Suuvi Bacelar: Defying Expectations through Music, Business, and Beyond

0:00:13 I’m Guy Kawasaki, welcome to Remarkable People.
0:00:17 We’re on a mission to help you make a difference and to become remarkable.
0:00:24 Today we have the pleasure of introducing the extraordinary and remarkable Suvi Basilar.
0:00:29 She is a Cuban-Chinese prodigy accepted to Juilliard at the age of 10.
0:00:34 Her academic journey led her to elite institutions in Paris and Berlin.
0:00:40 Now residing in Los Angeles, she embraces diverse interests from literature to music
0:00:43 to martial arts to entrepreneurship.
0:00:50 Her performances at iconic venues such as Carnegie Hall showcase her disruptive exploratory
0:00:51 spirit.
0:00:56 As an ambassador to the Grammy Music Education Coalition, she actively supports causes spanning
0:01:00 education, climate change, mental health, and more.
0:01:05 In this episode, you’ll learn how parents shape the lives of their kids, the complex
0:01:12 interaction of talent, luck, and grit, and the magic of a multidisciplinary perspective.
0:01:19 Suvi’s commitment extends to board roles at Body Traffic, a contemporary dance company,
0:01:26 and Strut Cares, a non-profit fostering harmony among people, the planet, animals, and communities.
0:01:32 Join me, Guy Kawasaki, on this episode of Remarkable People as we delve into the captivating
0:01:52 life and artistry of Suvi Basilar, to start, here’s about 30 seconds of Suvi playing the
0:01:57 cello.
0:02:21 I looked at your background and you start the cello at 2.
0:02:23 You’re in Juilliard at 10.
0:02:26 You graduate high school at 15.
0:02:31 Are you basically the Asian tiger mom’s fantasy child?
0:02:39 That’s so funny because my mother actually who is the Asian one hates the phrase tiger
0:02:40 mom.
0:02:44 And when the book came out, she was strongly against its principles.
0:02:51 And interestingly, I had the combination of a very strict and very lackadaisical parental
0:02:53 style growing up.
0:02:58 So on one hand, my parents had extremely high expectations and they definitely created an
0:03:05 environment in which learning and education were pretty much just the central part of
0:03:06 everything I did.
0:03:12 So as a kid, I thought it was normal that at age three, instead of playing with toys,
0:03:15 I would have math workbooks and that was just what I did for fun.
0:03:16 But I genuinely loved it.
0:03:20 My parents, they gave me books, they gave me puzzles, they gave me, I remember as a
0:03:25 kid, it was funny, like I would sneak up stairs late at night to what was called the
0:03:28 playroom, but it was where the TV was.
0:03:31 And I would listen to tons and tons of lectures and I didn’t know this company called the
0:03:32 Great Courses.
0:03:35 They do lecture series.
0:03:39 My parents would just buy lectures on every possible topic, everything from science to
0:03:43 history to literature, art history, and they would just leave them there.
0:03:44 So for me, that was what I had access to.
0:03:47 So it was just normal that this is what I wanted to do for fun.
0:03:49 So they let me do whatever.
0:03:52 But at the same time, it was just the environment I was in.
0:03:59 I was born into a household where my father, who had been a cellist by the time I was born,
0:04:01 he was a violin maker, he was a luthier.
0:04:05 So there were instruments everywhere and it was just completely natural for me to gravitate
0:04:06 towards an instrument.
0:04:13 I remember really distinctly my first human memory at age two was getting my cello and
0:04:15 meeting my cello teacher.
0:04:17 For me, there was just nothing.
0:04:22 There was no life before the cello, it’s always just been part of my existence.
0:04:26 And it was funny because there’s even a story that my father tells, apparently when I was
0:04:30 really little, I was probably two or three years old, I went to a friend’s house for
0:04:36 my first ever play date and I came home and I told my father, “I had lots of fun, but
0:04:38 I didn’t see her father’s shop.”
0:04:42 And I just assumed that everyone had an instrument shop in their home because my father did.
0:04:51 It’s a little bit of that nature versus nurture thing where, for me, I think my parents, they
0:04:57 did push me in some ways, but they definitely also gave me a lot of freedom.
0:05:02 For example, I didn’t like elementary school, I hated school.
0:05:07 So when I was 10 years old, I got into Juilliard, which they actually tricked me into getting
0:05:08 into Juilliard.
0:05:12 It’s a funny story I can tell later, but I didn’t know what Juilliard was, but I got
0:05:13 accepted into it.
0:05:17 I auditioned because I wanted to see a movie and my parents basically told me they would
0:05:22 take me to the movie if I played this audition for these people at 8am, and all I remember
0:05:25 was being really excited to go to the movie theater afterwards.
0:05:30 So I did that, I got into Juilliard, and then I basically told them, “Now I’m in Juilliard,
0:05:34 I need a lot of time to practice, so I don’t want to go to school anymore, so I convince
0:05:36 them to homeschool me.”
0:05:41 And their approach to homeschooling was extremely unorthodox.
0:05:46 At the time, I don’t think the phrase was used yet, nowadays it would probably be called
0:05:54 unschooling, which is getting quite popular, but the state where I was registered as a student
0:05:58 didn’t actually check if you were homeschooling your child.
0:06:02 There was no sort of regulation, no one came and enforced that you were actually homeschooling
0:06:03 your child.
0:06:08 So all you had to do was at the end of the year take a standardized test, and my parents
0:06:12 essentially didn’t really care what I did as long as I could pass the test.
0:06:19 So from a very young age, my model for learning was do whatever you want, absorb whatever
0:06:20 you want.
0:06:24 I remember I have so many memories, my parents lived at the edge of a very big forest, so
0:06:28 I would always be reading Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and all these fantasy books
0:06:32 and then running through the forest and having my little adventures all alone, and then I
0:06:36 would just come back at the end of the year under the school year study for about two
0:06:41 weeks and pass all the tests and then spend the whole year doing whatever I wanted again.
0:06:50 So I absorbed a lot of very, very diverse resources and experiences during that time.
0:06:56 I was watching tons of films, I was reading tons of books, my parents always made sure
0:07:02 we had loads of those around, and they were also very good about taking me to a lot of
0:07:05 performances and museums and cultural experiences.
0:07:13 So it was definitely unorthodox, and somehow I managed to finish school, but I don’t think
0:07:15 I’m a particularly good student.
0:07:20 It’s really funny because I think the only reason why I have degrees is because I managed
0:07:25 to get myself into programs where I was able to replicate that model of structuring my
0:07:29 own education and then just showing up for exams and passing them.
0:07:36 But I was not a good student in the sense of coming in every day and listening to a teacher.
0:07:40 I remember when I was in Juilliard, which I was doing parallel to my elementary high
0:07:47 school, academic, unschooling, homeschooling, I remember very distinctly my teachers being
0:07:52 very frustrated with me because I was trying to do that at Juilliard.
0:07:55 I would skip classes that I didn’t think were necessary.
0:07:59 For example, I didn’t like chorus, so I just wouldn’t go, and I would walk myself to the
0:08:03 Museum of Modern Art instead and then get in lots of trouble.
0:08:09 And my cello teacher in particular, I remember very distinctly when I was maybe 14 or 15
0:08:15 one day, she finally just walked out of one of my lessons and had this look of complete
0:08:20 exhaustion and frustration on her face, and when she came back, she was like, “You’re
0:08:22 just the most difficult student I’ve ever had.
0:08:25 I don’t know what to do.”
0:08:29 I think I got better when I came back and did an artist diploma many years later at
0:08:33 Juilliard with the same teacher, and then I was a much better student.
0:08:38 I think after age 18, I learned that I needed a little bit more structure, but definitely
0:08:45 I think it’s contributed to in many ways also my free thinking because I realized that
0:08:52 I was not indoctrinated to a lot of society’s rules and expectations, which you sort of
0:08:56 unconsciously pick up when you are in a traditional school environment.
0:09:01 So because of that, and also the fact that my father was from Cuba, my mother was from
0:09:07 China, I grew up basically in three different cultures and then moved to Europe as a teenager.
0:09:12 I’ve never really followed any one doctrine except my own, so I don’t know if that makes
0:09:16 me extremely open-minded or extremely stubborn.
0:09:19 It’s one or the other or maybe a bit of both.
0:09:24 I have to say, that was the longest answer to the first question of this podcast in the
0:09:27 history of this podcast.
0:09:30 I’m also very verbose.
0:09:36 I like 99.9% of the parents listening to this.
0:09:44 I’m saying to myself, “What can I possibly learn from her because she’s the purple cow,
0:09:46 black swan, unicorn?
0:09:53 What’s the lesson that “normal” people who don’t take up the cello at two and don’t
0:10:00 get into Juilliard at 10, what should they take away from your childhood?”
0:10:07 I would say I’m probably not a good example for everyone because I’m definitely an anomaly
0:10:13 in many senses, but I think that it’s funny that you mentioned purple cow and black swan
0:10:14 because those are two of my favorite books.
0:10:17 I’m a big fan of Seth Godin in particular.
0:10:22 But I think one thing that I have always tried to do and it’s carried through into every
0:10:29 area of my life is to really challenge and question everything.
0:10:34 Not in a paranoid sense, but I think I’m really obsessed with optimization.
0:10:38 So I’m always looking for the most efficient way to get the results I want.
0:10:44 So there’s something, I don’t know if you’ve read this book by Adam Grant.
0:10:49 I am blanking on the title right now, but it’s something along the lines of how to fail
0:10:51 at everything in life but still win really big.
0:10:52 Something like that.
0:10:58 But he talks about something called systems thinking and I’ve always been very much into
0:11:02 biohacking and goal setting and all of that stuff.
0:11:06 But something I really took away from that book when I learned about the systems method
0:11:13 is that a goal is basically useless unless you have a system in place that supports it.
0:11:16 And the easiest example of this is weight loss.
0:11:21 If you have a goal to lose 20 pounds, but you have no system in place, it’s a meaningless
0:11:23 number basically.
0:11:27 It’s more important to actually have a system in place, for example, committing to going
0:11:32 to the gym three times a week or working with a trainer or logging all your food, all those
0:11:34 things that will support the goal.
0:11:40 And so whenever I’ve wanted to do something, I’ve basically just identified what the result
0:11:47 I want is and reverse engineered it by thinking backwards and figuring out all the steps to
0:11:48 get there.
0:11:53 So I think that’s just a principle for pretty much everything I’ve done, whether that was
0:11:58 getting through school or getting into Juilliard or when I was 15 years old, I woke up one
0:12:02 day and completely on a whim decided that I wanted to live in Paris.
0:12:07 So I figured out a way to do that and I moved there alone at age 16.
0:12:14 And yeah, I think that’s another random story, but yeah, I think the big takeaway is maybe
0:12:21 just to I mentioned a few things, challenging expectations and by challenging expectations,
0:12:26 I mean challenging the way we’re told to do things because I definitely am very much
0:12:29 a rebel and a defiant spirit.
0:12:33 And for me, when I was told throughout my life, whether it was in my career or my personal
0:12:38 life or in school, that there was only one way of doing things, I would just question
0:12:40 it and see if I could find a better way.
0:12:45 And sometimes when we just blindly follow what we’re told to do, it doesn’t necessarily
0:12:47 lead us to success or happiness.
0:12:51 Even in the sense that sometimes what we’re told to do is not getting us to results that
0:12:55 we necessarily want, it might be the result that someone else wants for us.
0:13:00 Your parents attitudes for you like no news is good news.
0:13:02 She’s achieving all this.
0:13:04 Let’s not get in her face.
0:13:10 Are you saying they were the antithesis of tiger parents and you thrived in this lack
0:13:14 of discipline or force or whatever?
0:13:15 No.
0:13:17 So my father was actually more of the tiger parents.
0:13:24 So my father had very high expectations and quite strict methods of enforcing them.
0:13:32 My mom, interestingly, who was the Asian parent, she was a psychologist and she had this way
0:13:39 of parenting where she treated her kids more as equals and friends rather than subordinates.
0:13:45 And so she always was very open about talking through things with us.
0:13:50 She really encouraged, for example, one of the crazy things I did when I was 15, I literally
0:13:53 woke up one day and told her I wanted to move to Paris.
0:13:57 And she basically just told me, okay, if you can figure out how to do it, you can.
0:14:02 So what I did was I basically realized I had three years left of high school, I didn’t
0:14:07 speak French and I needed to get into university because that was the easiest and clearest way
0:14:08 of getting there.
0:14:14 So I did the last three years of school and learned French in five months past all the
0:14:20 necessary language and entrance exams and then a couple months later I moved to Paris.
0:14:22 And I think everyone thought it was insane.
0:14:24 They’re like, you’re letting your daughter do this.
0:14:25 That’s crazy.
0:14:28 She’s going to Paris and living alone as an adult.
0:14:32 But I think my mom trusted that she knew I was a very determined child and she knew
0:14:36 that when I sent my mind to things, I would get them done.
0:14:40 And instead of necessarily telling me what to do and how to do it, she was better at
0:14:45 guiding me in the right direction of where I should be channeling that energy.
0:14:49 For example, I can’t remember her ever telling me I couldn’t do something.
0:14:55 I think it was more that she just set up these environments like I mentioned earlier in
0:15:03 terms of what I had access to that created good habits and good influences for me.
0:15:07 I remember I was studying art and music my whole life, but she was also very adamant
0:15:09 from probably age 10.
0:15:14 She was feeding me business and marketing and psychology books.
0:15:17 It’s like she wanted to train a little entrepreneur.
0:15:18 It was funny.
0:15:22 I was reading all these books about startups and about entrepreneurship when I was a teenager
0:15:24 and about people skills.
0:15:29 All those things later served me very well in my art career and at the time had seemingly
0:15:33 no relationship to what I was majoring and what I was doing.
0:15:38 I remember very distinctly being made fun of when I was studying in college in a conservatory
0:15:42 because I was reading books on marketing and people thought it was weird.
0:15:43 Similarly, she encouraged me.
0:15:49 A lot of things that now are much more mainstream and popular, but at the time were not.
0:15:51 For example, meditation.
0:16:00 She was having her kids meditate probably since age seven, eight, nine, and so I think
0:16:04 there is something really important in just creating that environment where you have those
0:16:09 good influences because we are the sum of what we surround ourselves with.
0:16:14 Even when you have children, is this how you’re going to raise your children?
0:16:16 I have no idea.
0:16:24 I think there’s a part of me that wants to take my children to a mountain in Montana
0:16:31 and not give them iPads until they’re teenagers and have them grow up in a forest, but that
0:16:33 kind of worked for me.
0:16:34 I don’t know.
0:16:38 I also have no idea what the landscape of the world will be by the time I have children
0:16:40 if I do.
0:16:47 I think there are definitely a lot of lessons I learned from my own childhood and also my
0:16:53 relationship with my parents now in adulthood that I have reflected upon.
0:17:01 Of course, no parent-child relationship is perfect.
0:17:03 No parent-child relationship is perfect.
0:17:07 I think for a long time I struggled with certain things in my relationships with my parents,
0:17:10 particularly with my father.
0:17:15 My father was much less emotional and not as close with his children.
0:17:21 He very much acknowledged our academic and professional achievements, but we didn’t really
0:17:24 have personal interaction with him.
0:17:28 It was very balanced by my mother because she was very emotionally close and very involved
0:17:30 with me and my sister.
0:17:37 As an adult, as a parent, I think the one thing I would definitely do is always make
0:17:42 sure that I prioritize my children above everything else.
0:17:49 I am obviously extremely career focused, but something I really do recognize and appreciate
0:17:50 is my mother.
0:17:51 She stopped.
0:17:57 She had a PhD in psychology and she was practicing, but once she had children, she stopped working
0:18:00 and really prioritized her children above everything.
0:18:06 I saw how many sacrifices she made in her own personal life and with her own goals to be
0:18:09 able to create the life that she wanted for her kids and the support systems she wanted
0:18:11 for her kids.
0:18:18 I remember so distinctly she would wake up at 5am and drive me to my cell a lesson because
0:18:22 I lived an hour and a half away from my teacher when I was a kid.
0:18:29 She would fly with me to international competitions in Korea, in China, in Europe, and she was
0:18:30 always, always there for me.
0:18:35 I remember even when I first moved to Europe, of course the transition of living alone as
0:18:41 a teenager suddenly was very difficult for me and was on the phone with me pretty much
0:18:46 every single day for the first year or two and she was always available to me.
0:18:51 That’s something I think, if I do have kids, I’m not 100% sure if I will.
0:18:56 That depends on several things in my future, but if I do, I know that I only want to do
0:19:00 it if I’m at a point in my life where I know that I can give that same level of dedication
0:19:05 to my children because it’s something I saw so much in my relationship with my mother.
0:19:09 And what pray tell does your sister do?
0:19:13 I’m almost afraid to ask.
0:19:18 My sister actually, so it was interesting, our grandmother, my father’s mother was an
0:19:23 artist, a visual artist, so we actually both studied music and visual art our whole lives
0:19:26 and then I focused more on music.
0:19:32 Eventually I went to conservatory, she ended up focusing more on art, so she went to school
0:19:37 visual arts and she studied graphic design and then she actually moved to Amsterdam.
0:19:41 She lives in Europe now, so she followed in my path a little bit and now she’s much younger
0:19:42 than I am.
0:19:46 She’s studying English literature and she’s very different from me in the sense that she’s
0:19:47 very private.
0:19:52 I think she would even be embarrassed that I’m sharing this much about her, but she’s
0:19:55 truly one of the best humans I have ever met.
0:19:58 She’s honestly the sweetest girl ever.
0:20:02 I was much more the rebel, I was the bad girl.
0:20:08 We always joked that I had to make the mistakes and do the crazy things so that she saw that
0:20:09 you shouldn’t do them.
0:20:16 She’s just a very creative and kind, sweet spirit and she’s also an amazing chef.
0:20:20 I keep on telling her when she finishes school she needs to open a farm to table restaurant
0:20:24 or something because that’s one area in which I have no skill, I’m an awful, awful cook.
0:20:30 And when we used to live together at one point in New York, I definitely was very lucky to
0:20:32 receive home cooked meals from her.
0:20:38 She’s the kind of person who, I mean she really takes her artistry into her food.
0:20:42 She’s the kind of person if she’s going to make pasta she will make it from scratch and
0:20:45 make it from flour and cut the noodles and everything.
0:20:47 So she’s very elaborate with her food.
0:20:54 Of all instruments, obviously your father was in the trade, but why the cello?
0:20:57 Did you want something that big and awkward?
0:20:59 Why don’t you just do violin?
0:21:02 So this is a funny story and it actually goes back a generation.
0:21:06 So my father’s family came to the States as Cuban refugees.
0:21:13 They came here when he was 14 years old and he had a single mother, parent, two boys.
0:21:18 And when they came here they were only allowed to leave Cuba with two pairs of socks and
0:21:20 the clothing on their back.
0:21:22 By the way, I’m wearing the socks you said.
0:21:23 Thank you.
0:21:24 It was very comfortable speaking with socks.
0:21:28 But yeah, so he came here and they had to start over.
0:21:29 They had no money.
0:21:30 He was in high school.
0:21:32 Didn’t speak English when he arrived.
0:21:38 And at the time he was working as a janitor, construction worker and landscaper and going
0:21:39 through high school.
0:21:45 And then one day he walked into the orchestra room and he heard a cello and he just fell
0:21:49 in love and he wanted lessons, but he could not afford them.
0:21:54 So he worked out something with his teacher where he mowed his lawn in exchange for cello
0:21:59 lessons and very quickly he started cello quite late for a cellist, typically to play
0:22:00 a string instrument.
0:22:01 You have to start pretty young.
0:22:07 I think he started around 15 and at 18 he got into conservatory and he became a cellist.
0:22:14 But the funny thing is because he still didn’t have any money, he was always borrowing instruments.
0:22:19 And at one point, I don’t know if you’ve heard about how Cubans are very DIY.
0:22:20 They make everything.
0:22:24 So Cubans are very DIY because they’re stuck on the island and with the embargo, they just
0:22:26 had to work with whatever they had.
0:22:30 So he was very good always with his hands and woodworking.
0:22:35 And so it was funny, one summer I think after his freshman year of conservatory, he just
0:22:39 told all his friends, he’s like, you know what, I’m tired of getting instruments on
0:22:40 loan.
0:22:41 I’m just going to make one.
0:22:44 And they all thought, okay, that’s insane, how are you going to make a cello?
0:22:51 But he somehow went out and made a cello and he came back the next year and had one and
0:22:52 played on that.
0:22:57 And eventually he had a career as a cellist, but was always working on instruments.
0:23:02 And by the time I was born, he had transitioned fully into making instruments.
0:23:07 And I think for him, he definitely had it in his mind that he was going to have a daughter
0:23:08 that was a cellist.
0:23:12 Again, I don’t know if it was nature or nurture, probably both.
0:23:19 But the first thing he did when he brought me home from the hospital apparently at three
0:23:24 days old was he put me down in front of him and played me the cello.
0:23:31 And according to him, my eyes lit up and I just loved the cello ever since then.
0:23:35 And apparently I was always begging for once since I was a baby, even before I could talk.
0:23:39 And so at age two, they finally decided I was ready.
0:23:42 And I actually didn’t even start on a cello because even the tiniest cello was too big
0:23:43 for me.
0:23:48 So I started actually on a viola, which I held like a cello because I had the same string
0:23:49 tuning.
0:23:50 And then I graduated too.
0:23:55 I have a series of, I think there’s still my parents’ basement somewhere, maybe eight
0:24:01 cellos going up from I think one sixteenth to one tenth, one eighth, all the way up to
0:24:02 a full size.
0:24:07 And I went up the ranks of these tiny cellos that, yeah, that’s how I ended up playing
0:24:08 the instrument.
0:24:12 Which, again, I always forget because it was so normal in my family and in my households
0:24:19 that cellos were around and people played cello, that it’s not the most common choice.
0:24:24 Most children probably gravitate towards piano or guitar or drums.
0:24:50 And for me, it was just the predominant thing in my life.
0:24:52 What in the ignorance of this question?
0:24:57 We had Min Kim and she talked about how her strad was stolen.
0:25:04 So in the cello world, is there the equivalent of Stradivarius where there’s two million
0:25:05 dollar cellos?
0:25:07 Yeah, definitely.
0:25:09 There are definitely strad cellos.
0:25:10 Cellos are expensive.
0:25:17 I won’t go into detail about exactly how expensive, but I’d say a decent cello that most professional
0:25:23 cellos are playing on is a six to seven figure cello.
0:25:28 And so it’s interesting because they’re also very fragile instruments and they’re essentially
0:25:29 works of art.
0:25:34 Because my father was an instrument dealer, I grew up in what I didn’t realize at the
0:25:39 time, but when I was older and became immersed in the art world, I realized it was very similar
0:25:44 to being an art dealer because you’re working with all these instruments that are very rare.
0:25:49 The older ones are the more valuable ones, and they have to be preserved, they have to
0:25:50 be restored.
0:25:56 I remember there were so many humidifiers and dehumidifiers in our house because they have
0:26:00 to be kept at controlled temperatures because of the health of the wood.
0:26:05 So they are very, very special instruments in that sense.
0:26:10 Of course, there are mass produced commercial cellos, but that’s typically not what a soloist
0:26:13 or someone in a high level position would play on.
0:26:15 But yeah, they really are very unique.
0:26:19 I remember one time as a child watching my father restore an instrument where he had
0:26:25 to patch, he had to make a patch on the back of a cello, and he needed to, he was telling
0:26:30 someone that he needed to get wood of the same grain.
0:26:33 And the person asked, “Do you mean from the same species?”
0:26:37 And he said, “No, literally from the same exact grain because it has to match.”
0:26:38 So they asked, “How are you going to get that?”
0:26:41 He said, “I’m going to take it off.”
0:26:43 Basically, it’s like fine surgery.
0:26:48 You would shave it off one part of the back of the cello and essentially patch it onto
0:26:50 the other side.
0:26:54 So I watched him do a lot of this very detailed work growing up.
0:26:59 And I think I learned a lot about attention to detail just from observing that.
0:27:04 A lot of people use the metaphor of playing in Carnegie Hall.
0:27:07 Now you have literally done that.
0:27:10 So I want to ask you the question.
0:27:14 How does one get to Carnegie Hall?
0:27:17 So I’ve played in Carnegie Hall three times actually.
0:27:22 The first time I was 12 and it was as the prize winner of a competition.
0:27:25 I think it was the first competition I had ever won.
0:27:30 And the second time I was 15 and it was actually on the piano and it was also the result of
0:27:32 a competition prize.
0:27:39 But funnily enough, it actually ended my piano career because there’s a photo of this.
0:27:43 For some reason decided I never wore heels ever.
0:27:46 I had never worn heels at all in my life.
0:27:50 But for this concert, I decided for the first time in my life, I was going to wear stiletto
0:27:51 heels.
0:27:56 And of course, I didn’t try them out at the piano before I actually went on stage.
0:28:01 And the second I sat down and tried to pedal, I realized immediately that I couldn’t at
0:28:07 all and my foot kept slipping off the pedal and the performance was a mortifying disaster.
0:28:11 And so after that, I actually stopped playing piano.
0:28:16 I still play for fun, but I decided I could not be a pianist because the event definitely
0:28:21 left me with a little bit of performance, anxiety, PTSD.
0:28:25 And then the third time I played, which was two years ago, was also as the result of a
0:28:26 prize.
0:28:31 I was doing my artist diploma at Juilliard in, I started in 2019.
0:28:38 And basically the artist diploma program is a program in which they have students from
0:28:40 all disciplines.
0:28:45 So there were eight of us at the time, but that was out of all the instruments.
0:28:48 And I was the only cellist when I was there.
0:28:53 And basically once a year, they give one of those students a prize.
0:28:58 And the award is basically part of the award is to have a Carnegie Hall debut.
0:29:03 So I did that, it was supposed to be in 2019, but because of the pandemic, it ended up being
0:29:07 pushed all the way to 2021.
0:29:12 And that was actually the final performance I gave in New York before moving to California.
0:29:18 You answered the question at one level about the three times you got the Carnegie Hall.
0:29:25 The question I’m really asking is, what does it take to get to Carnegie Hall?
0:29:26 Is it talent?
0:29:27 Is it practice?
0:29:28 Is it luck?
0:29:34 Luck is a tricky concept because obviously there’s an element of luck in everyone’s
0:29:35 life.
0:29:37 There was luck in the sense that I was born into a household where there were instruments
0:29:38 everywhere.
0:29:43 Of course, that’s the first thing I was definitely set up for success in that sense.
0:29:47 I always think of that story about how Bill Gates, he went to one of the only high schools
0:29:50 at the time that had access to a computer.
0:29:53 And so that’s how he ended up going down that path.
0:29:57 So I had luck from the beginning that I had access to all of this, and then I had parents
0:30:00 who fostered that education.
0:30:05 But the thing about luck also is I think you can make your luck.
0:30:09 And I think luck without preparation doesn’t become luck.
0:30:13 So for example, certain things in my life can appear very lucky.
0:30:22 I remember when I had my Berlin Philharmonic debut, which was in 2017, I believe, I was
0:30:24 20 years old at the time.
0:30:29 And I definitely got that performance in a sense because I was lucky.
0:30:34 What had happened was I had happened to move into an apartment building, and the landlord
0:30:36 was also an artist manager.
0:30:39 And we realized that she was from Shanghai.
0:30:43 My mother was from Shanghai, and we got to know each other.
0:30:48 And she had an artist cancel their Berlin Philharmonic recital on six weeks notice.
0:30:52 So she called me and asked me if I wanted to do it instead.
0:30:54 That was definitely lucky.
0:31:00 But if I hadn’t practiced cello for six to 12 hours a day since childhood, I would absolutely
0:31:06 not have been equipped to prepare for that kind of performance in six weeks.
0:31:11 Ultimately, there is a lot of hard work that goes into results.
0:31:15 And I do recognize that I definitely did not have a typical childhood.
0:31:17 I didn’t have any friends.
0:31:18 I was definitely not the cool kid.
0:31:20 I was definitely the nerd.
0:31:22 People did not want to be hanging out with me.
0:31:27 I was the weird kid who was very immersed in books and not very social.
0:31:33 But all of that did pay off later in life because all those hours I spent studying or
0:31:37 practicing, they definitely resulted in me being prepared for all the opportunities that
0:31:42 seemingly luckily appeared in my life in later years.
0:31:46 I don’t want you to think I’m obsessed with this topic, but I don’t know.
0:31:49 I don’t know many people who have made it to Carnegie Hall.
0:31:53 So my last Carnegie Hall question is this.
0:31:57 So let’s say you are going to go perform.
0:31:58 Walk me through.
0:32:04 You get to Carnegie Hall and is there this entourage of people with you or are there people
0:32:09 making sure that the M&Ms are the right color?
0:32:15 Are they like just all kissing your ring and is this like superstar Tom Brady walks into
0:32:18 the Super Bowl and Suvi walks into Carnegie Hall?
0:32:23 You know, the funny thing is actually for my last Carnegie Hall recital, something I
0:32:29 realized by my 20s, by my mid 20s, definitely I’m 27 now, and I had that recital when I
0:32:31 was 25.
0:32:34 I realized that I actually really love sharing experiences with people.
0:32:39 So I’m very known for being very collaborative.
0:32:45 So for my Carnegie Hall recital, the last one, I actually had, I think about seven guest
0:32:47 artists with me.
0:32:53 So the first half of the performance, I played solo, which is the traditional kind of classical
0:32:54 recital structure.
0:32:57 But for the second half, I wanted to do something really fun.
0:33:02 And I essentially just invited all of my favorite collaborators and people with whom I enjoyed
0:33:04 working over the last couple of years.
0:33:06 And we did a very varied program.
0:33:08 I had a jazz pianist, a good friend of mine.
0:33:12 We did an improv jazz piece.
0:33:18 I had a trio that kind of operates in the classical crossover scene called Time for
0:33:19 Three.
0:33:23 We did a very, very fun piece for two violins, double bass and cello.
0:33:30 I had a friend of mine and I, we did an arrangement of Moon River, which is one of my favorite
0:33:31 songs.
0:33:32 We did a lot of really fun things.
0:33:37 And what I really loved about the performance is that it somehow took the pressure off in
0:33:46 the sense of, I think in a lot of high stakes, high pressure environments, you do have people
0:33:51 kind of catering to you, opening doors, bringing food, making sure everything’s okay.
0:33:54 But then you feel all this pressure that everything’s on you.
0:33:59 And I, bizarrely enough, actually, it’s funny because my profession does put me in the center
0:34:02 of attention quite often, but I don’t like being the center of attention.
0:34:04 I’m actually naturally very shy and introverted.
0:34:08 I’ve had to train myself to be comfortable being in spotlights.
0:34:14 So I love actually, it’s, I guess I’m revealing one of my secrets, but part of why I do so
0:34:17 many collaborations is to diffuse the attention off of me.
0:34:22 I like having, I think that particular performance was really, really fun just because it really
0:34:26 felt like I was hanging out with all my friends and there happened to be an audience.
0:34:32 And do you just like get off the subway with your cello or get out of a Uber car and you
0:34:37 walk to the backstage, you ring the bell and somebody lets you in and that’s it?
0:34:38 Yeah.
0:34:40 They have a very beautiful backstage.
0:34:42 It’s definitely, there’s a lot of, it’s a beautiful hall.
0:34:48 It’s very gilded and ornate as many concert halls are.
0:34:50 I actually took the subway because I remember that morning-
0:34:51 With your cello.
0:34:52 The traffic.
0:34:53 Yeah.
0:34:56 I was at the traffic and I was staying on the Upper East Side and I realized that the
0:34:58 fastest way to get there was the Q-Train.
0:35:04 I actually just took the subway down and it was very casual and in a way I’m a very casual
0:35:05 person.
0:35:07 I don’t like overhyping things.
0:35:12 And I think I studied a lot of sports psychology when I was younger because there was a period
0:35:18 during which I dealt with a lot of stage fright and at the time there was virtually no literature
0:35:26 or resources available in terms of stage performance for musicians, nowadays there’s much more.
0:35:31 But there was a lot available for athletes and I just read all of those books and listened
0:35:35 to those interviews and applied them to performance because it’s really the same thing.
0:35:39 You’re under pressure, you’re in front of an audience.
0:35:43 But I remember one of the things I read in a sports psychology book years ago that I
0:35:45 never forgot was this tennis player.
0:35:46 Through Galloway?
0:35:53 I don’t remember if it was that.
0:35:54 I have read that book.
0:35:59 But anyway, the story was that this tennis player was saying that when they were competing
0:36:03 they would try to have as normal of a day as possible because if they started psyching
0:36:09 themselves up by suddenly changing things and making it like this special day where
0:36:13 everything has to be perfect, it would put them into a state that wasn’t relaxed.
0:36:18 So I actually try to have as normal of an environment as possible whenever I do anything
0:36:20 high pressure.
0:36:26 Even this morning, I mean, this is a little bit nerve wracking being on a podcast potentially.
0:36:30 And I just had a very, no, I mean, it’s not nerve wracking because of you, but of course
0:36:36 some people I think would put pressure on themselves to prepare for a podcast because
0:36:39 they would want to make sure that it goes really well because it’s going out into the
0:36:40 public.
0:36:46 I’ll admit I did no preparation because I figured the story that I’m telling was going
0:36:50 to be my own and that should be the story I know the best.
0:36:56 If I have to prepare to tell my own story, then I don’t even know what kind of pressure
0:37:00 I’ll be putting on myself to talk about anything else in life because this is the topic I should
0:37:01 know well.
0:37:03 Let me just make it very clear to you.
0:37:10 If you ever go on other podcasts, the burden is on the podcaster, not the guest.
0:37:14 It’s our problem to prepare for you, not your problem to prepare for me.
0:37:15 Oh, that’s very sweet.
0:37:17 And you can quote them.
0:37:18 I will.
0:37:23 If NPR ever, maybe you have been on NPR, but if NPR calls you up and says, come on our
0:37:29 podcast or Steven Dubner of Freakonomics, you just tell them, okay, you guys prepare.
0:37:31 I hope you’re ready for me.
0:37:32 Yeah.
0:37:34 I just try to be prepared for life every day.
0:37:40 I’m very big on optimizing wellness I mentioned earlier, so I practice transcendental meditation
0:37:41 twice a day.
0:37:46 I make sure no matter what I’m doing, I get that session in the morning before I do anything
0:37:53 else because I just find that setting yourself up mentally in the best head space for whatever
0:37:57 you’re going to do, whether it’s going to the gym or being on a podcast or playing in
0:38:03 Carnegie Hall or taking a trip or going on a date, anything that might be out of the
0:38:06 realm of your normal daily activities.
0:38:07 I think it’s just good to have that routine.
0:38:12 I really believe in the power of routine and habits.
0:38:16 I just read atomic habits and the power of habits as something very much on my mind at
0:38:17 the moment.
0:38:22 And I think there’s a reason why people who have good routines and have good habits get
0:38:27 better results out of life because you just train yourself to be in this consistently
0:38:28 optimized state.
0:38:35 Well yesterday, Madison and I interviewed Julia Cameron and she is the queen of habits
0:38:40 and her habit is morning pages to handwrite three pages.
0:38:45 It sounds like your TM in the morning and there is no more remarkable and lovely person
0:38:48 than Julia Cameron in the world.
0:38:49 Maybe she’s tied with Jane Goodall.
0:38:54 Oh gosh, I love Jane Goodall so much.
0:38:59 I remember I watched her masterclass series during the pandemic and it was so inspiring
0:39:06 to see someone so dedicated to something in such a selfless way.
0:39:11 And when you see her talk about her work and see what she does, it’s just incredibly inspiring.
0:39:13 Up next on Remarkable People.
0:39:18 And I was studying film there and Hugh Jackman was actually in one of my film classes.
0:39:22 So it was this full circle moment and I remember thinking about that interview and just being
0:39:28 so truly impressed and a first surprise, but then just really so much respect for Hugh
0:39:29 Jackman.
0:39:32 At that point, I think now he’s probably in his fifties.
0:39:34 He’s definitely, he’s an A-list actor.
0:39:39 He does not need to be going to film class, but he still goes to class because he’s still
0:39:42 developing his craft.
0:39:48 If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and review it.
0:39:54 Even better, forward it to a friend, a big mahalo to you for doing this.
0:39:59 Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.
0:40:05 It’s interesting, Suvi, because in a sense, you are the opposite end of the spectrum from
0:40:10 Jane because Jane started with animals that I don’t know, probably two like you at the
0:40:14 cello and she stuck with animals for 90 years.
0:40:19 You have done art and music and cello and piano and composing.
0:40:25 Madison and I have just written a book called Think Remarkable and there is no single path.
0:40:31 I’m very interested in this break you had from your quote, “Cello days,” including
0:40:33 changing your name.
0:40:34 So what brought that on?
0:40:37 I interestingly took a couple breaks from cello.
0:40:39 It first happened at age 18.
0:40:45 So I had my undergrad at age 18, which is typically when people start their conservatory studies,
0:40:51 and I remember moving back from Paris to New York for about nine months and just having
0:40:59 no idea what I was going to do because I had this degree, but I didn’t quite feel ready
0:41:01 to embark on a performance career.
0:41:07 I actually interestingly felt that I needed to do a lot of work on myself before I could
0:41:10 prepare for any sort of public facing profession.
0:41:13 I was very shy at the time.
0:41:17 People nowadays can’t believe this, but at the time people thought I was autistic because
0:41:20 I literally wouldn’t speak to anyone.
0:41:26 I remember my whole time in my undergrad, a lot of my fellow students probably never heard
0:41:29 me say anything more than, “Hello, goodbye.
0:41:30 Thank you.”
0:41:31 I was very shy.
0:41:38 So I actually went back to New York and became obsessed with behavioral psychology of all
0:41:39 things.
0:41:45 And for a while, I was literally just studying behavioral psychology and trying to sort of
0:41:50 reinvent my personality in a way that would make it possible for me to have a performance
0:41:56 career because we live in an era now where I think a hundred years ago, as a classically
0:42:01 trained instrumentalist, you could make a career and be very successful purely based
0:42:03 off of your playing.
0:42:08 That’s not the era we live in now, especially with media, social media, and everything.
0:42:15 It’s very much about having a “complete package” where you’re also a persona.
0:42:20 And typically, a personable persona does better professionally.
0:42:25 And whether that’s a good or bad thing, I know musicians feel, they all feel differently
0:42:30 about that, but I accepted that it was the reality and that I couldn’t behave like this
0:42:37 anti-social, angsty, shy, dressed in black and hiding in the shadows teenager.
0:42:43 So I really spent some time just working on myself and trying to get better at being around
0:42:44 people.
0:42:46 And so I did that with a vengeance.
0:42:55 And then I decided to go to Europe to essentially pursue a bunch of renowned cello teachers.
0:42:59 I always joke that I stalked all the major European cello teachers for the next couple
0:43:04 years of my life because I basically just went over to Europe one summer and went to
0:43:09 every single master class, sought out professors, asked them for private lessons, followed them
0:43:16 to whatever city they were in and traveled around for basically about a year doing this.
0:43:20 And so I learned a lot and I really wanted to not necessarily, typically after you do
0:43:24 your undergrad as a cellist, you would go and do a post-grad.
0:43:30 But when you are in a degree program, you are assigned one primary cello teacher and
0:43:32 you’re in that cello teacher’s studio.
0:43:36 And I really thought that there would be a lot of value in getting a lot of different
0:43:37 perspectives.
0:43:44 I probably took lessons with maybe about a dozen professors over those few years when
0:43:46 I lived in Germany.
0:43:52 And then eventually I did end up doing a post-grad in Berlin and I did also do a residency with
0:43:58 Goethe Capuçon, who is an incredible, very renowned French soloist.
0:44:04 I just tried to soak up all those experiences and it’s funny, I actually heard this once
0:44:10 from Hugh Jackman, I think on Tim Ferriss’s podcast about how, I think he was 26 or 27
0:44:16 and he had already been in a couple films, but I think he decided to go back to school
0:44:21 to just continue working on his craft and a lot of people at the time didn’t understand
0:44:22 it.
0:44:27 And I think a lot of people with me also wondered why I kept going back and studying more because
0:44:30 I ended up then doing a post-grad at Juilliard.
0:44:34 But ironically enough, when I was doing my artist diploma at Juilliard, they had a kind
0:44:39 of a double exchange program with Columbia University and I was studying film there and
0:44:42 Hugh Jackman was actually in one of my film classes.
0:44:47 So it was this full circle moment and I remember thinking about that interview and just being
0:44:53 so truly impressed and first surprised, but then just really so much respect for Hugh
0:44:54 Jackman.
0:44:57 At that point, I think now he’s probably in his fifties.
0:44:59 He’s definitely, he’s an A-list actor.
0:45:04 He does not need to be going to film class, but he still goes to class because he’s still
0:45:05 developing his craft.
0:45:10 And I think for me, it was really important to actually not rush my career.
0:45:18 I actually paced it with a lot of breaks in between so that I could pursue more deeper
0:45:24 kind of paths within the realm of cello education, but also parallel to that, I also took time
0:45:30 completely away from the cello when I did things like work and tech and start businesses
0:45:37 that did not go very well, but taught me a lot about entrepreneurship and risk mitigation
0:45:38 and people skills.
0:45:43 I remember my first business was selling candles and jewelry, which at the time I thought
0:45:45 was such a great idea.
0:45:52 And then I just ended up with tons of boxes of wax and empty glass bottles in my apartment
0:45:54 trying to make candles.
0:46:01 I also worked for a tech company based in Switzerland for about a year through a random
0:46:02 series of events.
0:46:08 I ended up running their marketing department, despite having no formal background in marketing.
0:46:13 But again, all those marketing books that my mother was giving me as a child and a teenager
0:46:18 paid off because when I met the CEO, she liked my ideas and put me in charge.
0:46:23 And all of those things taught me a lot about the business side of the arts because the
0:46:28 tech company was a company that basically used AI, but it was within the realm of the
0:46:30 art and music world.
0:46:33 And I learned a lot from being on that side of things.
0:46:39 I also took some time off last year from performing, and I was on the board of a performing arts
0:46:45 company in Los Angeles, which taught me a tremendous amount about what the state of the
0:46:50 performing arts are now post-pandemic because they have been very difficult for a lot of
0:46:52 organizations and artists.
0:46:56 So I think something that’s been very valuable for me is having these other perspectives
0:47:03 because one of the things I’ve observed in a lot of instrumentalists is that they often
0:47:07 end up kind of spending their whole lives in the practice room and then have a lot of
0:47:13 difficulty integrating into the world at large when they leave school.
0:47:18 And I think I’m very grateful that with the experiences I had and the interests I had
0:47:23 outside of purely just playing the cello, I was able to prepare myself better to be
0:47:27 adaptable and understand how the arts play into society at large.
0:47:29 So that’s the breaks in cello.
0:47:35 But in terms of the name change, that was an interesting thing that happened this year.
0:47:40 It actually, funny enough, was only about six or seven months ago that I decided to change
0:47:47 my name, but it was actually a very long process of planning and thinking.
0:47:52 Actually I had realized for a long time that I wanted to do something beyond strictly traditional
0:47:53 classical music.
0:47:58 And I had been experimenting with a lot of different genres of music, but not releasing
0:48:04 anything and not really knowing how to do it because my reputation and what people expected
0:48:07 of me was classical cello.
0:48:12 And it finally got to the point where I realized that I couldn’t actually do anything under
0:48:18 my old name that was different because it’s not that they wouldn’t accept it, but they
0:48:22 would always compare it against what they expected from me.
0:48:27 And it wouldn’t be judged as its own project or as its own product.
0:48:32 And I really thought about branding when I was going through this process.
0:48:40 For example, a company that makes boxed wine, if they suddenly decide to make high-end wine
0:48:44 and sell it under the same name, that’s going to be a very, very confusing transition and
0:48:46 people just won’t…
0:48:47 Consumers wouldn’t…
0:48:49 That’s Toyota and Lexus, right?
0:48:50 Exactly.
0:48:52 Yeah, I thought about it for a long time.
0:48:58 And at first I thought about creating a second entity that would be Suvi and just releasing
0:49:00 everything else under that name.
0:49:07 But then ultimately I realized that everything I do is so personal and comes from such an
0:49:10 authentic place that it really is me.
0:49:11 And it ended up being…
0:49:14 I thought about it for probably about a year.
0:49:19 And then one day I just woke up and changed all my social media handles on website and
0:49:22 email and became Suvi.
0:49:26 And I thought it was going to just be an artist name, but everyone started calling me that.
0:49:30 And the funny thing now is that it’s gotten to the point in about seven months that I don’t
0:49:33 even remember being called Sophia.
0:49:38 And when people occasionally call me Sophia, whom I haven’t seen in a while, it actually
0:49:42 confuses me because for a split second I don’t know who they’re talking about.
0:49:46 Pardon my ignorance, but what does Suvi come from?
0:49:48 What’s the name?
0:49:53 So when I was about 13 or 14 years old, I was obsessed with Tumblr and I was on Tumblr
0:49:54 all the time.
0:50:01 And I think at some point I came across the name Suvi and I just loved it.
0:50:07 And I always said that my first born daughter, if I had one, would be named Suvi.
0:50:14 So when I was thinking about names, Suvi obviously came to mind and I Googled it and miraculously
0:50:16 no one was really using it.
0:50:21 And it’s very hard, I think, to pick an artist name nowadays that isn’t already in use.
0:50:27 Just purely from an SEO optimization standpoint, Suvi was a great choice and I always loved
0:50:28 the name.
0:50:34 So it felt very natural and it’s not so different from Sophia that it felt like a huge change.
0:50:43 I think if I’d gone from Sophia to something like, I don’t know, Krista or something with
0:50:46 a different letter, it might have felt a little bit more drastic.
0:50:51 But everyone seemed to accept it very quickly and the funny thing is obviously I’d never
0:50:57 changed my name before, but before you do it, you think it’s going to be this huge confusing
0:50:59 thing for people to adjust to.
0:51:03 And then once I did it, I realized it’s actually incredibly easy.
0:51:07 Everyone just, you just tell them and then they, they call you Suvi.
0:51:08 Okay.
0:51:14 You’ve obviously been hyper multidisciplinary, but what’s your advice to other people?
0:51:18 Should you go broad or you should you go deep?
0:51:24 I think you should go deep and broad, which is I, I think there are certain things, obviously
0:51:31 my concentration was cello predominantly, but I didn’t concentrate on it to the point
0:51:36 where I sacrificed having interests and a life outside of cello.
0:51:38 So I think it is important.
0:51:44 Obviously you can’t achieve mastery without a certain amount of focus and dedication to
0:51:51 whatever the craft or practice or endeavor is, but I think people who discount other
0:51:57 interests and other activities as irrelevant when they’re focused on just the thing that
0:51:59 they are focused on.
0:52:05 I don’t think that’s a healthy approach because so much of what I’ve done that had seemingly
0:52:12 no relationship to music ended up deeply informing a lot of my work and really helping my career.
0:52:17 One of the funniest stories people always ask me how I ended up as artists in residence
0:52:19 at the San Francisco Conservatory.
0:52:25 It started out because I did martial arts and it was the most random story.
0:52:30 I was doing martial arts and practicing at a gym close to the conservatory and I used
0:52:33 to walk by the conservatory every day and look at it.
0:52:39 So I became aware that it existed when I lived there and looked a little bit into their technology
0:52:43 and applied composition department because I was interested in their work, completely
0:52:50 forgot about it, and then randomly one day after training I was sitting in a restaurant
0:52:56 and a guy who worked at the conservatory who was coming out of work saw me, recognized
0:53:01 me and started telling me about how they would love to have me involved and then that was
0:53:06 route number one through the martial arts kind of connection.
0:53:10 And then the other side of it was I am a huge foodie.
0:53:15 I love restaurants, so during the pandemic when I was living in San Francisco I was going
0:53:20 to all these different restaurants and there was one in particular where I became really
0:53:23 friendly with the chef and the owner and I would eat there all the time and they started
0:53:24 giving me tons of free food.
0:53:30 So at one point I told them, I feel like I should do something to give back.
0:53:35 Why don’t I do a performance here in your space because I had like a stage set up.
0:53:40 I did that and one of the people in the audience happened to be a board member of the conservatory
0:53:44 and we started talking and I mentioned that I had met this employee and I knew about their
0:53:50 department and one thing led to another and I ended up artist in residence for two years.
0:53:55 Things like that, you know, if I spent my whole life just locked in a practice room I wouldn’t
0:54:01 be out in all these places meeting all these people and so I always say things are very
0:54:03 random in my life.
0:54:08 I am on one hand someone who very much has a plan and on the other hand someone who’s
0:54:14 very flexible with uncertainty and very comfortable with uncertainty and very flexible with going
0:54:18 with the flow and changes to the plan and I think that’s how I’ve ended up in pretty
0:54:22 much every situation I’ve ever ended up in.
0:54:26 Is because you are in so many disciplines and arts.
0:54:32 Is there a special way that you catalyze getting the muse?
0:54:36 I think ultimately what I’ve realized from working in so many that they all come from
0:54:37 the same place.
0:54:43 I always think of it as translating thoughts and emotions because all of us are going through
0:54:49 this human experience and we all actually share quite similar thoughts and emotions you start
0:54:54 to realize over time but I think what artists do whether it’s through painting or through
0:55:00 film or through music or through literature is that they are capturing those feelings
0:55:07 and translating them into a form where other people can see them reflected back towards
0:55:14 them and that I think helps society and helps people as individuals understand themselves
0:55:20 better because they see themselves in other people and they see those experiences that
0:55:25 they are having in other people and so I think art in many ways is one of the great community
0:55:32 builders and it also transcends pretty much every boundary.
0:55:36 Good art I think can be understood by everyone and should be accessible to everyone and I’ve
0:55:42 always felt that for me ultimately what I’m trying to do is bring people together so whatever
0:55:49 project I’m doing I wanted to touch people and that’s kind of the impetus for me.
0:55:51 Anything else you want to add?
0:55:52 Thank you.
0:55:54 No, I just want to thank you again for the socks.
0:55:59 I was actually thinking that I needed to get more fun socks because I’m the kind of person
0:56:04 who just has standard black socks and the other day I saw someone with fun socks and
0:56:10 then you sent me two pairs and so I’m very, very thankful.
0:56:14 I’m an investor in a company just to be transparent but we’ll send you socks.
0:56:16 They are great socks.
0:56:20 If this is the company you’re investing in it’s a great choice because they have not
0:56:23 only fun designs but excellent support.
0:56:29 Someday you can take a picture of you playing the cello wearing the socks and we’ll post
0:56:30 it.
0:56:31 Oh for sure.
0:56:32 Absolutely.
0:56:35 Madison and I will take care of that for you.
0:56:39 I hope you enjoyed this episode with Suvi Basilar.
0:56:44 If nothing else you learned that when you change your name one of the first things you
0:56:50 should do is check Google to see how common that name is and how things will work out
0:56:52 for optimizing SEO.
0:56:55 S-U-U-V-I is how you spell Suvi.
0:57:02 Anyway, if there’s a person who personifies the concept that to those who are given much,
0:57:06 much is expected is probably Suvi Basilar.
0:57:13 I hope you learned about parenting and about grit and luck and talent and trying a lot
0:57:18 of things, sampling as Angela Duckworth describes it.
0:57:20 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:57:22 This is Remarkable People.
0:57:28 The first person I need to thank for this episode is the one and only Halim Flowers.
0:57:30 Halim is an artist.
0:57:38 Some say he is the next Jean-Michel Basquat and he introduced me to Suvi.
0:57:42 So Remarkable People introduced me to more Remarkable People.
0:57:45 That’s how this podcast works.
0:57:53 More thanks, Jeff C. and Shannon Hernandez, Prodigies in Sound Design, The Nismar Sisters,
0:58:00 Madison and Tessa, Prodigies in Research, Producing, Co-Authoring, Transcription, all
0:58:08 that good stuff, and then of course there is Fallon Yates, Louise Magana, and the one
0:58:14 and only Alexis Nishimura, currently dominating Santa Clara University.
0:58:16 This is the Remarkable People team.
0:58:19 We’re on a mission to make you Remarkable.
0:58:22 Oh yeah, Madison and I finished a book.
0:58:24 It’s called Think Remarkable.
0:58:28 And the goal of that book is to help you make a difference and be Remarkable.
0:58:31 Please check it out, Think Remarkable.
0:58:36 And to end, here’s more Suvi playing the cello.
0:58:39 Until next time, mahalo and aloha.
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0:59:22 [ Music ]
0:59:24 This is Remarkable People.