Ellie Goulding's Secrets to Overcoming FEAR and Finding Success

I like knowing that I can be there for people without actually being there. That's a nice feeling.

I've always been a very honest, open writer. I've always worn my heart on my sleeve.

My voice is my instrument, so sometimes I sing things that just sound crazy, but then, like, one take out of 20 will be really, really cool.

Hello, Believe Nation! It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in people more than they believe in themselves, and my sincere My sincere hope is that if you see in yourself what I see in you, you'll be able to change the planet. So to help you on your journey today, we're gonna learn from Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Ellie Goulding and my take on her top 10 rules for success. Rule number 1 is my personal favorite, and I'd love to know which one you guys like the best. Also, as you're watching, if you hear something that really resonates with you, please leave it down in the comments below and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired by it as well. And if you leave it within the first couple hours of this video going live, you have a chance to win one of 2 daily prizes.

Often fans tell me that the music I make has helped them through things with their family and their friends and boyfriend and girlfriend, helped them, you know, reconcile with their father or mother or whoever. That's quite a nice feeling that my music can do that. I like knowing that I can be there for people without actually being there. That's a nice feeling. I can't even be there for my own family, let alone my fans, so it's nice that I can produce something that is, you know, comforting. My writing style has always been very hopeful. I don't like writing depressing songs unless I can offer some kind of resolution, and that's just how I've always written, even when I used to write poetry and essays and shit when I was young.

I write my songs in a very specific way. Like even if they're about someone, it will never be like, "Ooh, that's about that." You know, like it would never be, it's never like shade or burn or any of that kind of stuff. I don't believe in that. I believe in, you know, I write songs. I like to write songs with a resolution. I like to write songs always with something positive. So even if I write about somebody that's broken my heart or somebody that's hurt me or a situation I've been in that's been unpleasant, I still want I still want to try and write like a poet. I still want to write something that is timeless, like Shakespeare. I want to write things that really stand true forever. I see the good in everyone and I see the good in everything. I think that there's always a silver lining and there's always good to come out of everything. If you notice my lyrics, there's always a resolution of some kind. There's always like a think everything's going to be okay moment.

Yeah.

Um, so even if I— yeah, even if I have been in situations where I think that was really unfair, that was mean, or that was, you know, um, I was hurt by something, um, I always try and do it in a way that resolves it in my own head.

I think that, like, I think that as a writer I've progressed in that, like, I've always been a very honest, open writer. I've always worn my heart on my sleeve with the way that I write lyrics and tell stories.

Without wanting to sound like a cliché, I genuinely like being very honest and being real about my situation, about my childhood, about my past. It kind of contributes to what I write and what I do as an artist, so I think it's important to shed light on what I've been through as well. And I always feel weird if I leave stuff out and fans are left a little bit, I don't know, not knowing stuff about me, so I like them to kind of know everything.

I did listen to a bit of Joni Mitchell. I have listened to a lot of Feist and My Brightest Diamond, another band called Rylo Kylie. I really like their lyrics, and suddenly I realized that you could be quirky, but you could also still be quite poppy. And my mum constantly listened to pop and dance music, so it was very pop, and I wasn't introduced to any old bands. More, I was discovering music by myself, so it was kind of a discovery. It was me discovering things that would allow me to find out about older bands and older singers. Maybe it could be that I have a very kind of unique sort of way in that I've listened to a hell of a lot of quite obscure folk music and Björk, but then I also really love pop music, but I refuse to let one of them overtake the other. So I think that's why I seem to have been given this appreciation in blogs and in a lot of indie you know, like NME and sort of more of an indie area. And then also I seem to have this sort of pop thing as well. I guess my lyrics are just really important to me. I never want them to be too alien and complicated, but then I want them to have a meaning always. So it's like it's always finding the right kind of balance in my songs of surreal stuff and then very real stuff that's very universal and relatable. So for me, it's always finding that balance within my tracks. Yeah, I write things on my laptop a lot now that I've got a laptop. I write on my phone, I write on paper. It depends. Sometimes I kind of have to be in a certain frame of mind to write. I have to be— sometimes I have to be quite down, sometimes I have to be really elated. But generally it's me coming up with some chords and some words and something I really want to write about, something I need to get off my chest.

What do you think that this panel is seeing in you that they have decided that you hit the moment?

I don't know, and I wish I did because it would be a lot easier. I suppose I'm quite normal and I wasn't necessarily ambitious, so I guess I don't really have a business kind of mind, so in that way my music ends up being— I hate using this word— quite organic in that I write things, you know, I just go at it blind and just hope for the best, and that's how I've always worked. I sort of like to do things in the moment, so if I have a resolution I want to make, I just kind of do it. Actually, do you know, I want to be a bit more adventurous next year, as in I want to be a bit more of an adventure seeker. Do some skydives and stuff, but I don't think I can do a bungee jump. I think that's a bit too far.

You could skydive, but you couldn't bungee jump?

I think it's very different. Bungee jump, you throw yourself off. At least skydive, someone just goes, right, you're coming, and that's that, and just takes you with them. Yeah, I think bungee jump is a whole different thing. But yeah, I think I want to, um, do, do things that kind of scare me and get, you know, get over my fears a bit more next year. So maybe, yeah, maybe I do have some new resolutions actually.

I've been supporting Bruno Mars and I've supported quite a few artists in arenas, so I feel like I've been lucky in that respect because I've built up a stamina that's required of playing such big shows, but they haven't been my shows, so the pressure's been off. So I've been able to practice playing to lots of people, but like I said, the pressure is off in that it's not my own show and I can sort of— I don't know, it's definitely easier. Supporting someone in an arena. Like, the crowd is not necessarily there to support you, but you can win them over, and it kind of makes you realize that you have to put on a really special show to get people's favor. So I've been able to do that. And then my own shows, I go back and do my own shows, and I sort of replicate what I do in arenas, and it makes the show a bit bigger and a bit more special.

What is it like as a writer, as a musician, at a time when there is this glut? I mean, once upon a time— and again, I'm showing my age, I apologize for this, but I can't help it— something like you would have come along, and in a way there would have been one of it, maybe two. Whereas now, and not to say that they're exactly the same, but you know what I'm saying, that there can be a lot of the same kind of thing appears. So I wondered how difficult it is for you to try and generate the kind of originality that you really want to have.

Well, I think the important thing is not to try, and hopefully you don't have to try. And luckily I feel like I've been given that kind of advantage in that I feel like I'm not trying hard to create something that's original, but because I have such a passion for for folk music and music which is so simple and beautiful with just a guitar, that it just so happens that I've constructed my songs that way without thinking about it too much and not putting too much kind of, you know, "God, this song has to be different and it has to be, but it also has to be mainstream so that I sell records." It's completely not like that. It's just the fact that myself and my producer, Starsmith, is the same age and He has a passion for electronic music, I have a passion for folk music in particular, but we also listened to a lot of the same things when we were younger. So we just go into a session and we slowly start to construct a song, and I usually already have the kind of the backbone for it. But I think, yeah, I mean, it's easy enough for me to say this, but I think the best thing is not to try hard because you can almost tell, and I think that's where the break of connection between you and your listeners, that's where the break comes because they can't connect, because they can, I don't know, almost sense that it's like too try-hard or whatever.

It's key to everything, or it's key to what I do. I wouldn't be here without experimenting like crazy. I like so many different types of music, and I hope that I could get away with including all of those different influences on my first record, and I think I got away with it, and maybe on my second as well. But I mean, like, I would say that I'm a pop artist. I make pop music, but it's not without a lot of experimentation and also, you know, risking doing, you know, writing something that maybe isn't very good or is silly, you know. My voice is my instrument, so sometimes I sing things that just sound crazy, but then, like, one take out of 20 will be really, really cool, and then I keep that one, and then that's that. So yeah, experimentation is everything for me as a musician.

Yeah.

When I tweeted today that you were going to do another interview, we got all kinds of questions.

Oh God.

One of them was, how do you feel about so many people remixing Starry Eyes?

Well, a lot of people have remixed that, and a lot of people have remixed ones that have just kind of blown up out of nowhere, and it's amazing. I love hearing my song with a completely completely different feel to it.

I love the idea that my vocal can just be put onto pretty much anything. Lights has been remixed by every single artist right now on the planet, it seems like.

Do you have a favorite version?

Um, Bassnectar remix has always been my favorite. He's like my big brother, Lauren. So, um, it's so funny how that remix started off our friendship. But yeah, also like it, it really kickstarted Lights in the States, um, cuz like at first When Lights started getting, like, having some kind of prominence in America, it was always like, "Oh yeah, I love the Bassnect remix." At first, and then all of a sudden Lights was creeping up and it had its own journey, so yeah. But there's probably about 1,000 Lights remixes out there. I'm not even joking. It's the most remixed song probably of all time.

I've been probably the most remixed artist in the UK. Some remixes I'm just like, "Okay, that's okay," but then some I listen to where I think, that's better than the original. And I've really fallen in love with them. Like, a guy called Monsieur Addy from France remixed Guns N' Horses and just blew me away. I thought, God, it sounded like it was supposed to be like at the end of a film, like some epic, like, a love story, because it was amazing. It made me cry a little bit.

It was so—

it just put my soul— it was almost like it wasn't my song anymore. It was just this amazing thing that someone had created.

I've read, like, I've read a lot since I was young, so books inspire me. Like Murakami's first Folks. Poetry, I've read a lot of poetry over the last few years, and I like kind of dark, like the funny kind of humorous stuff. But like, I've read two, I read a big book of poems, Staying Alive, a compilation of poems that are really like real and raw and quite explicit and and so I use those, and then obviously like other singers, other bands, musicians, classical music, and I listen to so much stuff that I'm just kind of inundated all the time, so that's kind of how I work really, listen to a lot of music all the time.

Now it's just, internet is used by so many people and there's so much downloading that it's just, it's become the way, and more people are getting iPods, more people people are finding their music, and so it's kind of— they're more attracted to internet stuff. But yeah, I guess there's more ways of finding out music. You know, you get things like Track in a Box. You get a track sent to you every day, and you find out things that way. And me personally, I do feel like there's so much music that it's impossible for me, as a maker of new music, to be completely aware of everything. I just go on random recommendations that people give me, and I might discover something for myself. I think that's the best way because you can get just inundated with just— you just get so much stuff thrown at you.

I can beatbox.

Oh yeah, well, forget that.

A little bit. Probably not as good, I don't know. Go and try. Yeah, I don't know, that was a little one. Oh no, it's getting that. Yeah, and then you like, you can do it in one.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Shailendra Einstein asked me to. If there's someone you'd like me to profile in a future top 10, please check out the link down in the description below and you can cast your vote on who we should do next. I also want to give a quick shout out to Marta Magdalena. Marta, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and posting that awesome message on Twitter. I'm so glad that you're coming back to it and rereading it whenever you're having moments of doubt. I really appreciate that, and for sharing it as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much, and I'm really happy you enjoyed the book. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.

How's all your new stuff going? So obviously your sound's evolved a lot since the first album. How's it been taken?

It's pretty good. Like, the second album has gotten me around the world and gotten me some—

I don't know—

to get some—

go to some cool places. It's definitely like—

I think everything's evolved.

Like, I've managed to sort of get worldwide a bit more and tour places I'd never toured before, and it's all evolved in general, like touring and the record and and just everything, yeah.

I don't know really, I feel like I do work really hard, but I sort of stay at a level that I'm really comfortable and happy with. I genuinely never wanted to be a superstar. I just didn't. It just never really occurred to me that that would ever be possible. I'm grateful for every day because I get to support Bruno freaking Mars on tour. Like, I just don't understand it. So long as I have that, which I do every day, I just, I have the best time. I get to write songs and put them on a record, and some people buy them, some people don't, and it's— I, I, yeah, I have a really fun time with it.

The biggest thing I probably, um, go to if I'm kind of in— if I'm kind of in a rush, um, is Hype Machine. I go on Hype Machine a lot. I go on Air Milk blog quite a lot. Um, but you know, I, I feel like I'm very lucky because I've been connected with so many producers producers and DJs just from remixes and from working with people and having such an affinity with electronic music that I get to meet people and people send me stuff and have connections with a lot of people. So yeah, I guess just because I've been doing it for such a long time, like the first people that I reached out to on MySpace were electronic producers, Dario and Frank Music and a bunch of people, Rusko. So like I've been And I think people appreciate that I have that connection with electronic music and just my love of so many different types of music has kind of led me to that.