This week, Lily welcomes Shirin Eskandani to the podcast! Shirin is a former opera singer turned coach who, in this episode, opens up about her quest for fulfillment beyond external achievements. From navigating the challenges of dating to discovering the unexpected depth of inner work in coaching, Shirin shares the transformative power that led her to pursue coaching with a commitment to inclusivity and decolonized perspectives.

Shirin shares her mission to diversify the coaching world, highlighting the need for more inclusive certifications. Lily and Shirin also dive into the concept of being “wholehearted,” exploring themes of empowerment and the profound impact of coaching on personal and professional aspects of life.  

Listen in to hear this fantastic conversation that empowers self-discovery and self-trust.

Hot-takes from this episode:

• Nothing outside of you will ever make me feel fulfilled or enough. That is something you have to be working on yourself.

• “It isn’t just about my dating life. It isn’t just about my work. How we do one thing is usually how we do all or most things.”

• Decolonizing is about questioning and getting curious about what you value and believe and whether those values and beliefs were handed to you from society or family. Then, decide that you get to choose what you value and believe and how you want to move forward.

Links:
One-on-One Coaching with Lily
Wholehearted Coaching: The Podcast
Whole Hearted Coaching Certification
Shirin on Instagram @wholeheartedcoaching
Wholehearted Coaching Certification Program on Instagram @wholeheartedcertification

Show transcript:

[00:00:00] Lily: Hey, I’m Lily Womble, former top matchmaker and founder of Date Brazen. After setting up hundreds, I realized that with coaching, women could match themselves better than anyone else ever could. With my unconventional feminist approach, I’ve helped women around the world build courageous and self trust filled love lives.

[00:00:20] And now I’m here to support you get ready. Cause I’m about to share the exact steps you need to attract a soul quenching partnership and feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the Date Brazen podcast. Hello, gorgeous friends. Welcome to another episode of the Date Brazen podcast. Today we have Shirin Eskandani here.

[00:00:39] Shirin is It’s an incredible human being. Shirin is the kind of human being when the zoom room opened and I saw her picture before her video popped on the screen. I literally couldn’t help but smile because she radiates joy. She is a life changing human being. Shirin is a teacher, coach, and public speaker who [00:01:00] specializes in mindfulness, mindset, and manifestation.

[00:01:02] She has been featured. As a wellness expert on the Today Show, the New York Times, Shape, and Cosmopolitan magazine. And before creating her successful coaching business, she was an award winning opera singer performing at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. We need to discuss Shirin in a moment.

[00:01:22] And she believes that we are all our own healers, teachers, and leaders. On her website, big and loud, it says trusting yourself will change the whole World. And I just find that so true and so powerful. And her mission is to empower others to once again reclaim their innate wisdom and knowledge. She is an international coach, federation certified coach, and her holistic approach to transformation is influenced by meditation, spirituality, and her arts background.

[00:01:50] And she hosts two podcasts, wholehearted Coaching, the podcast and TGTS with former date Brazen podcast guest, Chrissy King. [00:02:00] Hi, Sharon. So glad you’re here.

[00:02:02] Shirin: Hi, Lily. Thank you for that generous, loving, sweet, kind introduction. I’m so thrilled to be here in conversation

[00:02:09] Lily: with you. Amazing. So I’m so glad you’re here.

[00:02:12] It’s been a long time coming, truly. And I want to set the stage for everybody listening. I want to go into today this concept of decolonized coaching. You are an expert in decolonized coaching. You have a wholehearted coach certification, all about decolonizing coaching. And I think this topic is really relevant for everybody listening who is choosing a coach to work with for something in their personal lives, professional lives.

[00:02:40] Someone who is choosing even a therapist, right, to work with. Um, so just wanted to set the stage that I want to talk about that and we can get into manifestation. We can get into the, those pieces as well, but, and I’m so excited

[00:02:53] Shirin: to talk. Thank you. I, this journey of me coming to you really wanting to decolonize coaching is really [00:03:00] much rooted in my own journey in the coaching world.

[00:03:03] And I, I started working with my very first coach 10 years ago, and it’s been a bittersweet journey. I have learned so much about myself. I have really the life that I get to live today. I believe truly is because of the knowledge and the wisdom and the resources that I found in the coaching world. And also looking back, especially in those early days, I can see how much harm was caused as well.

[00:03:32] Most of it totally unintentional, right? And so my kind of. New mission, but it’s really been my mission forever is around decolonizing, how we coach, how we create space for folks, how we facilitate transformation, but I would never call myself an expert. I am, I’m like, Oh my gosh, an expert. I’m not an expert, but I’m very much committed to it because I think also decolonizing is a process of a lifetime.

[00:03:58] And I also think [00:04:00] when we say decolonizing, we have this, I don’t know, maybe this idea of what it is. And it seems. Very lofty or very complicated, but to me, decolonize is decolonizing is really just about questioning and getting curious about what you value and what you believe and really getting curious about whether those are your own values and beliefs.

[00:04:24] Or whether they are values and beliefs that were handed to you, whether it’s from society or your family or the community you grew up with and getting to choose what you value, what you believe and how you want to move forward. Yeah.

[00:04:38] Lily: Tell me about your experience with that first. Coach, what were you doing before coaching?

[00:04:44] What was your life like? And then what was the coaching inflection point 10 years ago?

[00:04:49] Shirin: Okay. So this is going to be, I’m going to keep the story short, but I feel like I have to give the preamble. Please. We’re here. I want it. Because the topic here is dating. This [00:05:00] very much involves my dating life. So get to stay tuned.

[00:05:03] However, I don’t usually share the dating part of the story. So if you go to any other podcasts where I have shared my like origin story. I usually don’t put the dating part in, but it’s a really important part. And yeah, so I’m just going to share it with you and your community for like the first time.

[00:05:20] Oh, thank you. I’m honored. Of course. One thing to know about me. I am a one and a half. Generation immigrants, so that literally just means it’s like a new term to me, too, is that I immigrated with my family to Canada. So, it’s not that I was like, I came like, I was born here. I wasn’t I was born in Iran. My family immigrated to Canada when I was quite young.

[00:05:43] And so really, this immigrant mentality of mine coming to a space where I was like, the only I was the only. Child of color in a predominantly white neighborhood and a predominantly white school, trying to find my sense of belonging and value [00:06:00] and enoughness was really challenging and difficult, right?

[00:06:03] Because I couldn’t find it in the way that I looked in the culture that I had, and I can see now that a lot of who I became to be was rooted in that time of trying to figure out how to be accepted. And for me, which I think is the truth for a lot of marginalized folks, a lot of folks who feel like black sheep is that manifested in me becoming a perfectionist and a people pleaser and overachiever, right?

[00:06:30] Which. These are qualities that unfortunately are also really prized and valued in our society. So I think a lot of us who have those kind of, I call them coping mechanisms, it’s really hard to untangle them from who you are because they are so valued. I am this young girl and I’m just trying to find acceptance and belonging.

[00:06:51] And I discover my love of music. And I was singing in a choir and someone was like, Hey, you have a really great voice. Like it was not like [00:07:00] sister act at all, but it was, so a teacher was like, you’re actually really good at this. And so I threw myself into music and I loved it when I was singing. It was when I felt the most myself, when I felt the most joy, when I felt the most free and my family really supported me.

[00:07:18] I was very lucky. And I was like, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to become a singer. I’m going to become an opera singer and I’m going to move to New York and I’m going to sing at the Met. Like from a very young age, I was like, this is what I’m going to do. And

[00:07:32] Lily: why opera? Was it the feeling as if as a singer myself, I is such a specific modality and it also is like mostly not in English.

[00:07:41] It’s mostly like, why opera? Why did that call to you?

[00:07:45] Shirin: I, when I was young, I went to see an opera like they would do that with the kids, and I think it was the grandness of it that really spoke to me. It was like huge. It was on this huge stage, and it just seemed so big and [00:08:00] expansive. And I also, the very first teacher I started working with specialized in classical singing, too.

[00:08:07] And so he was like, listen, I don’t care what you end up doing in the future. Let’s just get a really good classical training and you can do whatever you want. But I just, I fell in love with it. I fell in love with it. And being that perfectionist people, please their overachiever. That allowed me to get really far.

[00:08:24] So where I grew up in Canada, I was like a big fish in a little pond. And there were a lot of really great singers, but I was there at the top with them and I decided I did my undergrad in Canada and I was like, I’m going to go do my master’s. In New York, like, or somewhere just really big. So I got accepted into this really great master’s program here in New York City, which is where I live now.

[00:08:46] And I just thought, oh, my God, like, I’m going to be singing at the Met in no time. Like, I’m in New York, this is happening. And I thought just all I have to do is do more of the same. Be the continue being the best [00:09:00] continue being perfect continue overachieving and I got to New York. I got to my school and it was like the biggest wake up call because I realized that I was not shit.

[00:09:11] Lily. I everyone was amazing at what they did. Everyone was the best. Everyone was an overachiever was a hard worker. And so this plan that I had created started to crumble around me and at the time I didn’t have the knowledge and the experience to say, Hey, maybe like you should pause and look inward.

[00:09:30] Maybe you need to fix what’s going on inside. I just doubled down on what I knew. So I was. Even more of a perfectionist more of an overachiever. And again, that got me really far too. So I was 1 of a few of the students who I graduated with, who was working almost full time right after I graduated from my masters, which for an opera singer is like pretty great, huge.

[00:09:53] And I soon started working. All over. I was working all over the world. I was singing in Italy. I was [00:10:00] singing at Carnegie Hall. Like you said, like my life looked like a dream from the outside. Everything I had wanted to do, every box I wanted to tick off, I ticked it. I was living in the city. I was singing.

[00:10:13] I was working. I had a cute brownstone apartment. I was dating this guy. Everything looked great, but inside I was miserable. I was completely exhausted and I had started to really resent singing. Like that thing that once brought me joy was now the thing that was really bringing me so much worry and overwhelm.

[00:10:40] And it was not singing. It was the way I was doing it right for me. It was all I could focus on was what I wasn’t doing. Well, the jobs I wasn’t getting where I needed to improve. And so it was at this low point where it was like, I don’t know if I should be doing this that I got the [00:11:00] call that. really changed my life.

[00:11:02] My agent called me and was like, Sharon, the Metropolitan Opera wants you to sing in Carmen next season. This was my literal dream come true. And sometimes a dream comes true and there’s something off about it. Like maybe the person is like a couple inches shorter than you want it. Dream opera house, dream role.

[00:11:21] And I had imagined this moment so many times, Lily, as a young girl, I’d imagine I’d be like jumping for joy. And so excited as a young woman, I would always say to myself, if you ever got this job, you’ll know you’re good enough, you’ll know you made it. And I’ll never forget hanging up that phone and realizing I felt none of those feelings and all I could think was.

[00:11:40] You are not good enough for this. It was really in that moment that I woke up and I realized, Oh, my gosh, nothing outside of me is ever going to make me feel fulfilled. Right? Nothing outside of me is ever going to make me feel enough. That’s something I have to be working on myself. [00:12:00] And so I had a year and a half to prepare for the opera.

[00:12:04] And in that time, of course, I worked on my voice. And I also started to really work on what was going on internally. I really realized that’s what I had been ignoring for so long. And so now I’m going to add the dating part of the story, too. Okay, so I live in New York and the dating scene in New York, as Lily knows, and most folks know, although honestly, everywhere is wild.

[00:12:26] But I only know New York because I spent my 20s and 30s here. I just turned 40s, but I knew these wild streets real well. And I was very much a late bloomer, whatever that means, but like I, the first kiss I had when I was in my early twenties, I was again, because I was this like brown kid and I was, my look was different.

[00:12:48] Like, I never felt desirable. So in high school, never got asked out in college. Like I was just more focused on my career and I really felt. Like I just [00:13:00] wasn’t desirable there either. Like I wasn’t enough. So like in all of the ways, whether it came to my career or myself, like I just wasn’t enough and I moved to New York.

[00:13:08] And so when I said I moved to New York and it was a wake up call, when I went to school, I was like, Oh my God, I’m not shit. However, when I was walking the streets of New York, I was like, Oh my God, I am the shit because all of a sudden I was in a city where I was desirable. Like the look that I had and the way that I was super, super desirable.

[00:13:25] And so that’s when like my. Journey of dating began in earnest and boy, oh, boy, let me tell you, it was pretty terrible, right? Because I was picking partners from a place of I am not enough. I was really putting up with anything dating people’s potential. Getting her stick staying in relationships far too long.

[00:13:46] And then I found a partner. We were together for about 3 years. He was wonderful. However, we broke up and this was right before I turned 30. We broke up because we just realized we weren’t each other’s person, which was it was a very [00:14:00] amicable breakup. It was heartbreaking, but we weren’t. But here I was turning 30.

[00:14:05] And I was single. I didn’t like my career, right? All of these things happening all at the same time. Like, every Wow. So Carmen

[00:14:12] Lily: was happening when you were turning 30?

[00:14:14] Shirin: So I hadn’t had Carmen yet. Yes. All of this happened around the same time. So I then start dating this guy. And I was still not liking my job.

[00:14:23] Carmen had not happened yet. Started dating this guy from like the first date onwards. I’m like, there’s something off. Okay. And, but I just didn’t listen to myself. And, but he loved me so much. Like I’ve never, like now I see it as love bombing, but he just loved me

[00:14:39] Lily: so much. He was intense about you.

[00:14:41] Shirin: Intense.

[00:14:43] So intense. And I was like, Oh my God, yes, this is it. Okay. I may hate my career. Now. I found a person. This is great. And I always have this, this thing called the one thing theory, which is we just want one thing in our life to be okay. And we’ll cling onto that one thing, even if it’s not so [00:15:00] great. And I think this relationship was it, cause I was not happy with my singing career.

[00:15:04] And so I was like, this is it. Just something felt off. And so. The day that I had my audition for the Metropolitan Opera, okay, the night before I was like, you know what? I had a really good rehearsal that day for the audition. I am going to go see my boyfriend at the bar he works at. So I go to the bar he works at and Lily, I’d actually never been to his bar.

[00:15:26] We’ve been dating six months and every time I had tried to go visit him at this bar, he would be like, Oh, I just ended my shift or, Oh, I’m not there. In hindsight, I’m like, but it’s time. I was like, Oh, of course he’s not there. So I go to his bar. I’m like, I’m going to surprise him. He works on this day. I get there and I’m like, Hey, is, let’s call this guy, Bob.

[00:15:48] I was like, is Bob working today? And they’re like, there has never been a Bob that has worked here ever. So, Oh, my

[00:15:56] Lily: God, Sharon. Yes.

[00:15:59] Shirin: Yes. Okay. [00:16:00] Okay. Yes. And so, you know, I just didn’t even fight it because I was like, Oh my God, this is the thing. This guy has been lying to me about his job since day one. Call him up.

[00:16:11] He finally confesses. We finally meet up. He confesses and listen, I am the school of thought that folks lie to us and that’s not on me. That’s not for me to be ashamed of. That’s his thing. Whatever. But what ended up happening after is I stayed with him for another month because I thought That I’d never find anyone who loves me this much.

[00:16:35] Lily: So, I’m just pausing. Sorry. Yes. I need to touch down on this, Sharon. So he was lying about his job. Why? Like what? He was unemployed and he felt feelings about that and then he just, okay. Yeah. So he made

[00:16:49] Shirin: up a bar. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. He was unemployed and he was friends with people who worked at the bar. Okay.

[00:16:56] He

[00:16:57] Lily: never works at the time where you, apologies for [00:17:00] interrupting, I’m just kind of enwrapped. Did your mind go to what else could he be lying about? Or was it just, I trust that it’s just the job

[00:17:08] Shirin: and. No, absolutely. I was like, yeah, absolutely. What else are you lying about? I’ll just, yes, it put everything. I was questioning

[00:17:18] Lily: everything.

[00:17:19] How did you rebound for the audition the next day? Because you can’t do the audition because you

[00:17:23] Shirin: got the gig. I don’t know. I think I have a really great mind compartmentalizing when something is super duper important, which I don’t know if that’s healthy at all, but I did. I did, but it was really, it’s really wild to me.

[00:17:36] And I never know how to tell the story because it’s like literally the night before I find out this. Guys lying to me the day after I have the biggest audition of my life that afternoon, we meet up so he can tell me that he had been lying to me the entire time we were together, all of it together. And so for me, That month where I decided to stay with this guy, I was like, that’s not okay.

[00:17:58] That’s, there’s something going [00:18:00] on here that you’re willing to stay with someone who has been lying to you for six months. So getting the job at the Met, finding this out, but also really recognizing there’s something going on within you that really needs to be addressed if you’re accepting this. In your love life, in your relationships, right?

[00:18:21] That you want to and need to be loved so much that you’re willing to overlook so many things, right? So all of this, I was like, girl, therapy’s been great. Love therapy. However, you need something else. Like, I don’t know if it’s an exorcism, like a cleanse. So I was listening to a podcast at the time and a coach was talking on it.

[00:18:44] She was a dating coach. And everything she said resonated so much with me, and I was like, I think this is the person who’s going to fix everything. And so that is when I started working with my very 1st coach. I remember it was a year long group coaching program [00:19:00] and it really did. Change my life. Yes. So I feel like that’s a very long story.

[00:19:05] You asked me a very simple question, but yes, that’s how we got to coaching. This is

[00:19:10] Lily: amazing. And I’m loving every minute of it. Now I want to disclaim I’m not the coach that you worked with the 12 months. We’re not edging the audience in that way. This was not that this was

[00:19:20] Shirin: like 12 years ago. This is a very long time.

[00:19:23] Lily: Yeah. I tell me about. That experience with the dating coach and how that sort of impacted your next phase of your

[00:19:31] Shirin: life. Yeah. So I thought this was going to be like, I’m going to go work with this person and I’m going to learn how to create an awesome dating profile. They’re going to teach me some like sassy little tricks and things to do.

[00:19:45] Little did I know that the program was literally like. Inner child work, healing, inner wounds, sound baths, and it was really super deep. And that’s why working in that [00:20:00] program applied to all areas of my life, not just the dating, but also the singing, because it really came down to this wound that I had.

[00:20:07] That I’m just not enough and I’m never going to find the love that I want because I am not intrinsically enough. And so it was a really intense program, but it really helped shift so much for me. When it came to myself as a person, like a hundred percent, not just in this one avenue of my life, because even as a coach now, which I’m sure you agree with Lily, it’s like, it’s all interconnected.

[00:20:31] All of it, it isn’t just about my dating life. It isn’t just about my work. How we do 1 thing is usually how we do all things or most things. And so being in that program, and I think also, and I know you do this too, and I have this in my coaching programs is it was a group coaching program, which at first I was like, I don’t know about this, like, I don’t know about other people, but the group part of it was so important because.

[00:20:57] You do feel really alone and to [00:21:00] have other folks share the same worries and thoughts and feelings was really helpful. It really made me feel less isolated. I found this built in community to work through all of the stuff with. And, yeah, so it was far more deep than I thought it would ever be. The focus was around like mindset and and then also it was around manifestation too.

[00:21:22] But manifestation to me, as I understand it is really about once you shift what’s going on internally, everything changes externally. Right? Yeah, it was a really incredible program. And also now looking back, I’m like, Oh, there were some things in that program that probably weren’t amazing because just of some of the harm that was caused, however, it did really lead me to healing so much around who I was, which allowed me to go sing at the Met and crush it.

[00:21:54] And which eventually led me to finding my. partner, my husband, who is just the most [00:22:00] incredible human in the world. Yeah.

[00:22:03] Lily: I love that. And I love that you benefited from coaching. Tell me about getting into coaching yourself and then how maybe that dating program informed the desire to. Come at this with a decolonized lens.

[00:22:16] Shirin: Yeah. So, so when I started working with the coach was also when I really threw myself into the world of wellness anyway. So like I was working with the coach and then I was also like reading tons of books and listening to podcasts and going to workshops and retreats. And what I really started to notice was just first, like the lack of diversity.

[00:22:33] In those spaces, whether it was on stage or in the audience, it was just this real lack of representation of folks. And but then on top of that was like this inclusion of ideas and beliefs and thoughts that were from other cultures. But they were being whitewashed for lack of a better word, or just as we call it now, I didn’t know this then, but like [00:23:00] cultural appropriation, appropriating, taking other people’s ideas and just using them however you want to use them without any honor or respect to where they come from.

[00:23:09] And I also witnessed, for instance, I love Byron Katie for folks who know Byron Katie, the work, I think the work is like really helpful. However, I also went to some of Byron Katie’s workshops where I was like, Holy crap, yes, the work is great, but what this person right now is describing is like drama, right?

[00:23:28] And making someone feel not validated in their experience and making them feel like they just need to work a little bit harder. And to work on their mindset a little bit more, and then that’s how they’re going to fix themselves and heal themselves and seeing a lot of spiritual bypassing, right? Using meditation or the universe or crystals instead of actually really sitting with the hard feelings and not ever naming [00:24:00] oppression, systemic oppression, not ever naming the systems we live in that make accessibility to things, not an equal playing field.

[00:24:09] Right, and I love manifestation. I truly believe in it. I truly believe I manifested my husband. But for those of us who come from trauma from marginalized communities, there’s like a tenderness that we also have to approach this work with because we have grown up made to feel this isn’t the truth, but made to feel.

[00:24:30] That we are not well, no, actually, sometimes it is a truth made to feel that we’re not safe or that certain things aren’t accessible to us that you shouldn’t dream too big and so all of that. Just I remember when I was like, I really want to start coaching because I really. Really, my life changed so much, right?

[00:24:49] I was like, holy crap. This is what I want to do. I love to sing, but I think my life is changing and this is where I want it to go. I knew from day 1 that I wanted to [00:25:00] coach in a way that was Inclusive and we weren’t even using the word inclusive at the time then, but that’s what I had wanted. I wanted a space that was accessible to all really.

[00:25:13] And so when I started looking for coaching certifications, it was a real struggle at the time. This is around. I started with my coach 10 years ago. This is around 9 years ago. Because I just couldn’t find a program or curriculum that really reflected my values and what I hope to create for myself as a coach and who I wanted to really work with and what I wanted to be aware of.

[00:25:37] And I finally found a program that ticked off as many boxes. I knew that there was more that I needed to learn more people I needed to be in community with. And that was like 9 years ago. And unfortunately, I think. Some things have changed, but not a whole lot has changed when it comes to the coaching world.

[00:25:57] And I believe so much in this modality. I think this is [00:26:00] such a powerful modality. The work that we get to do is such a privilege. So incredible. It’s so transformative. And also there’s a lot of just really harmful things happening out there. And we’ve really come to a point where a lot of really great coaches don’t want to call themselves coaches simply because they don’t want to be associated with.

[00:26:22] The negative stuff with the crap that’s associated with the kind of work that, that we get to do. So yeah. So that’s how I got to this place of being like, okay, we need to like shake things up a little bit. Yeah. I,

[00:26:35] Lily: I, as a coach, I resonate so hard and I, I think that this conversation about certification or like non certification or there’s.

[00:26:43] The coaching world can be a place, like any place where people are helping people, like there’s major harm being done by people who intend it or don’t intend it. And that’s why I really appreciate your thoughtfulness in this landscape of coaching and that you are [00:27:00] bringing to the forefront a lens that, and a vocabulary to discuss.

[00:27:07] the problems with coaching. It’s a really white dominated space in a lot of ways. And I’m curious about where you see an opportunity. There’s obviously so many opportunities, but like, where do you feel your heart is guiding you to most make impact in the coaching world?

[00:27:26] Shirin: I think it’s really with this. So the certification that I created, the whole heart of coaching certification.

[00:27:32] I really believe that kind of education that coaches are getting is the piece that’s often it’s that foundational piece that’s missing a lot of the times. And again, there are so many incredible coaches out there. Lily is included in this list, right? However, I do think that, like, to be certified or not certified, I think that actually coaches is.

[00:27:55] Our almost born coaches, like those of us who are called to become a coach, [00:28:00] have been coaching for a long ass time, whether or not we would call it coaching. We’re like the people that love to be of service, that other folks are just gravitated toward, like they come to us with their problems, like whether it’s just a stranger on the street or a family member.

[00:28:13] This is the work that I feel like is innate within us. However, also we’re really understanding now that there’s so many things to consider when we’re working with folks, right? The intersections of who they are, their lived experience, their past experience, the world in general, right? And so to be able to hold space for folks, I think having just some resources and skills and understanding around that really truly helps.

[00:28:39] And I think when I look back on my time with my coach nine years ago. That’s what was missing, right? The fact that I am an immigrant, the fact that I am a woman of color, the fact that all of those things were just never, ever mentioned. So I was made to feel like there was something wrong with me when something didn’t work or something felt icky [00:29:00] and.

[00:29:01] I think an incredible coach has the ability to use tons of tools, has the ability to really intersectionally approach the work that we get to do. So that is where I’m focusing my heart on right now is just around like. Helping coaches become incredible coaches, helping folks who want to become coaches become the incredible coaches that they want to be.

[00:29:25] Lily: Yeah. And what are you seeing in your certification program? What’s happening? Like who, how are people building these skills and going out into the world?

[00:29:35] Shirin: Oh, my gosh. It is amazing. It’s amazing. So one of the things in the certification is I call all of the coaches coach from day one, right? Because you are a coach.

[00:29:45] And the work that we’re doing is amplifying and magnifying what you already have within you. And just watching these coaches really magnify it. This. Coach within them has [00:30:00] been just like awe inspiring. I’m so proud. I’m so happy, but they are able to work with so many different types of folks with so many different, different issues and problems.

[00:30:12] And they’re just navigating it so beautifully as coaches. And so it, that’s just been like the joy of my life to witness that. I’m like, y’all can coach me. Let’s set up a time. When are you free? Yeah, I need some help. Let’s do this. Oh my God. I love it. That’s been really amazing too. And one of the things that I wanted to really address was the lack of diversity in the coaching world.

[00:30:32] And I think it really comes down to the lack of diversity in coaching certifications. And so. What’s been really important about me with a certification. It is created by folks of color. It is taught by a really diverse group of folks, including me, including a group of guest teachers and mentors and all of that, but.

[00:30:53] I just found a lot of the coaches who came to the certification were like, I have been looking for something like this for so [00:31:00] long and I could never name what was missing, but everything just felt off. Like every other certification felt off. And then this felt like the right thing for

[00:31:09] Lily: me. Yeah. That’s so beautiful.

[00:31:12] Sharon. And I hope you. I hope you are so proud of yourself and so celebrating yourself because creating a container, a coaching container period, but then creating a container to train coaches with an intersectional lens and with a decolonized lens, like what a gift and what powerful work. So I’m really excited for you and your coaches to go out into the world and just going to like impact so many people.

[00:31:38] Shirin: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. I’m just, I’m so excited about it and so excited about what the, one of the things we really focus on is like our legacy, like, not just like our lineage and our legacy, what we’re leaving, what we’re leaving behind and what we’re creating and was a coach. And I know for the folks who are listening, who are either a coach or who’ve worked with the coach.

[00:31:58] There is such a ripple [00:32:00] effect to the work we do. And it’s sometimes I can’t actually most of the time, I don’t allow myself to fully understand that ripple effect. Cause I think if I did, I’d be like in a puddle crying all of the time. I’m sure it’s the same as you, but it’s not just about meeting your partner.

[00:32:15] It’s not just about finding your dream job. It’s not just about moving to another country that you’ve always dreamed of. It’s. This ripple effect that has within your family within the communities, it’s so much bigger and broader than we, we can ever imagine. Yes, I’m just so incredibly happy and really thrilled that this is out in the world.

[00:32:36] It’s been years in the making. It was like this thing that I thought about because I was like, Oh, I feel like someone should create. I did colonize coaching certification and I was like, Oh, I think that person may

[00:32:45] Lily: be me. Oh my goodness. Are you still singing? That is a

[00:32:49] Shirin: question I have. I am. I am. I love to sing.

[00:32:53] I think I discovered during all of that working with the coach and doing my own internal like stuff was that while I love to [00:33:00] sing, I didn’t love being a singer. Being a singer was just not for me and that world was not for me. It was for a long time. So I still sing. I sing around the house. My husband loves it.

[00:33:12] And yeah, it’s still a part of me. But it’s not the one thing that defines me anymore.

[00:33:20] Lily: And I think that this concept of being wholehearted is a self defining concept. Instead of identifying as a singer, which going back to that briefly, I grew up wanting to be on Broadway and that was my dream. And I moved to New York to pursue that dream.

[00:33:34] And I moved to New York and realized I was. Terrible comparatively to the people that had been had gone to the conservatory and who had been spending every waking hour. And this was like my second career coming and trying this. And so I realized after doing my own internal work that singing was. How I perceived my own value as well and how obsessing over whether or not I was sharp or flat, which in my [00:34:00] culture at home with my mother, who’s an opera singer, was

[00:34:04] Shirin: what?

[00:34:04] Very. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Okay. We need

[00:34:08] Lily: to talk have a lot to discuss. Yes. And I, my mom went to Cincinnati Conservatory for her master’s for opera. And then she ended up like becoming like a jingle singer for the radio. And then Ended up being a voiceover talent and she’s incredible. And in my house, like Sharper Flat was this like value dish.

[00:34:27] It was like Chris, my husband doesn’t understand that when he jokes around and says I’m flat, like it actually hurts my feelings. Oh, it’s not like you do. You get what I’m saying? So this like idea of my voice is my value and and exiting that moment in my career also signaled something very similar for me.

[00:34:45] And I’m hearing like. Coming out from my voices, my value, my quality of my voice and tonality and whether or not my folds are warm or whatever is inside baseball speak. Number one, number two, coming into a wholehearted identity, I [00:35:00] think is what I’m hearing in everything that you do, whether it’s working with coaches or people who are being coached.

[00:35:06] And I think that’s so much more fulfilling. To have that level of self trust in your identity.

[00:35:15] Shirin: Absolutely. And as you’re saying that, Lily, and this is something I really think about a lot when you say using my voice, but you are now using your voice in another way, right? podcast, in your upcoming book, in all of the amazing things that are coming, right?

[00:35:32] Lily: Trin, stop! you’re so, thank you.

[00:35:33] Shirin: But it is the same. It’s like that same dream you had to use your voice to make this huge splash to make this change or to like really connect with folks. And we now get to use our voice as singers in a different way. And I think that that is also really important for anyone who’s listening.

[00:35:50] Everything you’ve done up to this point. Matters and it will matter in whatever you do in the future. It will look different, but it is connected to the same [00:36:00] thing. And so that’s also, cause again, not to bring it back to the coaching certification, there’s a lot of folks who are like, but wait, I’m like, I don’t know, like I’m a singer.

[00:36:08] How could I become a coach? Like I’m an interior designer. How could I become a coach? And I’m like. It will all make sense, it will all make sense, it will all be connected. You and I now use our voice in a totally different way, but thank God we get to use it. We’re in front of our mics. Look at this as we record this podcast.

[00:36:26] So yes, y’all, like it’s all worth it. It’s all meaningful. It’s whole. I think you’re right. It’s, it’s, it’s wholehearted. It’s a fuller version of who we are. And because I know this is a dating podcast too, I think once you can really fully accept the wholeness of who you are too. Love and stuff like that is also when you find that person, like it’s a, it’s much more inner than we ever think it is.

[00:36:51] It’s so much more inner than we think it is. And I know that’s the work that you do with the folks that you work with. It’s important. So thank you for doing what you are doing, Lily, because [00:37:00] finding partnership, while it is not the be all end all of life, if it is something that you seek and desire, Okay.

[00:37:07] It is available to you and it’s available to you in often the ways that we don’t think like we think we’re supposed to work on how we look or our profile or like what we talk about on a date. And it’s it is that but not really not at all. Actually. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for the work that you do.

[00:37:25] Lily: I think everything is everything.

[00:37:27] As you mentioned at the beginning of this episode that everything is interconnected. Everything is a microcosm of Hope, joy, dream, fear, insecurity, desire that we have as humans. And when we’re talking about desire and how to express desire, it can be easy to try to hang your identity hat on the thing that you think externally looks the best.

[00:37:46] Like the, Oh, I am going to know if I made it, if I sing at the Met, or I’ll know if I made it, if I get a paid theater contract, you know, that was one of my benchmarks. Or then I started a business. I know I’ll may have made it when I [00:38:00] get. I know I’ll be successful in hanging my hat on that external, or I know I’ll be successful when I find the partner or the relationship.

[00:38:06] And so I, my hope for this podcast, and I know that you have for your clients, it’s like really allowing yourself to be in your fullness and be in your too muchness in all of the glorious ways and let that attract what is right for you. Instead of trying to manipulate your way into what you want by.

[00:38:25] externally

[00:38:26] Shirin: validating. It’s true, exactly what you said. It’s It’s so true. It’s so true. And when I look back on my life, that is when I was able to be in my muchness was when everything that I really wanted finally found me or I found it.

[00:38:43] Lily: Yeah. And tell everybody how they can work with you where they can find you.

[00:38:49] Tell us all the

[00:38:49] Shirin: things so you can find me on Instagram at wholehearted coaching. I also have my podcast, of course, wholehearted coaching the [00:39:00] podcast. If you’re interested in the certification that on Instagram, Instagram is wholehearted certification. And the website for that is wholeheartedcertification.

[00:39:10] com slash programs.

[00:39:13] Lily: Wonderful. We’ll link all of that in the show notes today. And I can speak to knowing Taryn personally, you’re the best and you’re, you’re magnetic. And I think that you’re also just somebody who cares so deeply for people and that is felt. And so thank you for coming on this podcast and sharing your joy and expertise with all of us and in progress ness with all of us, with all of this.

[00:39:36] Shirin: Thank you. Thank you so much for letting me be here. It’s been such an honor to talk to you and to be in community with your community. So thank you, Lily.

[00:39:43] Lily: Thank you, Shirin. Talk to y’all next

[00:39:45] Shirin: week.[00:40:00]