Sarah Bahbah - Addiction, Intuition, Success
Guests: Sarah Bahbah
Full transcript · Read the full conversation in order, with its original context.
§01Transcript — part 1
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Sarah Bahbah 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 with her alone in her front room at her kitchen table.
She opened up to me about childhood sexual abuse she suffered, the power of her intuition, a drug addiction she overcame, and much, much more. I think I fell in love with Sarah a little bit after this conversation, if I'm honest with you. And there's a reason I chose her to be the first guest on season two of *The Diary of a CEO*.
She's real, powerful, yet vulnerable, and she's already a superstar in her own right. 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. She's had her work displayed in major art exhibitions all around the world with celebrity admirers including Emma Watson, Katy Perry, Diplo, and 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 Steven 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. I didn't really expect anything less, to be honest. So thank you, first of all.
Thank you for coming.
So you're obviously incredibly artistic. When I told the girls in our New York office that I was coming here, there was unmatched hysteria. Honestly, they literally went crazy in the office. 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. With creatives and artists like yourself, I always think 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 to you becoming who you're known for today?
That's a great question. I think I grew up in Australia, in Perth, with all my family. My background is Arabic; I'm Palestinian and Jordanian. And so I grew up in a very conservative home. 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. But both were very strict in terms of the Middle Eastern culture and what that meant. So I grew up with a lot of restrictions, a lot of limitations, and a lot of fear that I would essentially go to hell if I misbehaved.
With that, there were also things happening behind closed doors that aren't necessarily a reflection of my culture, but a reflection of men who are restricted to express their sexuality. I feel like a lot of the children in my family suffered because of that, and I was a victim of that, too. I wasn't aware of that until later.
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. I was constantly in fight-or-flight mode. I was constantly having panic attacks as a five-year-old. I didn't understand why. Because I couldn't find safety in my home, I decided to leave and move to Melbourne. I'm still very close with my family, though.
I moved to Melbourne and I couldn't find safety there either. I was trying to constantly escape my anxiety, so I dived into numbing myself. I don't really talk too much about this, but I essentially had this Xanax addiction and it went on for three years. It really numbed a big part of my anxiety.
Then when I moved to LA for the next chapter of my life, I was still in this state where I was constantly battling with myself. I realized I was just going down this very dark hole and I didn't know why. I didn't know why I had certain desires or why I was behaving a certain way and why I was constantly choosing to escape, not just through drugs, but through alcohol and food.
I battled with eating disorders my entire life, and then through impulsive decision-making. I had this weird thing with first dates and how I would invite random strangers into my bed, but then I wouldn't have sex with them. I learned that was me reenacting trauma.
All these things that I was fighting eventually led me to go and figure my stuff out. I took myself to the desert for ten days and I went cold turkey on everything. When I was there, I essentially triggered my trauma brain because I was alone in the desert, coming off drugs, and waking up to a bed full of bedbugs.
That triggered that lack of safety again because my space had been invaded. My trauma brain was active the entire time I was away while I was coming off drugs. Then I started to remember my childhood in that state. All these memories kind of came out and I was freaking out because I was having these flashbacks of being molested as a child.
I remember calling my sister and being like, "What am I feeling? Why am I having these memories?" We kept working on it throughout the trip. I got back home and I decided to change everything in my life. I went cold turkey, I started seeing a therapist full-time, and I started seeing a personal trainer full-time.
I moved houses because I was living with guys who were constantly around drugs. I was able to uncover a lot about my trauma. It was validated when I spoke to my parents. All this stuff came up and I realized that was a big part of my story that I was blocking out.
So when you see my art, you're seeing me before I realized my trauma and then after. You see there's such a huge progression in the way that I tell my story. It goes from being really innocent and youthful and very coming-of-age to really dark and depressing, to then me owning my power. There is growth in my art because my art is real to me and my art is my story. 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, only once every two weeks though. I was seeing her twice a week, sometimes three times, and then over the years, as we've been doing the self-work for two years now, the more we uncovered, the less I felt like I needed to see her. Now I'm in a really good place, but you still have to have someone you can check in with.
And you're 26 now?
Yeah.
Incredibly young. I'm also 26, so I'm actually talking to myself a little bit there. What age were you when you started to really take control and take ownership and understand the things that had happened previously and the impact they had had on your life?
I started doing the self-work two years ago, so at 24. Prior to that, when I think about my time on earth, it's all very hazy. I feel like I was kind of living in ignorance and oblivion. It wasn't until I stopped to ask myself, "Hey, why are you doing this?" or "Why do you think this way?" or "Why are you choosing to not focus on or spend time with yourself?" When I realized that, I was like, okay, I've got to figure this out because I don't think this is a way to live.
What kind of person are you in terms of personality? Some people say they're confident, motivated, 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 maternal. I'm very protective over myself and people in my life. I'm pretty laid back. I try to really just go in terms of my personality; I don't necessarily like to label myself as anything. I like to just focus on being present and feeling.
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.
Would you consider yourself a confident person?
Yeah.
Do you think that's something you've had to work on or something you've always had?
I think I've always had it. Since I was little, I was extremely competitive. I was confident, but I also loved to be alone. I'm like an introverted extrovert. When I'm with the right people, I'm like the loudest one at the table, and then I need to be alone. 70% of my day I need to just be with myself and not really give my energy to anyone.
How has that impacted your ability to form relationships with people? Because I imagine, and this is just a guess, with people who are often quite talented and inspired and creative, they're on one hand also a little bit different and a little bit harder to understand. Does that sometimes make it harder to form relationships with them if they're operating on a slightly different wavelength? Have you had that problem with friendships and romantic partners and such?
I really just allow my intuition to dictate who I want to connect with and who I don't. For me, it's very easy to identify relationships that I know are going to be immediate and instant. Other times, if I don't feel a calling to you, I know not to exchange that energy. 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.
You are an artist in many senses of the word. I want to understand the full spectrum of the art that you create. Could you take me through that?
Yeah, absolutely. So with my art, as I said previously, it is me expressing myself and my story. My art has been centered around me having repressed my emotions and being extremely apathetic to what I'm feeling to suddenly feeling everything at once. It's when I'm feeling everything at once that a story is about to be told.
When I sit with myself, and it's usually during a breakup or a grievance or feeling like I've been misunderstood or feeling this huge desire to just be like, "I have to write, I have to tell my story," one after the other these lines start coming out of my brain—like these one-liners. I write them in my notes on my phone. I can probably pull up a random one from a while ago.
Go for it, please. I would love to see the notes in your phone.
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 others are just like sassy. 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?
I'm just trying to find one where I've got like 30 notes on it because they usually come like one after the other. There are so many. No, because that's not out yet, so I can't share that. On the exclusive. Okay, so this one 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.
Prick.
No, it was okay because we weren't even seeing each other. We just have like... he's a big part of my family community here and we'd always just end up in the cuddle puddle and make out and whatever.
Right, you've got to explain what the cuddle puddle is because people, if you think about what you've just said, if you don't give that context...
The cuddle puddle is literally as you imagine it. It is a big giant sheepskin rug, and there's a Tempur-Pedic mattress under it, and there are like 20-30 pillows on top and then like throws. It is the spot in my apartment where everyone congregates to cuddle.
It does look very comfortable. It's about 10 feet behind us.
So 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. 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 salty. I was feeling like a little bit like... that was the wine.
And then he texted 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 going to 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." 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 know that one; I'm drawing a complete blank on it. But that's just an example of me having been in the moment and asking myself, "How am I feeling?" because that's something I never did.
So instead of waiting three months into a relationship, I was checking in with myself as it was happening. In the past, I was not checking in 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.
How important do you think it is for people to keep track of how they feel? Because even doing this podcast, some of these episodes are recorded alone at night. I record them alone at night at 3:00 AM in my house back in the UK. 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. Upon getting it out, I would feel like I'd been through therapy or something. I think it's so unbelievably important to, as you say, understand when things happen to you, how it's made you feel. If you're able to have that conversation with yourself, you're almost able to control the behavior as opposed to reacting—you respond.
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. We do that through our phones, through bingeing on Netflix, through drinking, through drugs, through everything. We're constantly escaping.
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, like, 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 like a drama-romance that's going to make us cry, which is also fine.
But it's the process, and we skip a process. 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 opposed to finding it within ourselves. I think it's so important that we learn to disconnect from the outer world and connect with ourselves to tap into how we're supposed to be feeling when we're feeling.
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, in your case, has resonated with a huge amount of people. 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 canvas of their own self-expression.
Yeah, for sure. So I think with all of the series that you see on my site and in galleries and whatnot, they've all come from me having been able to trust in my intuition that the time to tell my story is now. When these series come about, it's usually within 24 to 48 hours.
Really? Of 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." Then on Monday, I edited the photos. On Tuesday, we had a preview party, and then on Wednesday, they were out online.
Crazy. 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." It's just you trusting your intuition and being like, "I've got to get it done," and you will 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 a 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... you see so much content that's so curated and so... it's not really real to the person; 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—the voice that people are too afraid to give themselves. I think that's why people stop and pay attention, because they're like, "I feel that way too." 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 couldn't come up with, and I think that's what makes people stop and focus.
And is that the part that gives you your fulfillment—knowing that you're helping other people heal? Or is it more selfish?
Honestly, I think it's more selfish. My process is so personal, and in me creating, I'm healing. Then when I put it out there, it's me giving myself a voice. If that's empowering others, that's a fucking blessing. I'm so happy that I can do that.
But I imagine that was never your intention, right? 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. Often that seems to be the case with art when it's created from a real place.
Yeah, my intention was never about money for me. It was expressing my story. The fact that I've been able to monetize is another blessing that I'm really grateful for.
You talk about intuition a lot and how that's guided so much of your decision-making generally. It seems to be a very common word in your vocabulary. How does one tune into their intuition?
I think it goes back to what I was saying about choosing to be with yourself instead of choosing to be with your surroundings. I mean, that's fine too, 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.
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—breathing through your being and essentially meditating. But people are scared of the word meditation for some reason. I feel like people think it's a lot of work and it's like too spiritual. But really, all meditation is is grounding yourself and being like, "I am here with me. I'm not here with Netflix. I'm here with me."
I keep using Netflix as a reference because that's my biggest escape. 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. 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 do you talk to yourself? Is there like an internal dialogue?
Yeah, it's honestly just me hanging out with me, and it's my mind hanging out with my soul, and those two are having a conversation.
One of the things that fascinates me is you've grown a huge following on Instagram very, very quickly. That's always the way it seems with 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 fund your own shows and things like that. Can you talk me through the journey you've gone on from creating your first piece of art to where you are now? Was there a moment where you blew up? Was there a break you got or something? Where was the moment where you felt like, "You know what, this is really working"?
Yeah, I have a good one. Mine was like a big breakthrough. So *Sex and Takeout* was my first viral series. It is a series I created to capture indulgent moments within yourself and with your partner, if you have one. 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.
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? This is so genius!" I just gathered everyone in my neighborhood, like I asked friends of friends if they would just model for me. I was like, "Look, I need you to sign a release form." I'd never had anyone sign release forms before. 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 were all like, "Yeah, fuck yeah." And so we shot all of it. I think it was about 20 different—or 15 to 20 different—final pieces, and I shot all of it within two weeks. Then I put it... I did an exclusive online with this publication, and I think we released it in October 2014. It picked up momentum, but it didn't go as crazy as I thought it would.
I was like, "Hmm, this is interesting. I'm just going to be patient." I was with my ex at the time, we were together for almost a year, and it was almost like the universe was waiting for me to break up with him before I blew up the fucking internet. So I broke 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. I just set it up like a BuzzFeed article because my background was in social media strategy, so I knew exactly how to do it.
I was like, "This is *Sex and Takeout*, blah blah blah." And I went to bed. I don't know what possessed me to do it that night because I'd been putting off doing it for two months. But that night, I decided to do it. I went to bed and I woke up—I'm not kidding—I woke up to like thousands, thousands of emails, notifications, like 50,000 new followers in 24 hours.
I'm like, "What is happening? Like, what is actually happening to have that reaction?" So I quickly jumped on Facebook and all my friends were tagging me in *Elite Daily*. They were the first to do the post. So they found it on BuzzFeed Community, took it, and then they were like the ones that made it viral.
*Elite Daily* did it first, and then I was just like... that was the source as far as I'm aware. Then every other publication that existed did something too. There was *Juxtapoz*, there was *Dazed*, there was *Huffington Post*, and *Israeli Times*—everywhere. I'm just like, "What is happening?"
And so after that, I got picked up by a gallery. We started exhibiting the works internationally, within America, UK, and even like Israel. And then, yeah, I guess that's how my art career got started.
And how long ago was that?
That was 2014... oh, so 2015. January 2015 was when it went viral. And the week it went viral—this is just like a fun little sugar coating—but I ran into my ex. He chased me out of a venue and I was just like, "Fuck you. 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.
Nice. That's always the best feeling when you're young, isn't it? But on that point, something that I hear a lot with people that have success in their own disciplines is that they got lucky. People have said this to me. I actually responded to a comment on Instagram yesterday because I hate that... I know luck is a factor, but I hate this guy commented something about, "Oh well, some of my friends they just get a lucky break and then they're really successful." They're almost trying to 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.
That's projection, though.
Yeah. So have you ever... has anyone ever said that to you? And what role do you think luck has played? Actually, before I... I'm going to tell you my idea of luck in your situation there. So one of the things where I got really lucky, I was up really late at night and I signed up to a website... reminds me of what you've just said then... I signed up to a website when I was 18 years old and I uploaded my details at about 3:00 AM in the morning and then I went to bed.
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 3:00 AM signing up to websites when the people who say luck is "ugh, luck, luck, luck, whatever," they were all asleep. In the same way, you were on BuzzFeed uploading your work when everyone else was asleep.
It was probably 3:00 AM too.
Probably! 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.
Well, I honestly... I don't think luck exists. I think people who call it luck don't know what hard work is. The universe... 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 strategized 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 pushed 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. Having an idea and then executing it is where most people... they don't even get to that point. There's so much resistance. I'm reading *The War of Art* right now. 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. So when you do that and you believe in something and then you get it done and you keep strategizing and pushing and pushing 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 as well.
I'm just like, people don't like go to bed and wake up billionaires. That's not how it happens. I've been doing this for 10 fucking years. You know? In the same way you've been fucking working. We all are working. This ideal that we wake up successful doesn't exist.
And surely that is because the majority of people, because of the nature of your growth and your notoriety, they've only seen somewhere near the end. So the majority of people didn't see the other 10 years because the other 10 years going back to year one of you being an artist wasn't that interesting and you probably weren't that good, to be honest, in many senses of the word.
I think that's also one of the downfalls of social media in many respects—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 know, was probably 18 and a bit salty that Justin Bieber was killing it.
I saw this video of him on YouTube and he was about eight years old and he sat 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. From that moment onwards, it changed my whole perspective of like envy and successful people because Justin Bieber is someone that I thought got lucky. 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 eight years old and then went out on the streets and started playing his guitar when I was probably at home playing with like Action Man or Lego. And so yeah, I always think there's a bigger...
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So I try not to judge now because generally... Yeah, of course. What's something that you're really, really bad at?
Something I'm really bad at... singing.
Can we hear your singing?
No! 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?
I just don't... I've heard terrible singing. I'm not a terrible singer; I'm just not a great singer.
Will 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. There's I'm sure there's a lot of things; I just don't focus on the negatives.
Sure. I mean, like I'm unorganized. I can be a little bit selfish. Most of my life has been pretty much about me, those kinds of things.
I think, honestly, I really try... I'm a perfectionist in a lot of ways with my relationships, with my work, with even the way I communicate with myself and the way there's a lot of control there. So I think I'm bad at letting go of control.
Interesting. I imagine that has a lot of down... negative impacts on a lot of things in your life.
It's actually just very... it's between myself with... oh, it's an internal thing. It's not like you're controlling in a relationship. No one looks at me and thinks I'm controlling; it's just something I know I am personally and privately and quietly. I just like to control the amount of energy I exchange with people, I like to control my space, I like to control the way I organize things and like...
Oh, wow. You are organized.
This is just my... we're looking at my personal projects board and I have Post-it 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, but this... 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. 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?
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.
Interesting. And when will we be able to see it?
Well, my goal is to have it done before my 27th birthday, which is a month away. 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 do, I've achieved everything I 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 shooting more women of color representing my culture in the Middle East and talking more to the taboos around child sexual abuse. 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.
So there's that. And then, beyond that, I don't see the photography element being the thing that I continue to do. It's going to end soon enough. 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.
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 have so much skill there that I want to explore it. These one-liners are songs; they all can easily become songs. So I want to be able to create a book which I'll take to publishers and just be like, "Here, put me in a studio with this person, let's go."
And like I'm talking like I want to work for Rihanna and Nicki Minaj and Lana Del Rey—not Kanye. You don't like Kanye? Oh my God, I wrote the best fucking rap the other day and I'm just like, "Wait, no!" because it's so good. I 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. 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 fucking awards for it because it's so unique. But I'm not an architect.
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 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 sort of early years. Usually, and this is again probably a bit of a sweeping statement, but those things might knock someone's confidence or at least their own belief in themselves. And what you've just said there is, "I know I can do it." You are someone that has been through so much but for somehow has also held onto their belief in themselves—almost to like a pretty, and this is not an offensive thing because I feel the same way about me, but like almost to like a delusional perspective. The world would tell you you shouldn't be able to believe that you'll be in a room with Rihanna and win awards for your own house, but there is zero doubt... I have zero doubt that you believe that. Where does that self-belief come from? I think self-belief is one of the... because it leads to that self-doubt which then fosters regret. It's 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?
My self-belief has come from, and we keep talking about it, but it is intuition. It's me having everything that has happened to me in my life up until right now, I have foreseen for myself. 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... all I know is that I've always known what I had to do.
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. 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 move 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.
Every other caption series, everything, it's just trusting that I'm supposed to be doing it, not knowing why. 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. 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.
But what if I fail?
If you fail, you start again. You do... but I just... I don't know because I can't say I have with any of these projects. And is that luck? I'm doing quotes. I really can't explain it. It's just trusting.
I have failed with other projects, but then I always almost knew that they weren't going to be as successful because there was a resistance greater than I was aware of. You just keep going because series that didn't take off the way I thought they would, I delayed them and I took 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 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? Yes.
But you're a bit of a genius, Sarah. A bit of a genius. I can think of some people, and I'm sure you can as well, that will believe in something and it's terrible by definition of most people's success. Like nobody cares, it doesn't relate. But through their own perspective... they create these ideas and they are 100% 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? I guess in your mind it's... from your perspective, it's you're more connected to yourself. I think you have a heightened sense of people and self-awareness. You're probably very good at understanding people because you're probably quite good at understanding yourself, maybe. Is that fair?
Yeah, I think that's fair. I think, 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 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 that the energy we invest into something we believe in.
What's something in the next couple of years that or the next 10 years that you really want to do? Something you really want to accomplish. We talked about the house awards, you're going to be a rapper slash ghostwriter.
I'll be a ghostwriter. I won't be a rapper ever. I can't actually rap; I just know how to write them.
When I googled you earlier, I struggled to find photos of you. And then when we walked in here, Lauren said, "Oh, can we take a photo?" and you were a little bit shy about that. Why is that? Why couldn't I find loads of photos of you on the internet?
I don't know. It's not even 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.
Are you scared of anything? What are the things that you worry about?
I worry about my safety. That's conditioning. I worry about... but I don't think that's why I don't put... there are photos of me that exist on the internet. 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. 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 once every two weeks, and it went from being like level nine my entire life to being like two now, which is incredible. 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. Instead of numming 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.
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... 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 use your adult self to heal your inner child. 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.
The last person I interviewed on this podcast is a guy called Johann Hari. He writes a book called *Lost Connections*. It's—the subtitle of the book is *Uncovering the Real Cures of Depression and Anxiety*. 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 generation, millennials and younger. 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. 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 dressed amazing and FaceTuning 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 de-validating 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 part of the storylines within... is that ever something you've considered?
No, but the themes are all very relative, so they're very... the themes are very open to interpretation, so if you're reading something, it could very well come back to social media.
If you became the CEO of Instagram and Facebook, right, what would you do?
Oh my God, great question! Okay, so 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 essentially create the source of original content.
Content ID, like what they call it.
Yeah, and 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. This idea of "crediting" isn't the correct way to do it; you actually have to seek permission first.
So literally 100% 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... 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 gets taken down immediately? And it's like a one-two process.
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.
Something that I've had to deal with since *Sex and Takeout*—that's when it really started happening—is thousands and thousands and thousands of accounts just using my work, and then brands seeing it and brands not knowing that it came from me, and so they start copying it. 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. That wouldn't have happened if they knew where the source came from.
And so it's just... yeah, I feel like... and this doesn't just on behalf of me; it's on behalf of artists everywhere. Because if you think about the net loss of that, it's pretty tremendous. Facebook and Instagram are working on something—they have Content ID, but 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 static imagery.
I feel like visual artists are the ones who we aren't on anyone's radar yet. I think we're the ones that are suffering the most in terms of the plagiarism. With music, you know, they have all the software to do that, with videos too. But with photography... and how do you even define IP? Because you can create something and then someone can create something similar, but that's their IP. So there's still a lot of like grey area. And so I feel like there needs to be an institution researching deeply how to define IP laws and then how can that be integrated into social media.
Do you think social media, in terms of mental health impacts and societal impacts... 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 and 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.
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.
And so this week he put like 50 of us in Joshua Tree. We put our phones in 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 have 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 on Sunday there was a ceremony to open it again. And you know, 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!" 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 weren't distracting ourselves with these phones. And oh my goodness, it's so life-changing. 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 essentially... just because my Instagram is very busy, I don't define myself through it 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 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 no one—you know there's not big people waiting for you until you want them to wait for you.
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 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?
Yeah, 100%. And while we're just talking about schooling, you know, we have been teaching the kids the same thing for the past however hundred years, and we have advanced so much as a society. I feel like everything the kids are learning in school right now is no longer relevant to how they should survive once they leave school. Or even not even when they graduate—when they leave the premise. We are not preparing our children the way they need to be prepared.
And until the schooling system changes entirely because it's no longer relevant to learn math, English, science... no. 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 they need to be majoring from the start in whatever their skill sets lead them to do.
So 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 math to do math. Like, you don't need to do it. We have iPhones now, we have calculators. I'm not saying don't learn 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.
Do you want to have kids one day?
Absolutely.
And how many?
I'm going to say two minimum.
And would you send them to like a normal school or would you...
No, no, no, no. I've thought about this. I think 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 100% will make them learn five languages.
Really? How many languages do you know?
I know two... oh, two and a half. Arabic and some Italian.
What five languages would they learn?
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 Spanish because Spanish is extremely universal. I want to personally learn Japanese, but I feel like Mandarin's probably going to be the more universal language. And then French or Italian, but that would be up to them. But you know, when they're young they can do it so well and I want to be able to move around to different countries while I'm raising my kids so they are able to immerse in the lifestyle of the language they're learning.
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.
I would have babies now; I just love babies. I just have too much work to do right now, but in four years I'm hoping it'd be a bit more chill. The partner is optional; I might even adopt, like who knows. I'm super independent.
Are you misunderstood?
§02Transcript — part 2
Hopefully not, because I try to be as transparent as possible. You know, often times I would say when I was struggling with like insecure attachments, I feel like my love language was misplaced, and so you know, my way of expressing love wasn't reciprocated and that obviously drove me insane. But I've progressed so much now that I understand we all have different ways of communicating love, and I feel more at ease knowing that.
This is my last question. It's been very interesting. We're sat at a table now; there are six chairs. Me and you occupy two of them. There's four empty seats here. We're going to have a big dinner party; phones are going to go into a cassette or a brick or whatever. Who do you 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 and I were playing a game where we had to ask each other five questions and that one came up. His answers were so good that I'm stealing them. This is not original.
But I would bring my five-year-old self. If my adult self right now can talk to my inner child, and she's traveling from the past into the future, so she gets to go back... 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 advise her? What would you say?
So many things. I think the thing that I didn't hear at all and it would have probably saved my emotional state—I probably wouldn't have anxiety—is 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—a higher power, whoever that is—to just come and hang out. And then I'd probably invite Rami Malek because I'm really... I don't know, I have a huge fascination with him and his characters that he portrays on television. And then I'd ask him who he would invite. So you'd let him bring a plus one? He can bring a plus one, but they have to be interesting.
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 have 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've 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, thank you for the time today, and where do people find you in your... I mean you're everywhere, but where can people find you if they want to reach out?
I think Instagram's probably the best place. It's just Sarah Bahbah, but it's actually pronounced "Bah-bah," but you can say "Baba," that's fine, I've accepted it.
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, that's really refreshingly open, so thank you.
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