Thomas Green here with ethical marketing service on the episode today. I am very uh very happy and um I have a lot of admiration for our next guest. Her name is Sadia Carone. Sadia. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do? Certainly. Um I do lots of things so I’ll try to keep this moment short.
Um The best way to understand me is I guess I would say I am a generalist. That means that I know a lot about a lot of things or perhaps a little about a lot of things. I lived in Brazil for two years. I lived in France for two years where I taught English, um, um, and did some voiceovers and in Brazil did some acting and some singing. I was brought up in a more traditional family. My father was a lawyer. My mother was a school teacher. I took piano lessons and dance lessons, but the arts weren’t things that we do. So I chose to leave her family and, um embrace my artistic self. I guess that’s me in a nutshell. Well, thank you for the introduction. And, um, I sort of feel as a fellow generalist, I sort of understand what you mean after a little while, I do get a little bit bored with certain things after I move on to the next thing. So I kind of get it. But, um, at the beginning of the episode, I referenced the TED Talk, which I will link in the description for people who want to watch it. Would you like to start with what your story is?
Certainly. So the name of the TED Talk is family secrets. And incest. Survivor speaks out which in and of itself is pretty controversial. Um, my father abused me, but I want to make it clear for anyone who’s on the fence about watching the talk. It is literally a day in my world, you know, this could have gone really graphic and really, like, horrifying. But there’s enough of that in the world as it is. So my approach to the talk was this happened to me. Uh, most people, as I say in the talk, it’s like, what? How? Huh? What? Oh my God. What? And I feel like a space alien. So I tried to very broad strokes, paint a picture of my family. Um just to kind of set the scene because if you come from a wonderful family, I understand that my world is kind of impossible to imagine. So, um it’s like, you know what it was like, um what happened and what it’s like now and then part of the talk is where I discuss how not communicating with my family gets a little awkward, you know, in business settings, everybody’s always going home here in the US.
We go home for Thanksgiving, we go home for Christmas and I don’t. So that gets kind of awkward. Um If I’m at a party, people always ask where, where are you from? How many brothers and sisters do you have? So that gets awkward and then dating like that’s it, it’s kind of awkward there too. You know, before the clothes come off, I have to sit the guy down and have a conversation with him. So the feedback I’ve gotten on the talk is people find it really helpful because I say don’t say this. This is what people have said to me. Don’t, don’t do this, try this instead. So if you’re on the fence about the talk, you can only stop in the middle. I don’t know. I, I got up there and told, you know, the most shameful, painful, embarrassing thing in my life because I want people to know that you’re not alone. If you have family. Weirdness, please. Just like we need your voice. Um At the end of the talk, I do two things that are important to me. Why? Because I said if the bad thoughts come and they will bad thoughts come to lots of people for lots of reasons and wait 24 hours.
This has saved me more times than I can count. I shake my fist at the sky and I announced this time and I put the universe on notice and I explained the problem and I said we’ve got 24 hours or I, I quit and I use that very carefully like when I really need it. And then I have to reach out for help in three ways and that can just be touching the universe like liking posts on linkedin. Um reaching out to a friend, there’s a new suicide hotline in the US and I gave out that number and then I closed the talk with the non tragic part of SAA, right? I specifically got permission to make a little video of my artwork and me playing guitar because after I talked about all the garbage stuff, I wanted to stand on that stage and have a bit to collect myself, to be honest. But I wanted the world to see. That’s not all that I am. That’s one piece, but there’s all these other pieces too and we’re never just one thing. So I think, I think that that’s everything I have to say on that for now. It’s a great introduction. And um there’s a lot I want to ask you about and in terms of, um, you know, it’s just one part of your identity, the fact that you do all these other things that the, the comedy in particular I want to ask you about is, is amazing.
Um But the first thing that comes to me, um in relation to the TED Talk is that um a lot of the reason why I have these conversations is for the benefit of people who perhaps um they are, they have been through that or they’re going through something similar and they’re not sort of in your place. They’re sort of um working their way through their feelings if you like. So, um you made the decision to talk about it in a quite a public way. How did you feel about it? Um Sort of before and how do you feel about it now? Well, thank you for that question. One tiny correction. It was technically a Ted X talk. Which is like a minor league. It has a little X at the end if my video gets a million views and I’ll get invited to a real TED with no X and that’s the, the one I think it’s in, uh, Vancouver. So a TED X, I don’t know what the British equivalent is but like the minor league or like the, not, not the big, like the, like a college team as opposed to like one of your city football teams, I guess so.
Um, just to get that out of the way and let me tell you, I was terrified. I met a guy on linkedin and I always give him a shout out. His name is Frank, just like, you know, the of England, Frank King. And he was saying, hey, do you have an idea for a TED X? I’ll give you a free 30 minute consultation and this guy just kept popping up in my feet like every day. And it got to the point where I was like, ok, ok. Ok. I get it the call and I did and I gave him some ideas and of course, I saved this one for absolutely last. And we have five minutes left and I’m like, oh, by the way, I have this thing, you know, is a Survivor family secrets. And he was like, shut the front door. He’s like, oh my God, like, yes, like that’s it. No, no one is talking about this, you’re gonna save lives. He does a lot on suicide prevention and, um, he of course, has a whole course and, you know, a whole business around helping people do TED talks. And at the time I didn’t really have enough money and he’s like, I will send you my stuff and I will coach you.
I’m not gonna give you the one on one coaching. That’s what people pay for. But I’m gonna send you all my materials, get this talk out there, you will get booked. And it was like most people do TED talks about their creativity and their business and it’s like this happy thing. I was literally like, wait this out if you have to, oh fuck. But kind of propelled by the truth within me. I guess I was like, ok, I can do this. I’ve been on stage millions of times. It’s gonna be hard, but it’s gonna get done. So the first thing I did is I sat down, I wrote the entire talk in one sitting. Then you have to make a video and you have to summarize your talk. So I did all the steps. I spent about four hours a day on Saturdays and Sundays just applying left and right everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. And I had one interview for a TED that I think was in and then the one that I actually booked. So then you have the interview and I don’t know if you’ve seen the film, a beautiful mind. It’s about someone who’s very brilliant but can kind of go crazy. And I made a joke about that guys. I know you want to make sure I’m not gonna be screaming, crying, you know, horrifying people.
You want to make sure I’m normal and, and I, I am usually, uh and then I found out that, that I got booked and again, just that in my stomach, I don’t know if other people get this where it’s like I have to do this and it’s really important and I honestly just can’t say about like the decision has been made and I just have to follow them through. So then we, we get together and we meet everybody, we go around the room, it was the Zoom, you know, like with the tiktok to board. And um my topic was by far, like the most unusual, the other people were doing interesting things about their work in their life and I couldn’t even know, mention my talk and the room just went silent, which I did a lot. And um at the end of the talk, you know, some of the girls wanted to give out free hugs and I’ll be on my podcast, be on my podcast. Like they’re all being, you know, new best friends forever. And I just sat there like it was invisible, but I’m used to that and then um you have to meet with people. So people are going to accept your talk and you meet with the movement coordinator and you have fact checkers.
It’s this whole process. And I told the organizer who is absolutely amazing. I said, look, I only want to give this talk twice. I’ll do it at the dress rehearsal and I’ll do it for the event. I don’t want the other participants to hear my talk until the dress rehearsal. Normally to make sure you’re memorized, you have to do it two or three times in front of the group. But I said, I don’t want people talking about my talk. I’ll lose ownership. My intellectual property is that I’m new and different and I don’t want people outside of the, the core organizers of this thing to get any intel on my talk. I want it to just drop and they agreed to that. I said I’ll do it for you. I’ve got stage experience, you know, I can do this and I started memorizing my talk uh about a year ago, it was June or July and different parts of it were very, very hard for me to get word for word. And while I’m going through this, I’m having the nightmares and flashbacks and all the horrible things, but it’s not every day. Um I know a girl who has epilepsy and she never knows when she’s gonna get an attack.
You cannot identify the triggers. So some days I would have great days and some days I would just be like, I’m underwater. Ok. Did I eat breakfast? How do you eat lunch? Do I have to do laundry? Like, I’m not leaving the house because I’m just not ok. Then I had to get to Lima Ohio and I did, I got there a couple of days early and I guess I should just tell the whole story. So, the day of the dress rehearsal I realized, um, my fact had not been verified. I have a statistic. I don’t exactly remember what it is right now, but it’s a certain number of Children are abused every certain amount of time in the US. And so, you know, the Backpackers, I’m like, hey, you never said yes, you never said no. So I’m assuming it’s a yes, my fact has been approved and they come back to me, you know, eight hours before the dress rehearsal and they said no, we can’t approve your fact, your TED X is not gonna get approved. Your pop can’t go out like I’ve spent all this time and money, you know, getting there and that was like the I knew something bad was gonna happen when I did this and that was it.
So the six hours before my dress rehearsal, I’m reading through tons of like just details in child sexual abuse and stuff. I really didn’t need to know trying to get this fact verified. I get it done. I show up to the dress rehearsal and I’m honestly a mess. I, I’m just like, oh my, but I get through it because I made sure I was bulletproof. Now as an actor, what that means is when I have an audition or when I’m in a play TV, is a little bit different. I make sure I know all my lines with the TV, going and the radio on. So no matter how much, you know, outside stimulation is coming into my ears and my eyes, I can plow through those lines and that’s what saved me. Uh It was not the talk that you see, they didn’t record the dress rehearsal, but it was really like, hi, my name is Sonya and I’m an in, but I spent all the words out, which was pretty impressive considering the mess, you know, that, that I was, then I went back to the hotel and I broke it down as an actor and I was like, ok, we got to try, this is the worst thing that happens.
Can’t be much worse than this, right? Just go back tomorrow and show them how an actor does things. So I broke down the moments and I tried to put in some motions and um, I did a lot better because after the talk that got recorded, the organizer said, Sadia, that was perfect. So, yeah, I did. Um I was scared, you know, that, that people, men who are abusing their daughters were gonna hear my talk hear about my talk and show up, um, a big thing that abusers use over their, I guess victims is appropriate in the sense is I’ll kill you. It’s either understood or explicitly stated. And so, um, my dad’s now, well, he passed away so he can’t do anything. But I told the organizers, you know, this is a controversial topic and some people aren’t gonna want me to, to talk about this and I don’t care what personal or professional or social consequence I suffer. I’m willing to do it. But, um, you gotta understand I might be paranoid or I might be realistic.
We don’t know that people are gonna be pissed off by this topic. And when I think of those fact checkers, God bless them, I think of someone like my sister. So she’s sort of a secondary victim or a collateral damage. I was the one taking, you know, 98% of the shit my mom would get mad and beat me. My dad did what my dad did to me. But my sister grew up in that and you know, she’s a kid like I don’t blame her because you cannot put the ethic of an adult on a child. It was not her place to advocate for me or send me or anything. But from her perspective, she had a pretty good family except for me. You know, I’m the problem. So when I come up and start talking about this, it’s not only the people who’ve been through it, they’re gonna be kind of fascinated, like brought to it like a magnet. It’s like, oh my God, maybe this girl can put words on things that I don’t yet understand. Someone like my sister though is gonna be like, shut it up, shut it down.
No, like it was perfect. You know. Um The crazy girl can’t come and ruin the image that I cling to. And so the more you get into it, like the more there is to it kind of like an onion. So there’s the actual abusers and then there’s me that survivors, I guess is what we call ourselves now. But then, you know, there are other people in the family, I went to school. Um I hung out with people. I got weird in certain situations, you know, I was really terrified. Sometimes I would go home and either my mom would literally kill me not the way teenagers flippantly like oh to take my phone. Oh, it’ll be ground. You know, there were times when I feared for my life, there were times when I wanted to take my life that’s not normal. Um It’s normal for the situation I was in but it’s not how I’m happy, healthy, normal families function. I didn’t have anybody I could ask for help. So coming out of this process like what’s the takeaway Sadia? Well, I’m a damn good actor.
I could perform under any and all circumstances. And get the job done. You know, that’s one piece. And now I’m looking at what got broken in me. Besides all the physical stuff was, I didn’t know who to trust. I didn’t know how to trust. I didn’t know who to trust. Um, I couldn’t really trust myself because when I would try to explain to people, you know, my mom hits me and it’s not ok. Oh, that’s crazy because we looked like a good family on the outside with the lawyer dad and his teacher, mom and people cling to this idea of motherhood and fatherhood that the facts just don’t back up. You know. Um I don’t know about the UK I don’t live there but here in the US, you know, kids get abused. We have a very conflicted view on birth control and abortion and women’s rights. But the facts are, if a 14 year old girl gets pregnant in this country, our government will pay her to have that child. And most people should agree that a 14 year old girl can’t really be a good parent. She already made bad decisions getting pregnant in the first place.
So kids get beaten, kids, get abused, kids get sold, kids get exploited and it’s like this big scary envelope. No one wants to open because if we pull off our rose colored glasses, not everybody should be a mother for the love of God would at least be 18 or 21. You know, not 14, if there’s something really wrong with that, um, some people shouldn’t be bothers, some people shouldn’t be around kids. These are the questions and the things that society doesn’t want to look at. I’ve been talking a lot, I’m gonna be quiet now. I was listening and thank you for your explanation. Um You, you touched on a couple of things which um makes me think if has anyone ever sort of reached out to you directly as a result of your talk, asked for help or anything like that? Um Well, the talk came from a bunch of poems. You’re not allowed to talk about your book in your TED talk. But I did publish a bunch of poems. Like it’s a very good uh university here in the US U Penn. It’s part of the Ivy League and I wrote a bunch of poems.
So I was giving poetry readings, you know, a long time ago and people would come up to me after that. Um After I gave the, the actual talk, some two of the audience members came up and of course, everyone else is just being, you know, flooded with praise by their friends and family and I’m very invisible alone, but two people came up to me. One I believe might have been transgender and said, you know, I don’t talk to my family either. So thank you so much for that. Now, I know how to explain it to people on the youtube uh on, I guess on youtube, there have been some comments, but most of my, my immediate circle here in Las Vegas, very few people know about the talk because it kind of is the opposite of comedy. I think I told two or three friends because comics can be assholes. I think that’s universal. Like there’s good ones like George Carlin who’s my hero and then there’s assholes and especially when you’re just starting out when literally anybody can do comedy. I was scared that some of the comics were gonna throw this in my face.
So I told two or three of my comic friends, but the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Uh I haven’t met anybody yet who’s tried to shame me or embarrass me or make fun of me because of my talk. It hasn’t happened yet even in the future, but so far it’s been really positive. Some of the comments on the, the youtube channel one just broke my heart. This girl was like, thank you so much for speaking out. You know, I’m in a similar situation. What should I do? And I was like, wow, um are you in the US? Because you can call, you know, and get some resources? She’s like, no, I’m not. And I said, well, my advice, I don’t know your situation is we have to speak out. Um If we stay quiet, it’s never gonna get better. And I don’t know what happened to her. Um I like that’s scary. You know, this is a worldwide thing. One way to silence someone that I do not recommend that people get killed for speaking the truth.
It happened to Martin Luther King here in the US back in the sixties. You know, whenever people go up against the machine and that’s what I’m doing and am I willing to die for this test? I hope it would be quick and painless. Um, but somebody has to speak up like this is my battlefield. Th this is my war and, uh I took a huge risk, but I knew what the risk was. At least the talk is out there if, if something happened and I left the planet tomorrow, not by my own doing. That’s my promise. Uh At least it’s out there and sort of my life’s work. Um, as best as I can summarize it is out there for the world to see, you can take me out. But that talk is still up there and it’s amazing. And, um, I think you’re brilliant for, for putting it out there. Um Generally speaking though, you’re, you’re happy for people to reach out to you. Uh You know, you, what would you be conflicted about certain advice based on what you just said about the complexities of the situation. How would you deal with that?
Well, I’m not a therapist. Uh I wanna make that absolutely clear. I can share my experience, my strength and my hope. Um, you know, I’m the first person who’s gotten on stage and said hi. I’m mean, it’s a Survivor and silly me, I thought the whole world would come running. I thought I would put this topic up there and everyone would be like, oh, my God. Like, wow. I thought I’d be on national TV. I thought, I, you know, my whole speaking career would take off and that’s not quite what happened. Um, I’m happy to support as much as I can. Again. I’m not a therapist. All I can do is, um, really talk about what I’ve done. If my talk has helped you in any way, that’s always great feedback to hear because, you know, the bad days come. But absolutely, if, if you are one of the club that no one wants to join as a friend of mine, put it. Absolutely. I’m a friend though. I can’t, I can’t really give much advice if you ask for it, I’ll give it. But at the end of the day it’s your life and your situation and you have to see how much risk are you willing to take?
Now, I left my parents’ home and, um, I, I completely changed my name. Like I’ve nothing Savir is not the name I was born with or grew up with. I changed it to hide from my parents. Um I got a lot of stage experience. I spent months memorizing my talk, like I took a lot of steps to get up on that stage and do my talk. So, please don’t think that you can just, you know, in 30 seconds get up and start talking to people. Um, so I guess to answer your question if you need an ally, absolutely. Hit me up. You know, I’m in the club. If you want, if you’re a newcomer in the club, I can give you tips on how to deal with the flashbacks and the nightmares and, and that stuff. But I’m not a therapist. So there is a limit. I don’t have the time or the training or the tools to help, maybe as much as some people might need or want. But to the extent that I can absolutely hit me up, I’m here to help as much as I can and I decide where that line is.
You reference the, um, the nightmares and flashbacks. Um Have you got generalized advice about how you deal with that type of thing? Um, every once in a while I’ll have a really, really bad nightmare and I’ll wake up and I’m like, ok, sad. This is like an emergency day. Um, just eat food. I don’t care what it is. Sometimes it’s chocolate popcorn, it’s like get food in you bonus points if you can remember to eat vegetables. Um, I might call in sick to work and just be like, I just can’t, I, I can’t, I, I am not ok. And then the, the benchmark changes, you know, try to take a shower, try to not wear your pajamas all day and eat food. And it doesn’t happen very often. It happened more when I was younger and it was like, I had less stuff to surround it with, I guess, you know, when my parents and my childhood was, you know, 80 90% of my life. Um, but it does happen and the most important thing is you just got to get through the day to the point where you’re gonna have an ok tomorrow. If you don’t eat anything, you’re gonna have a crappy tomorrow.
I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs and that helps a lot. Um, so just try to get through the day, try to eat one good meal so that when you wake up you’re not suffering the consequences. But yeah, you’re gonna have days where the whole world is upside down and, and everything is scary and, um, and that’s ok. Uh, you might be out with a group of people and, you know, there’s this big rape case in the news and, and people are talking and if you get uncomfortable, just leave like you don’t have to give an excuse. Oh my God, I have to go call somebody and just get out, try to find people that you can be honest with. You know, I do have two or three friends out here who’ve seen my talk and I’m not gonna, you know, vomit on them. I’m not gonna call them. Uh, I don’t think that’d be appropriate with our level of friendship. Uh, I have to kind of go through everything alone. I wouldn’t be comfortable telling them, hey, man, I’m having a bad day. Other people might have that. I kind of get through it by myself. So there’s songs I like to listen to.
Um, I try to do, play my guitar every single day. I do yoga every single day. So, even on a really bad day, I’m like, ok, get out your guitar, do some stuff. Yeah, I have a good person. Do my guitar. Eat a vegetable. Yeah. You eat a vegetable? Ok. Now you can go back to bed. Well, I think you’re a, you’re an example of someone who’s essentially making, making the best out of things and that’s what I try to do in my life. So, like, sometimes I, you know, things won’t be going well, but I will at least attempt to make the best out of things and that’s what I, how I interpret your answer. Anyway. Um, you did mention that you, you left home, um, and you left, uh, how, how far did you have to go from where you were originally living to, you know, where you went to? So, uh, in the US, uh, where, where I grew up in kind of the socioeconomic strata, um, the stratum that I was in uh, I wanted to go away to college. That’s a really big thing here. Now, if you grew up in New York City, it’s not quite the same. But when you’re from the middle of nowhere where I was, the smart kids always go far away to college.
I grew up in more or less the middle of the United States and most of the smart kids would go East Harvard, Yale, Princeton, uh college in Boston. So I went to college in Philadelphia. Uh as I said before, University of Pennsylvania founded by frankly, and I was in the same time zone, but I think I was a 10 hour to 12 hour drive away from my parents. And that was the first time I felt safe. Now before that, when I was 17, I got sent to France for a summer through some connections through my French teacher. And I felt safe there. But there has to be a lot of physical distance. Like to the point where I know my dad can’t knock on my door in the middle of the night. You know, it’s a 10 hour drive, so it’s just not gonna happen. Um So getting, getting away and getting far away uh was important. But, you know, I mentioned that French teacher, so I have all this garbage going on at home. And then, you know, I had this teacher when I was in ninth grade who was extremely interested in me to the point where I just switched schools and then in my new school, the French teacher actually took a sort of quasi, well, no, it was definitely inappropriate interest in me.
And so it’s just hard to be a girl and, you know, the sexual harassment and, and then all the crap I was dealing with at home, like women are the glue that hold this world together and we put up with so much crap And so anyone who is trying to make the world a better place for women and girls has my support. I mean, within reason, like we’re not gonna go crazy, we’re not gonna get rid of them, man. I don’t think that’s the solution. Um But I had to get away from, from the parental units. So I just had to get away from that whole family and then nobody knew who I was. You know, my high school, I think we had 45 kids in my graduating class in my private school and it was 100 and 20 in my public school. So everybody knew everybody. When I got far enough away, I could be whoever I wanted. Nobody knew if I was a, a jock or a nerd or if I like Star Wars or if I liked Shakespeare, I could design myself based on who I was. So going away for college was where the memory started kicking up and then the poems came out and then I spent two years in France.
So just the farther away I could get and speaking a whole different language also really helps because it’s just like a different part of my brain. Like my English brain has those memories. But my friend memory, you know, my French brain, that’s not a part of French Sadia. That’s English, Sadia. Uh What I was, um, with the previous question I was sort of getting at was the kind of feeling that you had of leaving your home. But essentially it’s, it’s relief of getting away from that, that place. I never really had a home, I guess is the way to look at it. Um, for the nice, lovely normal people who can’t imagine not having a home, you know, your family is, it feels like part of your body, like your arm or your leg. And I’ve been thinking lately that, you know, being an incest incest survivor is a disability. Um, it’s an invisible one. It’s maybe an emotional one if you’re looking to classify it. But if you never had a home to be leaving it, it was like escaping prison. I mean, I hated that place. Any emotion I had in mock, I was, you know, really scared for my life about a third of the time.
So a third of the time we were actually pretty ok. A third of the time it was a 50 50 then a third of the time it was absolute shit. So maybe the normal people, 80% of the time, it’s great. 10% of the time it’s, and 10% of the time it might suck. So, I, I just never felt safe. My parents would come into my room. My mom would beat the crap out of me. My dad would do stuff like there was no safe place in that house where I could ever just chill. It was always, you know what’s coming next, like a war zone. So, getting out of there was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. It was not leaving a happy place. It was escaping a hellhole. Yeah. Um, and I think you referenced something in your talk about people’s, um, I don’t know, people’s opinions of, uh, you should always be in contact with your mum or dad or whatever. And I think, I think there’s some strange hang ups. Um, I, I am 100% on board with you about the fact that my position is that relationships are voluntary. Um, you don’t have to be in a relationship with someone and if they do something anywhere near the kind of, uh, category that you’re referring to, that’s they almost forfeit there, you know, their status in your life.
So, I think you did exactly the right thing and I think, yes. Um, and I do think it’s a, it’s an example for other people as well. So, um, if someone is wondering whether or not they should do that. Then there’s a positive example in front of you about someone who’s, you know, gone on to better things. So, thank you. And it is, it is easier in a giant country like the United States. Um You know, there’s a three hour time difference between L A and New York. So it’s much easier to just pack up and get 1000 miles away. Um And now that Britain’s left the eu like it gets a little bit more complicated. But hey, man, there’s a wild, there’s a way, I don’t know if someone left London and went to Edinburgh, like, is that far enough away that, that you can just start over? I don’t know, I’ve been to the UK. It was great. It was in London. I was in Wales. Wales is awesome. I was in Scotland. Uh but it, it felt, don’t take this wrong. Like just felt kind of small. I mean, back in the ancient days when you were riding a horse, you couldn’t get 1000 miles in three hours.
So they did that. So I know, um I don’t know if you can get far enough away to make a clean break. You can always speak English, you can always go to Vietnam or Thailand or Japan and teach English over there. Uh If you just need to get as far away as humanly possible. So that, that’s how I made money in France and that’s how I made money in Brazil teaching English. So that’s always an option. I think I heard that um the UK actually fits inside Texas. So I’m not sure if that answers your question, but just like France, France also fits inside of Texas. So just to put things in perspective, yes, Texas is one of the bigger states, but we still have 49 more. I don’t know where you can go if you took a flight from London and just went six hours. How far away do you get, do you get to Moscow? Do you get to Dubai? Do you get to South Africa? Like, I don’t, I don’t really know, but it’s six hours L A to New York. Well, um, before we move on from, uh, your TED talk, um, I just wanted to ask you about one last thing which is, um, it sounded as though you did, uh, lots of self work in order to get to the place that you are in.
Now. I don’t know whether that’s therapy or, you know, self you taught yourself in a way. Um, what’s that process look like for someone who perhaps would like to know? Sure. Um, so I did go to therapy for a little bit when I was in college. It was a therapist. Um, back when I was a teenager, I read a, a music review about sing, who is one of my music, you know, heroes. And he had read a lot of Carl Jung. So I marched myself into the bookstore and I got the skinniest book that young had written. Uh I forget what it was called, but that changed my life. I did a lot of dream analysis. So you keep a pen and a paper, a notebook by your bed. You wake up first thing in the morning you write down every single thing you can remember about every dream you had and then you go off about your day. Then at night you come back and you look at it objectively almost like a writer. Like why is this word here? Why is it blue? Why is it not green? Why is it a frog and not a turtle? Why is it this? Why is it that? Why is it because your subconscious is trying to talk to you and the decisions I made during my waking hours would become reflected in my dream.
So for a really long time, maybe 15 years, I did that and it was hugely helpful because for the first time in my life, I had something that was completely mine that my family didn’t know about my dream and no one knew I was right. I was writing them down. You know, I hit the the notebook in my underwear before. Um I had something that was truly mine. And so that gave me an identity outside of the shipping stands of that. I’m a piece of crap. I’m I’m the gold and you know, just like, who the fuck am I? I was like, oh, I’m the girl that had this green and this one and I would have 63 rooms at night. Um I don’t know how to, how to present this information up clubs, step programs have helped a lot of people and they’re free and they’re everywhere. They have alcoholics anonymous. They have Overeater Anonymous, they have debtors anonymous. They have a for the family and friends of alcoholics. But the people who go there are supposed to keep it anonymous. So I know that those groups have helped lots and lots and lots of people.
Um, it’s not therapy. Exactly. It’s like you work the 12 steps and you read their literature and you get a sponsor who’s like a big brother or big sister to help you with stuff that can be super helpful for people. But the people who go are not supposed to say publicly that they go. Um, and then just listening to the universe. So once I got out of the garbage hell hole, that was my family. Um, I could sort of, you know, design or life design is a, is a term that I’ve heard. So, you know, there’s certain things I can’t do. I’m 5 ft, 10 inches tall. I’m not gonna be a jock like this. I’m not, um, I don’t have the training to be a bad lead answer. Like when you open up your world to the infinite possibilities. Yes, there are possibilities. But I’m not going to be an astronaut. You know, I’m not gonna be, uh, I don’t know, an investment banker. So I would just be talking to people and I kept hearing over and over. My God. You’re so funny. My God, you’re so funny. My God, you’re so funny and, but my joke is ok.
If you want to be a doctor, you go to med school. If you wanna be a lawyer, you go to law school. If you wanna be an accountant, you get your CPA. How in the hell do you become a comic? Ok. And then um one day and years and years of people tell me, oh you’re so funny and I just didn’t know what to do. So it’s like you have an answer but you don’t know how to implement it, right? I was at a temp job in New York just talking to some guy who were at a convention that was really slow and he turned to me and he said, oh my God, you’re so funny. You should do stand up and I literally lost my shit. I was like, Jesus fucking Christ. I’m so sick of people telling me I should do comedy. How the fuck do you start to do comedy? Like I’m so funny but I don’t know what to do with it. And he was like, ok, calm down. I’m a stand up comic. I’m doing a show tonight, I’ll put you on the guest list and I’m going to help you. And I was like, oh, really? It was just that random was at random. And, um, then he, and I’m like, now being an incest Survivor and a comic, you know, it’s kind of not, not an obvious connection.
So I went to this place and you put your name in a bucket and there are probably 200 comics at this place and you’re performing for comics, which is the best way because no one’s gonna laugh unless you are truly funny. So I wait for what felt like three hours and it’s just not the guys and their dicks and their dick. Oh my God. And I finally get up and I don’t remember what I talked about, but I got maths and my friend was really impressed. He said, you make comics like you don’t understand how good you are. I said you understand, I just listened to three hours of dick jokes that weren’t even funny. So it’s been a tradeoff between wanting to, you know, do the comedy but all the crap that comes with it. So I just hit a breaking point, New York. And then I was in L A and I was doing comedy even then again, there was a breaking point. Finally here in Vegas, there’s a club called Wise Guys, which is really great. They don’t allow any heckling. That’s when you, you know shout at the comic. You suck or something like that. Forbidden. You’ll be throw. They have two open mics on Tuesday and Wednesday where anybody can come and perform and there’s no cover charge.
If you perform back in New York, it was $10 cover charge. Two drink minimum. You have to bring 10 people to get on stage. And that’s the same thing in L A. So Keith Stubbs, the owner of Wise Guys, he has a couple of clubs in Utah. He’s opening up a second one here in Vegas. He has done so much for the comedy community because anybody can walk in with their name in a bucket and get on stage. And then when you keep coming, you find people whose comedy you like and then, oh, I love that joke. Did you think about this? And then you start finding your crew of people that can help you with your jokes? Like, hey, is this funny? Is this funny? What should I do? What should I do? And um you see the same people every week, I’ve done paid gigs at other places this Saturday. I’m actually doing a 20 minute set. It’s like a really big set. And so Wise Guys has been so helpful. And then the, the music, right, the comedy album came from Wise Guys where again, it’s like these guys and they’re dick jokes, Jesus Christ.
I just came home one night and I said, you know what I get the same goddamn three minutes as those guys do. What can I as a girl who, some people say it is pretty cute, you know. Um What can I do with my three minutes? What do I want these guys to know? And what I want them to know is girls, don’t care how big your dick is. You have hands in a mouth, guys just get the job done. Then I wrote the song and everybody loved the song. My beautiful, like Jim Croy level, like, you know, Standard Test is kind of like my Shakespeare level. I mean, that’s what I call it. You know, my amazing songs that touch people’s souls. No, people didn’t care about that. Um If you know, because I’ve got the dick album out. Um So yeah, I just figured the whole world’s upside down. Of course, my dig album is what got me my, my first record deal. Um And then the song Toilet Bowl, that one’s really popular. Some of the guy comics helped me with tips and tricks on stuff. Guys need to remember um in the bathroom and then your boner is not my problem that came from a real experience.
I wore pretty dressed to this music open mic, not wise guys, the music open mic and the host literally said nice dress. I’m starting the night off with a boner and I told my producer about that and I told him the song and he was like, oh my God, we’re gonna reenact that I’ll be Tony pepperoni again. I’ll be the asshole host and then you just launch it to your song like, OK, cool. Well, um, you answered the question that I was going to ask you, which is, um, how the hell do you go from uh where you were and getting, wanting to get into comedy? And, um, I think the, the fact that you were, you said listening to the universe and essentially the opportunity arose, that’s, that’s how it happened. But it, it struck me that you said that. Um because my, I’m imagining you sort of rehearsing in your head about, um you know what you’re gonna say, but you did, were you, did you rehearse you before you got on stage for the first time? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. The way to combat being nervous is to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. Like, is that radio on the TV? R?
Do I remember what I said that that first time years ago in New York? Not really. Um I was doing something and then my friend, the comic finally showed up and I remember saying, oh my God, Justin’s here. Now, I have to be funny and I nearly fell off the stage because it was really tiny and everybody cracked up. I remember that. Um Nowadays when I do my comedy, so I’m having a bad day like we talked about before and I have to go do comedy because I got booked. I just sing my songs. I mean, that 15 minutes of songs, I can find three minutes of comedy in that. But once you walk the comic path, uh the universe chooses you, right? It’s not like I woke up one day and said, oh my God, I wanna be a stand up comic, please. God, please. No, it’s, I was just being me and the world said you’re a comic and I’m like, OK, the funny things do tend to happen to me. You know, just like when you tell people you’re an actor, the first thing you get is how do you remember all of those lines when you’re a comic? People are like, how do you find new material? I’m like, I just wake up, bro, I just wake up and do my life and the crazy things happen to me and then I get to talk about them on stage.
So the universe will definitely meet you halfway when you’re on the path it is chosen for you. And it might not be the one that, that you want. You know, I was raised to be an executive, I guess that that’s what was expected of me. And then I thought I’d be a writer and then somehow the music like it all, it all just happening, happening. What I’m trying to say is I’ll find the right words. The universe wants you on a path that is good. That’s what I believe. That’s why I’m still here. And my job as an artist and a creative person is to look at what the universe is telling me. So I wrote a dick song. I thought it was a one off. Everybody loved it. Everybody loved it no matter where I went sing your dick song, sing your dick song. So I wrote more, you know, um when I get up to do my comedy, Absolutely. I, I write it down. I have to time it, there are time limits. Uh It’s a job now, if you’re someone who’s like, oh, maybe I can do comedy, of course, you can, there’s tools, there’s ways.
But for the love of God, I’m gonna get up real close and get my teacher mode. Don’t run your time. Do you have three minutes? Goddamn it? You finished either at three or ideally at two minutes and 50 seconds. If you run over your time, you will be universally hated. You will be a dick, an asshole. A wanker, a cocksucker don’t do it. And I used to joke at Wise guys because we have people running. It’s called running the time when you go over your time. So finally, one night after five people went over their time, which is like the worst thing you can do. I said, listen guys, the only time a girl wants you done in three minutes or less is on this stage and open my mhm. And that got the point across. Well, did you, um, did you learn that yourself and, uh, got bad feedback or is it something? No, I was trained by, by Justin, my friend back in New York and he pounded that into me. So that’s the advantage of having an inside connection if, if you roll it in and you’ve never done it before and you don’t know anybody. You’re like, oh, because, like if, if we’re scheduled for an hour, but we do 75 minutes, who cares?
Right. You and I right now if your business meeting is five minutes later. So whenever I see new people at the club, I run up to them and I’m like, well, can you hear my name is Sadia. I, I like to be the welcoming committee. I show in the bathroom, I show them where the clock is and we don’t go over your time. Like we time ourselves on our phones to make sure that we have like 2.5 minutes. That, that, that’s a good starting point because people are gonna laugh and you’re gonna stumble. So you kind of have to know someone. They announce it on the stage. So I don’t go over your time, but it’s really serious. And I don’t care how famous you are. If you go over your time, you will be hated. That’s the only time we’re allowed to go at guys is if you fight or go away. But I’m almost done. I need to do the punch like no, shut the fuck up and get off the stage as all you done. Like just go, just leave your house. Yeah, I’m interested to know if you have any um any goals for the comedy, anything that you’re trying to achieve. Well, that’s a great question.
And again, the creative path, it’s kind of like there’s a French saying um man makes plans and Gods Maps. So I do have benchmarks, but how I’m gonna get there is very difficult. There’s a show here in the United States called Saturday Night Live. And it’s improv sketch comedy. Now, they rehearsed it, but it’s been on the air for a really long time. And that’s where a lot of the great comedians have come from. Like Adam Sandler. I don’t know if these names are, are famous across the pond, but that’s like a huge benchmark for, for comics to, to get on Saturday Night Live. I wanna host it and I wanna be the musical guest. So that’s, that’s a dream. Um You know, I, I don’t want to not answer the question, but it’s literally, I just keep showing up and we’ll see where the universe takes me. Would I like to do a movie? Of course, would I like to be on a TV show? Of course, hey BBC, let me give you a shout out. Your quality of programming is way better than ours.
Now, I haven’t seen anything since. Are you being served? But I haven’t seen any of your new stuff. But you guys are kind of the comedy, you guys. So if you want to put this American girl on any of your shows, hit me up. I’m a member of Actors Union out here. Uh when I was in my twenties, which was not yesterday, I sat down and I said, what do I want to do with my life? And my goal at that at that time, which is still true. I want to be an international star. I wanna do poverty in French because I speak French. I want to do comedy in Portuguese because I speak Portuguese. I want to do comedy in, in all the languages that they speak and a bunch of them that I know, you know, I, I’ll learn it if I could be on German TV. And say my six lines, I can learn six lines and get some laughs and just change the way the world sees Americans because we’re seen as being loud and obnoxious, which I understand. We’re also notorious for only speaking English. So even back then when I only spoke French as my foreign language, I wanted to change that.
And I specifically uh learned Portuguese and Spanish to change that. And I try, I’m in the process of learning some Arabic and Russian. And indeed, so it’s a tough task. There’s a lot of languages out there. But I guess my goal as a comic, I mean, a one hour special is the traditional career benchmark. A one hour Netflix special. But for me, if I could get on the Howard Stern show, if I could be on Saturday Night Live, if I could. Um I don’t know, maybe Madison Square Garden or sing the national anthem at Yankee Stadium. Like I just, I feel stupid saying my, my dreams because I feel like the universe has it all mapped out for me already and I just need to show up and keep doing it. Well, um as long as you keep showing up, right, things can happen. Whereas if you stop showing up, nothing’s gonna happen. So I kind of, I get it but I think you, you having um big goals, I think that’s great. I think uh when people sell themselves short, like have just small goals because they don’t think they can do it.
I think that’s um it’s a bit sad. Yes. So one test, you know that the career advisors give you um you have three wishes, you have unlimited money and unlimited power. What do you really wanna do? What, what do you really want to do? Uh That’s a way to kind of tap into that. So just circling back to the whole family thing, you know, my parents told me if you’re an artist, you’ll be poor. Um I loved playing piano. I was really great at playing piano. And I was writing songs even as a kid and that got because we don’t do that. Well, guess what I do. So a lot of that can come from our family. So the downside of having a great family is that they can limit your worldview consciously or unconsciously. When you have parents, you want them to be proud of you and they bring all their own stuff to the table. So maybe, you know, my mom had some talent as a musician. She came from a huge family like eight kids. And so she was very jealous of my musical abilities and she really squashed them.
But once I got part of the way I was able to look through with a clear lens, I was like, oh, the problem was that like, I’m not a bitch or an asshole because I, I’m good at music. That’s kind of how it was presented, you know, um, when I think of where I’m at home, it’s on stage when I’m on stage. Um, comedy is pretty short of when I’m in a play or when I’m singing to that like a longer time. That’s where I feel like where I’m, where I belong. So most people get that when they come home and mom makes your favorite food and, you know, you got your room and your bed and everything. Now, um, I’ve lived lots and lots of places at many places in the same city because I bounce from here to there, to there. But the stage is not my home and I feel like the most important work that I do is when I’m there because I am showing up. Well, I’ll be, I, I obviously watched the TED talk. I haven’t listened to the music yet, but I’ll be definitely doing that. So, um, if there is anything in particular that you want me to list in the description, then then send it over to me.
But um uh the song dicks is what started it all. Dicks, dicks lots different dicks. Some are short, some are 15 minutes of your life. You can listen to it all. Do you have any closing thoughts that you wish to share? Thank you so much for this opportunity. It has been absolutely wonderful to talk to you and thank you for your good questions. Thank you for this platform and thank you for being open to someone with a very unusual story. Uh The world is changing, you know, um being gay is no longer, you know, the secret because so many people are openly gay and now transgender people are having their moment. And so we just keep moving forward. If you have been sexually abused, it doesn’t have to be by your dad. It’s a coworker a day rape, whatever. Please just stay above ground like, you know, don’t be 6 ft under, get up and face another day, ask for help, ask the universe just take a couple of steps if they’re shitty people in your life, cut them out. Uh You’re a good person and we’re all here for a reason and no matter what happened to you, you’re so much more than just that.
I don’t care how, how it feels. There are days when I wake up and I think it’s never gonna go away, but it does get better, it does get better. You’re doing important work just by being on this planet and being alive and adding value by being positive and sharing your truth. Thank you for that. It’s a great closing thought. And um I think you’re really inspirational. Can’t thank you enough. One of my favorite guests. So thank you. Um If they, if there is uh someone who wants to get in touch or see your work, where do they go? So on Instagram, I’m Sadia Music or Sadia Carone. S a Dia uh Carone. That’s my name on Linkedin. Uh Instagram. I think I’m on tiktok. I’m on Facebook. I don’t do a whole lot there. Instagram is where I put my comedy linkedin is where I talk about the grown-up stuff. Feel free to hit me up on youtube. It’s Sadia Music on Spotify, Nadia Music. I really, at least one serious song with a really kind of fucked up cover photo. The A I squished me and I looked weird.
Uh I don’t look like that and then uh the album predicts it’s supposed to be funny. It’s 21 plus my producer won a Grammy. Um, not for my album, but previously, and he did the cover art. When you see the cover art, you’d be like, it’s a guy thing and it’s supposed to be funny. All right. Well, um, Sadia, thank you for being a amazing guest today. Thank you for being an amazing host.
