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

Starting point is 00:00:00 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would have seemed the perfect time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton. Me, Tim, Paris, show. This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market. Thrive Market saves me a ton of money, and it's perfect for these crazy times. Thrive Market is a membership-based site on a mission

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Starting point is 00:06:14 out the habits, thought processes, best practices, creative flow process, et cetera, that you can apply to your own lives. My guest today is Sia. You can find her on Twitter, at Sia, S-I-A. Sia is one of the most fascinating people I have come across in the last few years. So unorthodox, gets away with so much, and is the inveterate experimenter. I find her fascinating. She is an Australian singer, songwriter, director, screenwriter, and pop icon. Her current single, Together, is from her forthcoming album and motion picture Music due out later this year, 2020. Last year, she partnered with Diplo and Labyrinth to form

Starting point is 00:06:55 the group LSD, their debut album, Labyrinth, Sia, and Diplo Present. LSD has 1 billion plus streams to date. She released the Grammy-nominated This Is Acting in 2016 to much critical acclaim and cemented her role as one of today's biggest stars and sought after live performers with her sold-out Nostalgic for the Present headline tour. She has more videos in YouTube's Billion Views Club than any other female on the planet. Her massive single Cheap Thrills was a multi-format global radio hit and was one of the longest running singles at top 40 of 2016. Along with her own successes, Sia has written global smashes, and we're talking 100 plus songs, for today's biggest acts, including Beyonce, Kanye West, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, and many, many more. She's really polymath. She has worked on herself. She has saved herself

Starting point is 00:07:46 in more ways than one. Once again, you can find her on Twitter at Sia, Instagram at Sia Music. And without further ado, please enjoy a very wide-ranging conversation with Sia. I'd like to start in a weird place because like you before you press record oh yeah weird place because before you press record I was like you were telling me that I had um if I wanted I could edit anything if I had felt embarrassed about what I said or something like that of course and you very very kindly and I said so I could do this interview on ketamine it's true you absolutely could

Starting point is 00:08:35 and if only you'd known and you know as as I said when you mentioned that uh speaking of someone who may or may not have experience with ketamine that you often sound better i said when you mentioned that uh speaking of someone who may or may not have experience with ketamine that you often sound better to yourself than you do to other people well i actually do get ketamine infusions from my oh you do so but um in but in la they do it where you're totally out so you don't feel you're not lucid at all and you don't have really the trip at all but here um here in this other place where i'm at right now trying to maintain the modicum of privacy um they're they're more east meets west so it's a doctor and they do the infusion but they also do like a sort of intention and they hit the metal bowl and

Starting point is 00:09:28 say, what's your intention? Like, well, weren't the pain to turn from red to blue or blah, blah, blah. And I actually had lucid experiences. And that as a sober woman has been really fascinating. I imagine so. I did a sequence of five intravenous ketamine infusions over the span of two weeks because I'd read about its application to suicidal ideation and chronic pain separately and wanted to have the firsthand experience, not because I was suicidal, but because to recommend

Starting point is 00:10:05 it to anyone who might come to me with suicidal ideation, I wanted to have the firsthand experience to see what the effects and side effects were like at different dosages. And I found it to have a very surreal dissociative effect, just subjectively. What I didn't expect, because I wasn't thinking about it for the chronic pain, I had this acute pain in my mid-back, this neurological pain that had plagued me for years. And then I noticed a few weeks after ending the ketamine, no pain in my mid-back. It was near miraculous. What has been your experience? Yeah, that's my experience too and i mean that was my experience even when i wasn't doing in la when i was doing it not lucidly

Starting point is 00:10:52 and then when i and as a sober woman doing it lucidly that was very confronting and i i thought i was gonna have a bad trip i'm like i'm a bad tripper i'm a bad trip. I'm like, I'm a bad tripper, I'm a bad tripper. I'm like, I've never had a good trip. Anytime I did acid, it was bad. Like, I'm a bad tripper. Make sure you give me lots of Versad, which is like a sedative. And then he explained to me that the more Versad he gave me, the more ketamine he would have to give me.

Starting point is 00:11:20 And the less Versad, he gave me less ketamine and that would be nicer for my body and so he ended up giving me half the dose that i get in la but he also gave me half the dose of versed and i had just a wonderful time i had a wonderful time i I was like, he writes down everything you say. And so afterwards he was like, okay, so here we go. Here's the things that you said. Here's the things you said. I am a microbe.

Starting point is 00:11:59 Am I upside down? Am I upside down? Oh, okay. Am I upside down? Oh, okay. Am I dying? Okay, I'm not dying because they'll lift the earphones off because they've got like theater wave music and stuff going on in your ears and stuff, and they'll say, no, Sia, you're not dying. You're just focused on your intention. And with the one in

Starting point is 00:12:25 la i would never wake up or even be conscious enough to know or to say am i dying and so i found it quite i as someone who has had suicidal ideation what worked for me actually was prozac in the end i had but i didn't i hadn't tried ketamine for that, but I had complex PTSD. I believe I may have gotten through it in the last three years. I've done so much painful work, but yeah, I barely left the house and I would only go to Yeezy's Sunday Service because I love the singing so much and I fell in love with the Kardashians. They're so nice. And I felt safe around them. It was such an interesting experience.

Starting point is 00:13:16 And so I would stay at home mostly and just I have a projector that projects television or movies, whatever, onto the ceiling above my bed. And so I basically just lie prone. And is that the word, prone? Yeah, that would be, let me think about this. Prone, supine, I believe prone. I believe you got it right. Is that right?

Starting point is 00:13:44 I think prone might be stomach down like if you're in a prone position in any case you're on your bed on your back I'm on my bed on my back with my face up looking at this enormous projector screen pretty much 16 hours a a day for three years and I would leave the house on Sundays to go to the Sunday service and sing my heart out and clap and dance and dance around and I was having a lot of suicidal ideation and because of this chronic pain and because I guess I have an attachment injury and I'm really into attachment theory. And so, but I believe I may, may have earned secure attachment, which is going to mean nothing to so many of your listeners. Yeah. I mean, we can talk about attachment theory if, if, if anybody's interested, I think it's the cutting edge of it's, it's based on science and it's the cutting edge of um of where psychology

Starting point is 00:14:46 is going and should be going is attachment theory and it's pretty new well let's let's talk about it because i've had a book recommended to me a number of times i've not read it fortunately for me i have a girlfriend who synthesized it for me but the book attached oh yeah and i believe wrong stuff in there that's the only reason i don't recommend it also just refers to you it's like it's the baby version so yes it's baby you're either ambivalent avoidant or preoccupied but as we grow we develop these strategies that happen in the first 10 months of our life. Based on the care that we're given, we develop one of five strategies and sometimes disorganized, fearful avoidant, which is now called disorganized, unresolved, and secure,

Starting point is 00:15:54 which nobody in Hollywood is. Actually, that's not true. I think John Legend might be secure. He's so nice. But, yeah's um so i i took an aai which is called an attachment assessment inventory i send it off to harvard and they you know there's like three people work in that department and they uh study the the interview and the language and the tone because it's recorded as well and then they report back this uh attachment theory which is started by john balby in the 40s or something and then but really only came to to light in 1984 or 85 i can't remember i'll say

Starting point is 00:16:43 a lot of wrong things here. That's okay. That's what show notes are for. Don't worry. But I do know that in the first 10 months of your life, you are basically told who you are and what to experience in the world and how to behave and how to respond in any situation. It all happens in the first 10 months of your life based on the care that you've given. So I was complexly disorganized when I met George Haas, who is helping me with my attachment repair. I mean, I'm so excited because I've got one of my son has had an attachment assessment interview and he was less complexly disorganized than me

Starting point is 00:17:35 and I was so happy for him because I've actually managed to like earn some secure categories. So there's different categories. There's like seven categories. I don't know what they are. I'm not that smart, but I just know that I've two left on me that, that aren't secure, that are both fear related. The last time I took an attachment, but I started with only one secure feature. So out of seven and now I have, I have five. Seems like a big improvement yeah so and also i guess

Starting point is 00:18:07 i should say that attachment injury is addiction it causes addiction it's not in a genetic disorder it's not a disease it's an attachment injury that occurred in the first 10 months of your life that doesn't mean your parents were bad or mean or cruel. They may have been benignly neglectful or maybe their dog died the day that you were born or, you know, there's so many reasons why your primary caregiver may have been preoccupied or unable to care for you, unable to give you the things that you needed for your brain to develop properly or securely. So yeah, it was about 50% I think of the population is secure. That's if you take out poverty and then otherwise it's about 30%.

Starting point is 00:18:59 How have you found studying attachment theory, doing the assessment, doing the work has impacted your life? I mean, it seems like you've certainly made a study of it and taken it seriously. What are the outcomes that you've seen in your life, the changes? Well, I'm not afraid anymore. I've spent my whole entire life being extremely afraid. I've been, and it's especially in personal relationships, interpersonal relationships.

Starting point is 00:19:29 I've had the attachment strategy that I have had was, you know, previously called fearful avoidant and now it's called disorganized, and I was complexly, fearfully avoidant. And what that means is that the care was inconsistent. So you just don't know what you're going to get. So you keep turning around and putting your arms out. If you imagine a toddler, so you put your arms out and you say, maybe this time they'll pick me up. No? Okay. Maybe this time. And you keep imagining a toddler turning around and putting their arms in the air and maybe they'll get kicked

Starting point is 00:20:07 in the chest or maybe they'll get picked up. You never know. And, you know, so there's just a, I mean, am I not saying that my parents kicked me in the chest? That's an extreme analogy or metaphor. What is it? Is it an analogy or a metaphor i don't know parallel well it depends i guess if they literally kick you in the chest or not so since they didn't i

Starting point is 00:20:30 guess i don't think they kick me in the chest i'm pretty sure they do but um you know you just like or if they didn't come when you cried if they didn't come there's these seven stages like a baby right so the baby looks cute first thing it does when it wants it needs something or it's in pain or it needs to eat or it needs its nappy changed or it's uncomfortable is it first thing it does is it looks cute and the second thing it does is when that doesn't work to get the attention of the caregiver they look confused and then they'll whimper. And then they'll, I think it's, they'll intermittently cry. I think that's what's next. And then that's when you should definitely pick them up,

Starting point is 00:21:14 when they're intermittently crying. Then the next one will become crying. And then the next one is tantrum, full screaming like anger rage like why is nobody coming to get me and then the baby's brain goes into complete limbic shutdown because it thinks it's going to die so people who sleep train their babies who think that it works. Yeah, it works because your baby thinks it's going to die and it gives up on life and stops crying. So it only works if you go back in there at that intermittent crying point and if you go in when they're intermittent crying and you say,

Starting point is 00:22:02 I love you, baby's name, let's say George. I love you, George, but it's time to go to sleep now, but we're just right out here. And that creates object constancy, which makes for way less psychos in the world and way less like, but you know, people like waiting by the phone, waiting for the text, waiting for the text, waiting for the text. Like, so what happens to people who didn't get picked up during the intermittent crying phase or didn't get like just at least reassured during the intermittent crying phase? shutdown now as adults when someone that there has captured their projection like a person like a partner like a love interest or something a person of great interest to you captures your projection and you text them and then if they don't text you back you start to feel sick and panicky and what's actually happening is just the same thing as when you're a baby

Starting point is 00:23:05 was the seventh stage of limbic shutdown so all the same neurochemicals that were dumped into your body when you're a baby and you thought i'm gonna die because nobody's coming that happens as an adult the same exact same brain chemistry happens and so all these human adults are you know sitting at home waiting for a text feeling like they're going to die like there's so many of them and it's like you know it's not everybody secure people don't feel that way but people who are preoccupied or or disorganized fearfully avoidant they. And they suffer greatly because of it. And it's merely because nobody came and reassured them at the intermittent crying point when they're a baby that they're okay,

Starting point is 00:23:54 it's time to go back to sleep now. Then they leave the room. Then the baby, if it does a thing, it does a cry, you know, cute, confused, whimper, intermittent cry. Then they go in, reassure them again. Then time to go to sleep, George. And if you do that, that's actually healthy sleep training, as long as you do that at the intermittent crying part.

Starting point is 00:24:16 But if you leave a baby to cry, just cry it out, you're damaging them forever and ever. And actually you're creating an addict without knowing. Let me ask if I could, just because you mentioned the, you're talking about upbringing, you're talking about on some level, it seems like unpredictability as a factor. That's one of the factors that might lead to this fearful avoidant now, this disorganized complex of sorts could you speak to in the course of doing homework for this conversation i came across a discussion of and this is not to pin

Starting point is 00:24:54 everything on on a single parent or either both parents but your dad having two different personalities with two different names could Could you speak to this? Yeah, he had, his real name is Phil, but he had a bad temper sometimes. And when he would have his bad temper, he would, if he would seemingly turn into a different person, and then he would come back from being angry and he'd be like, sorry about that, sorry about Stan's behaviour, sorry about that, darling, sorry about that. And so, you know, when I grew up I thought, oh, watching all the movies I thought, oh,

Starting point is 00:25:35 he has multiple personality disorder. And finally when I was 25 I thought everyone's dad had two personalities until I was like 25. But then I realised that, no no I don't know whether it was and it's now called dissociative identity disorder it's not called multiple personality disorder it's also misrepresented hugely in the media because nobody who has multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder which is what it's called now, DID, is dangerous or mean or angry. Well, actually, they can be angry, but they're all basically parts

Starting point is 00:26:12 of a constellation of an abused child that have split off to protect the original soul from the abuser. So they're all there just simply as protectors um so when we watch movies like split we really we sort of demonize people with did and i also now think i don't know if my dad had did i don't i i think maybe he just maybe he was just smoking too much weed or you know i don't know i really don't know now but we've talked about it i asked him recently we had a really good repair i asked him recently because he mentioned stan in a text message and i said hey dad when you when you talk about stan what happens to me is that i get a whole bunch of fearful neurochemicals that

Starting point is 00:27:07 dump into my body and it makes me super anxious and then I get shaky and it makes me it takes me about at least 20 minutes for my liver to be out of process at all and um could you do me a favor and could we never talk about Stan ever again? And he said yes. And then he wrote a really beautiful message that was something like, I'm sorry, that must have been really painful for your fragile young psyche and I'm ashamed and embarrassed. Wow. And I'm sorry. And that was such a powerful moment and then he

Starting point is 00:27:48 sent me a picture of him standing by my crib when I was born and I was like I burst into tears it was like wow it was that he he was showing me the father that he'd wanted to be you know and and so i can't i can't but he i believe he was my primary caregiver i can't i don't really know i know my mom got really depressed after i was born because she had previously lost a baby and she got postnatal depression and so i think some of that the depression so so if you have a blank face when you're staring at your baby it's really scary to them just so you know people it's really and I didn't know that but apparently if you've got a blank face when you're staring at your baby it's really scary to them that to be animated is really helpful to them and uh showing delight

Starting point is 00:28:47 is really helpful and they need your baby needs eye contact for the first 10 months from 6 to 12 inches from their face they need eye contact love delight hugs and just love and attention you know and then you end up with a secure baby, but you can also smother them and then you'll get a preoccupied. Got to find the Goldilocks approach. I want to mention before I lose the observation that the delivery you just recounted to your dad, that phrasing seemed to be a really good use of textbook non-violent communication the way you yeah the way you phrased it was sort of textbook not in a bad way i mean it really i did watch it it was six hours i watched a

Starting point is 00:29:43 um marshall i'm blanking on his last name but the yeah the non-violent communication guy I did watch it. It was six hours. I watched a- John Marshall. I'm blanking on his last name. Yeah, the nonviolent communication guy. Yeah. Yeah, it's very subtle and very powerful when it's used well, which it sounds like you did when you spoke to your dad, in a way avoiding the type of or mitigating the likelihood of somebody having a really strong defensive response yeah yeah i guess i learned if you say i feel and then at the end you say what do you think

Starting point is 00:30:14 or you thought well this is what makes me feel this is how it makes me feel or um and i if i use science which i'm getting smarter at now in terms of neurochemistry and um the brain and pain and psychology um and also you know parenting and and attachment parenting and that sort of stuff i just i'm so in love with it because i it's going to create a you know i want to help people create secure babies so that we have so many less people, you know, in pain. And it seems like one way or a very important way of doing that is working on yourself. Right. And I just want to provide a little bit of context here for people who are listening. And that is, I've loved your music, both the music where you are a performer, and then the music unknown to me oftentimes has been written by you.

Starting point is 00:31:16 It's really astonishing how many songs I have on playlists that when I finally had my Kobayashi, like Kaiser Sose moment, and I was like, oh my God, like it's everywhere. It feels like it's everywhere in my life. I'm like cobwebs, babe. So that's part one. And then a reader of mine named Brian Elliott recommended, after I wrote a blog post on

Starting point is 00:31:50 a lot of the downsides of being public-facing and having an audience, recommended a profile of you called How Sia Saved Herself, which was in Rolling Stone. Yeah, the round right there. That's right. And it completely captured my imagination and talked about many of the decisions you've made, which, to borrow some phrasing that I've heard you use, has allowed you to use your gifts without hurting yourself, without just destroying your serenity. And we're going to talk about that. I just wanted to give that story because how Sia saved herself, I think in order to save your kids,

Starting point is 00:32:30 whether even if they haven't been born yet, it's important to work on yourself. And, but you're clearly doing and have done a lot of that. I want to ask you a, this was where the, I want to start somewhere weird. Yeah. Came up a while back.

Starting point is 00:32:56 And it relates, well, it makes me think of a novel that really caught my imagination when I was a young kid. And that was Around the World in 80 Days. And I thought, well, maybe I'll start with Around the World of Sia in 80 Tattoos. You have quite a few tattoos. I wanted to ask about a few of them. And I haven't seen all of these. I've just read about a few of them. So tell me if they're not accurate. But do you have a tattoo that says don't think? Yeah, that was before I actually and realize the irony of that tattoo. Because telling yourself not to think is thinking. Yeah, right.

Starting point is 00:33:34 Don't think of the pink elephant. Don't think of the pink elephant. Yeah, so I realized, so for all your listeners who don't meditate, meditation is just a practice. It's nothing fancy it's just breathing it's like you could just if you can just breathe and feel the air going in your nose and out your nose like and count to 10 and just feel be present with that feeling of the air touching your nostrils and do that that's a practice and then if you have a thought that's

Starting point is 00:34:05 okay and it takes you away like in a car like say you get in the car with the thought and it takes you for a drive that's okay just when you realize just go oh whoops and go back to one and start counting from one again and that's practice it's just concentration practice and then there are all sorts of other practices that you can sort of like delve into after that. But it is just even just concentration practice. It's so good for your brain and so good for your heart and your spirit. And the thing is when I hear people say, oh, I can't meditate, I'm not good at it, there is no being good at it because it's a practice

Starting point is 00:34:45 you can't be bad at it actually the only way of being bad at it is not doing it is my meditation teacher and there's periods where i get i've gotten extremely low um over the last three or four years and there were periods where I totally dipped out on meditating. And if he'd come over, I'd be crying, I'd be whatever, like super, super suicidal, whatever. And he'd come over and he'd go, have you thought about meditation? It's free um

Starting point is 00:35:26 there's data that says it will help you um and i'll be like fuck off george and oh how we laughed what does your practice look like the the mutual friend who introduced us when we finally started communicating directly has a tm practice right so i'm sure does many other things but has a transcendental meditation practice 20 minutes twice a day yeah the first to be done but i don't think you should have to pay for meditation and also i know that i know the secret i know what they do and i'm sure you do um yeah that you know your mantra is just related to your age and i think if anything helps you do it

Starting point is 00:36:23 and if that's that's what you found and great and it helps you then do it but i don't believe that meditation should be paid for i don't believe that it's anything you can be given i think that it should be done a process and that it should be by donation only that's just my personal opinion because – What does your practice look like? Oh, so my mind is just like about probably 20 minutes a day. I will either listen to George's podcast. At least once a week I listen to George's podcast,

Starting point is 00:36:59 which is I think Meta Group, George Haas, I don't know, Attachment Fair, something. I'll find it. I don't know, Attachment Repair, something. I'll find it. I'll find it, put it in the links. But it's very heady. I've said to him recently, George, you need to do, like, an attachment repair for dummies because, like, anyone I send to your podcast, it's really hard for them to understand.

Starting point is 00:37:22 It's really heady. And it did take me two or three years to understand it myself, and that's with him repeating himself for three years over and over again. Yeah. It's meditation times attachment. Meditation X attachment with George Haas, H-A-A-S. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:37:40 So, okay, my practice looks like this. Well, I'll do concentration practice where I count or I'll do, so Shinzen is George's teacher. So I guess I'm using Shinzen's model, and that model is also like I do, it's feel in, feel out, so you can, like what you're feeling in your body or what you can feel on the outside of your body, hearing hear out is what you can hear inside your head or what you can hear outside of it your head exterior noise like external noise and then there's see in and see out so that's like visual imagery or or you

Starting point is 00:38:20 can look at a leaf and watch it just wave. And the best one for me is hear out. So what's what I do? And I think that's the best one for people who have extreme, like complex trauma because it's externalizing in a way and keeps you grounded in the present moment. So right now, let's say, okay, I'm meditating right now. So I'm listening to the sound of my air conditioner and the sound of your breathing, and that's hear out.

Starting point is 00:39:00 And then I just, when I get carried away with a thought, I just come back to hear out like i that's what i do so here here out is is the one that i find the most easy which is just focusing on all the noises around me externally that are in our in this um perceived reality just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time what I would take if I could only take one supplement. The answer is inevitably Athletic Greens. I view it as my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in 2010 in the 4-Hour Body and I

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Starting point is 00:40:20 and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash Tim. Let me take a leap to something that I think is possibly related. You have written more than a hundred pop songs for people like Beyonce, Britney Spears, Rihanna, whose Diamonds hit number one, and so much more. I mean, the list is extremely long. You have, of course, then so much of your own work in the performative sense on top of that. And what people might not realize is some of your songs that, and this has a personal meaning to me because this one has been on my playlist, maybe the longest, and that is Breathe Me. The night you wrote that, you tried to kill yourself with 22 Valium and a bottle of vodka. And so we're going to talk about that. And the question is, because I heard you on, for instance, Howard Stern in 2014, and around the 16 minute mark, if people are interested, you play back

Starting point is 00:41:25 a recording of coming up with the, I guess it was maybe the melody and some of the lyrics for Diamonds, which everybody would recognize. And you sounded like you're almost channeling, because you're kind of mumbling nonsense syllables and then it just fell into place that's how it is for me and that's how it is for labyrinth and that's how it is for i think eddie benjamin who's gonna be the next justin bieber um but it's just like a form of channeling and like words sounds sort of come out and then sometimes if you're lucky well the melody is pure channeling and then the lyrics if you're lucky also will come out that's awesome when that happens when that accidentally happens that's uh then i think i'm really getting out of the way of you know and that i'm allowing it to just flow through but yeah me, it's just getting out of the way,

Starting point is 00:42:26 getting out of the way and just trusting in the present moment that what I do next is going to be what is supposed to happen. So I'm going to ask a whole bunch of questions about process because I know my listeners love process. I love process. And I have a bunch of questions about process because I know my listeners love process. I love process. And I have, I have a bunch of questions. The overarching question is, and the reason I asked about the taking of the drugs and the vodka and so on is you seem to me to be very sensitive. That is not in a bad way. This means that as an empath, it's like, if you were a scale, you wouldn't just be a body weight scale you'd be like a jewel scale where you have you have a lot of sensitivity and i am i wonder

Starting point is 00:43:13 highly sensitive person yeah and so i wonder how much of the drug use and the suicidal ideation and so on is from an overwhelm of input or is it from other things i'd just love to hear you speak to that thing that you asked because i always just figured oh it's because i uh something wrong with me i'm broken it's my early trauma or so i'm an addict or i'm just like i don don't belong in this world. I don't know why I'm here. I'm just different. I feel like an alien. I don't know how people will be happy. I just didn't have the right chemicals in my brain going on.

Starting point is 00:43:58 And that was just, I now know due to the first 10 months of my life. But I didn't know that then. And so I attributed it to all sorts of whatever I could, really. I'd just try and attach it to anything and be like that's why I'm like this or this is why I'm like oh that's why I'm like this and um uh certainly that night um that I wanted to die you know I can just remember just wanted to die like just thinking I was so broken that nobody could fix me. And then waking up in the hospital and feeling very embarrassed because you can only, you can't commit suicide with Valium, you can commit sleep.

Starting point is 00:44:41 And, you know, like a pussy because I think I must have called people like i don't remember but i must have called people because obviously someone came and took me to the hospital so you know there's a there's always been a part of me that wanted to live and i think the part of me that i wanted to kill was the part of me that was in pain and not the real me they're not the real me, not the real actual me who has levity and has found levity. I've always had some levity, but I also had that extreme sensitivity and I had some, yeah, just chemical issues in my brain, just I didn't have the right biochemistry going on.

Starting point is 00:45:25 So I had like a broken, what's the frontal one called? Frontal cortex? Prefrontal cortex? Yeah, that one. I had a broken prefrontal cortex. Yeah, that one. I had that. That was broken.

Starting point is 00:45:48 And so I was just, the suicidal ideation was just it was like a broken record going on in my brain it was actually it's actually a way to regulate emotion so i would feel extreme sadness there's this idea that i if i killed myself i had power over it so if that i could stop the pain but what i was afraid of was dying as well it was such a catch-22 it was like it's a very peculiar place to be in and i and then i realized oh i don't want to kill myself. I want to live. I have a broken brain. I've got to take medication. And as soon as I started taking medication for Prozac, I took six days later the suicidal ideation was gone, completely gone. And I was sad for myself that I hadn't done it sooner.

Starting point is 00:46:46 Yeah. I'd had that broken brain for so long that I thought that there was something just very, very wrong with me. So I can't even remember the question you asked, but that answer? You know, the question, my questions are really intended as prompts. They're not, so it was more intended to open up what just came out. So yes, you did answer it. And what you said makes me think about a phrase or an expression that I heard from someone named Stanislav Grof, who is a famous Czech-born psychotherapist who's done a lot of work with LSD-assisted psychotherapy, developed something called holotropic breathwork also as a substitute. But he's been on the podcast. He was on at age 85 or 86. to kill oneself being a desire to kill the ego. But the only form that most people recognize

Starting point is 00:47:49 for doing that is killing the physical body. And that there are other approaches, right? There are prescription options in some cases. Ketamine is particularly, and I was very grateful I went through my testing of ketamine because literally two or three weeks later, a friend of mine reached out who's a police officer who was suicidal and he had battled depression. And really the suicidal ideation was, I think in part because he had these loops that he could not interrupt, these endless loops, and he just wanted to stop the loops. It's usually PTSD that causes those loops, the broken prefrontal cortex. And ketamine is, I would view it, not to belabor ketamine, but just for people who may be hurting out there and at the end of their rope, ketamine is not additive in my experience, like some other compounds,

Starting point is 00:48:46 let's just say psilocybin in looking at treatment resistant depression, I think is more additive, but it is subtractive in the sense that it, it hits pause on these loops and it allows you to experience yourself without the loop. And I think that you then can have the type of realization you did six days later saying, Oh, I am a microbe. I'm a microbe. I'm a microbe. I am upside down. So let's, if we could, and I, and I know this doesn't have to be this example, but to talk about process, the diamonds example is a fun one, I think, because of how tightly it was done, given you had a plane to catch and a car waiting for you. But you have these expressions and you have very clear thinking around your songwriting. And I've heard you talk about strong titles and the ability to Google, right?

Starting point is 00:49:50 In the case of Chandelier, milking the metaphor. I mean, you think about this very concretely. Can you just give an example of your process? Yeah, well, I mean, now it's sort of changing. But when I first started started my manager said well he said to me something that uh you know was monumentally important which was basically what i needed to be doing was be writing high concept he was calling it i think he was calling it high concept i think that's what he said and then i googled it and then it didn't make sense to me because it was talking about big brother. I was like, well, I get it. And I called him back and I was like, what do you mean exactly?

Starting point is 00:50:32 And he was like, well, you take something. And then, and I was like, oh, like, hang on. Do you mean like piggy bank? Like I'm not, I'm not your piggy bank. And he like yeah and I was like oh okay I think I've got it all right like because I'm I don't want to be your piggy bank like you know he was like yeah that's kind of it not it but it I was like oh okay and then like I don't know a week later I wrote titanium and that was the first one I wrote and then so I started I always channel the melody but then I I was um consciously writing down things that I thought would be good titles googleable titles or that would be good metaphors or catchy um and so that was decided to be a fun game, and so that's what I did for a long time. But yesterday I wrote a song that is just on the verge of cheesetastic,

Starting point is 00:51:36 which is I wrote a song about New Year's Eve. It's called Three Minutes to Midnight. So you put the song on three minutes to midnight and then everyone can count down together. So if you just press play at three minutes to midnight, it's like I want everyone to play the song. And it's so silly and fun. And in that one, I almost freestyled the entire thing.

Starting point is 00:52:04 So, yeah, I don't know like some days I'm very formulaic and some days um and some days people like give me very specific you know what they want for an end title or you know of a movie what they need or you know or you know what Rihanna is looking for at the moment sound she's looking for or here's a track that she really likes you know so sometimes I get direction and I take it I just take it and if I you I don't work so much with artists anymore but it was so helpful to work with artists because like I am really good at like being of service so I could totally eat shit sandwiches all day long like if they were like divas or whatever and because I knew I would still be getting 50% or 30% or whatever of the publishing and if I could dissuade them from saying something extremely silly or bad then I'd done my job but

Starting point is 00:53:04 you know that if they wanted to sing a song about something that I found banal or stupid or that that was fine that I'm just there to support what they're trying to do and yeah I'll challenge them to some degree if it's very very bad um but otherwise I'm just there to support them but that that was really helpful to me because that helped me, I think, in terms of becoming a director. Right, right, and we're definitely going to talk about that. I just want to pause, bookmark for a second. For people who don't understand the peculiarities

Starting point is 00:53:38 or the intricacies of the music business, and you said the percentages of publishing. Can you explain what that means for folks just so they understand how different people make money in the music world? Yeah, so publishing is really the only growth industry in music. I mean, touring, if you're a Coldplay, you'll make money, or you too. But touring, usually musicians will make a loss. So really the only – merch, you can sometimes make money,

Starting point is 00:54:09 but really the best way to make money in music, if you're going to be a musician, is to write the music. And so there's a couple of different ways. There's pop splits and there's urban splits. And I can tell you that. So I guess an urban split is like whoever is in the room or whoever does even one tiny word or something it all gets split between you maybe equally i think i think that's an urban split but i don't do that

Starting point is 00:54:40 and it was really funny because benny blanco like wrote me and was like why don't do that. And it was really funny because Benny Blanco, like, wrote me and was like, why don't you – he's a producer. He did a whole bunch of Katy Perry hits and he just writes hits galore, hits galore, hits galore. He stopped counting after he had ten top number ones, you know what I mean? So anyway, he was writing me and he was like why are you because he was working with a partner um on producing a song and i believe that if i write the melody in the top line i get 50 of the song um and if you write the chords you get 50 of the

Starting point is 00:55:19 song and do the production you get paid for your production separately aside from getting paid for the writing so a producer a good producer these days will make 30 40 grand for producing a song that means producing a song means putting all of the sounds in there all of the piano sound and then it'll be a violin sound or a or the sound of the bass and the and the beat that's called production the songwriting process is literally just chords and melody and lyrics so chords are worth 50 of publishing and lyrics and melody are worth 50 of publishing and then if you go and produce it, you get a fee for producing. So I'm so lucky I wrote the chords to Chandelier. Can you explain what that means?

Starting point is 00:56:14 Because I think chords, and I think strumming like a C or a D on a guitar, but I don't know if I'm thinking of the same thing. Yeah, that's about it. A chord is, I guess's three fingers on a piano. Yeah. And they make a chord. And so you go like this. I'm doing a root note of a chord.

Starting point is 00:56:36 So it'd be like, that's four different, like, they're just four different notes. i got it and then you you give that to the producer they put it they take that they put it in just since you mentioned the piano on the part of the chandelier this that was chandelier i did i did write the chords um but i then i sent them to jesse chatkin and i, can you make a song out of this? And he did all the production and I'm nice. So I gave him 25% of the publishing, but I'm not required to do that. Like I could have taken 100% of the song and paid him his production fee of $40,000, let's say.

Starting point is 00:57:20 And melody is the sound of the voice or the... That's just the whatever right like improv jazz yeah um it's that's melody and then um once you add lyrics to that it's called top line melody and lyric together is called top line got it and so i am a top line writer but i actually now i guess i i'm also i can write some chords but i'm pretty shabby at it but i do i do like playing clang away on the piano occasionally and send jesse like videos of me playing the piano so he can Jesse videos of me playing the piano so he can see which chords I'm playing. And then he will build songs out of those.

Starting point is 00:58:14 And because I appreciate him and I know I couldn't do it without him, I always give him 25%. But again, in another world, he wouldn't be entitled to that. He would get a production fee. But I like to be generous. Yeah. And when somebody says, for instance, if you were to say, I have 50% of publishing, what is that 50% of? Is it specifically what radio stations pay?

Starting point is 00:58:43 Okay, yeah. What is it? Across the board, it means so like, okay, on a really highly listened to commercial radio station, let's say, and this is a random number that's not necessarily correct, let's say every time Chandelier gets played, they pay my publisher a dollar, right? So now I get 75 cents of that and jesse gets 25 cents of that and um and my um my publishing company i think they'll take uh i think they

Starting point is 00:59:17 take 15 or something um as an admin uh fee it's like a book agent. Yeah. Yeah. And it used to be 30 that because I used to need a publisher, but I don't actually need a publisher now because I don't need them to introduce me to any songwriters or other songwriters or artists. I don't need the services that they offer. So I only need them to collect money for me. So, so that's how I managed to get it down to 15%. Because most people are still paying 30% to their publishers.

Starting point is 00:59:58 So do you get paid when albums are sold digitally as well, or is that completely separate? I do, but I don't know how. And that would be a question for my manager i really have no problem we don't have to royalties and i don't understand that one at all now process wise you're talking about the volume of work that you do. And I found an interview you did with The Guardian in 2016. This is a while ago. So this may have changed, but I'd love to hear you expand on a little bit. And here's the quote. I love the idea of how fast we can make the song, but I don't think that I'm necessarily

Starting point is 01:00:39 a super talented songwriter. I just think I'm really productive. One out of 10 songs is a hit. So where a lot of people will spend three weeks on one song, I will write 10 in three weeks. Maybe the song that they sculpt is going to be as successful as just one of the 10 that I wrote. Is that still true? Yeah, that's definitely still true. But I also think I've gotten a little bit better at picking tracks that are hits. so sometimes people send me tracks so okay so for the people listening tracks are when someone a producer sends you a already fully done bottom line which is all the music all the the sounds, the beat, everything, the chords,

Starting point is 01:01:26 it's all there. So that's 50% right there. They send you 50% of a song. And if I hear the way the chords move and think that it's a smash, because I actually record myself to everything I listen to the very first time. So I press play. When I listen to something for the time. So I press play when I listen to something for the first time, I press play and record on my computer and I'll sing along to it and see if I can intuit where it's going. And if I managed to intuit where it's going and it sounds good and

Starting point is 01:01:59 something works, then I'm just better at picking now what I think would be a hit or what would be catchy because I do believe now that pop music is really just indoctrination, which is sad because it used to be, music used to be good. once upon a time when music was good no there's still great music out there but i've never i never hear it apparently but i don't listen to music i just watch television and movies so that's probably why the only person i listen to is Labyrinth. Is that true?

Starting point is 01:02:50 You don't, you don't ever listen to background music? No. Oh yeah. I'll put into, cause I just got Apple music. I don't have Spotify or Pandora, but I just got Apple music.

Starting point is 01:03:01 And so now I just type in theta waves or beta waves or alpha wave and I just press play on one of those and then I'll meditate or whatever but if I'm not watching television I'm talking to a friend I'm not usually listening to music it's not what I do it's very interesting has that always been the case or did that at some point just feel too much like work to you or you can't listen to it without breaking it down and thinking about the top line and the this and that and the other thing? No, it's weird. It's just, I did it very much. I was obsessive as a child around it. I would listen to, and I've said this a billion times, so apologies to those who've heard this before um but i would listen to that part in the doors um song where in a door song where it goes

Starting point is 01:03:50 and i like that part so much but i just didn't care about the rest of the song so I just recorded that part like 50 times onto a 30 minute tape and I would literally just listen to that over and over again and I would sing along to it and and the same with the this Chrissy Hines one that don't get me wrong I still can't do it I can't do it I can't do it I've never been able to do it. I can't do it. I can't do it. I've never been able to do it. And I can't, like, I can't do it like she does it. And I would try so hard and I just technically could not do it

Starting point is 01:04:37 and I still can't do it. And so that's exciting because I love not being able to do something. Because I was sort of recently thinking, oh, wow, I've met all my professional and personal goals. Like what do I do now? Is it nihilism or is it full engagement, you know? So, but, yeah, I guess I could still keep trying that fucking crazy high lick. But, yeah, I was super busy with music as a child.

Starting point is 01:05:10 I didn't have a television until I think I was 10 or 11, and then I became addicted to television. But I still listened to music, some music, not much, usually whatever my parents were listening to. And that was like Soul to Soul and Malcolm McLaren. Well, earlier when my dad was around, it was all 60s like Motown and girl groups and really just fun and pop, that sort of stuff.

Starting point is 01:05:37 And then when he left, it came, I think my stepfather, I think he brought the Malcolm McLaren and the Soul to Soul into the house. And so Karen Wheeler, Trent Darby, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Chrissy Hind, and Annie Lennox sort of became these voices that I, when Mariah Carey actually, these voices I just started to mimic I just wanted to so the obsession for me as a child was I would mimic these artists until I thought I sounded exactly like them so then I guess when I when I sang the first original song ever that um I I just I had the voice that was an amalgamation of all of those people that I had studied.

Starting point is 01:06:27 And I didn't, it wasn't very good. I mean, there's an amazing video of me when I'm 12. I'm really a bad singer. And I'm definitely going to put it out sometime. I want people to know that, like, I was no Christina Aguilera. Like, she was incredible. Like, when she was 10 years old, she's doing these insane technical runs. I was a very mediocre singer at 12 and I went on this talent show

Starting point is 01:06:55 and super mediocre. I sent it to basically, this is silly, again, I'm bringing up the Kardashians, but I sent it to North because Kim told me that north got sad because she could kim kardashian told me that north um got sad because she couldn't sing chandelier as well as i did it and i so i sent her the video of me when i was 12 and that's amazing i said look at this this was how this was i couldn't sing at all when i was 12 like you're only little like you're gonna be an amazing singer and and i mean of course

Starting point is 01:07:38 they're so nice and funny but it would it's pretty hilarious video it's like i'm i might have a rat's tail i'd love to oh that makes that makes two of us i had a rat tail at 12 on long island but i i wasn't i wasn't doing any singing i couldn't have had my legs further apart I was almost doing the splits while I was singing a song about some men have muscles they're muscle bound and uncontrolled I would love to see the video

Starting point is 01:08:21 so please do put that out I'm definitely going to do that because I want kids to know that, you know, I don't know. I wasn't always a good singer. Yeah. And I've gotten better, I think, even just over the years, the last 20 years, I think. I didn't really belt.

Starting point is 01:08:42 That means sing out really big, loud for the listeners. I didn't really belt until I was maybe six years ago, 10 years ago. Wow. Very recent. Yeah. Cause I was my whisper album. I had yet to find my voice.

Starting point is 01:09:07 So you, you've honed your voice and we're going to talk. I want to ask you about the movie before we get to the movie. I have to, I have to ask you about the decision to, at least in many cases, hide your face and get away with a lot. And I'm reading here this piece from the Rolling Stone profile. It'll just read one paragraph and then I have a

Starting point is 01:09:34 couple of other additions. But the success of Titanium, which is a whole story unto itself that we won't get into right now, but people can look up the song on Wikipedia, made Sia one of the most in-demand songwriters in the business, but she needed to put out one last album to get out of an old publishing deal. She said she'd do it on the condition that she would have artistic control and do no promotion, no touring, no press, no media appearances. All right. Now, you've also sung with your back to audiences.

Starting point is 01:10:00 You've been on the cover of magazines with your face entirely covered. Why did you make these decisions? I really can't really 100% remember the genesis, but I've got this vague recollection that I thought, all right, I'll sing to my back to the audience and I'll put this blonde i'll sing with my back to the audience and i'll put this blonde bob on other people and then everyone can be the pop star and then i cast maddie in chandelier and she was so incredible and engaging and lovable and does she pronounce

Starting point is 01:10:41 her last name ziegler or how does she yeah maddie maddie so for people who don't know this is a an incredible dancer unbelievable and actor by the way she an actor oscar worthy it's crazy so she um was i didn't realize was going to be so engaging and wonderful and lovable and that i was going to want to immediately like have her in my life all the time and so I guess in the beginning you'll see um there are pictures of lots of different people wearing the blonde bob in the artwork for I think a thousand forms of fear I think because originally I was just going to have other people like and celebrities like I asked Kanye if he would just wear the blonde bob and sing my song or whatever or I just I thought oh I'll ask Robert Pattinson or I'll just I'll ask other people if I was going to ask Robert Pattinson if he would do

Starting point is 01:11:35 the cover of Rolling Stone um like if I could just use put his face over my face on a stick, you know. And so I had all these ideas like how it would be funny, like, to, like, hide from celebrity or just ask other people if I could borrow their celebrity just for the day. And so that never really evolved because of my partnership with Maddie because I fell madly in love with her as a person and as an artist and as a collaborator and so suddenly I was just like I don't want to work with anyone else I love this person she's so wonderful and um and that and so I guess she became almost an avatar and I know a lot of most of the tweens and little people think that she is sia when they

Starting point is 01:12:27 meet me they're so disappointed and actually often we're out me and her together and often people will come and most of the time i try and bodyguard her and i'll be like oh unfortunately we can't do photos right now she's not supposed to be in town or no one's supposed to know where she is because it's it's getting gnarly for her people wanting um selfies and stuff like that now but on a rare occasion that it's a very sweet little tiny person they'll say you know would you mind taking a picture they they think i'm her mom which i love because i i mean and also like you know and i dated a couple of celebrities you know over the last few years but like i love that one time i was on date with someone and and they recognized the person i was on the date with and and they recognised the person I was

Starting point is 01:13:25 on the date with and they were like, oh, my God, could you take a picture with him, with me, like me and him? And I was like, of course. And so it was just so I loved being the plus one. I was like, I would love to be a plus one. Because I like being entertaining and fun and nice and friendly to my friends and obviously to my fans or whatever or to you are like you know people who are trying to make the world a better place but like i don't care about adulation from people i don't know or who, I don't know. I just, I get my validation elsewhere.

Starting point is 01:14:06 And so celebrity is this huge gaping fame is like just a huge disappointment. Like for those of you who are listening who want to be famous, just do something else. It's not what you think it is. It's toxic. Yeah, that's the best way to put it. It's not what you think it is. It's toxic. Yeah, that's the best way to put it. It's not what you think it is. Highly accurate.

Starting point is 01:14:30 Yeah. I don't know. But, yeah, I fell in love with Maddie, and then the big wig was actually, I think my ex-husband was like, you should wear a really big wig, like an anime character. And so I did that at the grammys and then that became kind of i guess iconic and then i would say that in my halloween costume and um and then maddie also became a halloween costume in chandelier and that was conscious i like, I want to always make outfits or looks that can be replicated

Starting point is 01:15:08 for very little money because I want people to be able to afford to dress up as the pop star. No idea. Yeah, and the same with my movie. All of the outfits in the movie I'm having made for halloween in like affordable like affordably you know well we've alluded to the movie a few times now why don't we tell people more about it okay could you what's what's the genesis story why do a movie oh i yeah i don't know i was very i was about i don't know maybe 15 16 years ago now i don't know i thought

Starting point is 01:15:48 of us i just had a story come into my head uh i wrote it down and then um many years later it evolved into a screenplay and then it was a kind of mediocre pretty good indie screenplay, but my best friend, who is a screenplay writer, he said, I mean, this is great, nice indie, you could do this. It wasn't a musical, it was pure narrative. I was very against making a musical because I really wanted people to view me as a serious director. I was really, because I really thought that they'd think I was a wanker and it would be like a, it was just like a vanity project or like an actor making an album or, you know, I was scared of judgment basically.

Starting point is 01:16:32 And then he said, oh, we could make this, I can help you with this and we can make it better. So I started from scratch with Dallas Clayton and he's my best friend, the one I was talking to before I talked to you, just so I could go get some co-regulation in because I was nervy. And it worked. 20 minutes. Oh, that's a top tip, 20 minutes of co-regulation with someone that you trust

Starting point is 01:16:59 and that trusts you, that is like you have a 50-50 relationship with, 20 minutes of conversation with them will make you not want to do a drug, smoke a cigarette, gamble, have sex, porn, shop. Like it's the cure to addiction. It's connection. 20 minutes of co-regulation with the person that you trust. That's the solution um and uh yeah bill bill w um from aa he just sort of happened upon it like accidentally i think but

Starting point is 01:17:33 now it's proven science you know so anyway back to the movie yeah uh we wrote it and i was too scared to make it then some some personal went through a divorce. You know, I think he had wanted to put babies in me and me not to be working so much. And I realised I was in the wrong relationship. And so that was very devastating and that's been about a four-year recovery from that divorce and to help me through it I guess Dallas my best friend he was he kept saying to me we went and saw La La Land and he said he just said to me you could do that and I was like you think so because

Starting point is 01:18:21 I loved it and he was like yeah you could totally do that and I was like you really think so? Because I loved it. And he was like, yeah, you could totally do that. And I was like, you really think so? Because I'd always directed with a partner called Daniel Askell. That's who I directed all my music videos with. So I wasn't sure if I was really a director or was I just an artist with good ideas. But it turned out Lena Dunham and Dallas, they said to me, you can do it you can do it we like you'll totally be able to do it and because of who they are to me good friends that I trust I guess they gave me the self-esteem that I was lacking and so I called up Vincent Landay, who had been producing, he's produced nearly all of Spike Jonze's movies,

Starting point is 01:19:11 and he's one of my favourite directors, and done adaptation and being John Malkovich. And I said, can we try again? Because we'd talked before. And he said, yes said yes okay and also someone like maybe three people had said to me also you're an idiot you've got to turn it into a musical you're such an idiot it's like having a blank scrabble piece and not using it you're an idiot and so finally i i finally i caved and you know and of course then the budget like went from 4 million to 16 million

Starting point is 01:19:46 so but i did a good deal like i just i got to um two record labels in a bidding war and then um for my albums and then i just said whoever's gonna lend me 16 million is who i'm gonna go with nice nice so that's what happened and i um i love the movie i'm proud of it it's it's a beautiful film it's um what's the name it's called music dig it yeah and um that's um actually maddie ziegler plays a character called Music who is a teenager who's suffering severely from autism, and she's quite low-functioning. She is nonverbal, although she does have echolalia, so she can repeat what you say, but she doesn't generate her own vocabulary, sentences. So anyway, that was really scary for maddie i remember in the first day she came i like and i cast everyone basically off twitter i just was looking who can sing who can sing who doesn't sing like a like a white like like musical theater major who like who could

Starting point is 01:21:01 sing when i i basically just tweeted the people I wanted in my movie and they said yes. And then Maddie was really scared because I based the character on a guy called Stevie who I used to sit next to in an AA meeting on Sunday mornings at the log cabin. His mother was the deaf interpreter and And so he obviously himself wasn't an addict, but he was in there with her because she couldn't afford care for him while she worked. And I fell in love with Stevie. I, and I sat next to him and I don't know, I just, I fell in love with him and I'd already had this story in my head. And so the character was always um suffering from autism in my or suffering or I don't know flourishing from autism depending on how you view it and then yeah when I met Stevie

Starting point is 01:21:55 I was like oh my gosh like oh he's so beautiful and perfect and I love him and so I taught Maddie all of his mannerisms and his vocalizations and and she got scared she got scared I remember the first day that her and Kate Hudson were going to come to rehearsal and she got there she was like bought a house across the road for her to live in um temporarily because she was always here in town doing auditions and things like that and I didn't think it was good for her to always be in different hotels and stuff like that um so um so she came over well across the road and she came over she came over and I could see something was off and um I said what's going on and she burst into tears and she said I'm just really scared I don't want anyone to think I'm making fun of them and she is such a sensitive beautiful

Starting point is 01:22:47 person and I just said to her I will never let that happen I will not let that happen I will you can and you can have final say over the cut like I will never let that happen and then we spent three days working on all of, like, Stevie's utterances and vocalizations and tics and movements. And so, yeah, I have Stevie to thank for this amazing character that you'll see in the movie. And then inside of her head takes place all these musicals where she's unburdened by any of her, you know, physical disabilities, the tics and the pain and so her body is free from autism

Starting point is 01:23:40 and all the associated co-mortem collection of things that you can have. And everyone with autism is different, every single one. There's no two that are alike. So when we sent it off to the Child Mind Institute to make sure that we had done a good job representing the autism community, I was really hopeful that we'd done a good job representing the autism community um i was really hopeful that we'd done a good job i felt proud i thought we had but they came back with a hundred hundred percent um

Starting point is 01:24:15 approval and that to me was uh the day that i cried and felt relief and thought okay i've made a movie that's meaningful and that is interesting and moving and fun and funny and that's what i'd wanted to do so uh you know it definitely it's a it's a like you bring your Kleenex but you know you get your hope you get your Hollywood endings I don't worry congratulations I mean it sounds like a real it's the hardest thing I've ever a real journey a real journey I think that's why I've also been in bed for three years. What keeps you going? What gives you the most energy these days?

Starting point is 01:25:18 I mean, you've seemingly ticked off nearly every professional accolade and success you could ever want. Yeah, I've got no goals. Just being a mum. I just adopted two kids. How did you decide to do that i saw one of them on it on the hboc i'll tell you i'm so obsessed with television that's why i'm friends with the kardashians like katie griffin and like my my interior designer was on million dollar like designers or whatever and bravo like my friends with bethany frankel for fuck's sake like i'm i'm into television and reality tv and i i basically audition all my friends through

Starting point is 01:25:55 reality tv to decide whether or not they're safe or not and then i go and find them and ask them to be my friend so and then I've got my regular friends, my regular circle of friends, but I'm only friends. The only celebrities I'm really friends with are reality TV stars. Now, when you say safe, that just means that they're,

Starting point is 01:26:15 they're so aware of the public and exposed to the public that nothing weird related to your fame will happen. No, just psychologically not fucked, like not going to happen, but they're just good people. Like they're good, well-meaning people.

Starting point is 01:26:33 And how do your kids, how does the adoption fit into this? Oh, well, yeah. How does it? You mentioned HBO somehow. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 01:26:45 So that's exactly right. So I was watching a documentary on HBO, i.e. reality TV, but it was about the foster care system. And I saw a boy on there, and he was 16 at the time, and I thought, I can be his mother. And what a hilarious, like hilarious overstatement that was. And I found him. I found him, and he was 18 by the time I found him.

Starting point is 01:27:14 And I met him, and he said, can I bring my friend? He won't make it. He's too pretty. He's too what? He's too pretty. Oh, pretty. Yeah. too pretty um and i said what he's too pretty oh pretty yep and um and i said yeah okay because i had two spare bedrooms and um and i like an absolute maniac took them home that day and they were both 18 at the time and the last year has just been uh you know an absolute roller coaster but just the

Starting point is 01:27:47 most rewarding and the best best thing ever you know like being a mummy uh like a god mummy to maddie is like has been the most meaningful thing to me over the last you know what eight years six seven years and now being a mummy to my boys is now the most meaningful thing to me. Like, that's all I got. I don't care about anything else. I just want to make sure they don't end up in the 5% that end up, you know, because they statistically should end up in jail for murder and with the histories that they have, the trauma histories that they have and um i want

Starting point is 01:28:26 to keep that i want to fuck the system i think the system is fucked and i'll help keep them out of jail so then they could change the world well thank you for doing that it's something that you know i i can't even um i can't put myself in your shoes, of course. I mean, it must be such a multifaceted emotional experience. Some of my closest friends have adopted kids and actually one woman I'm very close to had a somewhat similar situation in the sense that they, she and her partner were planning on adopting one child and they came home with three. And then they wrote a movie about it. Aaron Rose Byrne and Mark Wahlberg.

Starting point is 01:29:16 This one was a different couple, but similar idea, I suppose. And it's parenting, i would imagine i don't have kids of my own but it seems like the most rewarding and most difficult job imaginable and um oh certainly all all the more so i would imagine when you are picking up where the system has left off i would imagine i mean i have a newfound complete like newfound respect for all parents any like you know i i feel like i'm lucky because they they i mean they have structure but they have trauma so my job now is to use what I've learned in my attachment repair therapy with George Haas and use that with them to create a secure base for them

Starting point is 01:30:11 and to help their brains to, the neuroplasticity of their brains to be able to become secure as well. That's my only goal at the moment is to help my children earn secure attachment because, yeah yeah they've been in at least 18 different homes each of them um wow yeah and and uh and they were being treated abominably and um yeah i just really so i'm just lucky i'm able to i have the resources that i can get them the kind of help that i really need and i'm and I'm grateful that it only took a year for me to, like, get them on board. You know?

Starting point is 01:30:53 That's incredible. It was a tough year. Yeah, I bet. I was an Al-Anon ninja. Well, Sia, I know we're coming up on time. I mean, we don't know each other that well, but the little contact that we have had, I've really enjoyed. I love your work.

Starting point is 01:31:15 I enjoy your work. I enjoy you and what you're doing in the world. People can find you on Twitter, at Sia, the best handle ever, at S-I-A. Instagram is at Sia Music. Of course, I'll link to everything that we've discussed. I don't really, I mean, I occasionally tweet, but I don't really run any of those. They're more marketing things. You're being very nice.

Starting point is 01:31:39 Thank you. And I'm mentioning them. And also, you know, I just realized as I'm looking at my hands right now that I do know the difference between supine and prone, because when you're doing a chin up and your palms are facing you, that's supination, which you can remember because you could put soup in your hands to eat it with your palms up. And then when you have your hands facing down or away, that's pronation. So if you're lying on your stomach, that would be prone. And if you're laying on your back, that would be supine. Just to come full circle. I just love learning. I don't care if I'm wrong.

Starting point is 01:32:17 See, is there anything else that you'd like to say before we bring to a close this first conversation on the podcast uh no i just i mean i feel like we could talk for seven hours i bet we could i bet we could we definitely could thank you for all of the good things that you're bringing to the world i really appreciate it really interesting and broad coverage of, you know, what's globally of importance, I guess. I appreciate what you're saying. Thank you. You're welcome.

Starting point is 01:32:56 Yeah, I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you taking the time. So thank you, thank you, thank you once again. Of course, of course. And hopefully once this pesky virus gets handled, we'll have a chance to actually spend time in person at some point. Yeah. That would be awesome.

Starting point is 01:33:16 I'll bring down. I would love it. I would love it. And to everybody listening, we will link to everything in the show notes, all of the resources, all of the concepts in the show notes, all of the resources, all of the concepts, the movie, certainly all of the handles, everything you can imagine. We will link to in the show notes at Tim.blog forward slash podcast.

Starting point is 01:33:35 As usual, you can just search SIA. It's very memorable, very easy to spell S-I-A. And I would imagine almost every language. So you'll be able to find it at Tim.blog. And until next time, thanks for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday.

Starting point is 01:33:56 Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend. And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance.

Starting point is 01:34:30 And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to

Starting point is 01:34:51 you by LinkedIn jobs. Small businesses have unique needs. A lot of you know this, I know this. And even with the uncertainty these days, one thing stands unchanged. And that is the importance of having the right people on your team. But hiring can be hard. It can be really expensive if you make mistakes, very painful if you get it wrong. I've certainly had that experience and I'm not eager to repeat it. So I try to do as much upfront screening as possible. When your business is ready to make the next hire, LinkedIn Jobs can help you screen candidates

Starting point is 01:35:18 with the hard and soft skills that you're looking for. They'll match your position with qualified members so that you can find the right person quickly. Using LinkedIn's active community of more than 690 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster. So when your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. You can pay what you want and get the first $50 off. Just visit linkedin.com slash Tim. Again, that's linkedin.com slash Tim to get $50 off your first job post. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market. Thrive Market saves me a ton of money and it's perfect for these crazy times. Thrive Market is

Starting point is 01:35:58 a membership-based site on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. You can regularly save 25 to 50% off of normal retail prices with member-only prices for anything you can imagine, really. Whether it's keto, paleo, gluten-free, vegan, whatever, you can sort by that. You can find all types of food. You can find supplements. You can find non-toxic home products,

Starting point is 01:36:20 clean wine, dog food, just about anything. And let me give you a personal example of just how much you can save. So my last order, I ordered Primal Kitchen mayonnaise, which is made with avocado oil. It's delicious. Justin's almond butter. And the first was 25% off. The Justin's almond butter was 30% off. Rao's homemade marinara sauce, which is awesome, 26% off. All said and done, at the end of my shopping, I saved $39 on my order. So members, and I'm a member, can earn wholesale prices every day and save an average of $30 on each order. I'll come back to that. And through Thrive Gives, their one-on-one membership matching program, every paid Thrive

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

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