October 20, 2024 • 40 mins
In our latest podcast episode, we had the pleasure of interviewing Julia Melinek, a multifaceted talent known for her remarkable career in opera and diverse pursuits beyond the stage. Julia's journey began with a natural affinity for singing, leading her to train at a music conservatoire and eventually perform internationally, with a focus on Puccini's works.
Our conversation explored the realities of life as an opera singer, from the glamour of worldwide performances to the challenges of constant travel. Julia offered insights into the emotional depth of opera, emphasising the joy found in the creative process rather than just the final applause. She shared her thoughts on identity and personal growth, discussing her transition from opera singer to midwife.
We delved into Julia's passion for midwifery and supporting home births, a calling she approaches with both dedication and humor. Her entrepreneurial spirit was evident as we discussed her past venture running a successful gay dining club in the UK, providing a vital community space.
The interview also covered Julia's recent foray into filmmaking, resulting in an award-winning short film created during the pandemic. This led to a broader discussion on creativity, motivation, and remaining open to new ideas.
Throughout our talk, Julia's optimism and zest for life were contagious. Her diverse experiences in the arts, healthcare, and business offer valuable lessons on personal growth and embracing new opportunities.
This episode promises to inspire listeners from all walks of life, whether they're interested in the arts, entrepreneurship, or personal development. Tune in for an engaging conversation filled with insights and enthusiasm.
Enjoy!
Listen to Julia Melinek on Spotify
Watch Julia Melinek on YouTube
Book Julia for Midwifery
Watch Julia's short film here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Why did it count backwards? Are they? We're now recording.
(00:04):
What? Hello Captain.
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly.
What are we going to talk about?
I don't know. So leadership, life and everything else.
Yeah. Good day, leaders. In this podcast, we had the absolute privilege of speaking with Julia
(00:33):
Malinac. She is an international opera superstar, a polymath that she's very much like our Captain
Michelle who can do anything. And we had an absolute ball learning about her singing career
and all the other things that she's done and is continuing to do. Enjoy.
And we're live. No, we're recording.
(00:57):
In the studio with a guest. Yes. How exciting. All the way from UK. Yeah.
I'm excited. Amazing Julia.
So Michelle, do you want to give us a little bit of background about Julia?
Because I'm excited because we've got another polymath in the room.
Julia, have you heard the term polymath? Yes, I know what a polymath is.
(01:17):
Yes, definitely. So Michelle can do anything.
She can weld, she can paint, she can fly planes. She's a teacher, she's a speaker. There's nothing
she can't do and I've heard you're quite similar. Yes.
You're like a sister from another mother. For sure.
Yeah, we have very parallel lives. We do.
(01:38):
Let's start with the big one. International renowned opera singer.
Yeah. That's not me.
I've heard you sing. It's definitely not you. I'm sorry, Michelle.
I was just saying to Michelle before we started this that people sometimes say to me,
what do you do? And I sort of, I don't really know because I do so many things.
That's it. So we've got, what else do we got in there? We've got property development.
(02:00):
Yes. Yes. Oh, I've done a lot of things. Yes. I've started lots of businesses. I mean, my guts,
I identify as an opera singer because that's what I've done most of my life.
Yeah. But I have had, I had the largest gay dining club in the UK.
The largest gay dining club in the UK. Well, that's going to be a conversation
(02:20):
we're going to be having. That's interesting.
That was before the internet's showing how old I am.
So just come a little bit closer. A little bit closer. Okay.
That's perfect. Yeah, that's nice.
And yes, several businesses, lots of property and now I am a magician.
A magician. Okay. My mind is wrapping itself around the stong of that word. So I'm assuming
(02:45):
it's got something to do with... Vaginology.
So yeah, my passion, my passion, I don't call it a job because you can't call it a job. My passion,
my hobby is supporting women to have babies at home. So yes, I trained as a midwife rather late
in life for, yes, for a passion. And it is a labor of love, as they say.
(03:08):
A labor of love. I like what you're doing there with all these words.
Not only a polymath, you've got the gift of designing your own language almost. So
vagician, is that actually a word or is that a term?
No, that's me. That's me. Yes.
I love that. That's for you.
Lady Julia the vagician.
Lady Julia the vagician.
I pull magic things out of vaginas. Can I say vagina on the podcast?
(03:33):
Yeah, you can say whatever you want.
We just take the box in.
Yeah.
You can beep over it.
That's no explicit language.
No, I know, but you don't know whether people...
Like the word?
Yes.
Well, it's a word.
It is. It's an anatomical word.
It is.
Anatomical word, yes.
So where do we start with Julia if she's lucky with polymath, we could talk for hours.
Can we start with the opera?
(03:53):
Yes.
Because that was early on, wasn't it?
That was what's...
Early on in your career?
Well, it was from the age of two.
I was singing before I could talk to you.
Oh, wow.
Literally, I was standing on coffee tables being that irritating child who always wanted
to perform and always the loudest in the school choir. And in my heart, I wanted to do medicine,
(04:14):
which is probably why I came and did the midwifery later. And I was going to do medicine,
but loved performing. I loved music theater, but my parents didn't think that was sort of
a proper job. But when I discovered my operatic voice, they supported me. And I switched when
I was about 17 and went down the opera path. But it was always very normal for me when I
(04:35):
meet people and I say, I'm an opera singer. They think it's very glamorous and wow. And
to me, it was just normal. Everybody I knew were opera singers and went and did it straight
from school and just worked in it. And it was pretty amazing.
So you stepped onto the stage from school, Australian Opera.
(04:56):
Yes, I went straight to a music conservatoire, trained there and went straight from there.
Most people leave there and we'll do one season in the Glynebourne Chorus. I don't know if
you've heard of Glynebourne. It's a beautiful country house opera. And it has choristers
who go on to become soloists. And straight from there, I went on and sang my first Don
(05:18):
Giovanni and then I specialised in Puccini and mainly Madame Butterfly. Madame Butterfly
blessed her plate, my mortgage for a very long time.
Oh, wow. So where did that take you around the world? I presume you travelled with it?
Yes, all over the place. So I tried. Well, I was I was working internationally. Eventually,
I was trying to work more at home because I had children. But I did a season in New Zealand,
(05:46):
in Israel, Italy. I mean, you name it, I've probably been there. And it's wonderful. It's
not as glamorous as it sounds living out of a suitcase and being away, but you make some
amazing friends. And then you keep seeing those friends each time you turn up for a job,
you see who the cast is. And the greatest joy making amazing music.
(06:10):
So we spoke about this before we started recording how you said you got more enjoyment out of the
journey, the creation, the creation than the actual performing. Can you tell us more about that?
Yes. I mean, I think most musicians, you're not doing it for the applause. People think it's
just glamorous, you know, the applause and then you come out and sign autographs. It's nothing to
(06:32):
do with that. It's, it's the absolute love of studying that score. The great butterflies who
came before me, the great butterflies who are still out there doing it after me. We've all
studied that score and made of it our interpretation and our love of that music. And what the public get
(06:52):
to see is their own interpretation of our interpretation. And it's such a joy. It's a
spiritual journey and is an utter privilege. And yes, it's the rehearsals, the development of that
character. I think I was saying to you before you, the emotional journey you go on is, I mean,
in opera, I think opera is the ultimate form for that expression of emotion and to, to feel that
(07:20):
depth of emotion on stage. Life is a pretty poor imitation afterwards. So I can see why a lot of
marriages don't make it pass up with us. Yes, because you're away from home. You're having
these passionate moments on stage. And then you come home to a partner who's been there looking
after the kids is fed up. You have it and it's like, it's the mundanity that you just don't have on
(07:44):
stage. So it's like life and art are not really imitating each other. You wish they did a little
bit. But it was, it was a wonderful time and was my norm. It was nothing glamorous or interesting.
I mean, I realized later on, when I did stop singing, how I'd lost something that was
(08:05):
extraordinary. It was to me, I loved singing and loved singing to the end, but I didn't love the
lifestyle. Was it an ego death that you had at the end? Michelle describes when she obviously gave up.
Yeah, oddly yes. Because there was no ego involved in singing. It's to me, it was my normal. There
was, there was no significance. I didn't feel that I was a superstar or special. However, when you lose
(08:31):
it, you suddenly think, who am I? And you realize that people actually wanted to be friends with you
because, oh, you're the opera singer. People would come up to me in the school playground to go, oh,
you're the opera singer. We, we'd really love to have you for dinner. And I used to hate that. I
used to actually abhor the, the, the significance that came with being a singer. But when I lost it,
(08:52):
yes. And so when people say to me now, what do you do? Even though I midwife more than I sing,
I tend to say, well, I'm an opera singer because that's, it's what I've done most of my life. And,
and I still sing every day with my dogs in my kitchen. We've got quite an echo-y studio that
we're in today. So maybe we can get you to hit a note. We'll put the links to some, some of your
(09:18):
performances in the show notes as well. Yeah, that would probably be better. I actually once did a
radio show. They got me on and they had a crystal glass and my challenge was to sing a high note
and smash the glass. How did you go? Well, unfortunately I turned up and it wasn't a
crystal glass. It was sort of like an Ikea drinking glass. And so they literally did it and then they
(09:40):
smashed it on the wall and we pretended. So yes, that was, that was LBC London. I'm, I'm dobbling
you in. So is that true? Like I always thought that was a get smart myth that an opera singer
could actually, can you break glass? I think if it's a high, if it's a high quality crystal glass,
(10:02):
what you do is you flip the glass and you get the, the note and then you sing that at high
intensity. And apparently I haven't done it, but I do believe it works. So match the image.
So find some crystal. Do we want to be careful about what we've got in the kitchen.
Wow. What a start to your journey. Like when we were talking, Michelle and I, when we first met
(10:27):
and how she gave up flying and I gave up a sport and both of us experienced that, that massive
ego death because you just don't know who you are. Julia explained it really well. Whilst you're in
it, you're not going around thinking that your ego is just your identity. It's not, it's not,
it's when it's gone. And it's another thing we went through. Really it's a similar time. We did
(10:49):
it too. And it was just that identity loss of not knowing what we were because we'd been laid. It
was a label that we could attach to. Yes. And it was easy. And also it was one that was revered.
Like you said, a conversation starter. When you wake up in the morning, the first thing you wake
up and you think, oh, I'm a pilot. I'm an opera singer. I'm a sportsman or whatever it is. It's
(11:13):
for sure. I wake up in the mornings going, is it still there? I dream about it. I dream about
playing sport all the time. Thank you. You're so kind. I dream about playing sport that I'm still
in the team, that I get the call up and the dream just won't go away. And I'm sure if you get an
(11:35):
injury, you're thinking, oh no, because I mean, for me, if I get a cold, I still panic. I still
think, because if we got a cold, we didn't get paid. You didn't get paid for rehearsal periods.
So you'd fly off somewhere on your own dollar or pounds in my case. And you would turn up,
you would rehearse for six weeks. If you had a cold on that first night, you don't get paid.
(11:56):
So that happens. So we were very precious about anything respiratory. And now I can get a cold.
And it's like, ha ha. Although then I can't affect new mummies. So there you go.
What was your favorite memory? If you were to look through your career as an opera singer,
what would be your favorite memory? What comes straight to the front of your mind when I ask
(12:16):
you that question? Oh, it's so hard. I mean, people always used to say to me, what's your favorite
role? And it was always whatever I was doing at the time, because I would absolutely fall in love
with my heroine. And the roles I did, they always were heroines. They were the most beautiful,
gorgeous women. And I would identify so strongly with them. And I very much method acted. So I
(12:41):
would, I would come when I was doing butterfly, I would literally, I would do little tiny little
geisha steps and try and sort of look through my Diana eyelids and sort of Lady Diana, Princess Diana,
that sort of demure. I would practice it in every cell of my body. And it was a cellular thing.
So I think the love affairs I had with with those characters and that passion, I thought,
(13:04):
I think if I look back, that's my, my, my memory. And I think also the memory of getting my first,
I mean, I was doing nice roles quite early on, but when I got my first big break at English
National Opera, and they said, we'd like you to come and sing Madame part of light. And that was
that was quite early on in my career. And that was, I remember, I remember exactly where I was
(13:28):
sitting, and how incredible that felt. And again, not because of the significance, but of the
opportunity to sing in that amazing in the Coliseum in London, singing that role was, was fabulous.
And then it went on to doing butterfly and lots of other places. So maybe that was a great moment.
I love when I hear people who have reached the pinnacle in their in their chosen field, when they
(13:54):
describe how they embodied like you were doing the little steps. Yes, it's it's Michelle and I have
spoken a lot about alter egos recently. You read a fantastic book recently, just about how many very
successful athletes, many successful singers, many successful people develop this alter ego so that
(14:14):
they could fully embody what it was that they were doing. I think it's like athletes who rehearse the
whole thing in their heads. And yes, I'm like you do you you feel and be that person in your head.
And when you go out there, I mean, people say, Do you get nervous? And it's like, No, it's not me
there. It's Joshua Sand. It's Madame Butterfly up there singing. So I was all coffee machine.
(14:36):
Yeah, sorry. We already had a couple. We don't need you for the moment. Thank you very much.
But actually, another great moment was and this is not artistically sort of revered, but it was
wonderful was when I sang at Glastonbury. Tell us about that. It was the first time Glastonbury had,
(14:57):
you know, you know what Glastonbury is. Yeah, it was the first time Glastonbury had ever had
an opera company and they invited us to come and do Valkyrie. And we had 100,000 people,
singing along. And, you know, throwing things at the stage. And it was I felt like a rock star.
It was amazing. I had Paul McCartney in the dressing room. James Brown. When we finished,
(15:19):
he was like, You know, are you finished ladies? I can't do his deep growl of a voice. And it was
that was extraordinary coming out on the stage. And there's a Valkyrie. It was one time I broke
character because the Valkyries are supposed to be these formidable Amazonian women. And we all just
came on with big smiles. It was that was that was a very exciting moment, not artistically
(15:41):
necessarily. But it was my moment of being a rock star. That's extraordinary. I remember when I first
knew of you, met you. I hadn't met you in person, but you hated me. I did. And I wanted I really
wanted to dislike you. And I, I were going to go into that story. All right, so for our listeners,
(16:03):
I googled everything about you as you knew that I did. And I stalked you basically on social media.
I stalked you back. It's fine. And your performances are on YouTube and I really wanted to dislike you.
And it's like, you've got to let people know why you can't just say that I didn't want to like you.
(16:24):
Julia was dating my boyfriend. Well, I think when I was dating my boyfriend, we might pop in.
And you ended up being best friends. I can read it in the book. What's the movie when you write that
script? It was the other woman movie times a million. But was somebody a lot less unattractive?
(16:45):
But you ended up being best friends. Yes, that's right. Adoring each other because we finally had a
lot more than that in common. Apart from being beautiful and amazing. And fabulous every day.
But yeah, the music, like you've said, you know, it was, it's so passionate and sound and music
do reach the soul. And you know, even Valkyrie that it changes a heartbeat almost in the fact
(17:10):
that a hundred thousand people singing along with you. And it just, it gives, I've got goosebumps
now thinking about it. But I remember I was watching you and even my parents, they were watching with
me. They wanted to hate me too. They did. They loved the drama of it. But they, you know, and my
dad was saying, Oh, she's quite good, isn't she? Dad, you better not like her. But then you've
(17:35):
taught their dog to sing. I have taught, yeah, I teach a lot of dogs to sing. So yes, but that's
another thing I love. I might run next door and grab a dog and sing. But it's, it does lift you.
And that's, that's the thing is if you're having a bad day, it can change your state in a heartbeat.
You start singing, it will transport you. And I love sound healing now, you know, sort of singing
(18:01):
bowls and gongs and they do change you and Buddhist chanting and going back to midwifery,
it's something that I, I mean, I sang, I was told that I had the noisiest birth they'd ever had in
the hospital. That's my claim to fame. Another operatic moment because I sang through my birth.
(18:22):
And it was, it was analgesia. It relieved the pain for me. It transported me.
We were talking about early yesterday. And this is your birth where you gave birth.
This is my birth when I gave birth. And because you shut off the neocortex at that moment and you
become at one with the sounds. And it's, it was something I felt really passionate about. And then
I started sharing that with people. And then I was supporting other people through birth. And then
(18:46):
the, actually the whole midwifery journey sort of started partly as well through the journey with
Michelle, because I was thinking, well, maybe that's an entree into Australia because they
didn't need opera singers, but they did need midwives. Okay.
And you had been offered a role with Sydney Opera House. So I'd auditioned at Sydney Opera House.
(19:10):
And yes, they were sort of get yourself a visa, get yourself over here. And we can, we can,
we can actually, you know, give you a lot of work here, which was obviously super exciting,
but anyway, that's, that's a whole other podcast. That's going to another rabbit hole.
Australia is the worst that we didn't make that happen.
Yes, for sure. For sure. That was, that was another, another reason, but actually all worked out as
(19:31):
everything does. But it actually put me in another trajectory. But I did, in the end, I did the
midwifery. It was sort of almost to get over a broken heart. I just sort of thought I did it as
a part-time course. This wasn't the degree. And then before I knew it, I was applying and doing
the degree, which I thought I'll do it for fun. I'll do a BSC at the age of 107. And
(19:51):
and it had to be the top university doing it. So it was actually a very challenging degree.
And, but I still had that sort of the way I'd done it myself. I wanted it to be like a doula.
So I now do home births and I get my women singing a lot. I use a lot of breath work and sound.
What do you do if you've got a bad voice?
I sing for them. I hum along. No, it doesn't, it doesn't matter if you have a good voice.
(20:14):
I just get them humming. And then it's like an out of body experience. They all say,
I could hear the sort of the humming, the sounds, the frequency.
Well, it's vibration too.
It's the vibration without really being aware. It's a breath, it's helping with the breath as well.
Michelle and I have gone to sound healing recently and it's an extraordinary experience.
It's wonderful. It's wonderful. Sound is, I think it's a very underutilized healing process.
(20:39):
My mom, she can do sound healing as well with kinesiology. And I remember one particular
session she was doing with me, I was lying on the, on the bed and she had the tuning forks
and was doing it over my body. And I was watching my, I don't know if it was intestines or what it
was, rising as she's doing the forks over them and pulling them up. And she wasn't touching my skin
(21:06):
at all, but my, my. Taught like stomach, guts, whatever. Where we're coming up.
Was it wind possibly? It could have been, it could have been, but it was, it was coming up and she
was kind of playing with it. But you feel it when you play the heart frequency, you feel it in your
heart. You absolutely do. And I mean, sound is, yeah. I mean, I just, and we all know that, you
(21:32):
know, if your teenager is being a bit grumpy, you put the right music on and just, it can,
it can change their state immediately. I mean, I think we've all been to Tony Robbins events and
the way he uses music and then it anchors you as well. So I mean, opera still anchors me a lot.
And so I, yeah, it's very, very moving going to performances as well. I can imagine.
(21:58):
What did you learn being an opera singer? What, what lessons did you take away from it? Because
we often talk about how everything that you do in life is just another tool that goes into your
toolkit. So you learn lessons, you learn skills. What would you say were the big skills or lessons
that you got out of your career? Oh, so many, so many. I mean, as I was saying to you, the process
(22:23):
of creation is in many ways more important than the end result. That's putting something together
and the passion you can put into something and actually taking risks in that creative process.
And if they don't work, it doesn't matter because you're, it's a means to an end to get to the final
goal. And living with passion, I mean, as I said to you before, the passion I felt on the stage has
(22:48):
not been, it wasn't great for my marriage because my marriage lacked that passion, but I still believe
in it. I still believe in that absolute incredible connection that people can have, whether it's,
I mean, Madame Butterfly has her sidekick Suzuki, which is a girlfriend, which is my Michelle.
(23:10):
And it's, it's the bonds you have and the camaraderie. But, you know, there are so many
parallels with life. And, you know, in terms of, you know, I think I was, my big thing, my mum
always used to say to me, Oh, life's not a dress rehearsal. You've got to get out there. But I think
(23:33):
it's okay to think of parts of your life as a dress rehearsal and to say, it's okay. This is happening
because it's leading me towards my big performance. And we all have those magic moments, those
incredible moments that would not have happened unless you'd fallen down and taken different
directions along the way. So if you, you know, if you are doing something and it's not working,
(23:56):
that's okay. And you can, you can find another way. And perhaps if you didn't make the mistakes
the first time around, you're not going to find the new path to get you towards where,
where you should be. And I know that happens all the time in the singing, you know, and
being able to just cope with those, you know, disappointments sometimes, you know, you think
(24:19):
you've got something, you know, you work on something you think is amazing and you turn up
and there might be somebody who has a completely different vision and just trusting sometimes
that things will unfold as they should, because they always do.
You sound like you've got the same motto that Michelle and I share. It's everything works out
for us. It does. Look, Julia is the most optimistic and opportunistic opportunist, opportunistic.
(24:49):
And the person that I know, tell me, they're going back to their gay dining.
Yes. You were saying this morning that, you know, you have these passionate,
you know, moments on stage with the partner that you had in your, in your role. And then
(25:11):
the curtain comes down and they're gay and you go off and like, it could never, never work
because they have a partner. Yes, exactly.
You fell in love on stage and then, you know, the curtain comes down. So was that because of those
relationships potentially, was that where the gay dining? Oh, absolutely. I was the biggest, I don't
(25:37):
know if you can say fag hag fruit, whatever you say these days, but I, yeah, all of my besties back
then were men and gay men. And it, back then it was very different. The gay scene was very different.
You went to clubs, you dressed up in your leathers. You, when I was at music college, we had a street
called Canal Street, which is the main gay area. And people always used to rub out the sea.
(26:06):
But a lot of gay guys didn't want to be part of the whole Queenie,
the crazy. And they were just like, I just want to meet somebody normally. So I literally put on a
dinner party for my, my close gay friends. And there was sort of 20 people and they was like,
Oh my God, this is amazing. And there was something coming up called the, do you have the ideal home
(26:27):
exhibition here? We have an ideal home exhibition, but it was, it was a gay lifestyle. So they were
calling it the ideal homo exhibition. So I put on one of my big operatic ball gowns. I had two
poodles at the time who I dyed pink. And I, I set up, um, out and out, which was, which was the,
well, at the time we had 20 members who were my friends. I was, I was marketing it as this amazing
(26:52):
dining club where you could, you know, escape the scene and meet men like you. And it grew and grew
and grew. And this was word of mouth. It was advertising in little columns in newspapers.
Um, and it was very much needed at the time. We changed lives. We had marriages. We had people
who'd never told us all they were gay, but felt it was a safe space. So that was a passion. That
(27:12):
was a real passion of mine. And the internet came along and we were not so needed and we could have
developed more, but at that point I was doing other things and you know, the world it's now
obviously very normal and accepted almost quite cool to be gay. So yeah, yeah. So it was fine.
So that, that, that's, it had, it was the right place at the right time. And that's, you know,
(27:35):
you've always got to move and be in the right place at the right time. We were sort of the
blockbuster of our time. So we see opportunity in things or you create opportunity, which I love
about you. So if there's we on our chats that we have and, and different ideas, we're ideas people.
And yes, we are between us, you know, brainstorm and think of, and some of the ideas and the
(28:00):
opportunities are so fantastical that there's like, there's no way, but then there's an,
there's an element that is doable and can be done. And it's like, how well, why can't it be done?
Why can't the big thing be done? And you've won awards for your screenplays. Your one is it's
right. So during COVID, when everything was shut down, there were a lot of out of work actors,
(28:24):
sound technicians. So we had the sound technician from Star Wars working. So we, I wrote a, I wrote
a little movie, which will also put in the show notes because it's amazing. Yeah. So it was,
it was basically comparing the, the conditions needed to make a baby to having a baby. And they're
very similar feeling safe, having consent, feeling private love, privacy, that's oxytocin rich
(28:50):
environments. And it's something I'm passionate about and is why I work as a private midwife,
because I struggled to enable women to create that atmosphere in a hospital atmosphere.
But that's another story. So yes, I, I created this little film and I managed to get the most
incredible cast, the most incredible technicians, because everybody was out of work and climbing
(29:11):
the walls because of COVID. And so I managed to put this short movie together for probably about
1500 pounds, which was very cheap at the time. And put it out there thinking it would be a really
nice little learning tool. And it ended up going viral hundreds of thousands of views. We, I think
we won about 12 massive international awards. I got the screenwriter for the London Film Festival.
(29:37):
I got the American Cinematography Awards. There were many film festivals and we were shocked.
I then had people all around the world saying, can I use this? We're used in Sydney actually.
We're in their, their midwifery department have said, do you mind if we use the film? So it's,
it's really helping people. And that, that thrills me. So I'm now looking at making a feature film
(30:02):
and several feature films, because one of our feature films, of course, is our story in the
Shell. Which we've discussed many ways of doing it. I think that's definitely a film in the making.
And, but I also would like to expand the, the short film I did. I can see that being a sort of
(30:23):
sort of type Netflix series that sort of, yeah, but we're, but I mean, my kids often say to me,
going back to what you were saying, sorry, ADHD brain. My kids will often say to me, you know,
you come up with so many ideas and you don't do half of them. And I was like, yes, that's the
point. So you do a lot of them. I do. Yeah. You only, the amount of ideas I have, I only need to do
2% of them. And I'm very busy. Yeah. And quite often going through with those ideas then opens
(30:48):
up to other ideas that you hadn't thought of. So it's like, yeah, it's just, it's ever, ever evolving
idea session. Yes, exactly. And, and, you know, and then speaking to people and letting them bounce
their ideas off of me, like before we started this, you just showed me this beautiful house that you're
saying is out of your budget. And I swear to you, by the time I leave, you will be buying that house
(31:10):
because we are going to find a way. There is always a way. I am here at the right time because
you are going to buy that house. That's right. We've got four days to come up with that. Yes.
Yes. We'll get there. We'll get there.
I used to see ideas as, as entities that flowed past everyone. Yes. And it took a special person
(31:33):
like yourself and like Michelle to grab those ideas, put your nuance around it. And then the
really truly special people are those that then act on it. Elizabeth Gilbert has that in her book.
She's got a book, Magic Happens, I think it's called. And that is her, what she says in it as well,
that ideas are flowing and they're open for everyone. So if you have the idea, unless you
(31:59):
act upon it, it will go to someone else. Well, this is why you'll have a new invention and
somebody in London is making this at the same time in Sydney, because it's just out there at the time.
Yeah. For sure. And that's what manifesting is, isn't it? It's opening your brain to that particular
idea and grabbing it as it's coming past you. And seeing opportunity in everything. So some people
(32:20):
might see a bunch of garbage and another person might see, I saw recently on social media,
there is a business in Melbourne and I can't think of what, what they're called, but they get all soft
plastics that are in the rubbish or not all obviously within their area and they have a
coffee shop. So they use all soft plastics that they use in their shop and they melt them together
(32:44):
with an iron and then use that as like a leather replacement and make bags and purses and, and
things out of that. So it's utilizing and they never have a shortage of material because they're
just using soft plastics. Well, something similar to what you did in, in uni, you told me that
(33:04):
you didn't have a lot of money, you're doing art and so everything you found on the street became
artwork. And that's never stopped you. But there is, and like, you know, you've got to,
you have to, what, where your energy goes, your focus goes, your energy will flow. Absolutely.
And so if you're awake, you do wake up having a bad day and you say, no, I'm, I'm an optimistic
(33:29):
person. I believe that, you know, this bad day is going to lead to a good one. And, you know,
nobody wants to go to a movie where it's like, it's beautiful at the beginning, it's beautiful
in the middle, it's beautiful at the end. It's just boring. Yeah. So you have to have sometimes
those uncomfortable moments to make you see opportunity and to make you see, you know, what,
(33:51):
what the possibilities are. And, you know, so at the moment I feel slightly, you know, we were
saying about what do you do? And I, well, I'm not really singing and you know, the midwifery to me
is a passion. That's not who I am or my job. But so I, at the moment, I feel actually a little bit
excited. I don't know what it is, but I know there's something, there's another, you know,
(34:13):
I've had the gay dining club, I've had the singing, I've had the midwifery. And property development,
you see gems in everything. Yes. And the property development is, I've always felt that's,
you know, it's fun finding the opportunities and that's always been my bread and butter and
everything else is sprinkles and jam and sparkles. So there's another sprinkles and jam and sparkles
ahead and I don't know what it is, but I'm open to it. Well, we'll do another podcast when it's
(34:38):
happening. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I want to talk to you about the concept of the muse, artists talk
about the muse. What are your thoughts around that topic? Does it, does your muse visit you?
Do you ride it in waves? Because one of the things Michelle and I have been talking about a lot lately
is that we tend to find our creative, well, I tend to find my creativity or my passions,
(35:05):
they come in waves. And it's about finding when you're at the top of the wave and riding the wave
that's at the bottom, not getting so frustrated that it's not there. That's the way I'm thinking
about it at the moment. But I think a lot of that is mindset, isn't it? If you're, you've got to be
open to feeling that muse. And it does, I mean, I do think in the arts and I consider myself an
(35:27):
artist, even though I've made my money probably from property, but arts is always, and to me,
midwifery is artistry as well. But I think in the arts, you are, it's a sort of a higher spiritual
plane. And it is like you're channeling, you're channeling. When I was singing 100%, I felt that
(35:48):
I was, that voice was coming through me and I had to technically, yes, be perfect to allow that,
that voice to come through me in a way that wasn't going to be offensive. But it is a feeling that
it's from a higher plane for sure. And you have to be open to that. And it's the same with writing.
(36:08):
I actually, I've been in Australia for several weeks and I, before I came to Sydney, I had this
beautiful apartment on a beach and my intention was to come out and write. And I came out as,
I'm going to write. And each morning I was waking up, I've got to write. And that was actually
shutting me down. And in the end, I actually allowed the muse to take over. And it was,
(36:33):
when I was least expecting it, just, I just thought, I'm just going to journal. I'm just
going to free flow. And then I wrote down a lot of, I think some really good stuff that I can keep
working with, but I think it's, it's letting go, as you say, of the ego. And that's again, so as
we've said about, I mean, maybe it's different, maybe there's more head than heart in being a
pilot. But when you're singing, you definitely feel that that muse is coming through you.
(36:55):
Yeah. There's kind of two theories to it. I had dinner, I was very fortunate to have dinner with
an author, Bryce Courtney. He wrote The Power of One, Tandia, Tom Owen Hawke. He's one of
Australia's most prolific authors. He was a South African gent that moved out to Australia. And I
was sitting down with him at dinner, because I had, I was young and I wanted to be an author
(37:16):
at some stage. And I said, so tell me about your writing process and tell me how much of what you
write do you use? And he said, well, I just write every day. And I said, so do you, does the muse
come to you? No, I just sit down and write every day. And I said, well, how much of your writing
do you use? And he said, oh, it's maybe only 10%. Now that guy started writing after he retired
(37:39):
from full-time work. He'd had a full career in advertising and the books that he's written would
take up more than an arm span on a bookshelf. So the amount of writing that came out of him later
in his life is extraordinary. So that's one, I guess, approach to art and writing. Like he just
(38:00):
punched it out and then found the gold in the 10%. But like you're saying, some artists just
learn how to let the muse visit. I think when it becomes very technical, I think you can see that
and it becomes turgid, like in writing. I'm doing writing a book at the moment and I am editing and
(38:20):
editing and editing. And I was speaking to a mentor who said, you know, you've got to stop.
You have this either fear of success or fear of failure, which is stopping you from actually
putting it forward. So it's the thing of, okay, what we were talking yesterday, what was it? It
was motion over motivation. So the motion before motivation or leading one thing to the other.
(38:48):
Yeah. So a lot of people think you've got to be motivated before you start, but quite often it's
just starting and then the motivation catches up. When you're an artist, I remember going to life
drawing classes and I was really terrible because I was really trying to measure everything. And then
we were doing those two minute portraits or 30 second portraits and I was really good.
(39:08):
So because there's no time to let your brain interfere and then my proportions, everything.
And it was like, oh, these are really cool. But then we slowed down and did a two hour portrait.
No, no, no, no, no. Good. So yeah, sometimes you just have to let it get out of your own way.
Yeah. For Sean.
I've loved hearing your story. I think we could do four or five of these and go more into depth.
(39:33):
You're an extraordinary woman, Julia. I've heard a lot about you. So it's so lovely to meet you in
person. Like the amazing Captain Michelle, you are a polymath and I look forward to hearing all of
the wonderful things that you end up doing and producing in the future. Thank you so much. Thank
you for coming on and sharing. I think you're wonderful. No, you are. I love you more. I love
(39:59):
you the most. All right. So I'll sign off all these two. Continue looking lovingly into their
eyes. Bollinger, where are you? Yeah. Come on. And Lint. Seriously. At least we've got the car wash
kit. Yes. Thank you again, Julia. Thank you. Well, that was fun. That was fun. You're such a clown.
(40:21):
Thanks, man. Lady cat. And who's going to listen to this? Maybe I'm not. Thanks, man.
Why did it count backwards? Are they? We're now recording.
(00:04):
What? Hello Captain.
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly.
What are we going to talk about?
I don't know. So leadership, life and everything else.
Yeah. Good day, leaders. In this podcast, we had the absolute privilege of speaking with Julia
(00:33):
Malinac. She is an international opera superstar, a polymath that she's very much like our Captain
Michelle who can do anything. And we had an absolute ball learning about her singing career
and all the other things that she's done and is continuing to do. Enjoy.
And we're live. No, we're recording.
(00:57):
In the studio with a guest. Yes. How exciting. All the way from UK. Yeah.
I'm excited. Amazing Julia.
So Michelle, do you want to give us a little bit of background about Julia?
Because I'm excited because we've got another polymath in the room.
Julia, have you heard the term polymath? Yes, I know what a polymath is.
(01:17):
Yes, definitely. So Michelle can do anything.
She can weld, she can paint, she can fly planes. She's a teacher, she's a speaker. There's nothing
she can't do and I've heard you're quite similar. Yes.
You're like a sister from another mother. For sure.
Yeah, we have very parallel lives. We do.
(01:38):
Let's start with the big one. International renowned opera singer.
Yeah. That's not me.
I've heard you sing. It's definitely not you. I'm sorry, Michelle.
I was just saying to Michelle before we started this that people sometimes say to me,
what do you do? And I sort of, I don't really know because I do so many things.
That's it. So we've got, what else do we got in there? We've got property development.
(02:00):
Yes. Yes. Oh, I've done a lot of things. Yes. I've started lots of businesses. I mean, my guts,
I identify as an opera singer because that's what I've done most of my life.
Yeah. But I have had, I had the largest gay dining club in the UK.
The largest gay dining club in the UK. Well, that's going to be a conversation
(02:20):
we're going to be having. That's interesting.
That was before the internet's showing how old I am.
So just come a little bit closer. A little bit closer. Okay.
That's perfect. Yeah, that's nice.
And yes, several businesses, lots of property and now I am a magician.
A magician. Okay. My mind is wrapping itself around the stong of that word. So I'm assuming
(02:45):
it's got something to do with... Vaginology.
So yeah, my passion, my passion, I don't call it a job because you can't call it a job. My passion,
my hobby is supporting women to have babies at home. So yes, I trained as a midwife rather late
in life for, yes, for a passion. And it is a labor of love, as they say.
(03:08):
A labor of love. I like what you're doing there with all these words.
Not only a polymath, you've got the gift of designing your own language almost. So
vagician, is that actually a word or is that a term?
No, that's me. That's me. Yes.
I love that. That's for you.
Lady Julia the vagician.
Lady Julia the vagician.
I pull magic things out of vaginas. Can I say vagina on the podcast?
(03:33):
Yeah, you can say whatever you want.
We just take the box in.
Yeah.
You can beep over it.
That's no explicit language.
No, I know, but you don't know whether people...
Like the word?
Yes.
Well, it's a word.
It is. It's an anatomical word.
It is.
Anatomical word, yes.
So where do we start with Julia if she's lucky with polymath, we could talk for hours.
Can we start with the opera?
(03:53):
Yes.
Because that was early on, wasn't it?
That was what's...
Early on in your career?
Well, it was from the age of two.
I was singing before I could talk to you.
Oh, wow.
Literally, I was standing on coffee tables being that irritating child who always wanted
to perform and always the loudest in the school choir. And in my heart, I wanted to do medicine,
(04:14):
which is probably why I came and did the midwifery later. And I was going to do medicine,
but loved performing. I loved music theater, but my parents didn't think that was sort of
a proper job. But when I discovered my operatic voice, they supported me. And I switched when
I was about 17 and went down the opera path. But it was always very normal for me when I
(04:35):
meet people and I say, I'm an opera singer. They think it's very glamorous and wow. And
to me, it was just normal. Everybody I knew were opera singers and went and did it straight
from school and just worked in it. And it was pretty amazing.
So you stepped onto the stage from school, Australian Opera.
(04:56):
Yes, I went straight to a music conservatoire, trained there and went straight from there.
Most people leave there and we'll do one season in the Glynebourne Chorus. I don't know if
you've heard of Glynebourne. It's a beautiful country house opera. And it has choristers
who go on to become soloists. And straight from there, I went on and sang my first Don
(05:18):
Giovanni and then I specialised in Puccini and mainly Madame Butterfly. Madame Butterfly
blessed her plate, my mortgage for a very long time.
Oh, wow. So where did that take you around the world? I presume you travelled with it?
Yes, all over the place. So I tried. Well, I was I was working internationally. Eventually,
I was trying to work more at home because I had children. But I did a season in New Zealand,
(05:46):
in Israel, Italy. I mean, you name it, I've probably been there. And it's wonderful. It's
not as glamorous as it sounds living out of a suitcase and being away, but you make some
amazing friends. And then you keep seeing those friends each time you turn up for a job,
you see who the cast is. And the greatest joy making amazing music.
(06:10):
So we spoke about this before we started recording how you said you got more enjoyment out of the
journey, the creation, the creation than the actual performing. Can you tell us more about that?
Yes. I mean, I think most musicians, you're not doing it for the applause. People think it's
just glamorous, you know, the applause and then you come out and sign autographs. It's nothing to
(06:32):
do with that. It's, it's the absolute love of studying that score. The great butterflies who
came before me, the great butterflies who are still out there doing it after me. We've all
studied that score and made of it our interpretation and our love of that music. And what the public get
(06:52):
to see is their own interpretation of our interpretation. And it's such a joy. It's a
spiritual journey and is an utter privilege. And yes, it's the rehearsals, the development of that
character. I think I was saying to you before you, the emotional journey you go on is, I mean,
in opera, I think opera is the ultimate form for that expression of emotion and to, to feel that
(07:20):
depth of emotion on stage. Life is a pretty poor imitation afterwards. So I can see why a lot of
marriages don't make it pass up with us. Yes, because you're away from home. You're having
these passionate moments on stage. And then you come home to a partner who's been there looking
after the kids is fed up. You have it and it's like, it's the mundanity that you just don't have on
(07:44):
stage. So it's like life and art are not really imitating each other. You wish they did a little
bit. But it was, it was a wonderful time and was my norm. It was nothing glamorous or interesting.
I mean, I realized later on, when I did stop singing, how I'd lost something that was
(08:05):
extraordinary. It was to me, I loved singing and loved singing to the end, but I didn't love the
lifestyle. Was it an ego death that you had at the end? Michelle describes when she obviously gave up.
Yeah, oddly yes. Because there was no ego involved in singing. It's to me, it was my normal. There
was, there was no significance. I didn't feel that I was a superstar or special. However, when you lose
(08:31):
it, you suddenly think, who am I? And you realize that people actually wanted to be friends with you
because, oh, you're the opera singer. People would come up to me in the school playground to go, oh,
you're the opera singer. We, we'd really love to have you for dinner. And I used to hate that. I
used to actually abhor the, the, the significance that came with being a singer. But when I lost it,
(08:52):
yes. And so when people say to me now, what do you do? Even though I midwife more than I sing,
I tend to say, well, I'm an opera singer because that's, it's what I've done most of my life. And,
and I still sing every day with my dogs in my kitchen. We've got quite an echo-y studio that
we're in today. So maybe we can get you to hit a note. We'll put the links to some, some of your
(09:18):
performances in the show notes as well. Yeah, that would probably be better. I actually once did a
radio show. They got me on and they had a crystal glass and my challenge was to sing a high note
and smash the glass. How did you go? Well, unfortunately I turned up and it wasn't a
crystal glass. It was sort of like an Ikea drinking glass. And so they literally did it and then they
(09:40):
smashed it on the wall and we pretended. So yes, that was, that was LBC London. I'm, I'm dobbling
you in. So is that true? Like I always thought that was a get smart myth that an opera singer
could actually, can you break glass? I think if it's a high, if it's a high quality crystal glass,
(10:02):
what you do is you flip the glass and you get the, the note and then you sing that at high
intensity. And apparently I haven't done it, but I do believe it works. So match the image.
So find some crystal. Do we want to be careful about what we've got in the kitchen.
Wow. What a start to your journey. Like when we were talking, Michelle and I, when we first met
(10:27):
and how she gave up flying and I gave up a sport and both of us experienced that, that massive
ego death because you just don't know who you are. Julia explained it really well. Whilst you're in
it, you're not going around thinking that your ego is just your identity. It's not, it's not,
it's when it's gone. And it's another thing we went through. Really it's a similar time. We did
(10:49):
it too. And it was just that identity loss of not knowing what we were because we'd been laid. It
was a label that we could attach to. Yes. And it was easy. And also it was one that was revered.
Like you said, a conversation starter. When you wake up in the morning, the first thing you wake
up and you think, oh, I'm a pilot. I'm an opera singer. I'm a sportsman or whatever it is. It's
(11:13):
for sure. I wake up in the mornings going, is it still there? I dream about it. I dream about
playing sport all the time. Thank you. You're so kind. I dream about playing sport that I'm still
in the team, that I get the call up and the dream just won't go away. And I'm sure if you get an
(11:35):
injury, you're thinking, oh no, because I mean, for me, if I get a cold, I still panic. I still
think, because if we got a cold, we didn't get paid. You didn't get paid for rehearsal periods.
So you'd fly off somewhere on your own dollar or pounds in my case. And you would turn up,
you would rehearse for six weeks. If you had a cold on that first night, you don't get paid.
(11:56):
So that happens. So we were very precious about anything respiratory. And now I can get a cold.
And it's like, ha ha. Although then I can't affect new mummies. So there you go.
What was your favorite memory? If you were to look through your career as an opera singer,
what would be your favorite memory? What comes straight to the front of your mind when I ask
(12:16):
you that question? Oh, it's so hard. I mean, people always used to say to me, what's your favorite
role? And it was always whatever I was doing at the time, because I would absolutely fall in love
with my heroine. And the roles I did, they always were heroines. They were the most beautiful,
gorgeous women. And I would identify so strongly with them. And I very much method acted. So I
(12:41):
would, I would come when I was doing butterfly, I would literally, I would do little tiny little
geisha steps and try and sort of look through my Diana eyelids and sort of Lady Diana, Princess Diana,
that sort of demure. I would practice it in every cell of my body. And it was a cellular thing.
So I think the love affairs I had with with those characters and that passion, I thought,
(13:04):
I think if I look back, that's my, my, my memory. And I think also the memory of getting my first,
I mean, I was doing nice roles quite early on, but when I got my first big break at English
National Opera, and they said, we'd like you to come and sing Madame part of light. And that was
that was quite early on in my career. And that was, I remember, I remember exactly where I was
(13:28):
sitting, and how incredible that felt. And again, not because of the significance, but of the
opportunity to sing in that amazing in the Coliseum in London, singing that role was, was fabulous.
And then it went on to doing butterfly and lots of other places. So maybe that was a great moment.
I love when I hear people who have reached the pinnacle in their in their chosen field, when they
(13:54):
describe how they embodied like you were doing the little steps. Yes, it's it's Michelle and I have
spoken a lot about alter egos recently. You read a fantastic book recently, just about how many very
successful athletes, many successful singers, many successful people develop this alter ego so that
(14:14):
they could fully embody what it was that they were doing. I think it's like athletes who rehearse the
whole thing in their heads. And yes, I'm like you do you you feel and be that person in your head.
And when you go out there, I mean, people say, Do you get nervous? And it's like, No, it's not me
there. It's Joshua Sand. It's Madame Butterfly up there singing. So I was all coffee machine.
(14:36):
Yeah, sorry. We already had a couple. We don't need you for the moment. Thank you very much.
But actually, another great moment was and this is not artistically sort of revered, but it was
wonderful was when I sang at Glastonbury. Tell us about that. It was the first time Glastonbury had,
(14:57):
you know, you know what Glastonbury is. Yeah, it was the first time Glastonbury had ever had
an opera company and they invited us to come and do Valkyrie. And we had 100,000 people,
singing along. And, you know, throwing things at the stage. And it was I felt like a rock star.
It was amazing. I had Paul McCartney in the dressing room. James Brown. When we finished,
(15:19):
he was like, You know, are you finished ladies? I can't do his deep growl of a voice. And it was
that was extraordinary coming out on the stage. And there's a Valkyrie. It was one time I broke
character because the Valkyries are supposed to be these formidable Amazonian women. And we all just
came on with big smiles. It was that was that was a very exciting moment, not artistically
(15:41):
necessarily. But it was my moment of being a rock star. That's extraordinary. I remember when I first
knew of you, met you. I hadn't met you in person, but you hated me. I did. And I wanted I really
wanted to dislike you. And I, I were going to go into that story. All right, so for our listeners,
(16:03):
I googled everything about you as you knew that I did. And I stalked you basically on social media.
I stalked you back. It's fine. And your performances are on YouTube and I really wanted to dislike you.
And it's like, you've got to let people know why you can't just say that I didn't want to like you.
(16:24):
Julia was dating my boyfriend. Well, I think when I was dating my boyfriend, we might pop in.
And you ended up being best friends. I can read it in the book. What's the movie when you write that
script? It was the other woman movie times a million. But was somebody a lot less unattractive?
(16:45):
But you ended up being best friends. Yes, that's right. Adoring each other because we finally had a
lot more than that in common. Apart from being beautiful and amazing. And fabulous every day.
But yeah, the music, like you've said, you know, it was, it's so passionate and sound and music
do reach the soul. And you know, even Valkyrie that it changes a heartbeat almost in the fact
(17:10):
that a hundred thousand people singing along with you. And it just, it gives, I've got goosebumps
now thinking about it. But I remember I was watching you and even my parents, they were watching with
me. They wanted to hate me too. They did. They loved the drama of it. But they, you know, and my
dad was saying, Oh, she's quite good, isn't she? Dad, you better not like her. But then you've
(17:35):
taught their dog to sing. I have taught, yeah, I teach a lot of dogs to sing. So yes, but that's
another thing I love. I might run next door and grab a dog and sing. But it's, it does lift you.
And that's, that's the thing is if you're having a bad day, it can change your state in a heartbeat.
You start singing, it will transport you. And I love sound healing now, you know, sort of singing
(18:01):
bowls and gongs and they do change you and Buddhist chanting and going back to midwifery,
it's something that I, I mean, I sang, I was told that I had the noisiest birth they'd ever had in
the hospital. That's my claim to fame. Another operatic moment because I sang through my birth.
(18:22):
And it was, it was analgesia. It relieved the pain for me. It transported me.
We were talking about early yesterday. And this is your birth where you gave birth.
This is my birth when I gave birth. And because you shut off the neocortex at that moment and you
become at one with the sounds. And it's, it was something I felt really passionate about. And then
I started sharing that with people. And then I was supporting other people through birth. And then
(18:46):
the, actually the whole midwifery journey sort of started partly as well through the journey with
Michelle, because I was thinking, well, maybe that's an entree into Australia because they
didn't need opera singers, but they did need midwives. Okay.
And you had been offered a role with Sydney Opera House. So I'd auditioned at Sydney Opera House.
(19:10):
And yes, they were sort of get yourself a visa, get yourself over here. And we can, we can,
we can actually, you know, give you a lot of work here, which was obviously super exciting,
but anyway, that's, that's a whole other podcast. That's going to another rabbit hole.
Australia is the worst that we didn't make that happen.
Yes, for sure. For sure. That was, that was another, another reason, but actually all worked out as
(19:31):
everything does. But it actually put me in another trajectory. But I did, in the end, I did the
midwifery. It was sort of almost to get over a broken heart. I just sort of thought I did it as
a part-time course. This wasn't the degree. And then before I knew it, I was applying and doing
the degree, which I thought I'll do it for fun. I'll do a BSC at the age of 107. And
(19:51):
and it had to be the top university doing it. So it was actually a very challenging degree.
And, but I still had that sort of the way I'd done it myself. I wanted it to be like a doula.
So I now do home births and I get my women singing a lot. I use a lot of breath work and sound.
What do you do if you've got a bad voice?
I sing for them. I hum along. No, it doesn't, it doesn't matter if you have a good voice.
(20:14):
I just get them humming. And then it's like an out of body experience. They all say,
I could hear the sort of the humming, the sounds, the frequency.
Well, it's vibration too.
It's the vibration without really being aware. It's a breath, it's helping with the breath as well.
Michelle and I have gone to sound healing recently and it's an extraordinary experience.
It's wonderful. It's wonderful. Sound is, I think it's a very underutilized healing process.
(20:39):
My mom, she can do sound healing as well with kinesiology. And I remember one particular
session she was doing with me, I was lying on the, on the bed and she had the tuning forks
and was doing it over my body. And I was watching my, I don't know if it was intestines or what it
was, rising as she's doing the forks over them and pulling them up. And she wasn't touching my skin
(21:06):
at all, but my, my. Taught like stomach, guts, whatever. Where we're coming up.
Was it wind possibly? It could have been, it could have been, but it was, it was coming up and she
was kind of playing with it. But you feel it when you play the heart frequency, you feel it in your
heart. You absolutely do. And I mean, sound is, yeah. I mean, I just, and we all know that, you
(21:32):
know, if your teenager is being a bit grumpy, you put the right music on and just, it can,
it can change their state immediately. I mean, I think we've all been to Tony Robbins events and
the way he uses music and then it anchors you as well. So I mean, opera still anchors me a lot.
And so I, yeah, it's very, very moving going to performances as well. I can imagine.
(21:58):
What did you learn being an opera singer? What, what lessons did you take away from it? Because
we often talk about how everything that you do in life is just another tool that goes into your
toolkit. So you learn lessons, you learn skills. What would you say were the big skills or lessons
that you got out of your career? Oh, so many, so many. I mean, as I was saying to you, the process
(22:23):
of creation is in many ways more important than the end result. That's putting something together
and the passion you can put into something and actually taking risks in that creative process.
And if they don't work, it doesn't matter because you're, it's a means to an end to get to the final
goal. And living with passion, I mean, as I said to you before, the passion I felt on the stage has
(22:48):
not been, it wasn't great for my marriage because my marriage lacked that passion, but I still believe
in it. I still believe in that absolute incredible connection that people can have, whether it's,
I mean, Madame Butterfly has her sidekick Suzuki, which is a girlfriend, which is my Michelle.
(23:10):
And it's, it's the bonds you have and the camaraderie. But, you know, there are so many
parallels with life. And, you know, in terms of, you know, I think I was, my big thing, my mum
always used to say to me, Oh, life's not a dress rehearsal. You've got to get out there. But I think
(23:33):
it's okay to think of parts of your life as a dress rehearsal and to say, it's okay. This is happening
because it's leading me towards my big performance. And we all have those magic moments, those
incredible moments that would not have happened unless you'd fallen down and taken different
directions along the way. So if you, you know, if you are doing something and it's not working,
(23:56):
that's okay. And you can, you can find another way. And perhaps if you didn't make the mistakes
the first time around, you're not going to find the new path to get you towards where,
where you should be. And I know that happens all the time in the singing, you know, and
being able to just cope with those, you know, disappointments sometimes, you know, you think
(24:19):
you've got something, you know, you work on something you think is amazing and you turn up
and there might be somebody who has a completely different vision and just trusting sometimes
that things will unfold as they should, because they always do.
You sound like you've got the same motto that Michelle and I share. It's everything works out
for us. It does. Look, Julia is the most optimistic and opportunistic opportunist, opportunistic.
(24:49):
And the person that I know, tell me, they're going back to their gay dining.
Yes. You were saying this morning that, you know, you have these passionate,
you know, moments on stage with the partner that you had in your, in your role. And then
(25:11):
the curtain comes down and they're gay and you go off and like, it could never, never work
because they have a partner. Yes, exactly.
You fell in love on stage and then, you know, the curtain comes down. So was that because of those
relationships potentially, was that where the gay dining? Oh, absolutely. I was the biggest, I don't
(25:37):
know if you can say fag hag fruit, whatever you say these days, but I, yeah, all of my besties back
then were men and gay men. And it, back then it was very different. The gay scene was very different.
You went to clubs, you dressed up in your leathers. You, when I was at music college, we had a street
called Canal Street, which is the main gay area. And people always used to rub out the sea.
(26:06):
But a lot of gay guys didn't want to be part of the whole Queenie,
the crazy. And they were just like, I just want to meet somebody normally. So I literally put on a
dinner party for my, my close gay friends. And there was sort of 20 people and they was like,
Oh my God, this is amazing. And there was something coming up called the, do you have the ideal home
(26:27):
exhibition here? We have an ideal home exhibition, but it was, it was a gay lifestyle. So they were
calling it the ideal homo exhibition. So I put on one of my big operatic ball gowns. I had two
poodles at the time who I dyed pink. And I, I set up, um, out and out, which was, which was the,
well, at the time we had 20 members who were my friends. I was, I was marketing it as this amazing
(26:52):
dining club where you could, you know, escape the scene and meet men like you. And it grew and grew
and grew. And this was word of mouth. It was advertising in little columns in newspapers.
Um, and it was very much needed at the time. We changed lives. We had marriages. We had people
who'd never told us all they were gay, but felt it was a safe space. So that was a passion. That
(27:12):
was a real passion of mine. And the internet came along and we were not so needed and we could have
developed more, but at that point I was doing other things and you know, the world it's now
obviously very normal and accepted almost quite cool to be gay. So yeah, yeah. So it was fine.
So that, that, that's, it had, it was the right place at the right time. And that's, you know,
(27:35):
you've always got to move and be in the right place at the right time. We were sort of the
blockbuster of our time. So we see opportunity in things or you create opportunity, which I love
about you. So if there's we on our chats that we have and, and different ideas, we're ideas people.
And yes, we are between us, you know, brainstorm and think of, and some of the ideas and the
(28:00):
opportunities are so fantastical that there's like, there's no way, but then there's an,
there's an element that is doable and can be done. And it's like, how well, why can't it be done?
Why can't the big thing be done? And you've won awards for your screenplays. Your one is it's
right. So during COVID, when everything was shut down, there were a lot of out of work actors,
(28:24):
sound technicians. So we had the sound technician from Star Wars working. So we, I wrote a, I wrote
a little movie, which will also put in the show notes because it's amazing. Yeah. So it was,
it was basically comparing the, the conditions needed to make a baby to having a baby. And they're
very similar feeling safe, having consent, feeling private love, privacy, that's oxytocin rich
(28:50):
environments. And it's something I'm passionate about and is why I work as a private midwife,
because I struggled to enable women to create that atmosphere in a hospital atmosphere.
But that's another story. So yes, I, I created this little film and I managed to get the most
incredible cast, the most incredible technicians, because everybody was out of work and climbing
(29:11):
the walls because of COVID. And so I managed to put this short movie together for probably about
1500 pounds, which was very cheap at the time. And put it out there thinking it would be a really
nice little learning tool. And it ended up going viral hundreds of thousands of views. We, I think
we won about 12 massive international awards. I got the screenwriter for the London Film Festival.
(29:37):
I got the American Cinematography Awards. There were many film festivals and we were shocked.
I then had people all around the world saying, can I use this? We're used in Sydney actually.
We're in their, their midwifery department have said, do you mind if we use the film? So it's,
it's really helping people. And that, that thrills me. So I'm now looking at making a feature film
(30:02):
and several feature films, because one of our feature films, of course, is our story in the
Shell. Which we've discussed many ways of doing it. I think that's definitely a film in the making.
And, but I also would like to expand the, the short film I did. I can see that being a sort of
(30:23):
sort of type Netflix series that sort of, yeah, but we're, but I mean, my kids often say to me,
going back to what you were saying, sorry, ADHD brain. My kids will often say to me, you know,
you come up with so many ideas and you don't do half of them. And I was like, yes, that's the
point. So you do a lot of them. I do. Yeah. You only, the amount of ideas I have, I only need to do
2% of them. And I'm very busy. Yeah. And quite often going through with those ideas then opens
(30:48):
up to other ideas that you hadn't thought of. So it's like, yeah, it's just, it's ever, ever evolving
idea session. Yes, exactly. And, and, you know, and then speaking to people and letting them bounce
their ideas off of me, like before we started this, you just showed me this beautiful house that you're
saying is out of your budget. And I swear to you, by the time I leave, you will be buying that house
(31:10):
because we are going to find a way. There is always a way. I am here at the right time because
you are going to buy that house. That's right. We've got four days to come up with that. Yes.
Yes. We'll get there. We'll get there.
I used to see ideas as, as entities that flowed past everyone. Yes. And it took a special person
(31:33):
like yourself and like Michelle to grab those ideas, put your nuance around it. And then the
really truly special people are those that then act on it. Elizabeth Gilbert has that in her book.
She's got a book, Magic Happens, I think it's called. And that is her, what she says in it as well,
that ideas are flowing and they're open for everyone. So if you have the idea, unless you
(31:59):
act upon it, it will go to someone else. Well, this is why you'll have a new invention and
somebody in London is making this at the same time in Sydney, because it's just out there at the time.
Yeah. For sure. And that's what manifesting is, isn't it? It's opening your brain to that particular
idea and grabbing it as it's coming past you. And seeing opportunity in everything. So some people
(32:20):
might see a bunch of garbage and another person might see, I saw recently on social media,
there is a business in Melbourne and I can't think of what, what they're called, but they get all soft
plastics that are in the rubbish or not all obviously within their area and they have a
coffee shop. So they use all soft plastics that they use in their shop and they melt them together
(32:44):
with an iron and then use that as like a leather replacement and make bags and purses and, and
things out of that. So it's utilizing and they never have a shortage of material because they're
just using soft plastics. Well, something similar to what you did in, in uni, you told me that
(33:04):
you didn't have a lot of money, you're doing art and so everything you found on the street became
artwork. And that's never stopped you. But there is, and like, you know, you've got to,
you have to, what, where your energy goes, your focus goes, your energy will flow. Absolutely.
And so if you're awake, you do wake up having a bad day and you say, no, I'm, I'm an optimistic
(33:29):
person. I believe that, you know, this bad day is going to lead to a good one. And, you know,
nobody wants to go to a movie where it's like, it's beautiful at the beginning, it's beautiful
in the middle, it's beautiful at the end. It's just boring. Yeah. So you have to have sometimes
those uncomfortable moments to make you see opportunity and to make you see, you know, what,
(33:51):
what the possibilities are. And, you know, so at the moment I feel slightly, you know, we were
saying about what do you do? And I, well, I'm not really singing and you know, the midwifery to me
is a passion. That's not who I am or my job. But so I, at the moment, I feel actually a little bit
excited. I don't know what it is, but I know there's something, there's another, you know,
(34:13):
I've had the gay dining club, I've had the singing, I've had the midwifery. And property development,
you see gems in everything. Yes. And the property development is, I've always felt that's,
you know, it's fun finding the opportunities and that's always been my bread and butter and
everything else is sprinkles and jam and sparkles. So there's another sprinkles and jam and sparkles
ahead and I don't know what it is, but I'm open to it. Well, we'll do another podcast when it's
(34:38):
happening. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I want to talk to you about the concept of the muse, artists talk
about the muse. What are your thoughts around that topic? Does it, does your muse visit you?
Do you ride it in waves? Because one of the things Michelle and I have been talking about a lot lately
is that we tend to find our creative, well, I tend to find my creativity or my passions,
(35:05):
they come in waves. And it's about finding when you're at the top of the wave and riding the wave
that's at the bottom, not getting so frustrated that it's not there. That's the way I'm thinking
about it at the moment. But I think a lot of that is mindset, isn't it? If you're, you've got to be
open to feeling that muse. And it does, I mean, I do think in the arts and I consider myself an
(35:27):
artist, even though I've made my money probably from property, but arts is always, and to me,
midwifery is artistry as well. But I think in the arts, you are, it's a sort of a higher spiritual
plane. And it is like you're channeling, you're channeling. When I was singing 100%, I felt that
(35:48):
I was, that voice was coming through me and I had to technically, yes, be perfect to allow that,
that voice to come through me in a way that wasn't going to be offensive. But it is a feeling that
it's from a higher plane for sure. And you have to be open to that. And it's the same with writing.
(36:08):
I actually, I've been in Australia for several weeks and I, before I came to Sydney, I had this
beautiful apartment on a beach and my intention was to come out and write. And I came out as,
I'm going to write. And each morning I was waking up, I've got to write. And that was actually
shutting me down. And in the end, I actually allowed the muse to take over. And it was,
(36:33):
when I was least expecting it, just, I just thought, I'm just going to journal. I'm just
going to free flow. And then I wrote down a lot of, I think some really good stuff that I can keep
working with, but I think it's, it's letting go, as you say, of the ego. And that's again, so as
we've said about, I mean, maybe it's different, maybe there's more head than heart in being a
pilot. But when you're singing, you definitely feel that that muse is coming through you.
(36:55):
Yeah. There's kind of two theories to it. I had dinner, I was very fortunate to have dinner with
an author, Bryce Courtney. He wrote The Power of One, Tandia, Tom Owen Hawke. He's one of
Australia's most prolific authors. He was a South African gent that moved out to Australia. And I
was sitting down with him at dinner, because I had, I was young and I wanted to be an author
(37:16):
at some stage. And I said, so tell me about your writing process and tell me how much of what you
write do you use? And he said, well, I just write every day. And I said, so do you, does the muse
come to you? No, I just sit down and write every day. And I said, well, how much of your writing
do you use? And he said, oh, it's maybe only 10%. Now that guy started writing after he retired
(37:39):
from full-time work. He'd had a full career in advertising and the books that he's written would
take up more than an arm span on a bookshelf. So the amount of writing that came out of him later
in his life is extraordinary. So that's one, I guess, approach to art and writing. Like he just
(38:00):
punched it out and then found the gold in the 10%. But like you're saying, some artists just
learn how to let the muse visit. I think when it becomes very technical, I think you can see that
and it becomes turgid, like in writing. I'm doing writing a book at the moment and I am editing and
(38:20):
editing and editing. And I was speaking to a mentor who said, you know, you've got to stop.
You have this either fear of success or fear of failure, which is stopping you from actually
putting it forward. So it's the thing of, okay, what we were talking yesterday, what was it? It
was motion over motivation. So the motion before motivation or leading one thing to the other.
(38:48):
Yeah. So a lot of people think you've got to be motivated before you start, but quite often it's
just starting and then the motivation catches up. When you're an artist, I remember going to life
drawing classes and I was really terrible because I was really trying to measure everything. And then
we were doing those two minute portraits or 30 second portraits and I was really good.
(39:08):
So because there's no time to let your brain interfere and then my proportions, everything.
And it was like, oh, these are really cool. But then we slowed down and did a two hour portrait.
No, no, no, no, no. Good. So yeah, sometimes you just have to let it get out of your own way.
Yeah. For Sean.
I've loved hearing your story. I think we could do four or five of these and go more into depth.
(39:33):
You're an extraordinary woman, Julia. I've heard a lot about you. So it's so lovely to meet you in
person. Like the amazing Captain Michelle, you are a polymath and I look forward to hearing all of
the wonderful things that you end up doing and producing in the future. Thank you so much. Thank
you for coming on and sharing. I think you're wonderful. No, you are. I love you more. I love
(39:59):
you the most. All right. So I'll sign off all these two. Continue looking lovingly into their
eyes. Bollinger, where are you? Yeah. Come on. And Lint. Seriously. At least we've got the car wash
kit. Yes. Thank you again, Julia. Thank you. Well, that was fun. That was fun. You're such a clown.
(40:21):
Thanks, man. Lady cat. And who's going to listen to this? Maybe I'm not. Thanks, man.
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