dinner table to witness who she has become and then be able to advise her and i think in

doing that even though it won't change where i'm at now it would be healing for me and what would you what would you advise them what'd you say oh so many things um i think the thing that i didn't hear at all and i would have probably saved my uh state. I probably wouldn't have anxiety. It's just knowing I was safe and I wasn't alone because I was in a room full of people all the time and I felt the most unprotected. And it was because of things that everyone around me wasn't aware of. So I would tell her she was safe. i would tell her she wasn't alone and i would tell her to

fight and use her voice because in our society as middle easterns we are conditioned to stay silent as women so i think that's i would love to tell her that and then i would invite god god i would invite a higher power whoever that is and like to just come and hang out and then i'd probably invite rami malik because i'm really i don't know i have a huge fascination fascination with him and his characters that he portrays on television interesting dynamic this dinner this dinner party. Oh, yeah. God talking to your five-year-old self. And then I'd ask who he would invite. So you'd let him bring a plus one?

You can bring a plus one, but they have to be interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Okay, well, listen, I'm very inspired by you. I think a lot of people are. As I said, of all the people that I've brought onto this podcast, the hysteria when people found out that you were coming on was unmatched. And I think that speaks to the positive impact you're having on people by being your true self.

And you're clearly incredibly talented. You're self-built. You manage yourself, as you said. You're a very self-made person. And I think that gives a lot of people a lot of power in themselves and their own self-belief. So thank you for being you. um you do you're very self-made person and i think that gives a lot of people a lot of power in themselves and their own self-belief so thank you for being you thank you for the time today and um where do people find you and you're i mean you're everywhere but where can people find you if they want to reach out or um i think instagram is probably

the best the best place it's just sarah baba but it's actually pronounced baba but you can you can say baba that's fine i've accepted it okay amazing thank you so much thank you thank you for providing a space for me to express no worries thank you for being so open you know it's really refreshingly open so thank you