Birthday Special: How I got here | ep75
About this episode:
So often it can feel like we are totally lost but when we look back, we see that we were totally on track. Listen to this episode for some hope and inspiration if you are feeling a little lost in life. Shirin shares a moment in her life when she had no idea what she was doing but in hindsight it led her to exactly where she is now.
Listen to episode 48 | Our Love Story featuring my husband Rog Law
Listen to episode 02 | What to do when you don’t know HOW to do it
A quote to take with you:
“We are never going to know our “how” until we get there.”
This week, I invite you to…
Ask yourself:
Think of something you have now that you once desired (ie. job, friends, partner, home etc...)
Now, working backwards, create a map of how you got this thing (this can be in bullet form, sentences, or you could get creative and actually create a map)
Reflecting on "the how" of how you got this thing. What comes up for you? (ie. could you have ever imagined it would happen this way, what steps surprised you etc..)
Want to dive deeper through journal prompts?
If you want to be in the know and get each Mindset Monday straight to your inbox complete with journal prompts to take you even further, get on my email list.
About your host, Shirin Eskandani
Hi, love! I’m Shirin.
Coach, speaker, writer, and life alchemist.
I teach you how to trust your intuition again, tune out all the BS, and let your heart lead the way.
Because once you strengthen your inner GPS, decisions become easier, boundaries become clearer, and belly laughs become a daily thing.
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME:
I’m a certified life coach (accredited through the International Coach Federation)
My husband and I met on Instagram and we live in Brooklyn, NY with our plant babies
I have a masters degree in Music and was a professional opera singer for twelve years. I worked all over the world singing on stage at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera (more on that later…).
I believe in the woo just as much as I do the work (internal and external). No amount of crystals and affirmations will make up for a lack of a healthy mindset and aligned action.
I love all the Real Housewives franchises. Don’t make me choose one… seriously, don’t.
+ Read the episode transcript here
Welcome to wholehearted coaching the podcast. If you're looking for more purpose, more passion, more joy in your life, then you have come to the right place. Let's create your dream life while living your dream life. Okay, love. Hi love. Welcome to wholehearted coaching the podcast. This is where we take a deeper dive into my mindset Monday post, which you can read on Instagram at wholehearted coaching, or you can get the full post plus my weekly journal prompts. When you sign up for my email list, you can do that in the show notes. Or you can head to my website wholehearted dash coaching.com. So I am back I am back from my summer break. And I'm so excited to be recording the podcast again, I really look forward to my weekly conversations with you. I really see this podcast as a conversation. Now I know it's a very one sided conversation. But when I sit down to record these episodes, my intention is for it to really be a conversation between me and you to friends, talking, sharing stories and coming to insights together. So thank you for being here. Thank you for being so patient. As I took a break and I rested, I have some really exciting things to share with you for the fall. That was part of the reason why I needed to take the break. And I'm just really happy to be back. So you may notice that the sound quality of this episode is excellent. It is because I am recording this episode in my parents closet. Yes, I am back home visiting family this week. I haven't seen them for two years because of COVID. And it's just been such an amazing time. And I am recording this episode a few days before my 38th birthday. So my birthday is on August 18. And you'll be hearing this episode after my birthday. And I think birthdays are a time of reflection reflecting on where we have been and where we are now. And 38. You know, I love the number 38. But it's you know, the 30 fives the 40s, the 30s, the 25. It's like those five years that I think are big times of reflection. But this podcast episode is going to be about my 34th birthday. Looking back now I realized that that was a really pivotal birthday year for me. Of course, I didn't know that at the time. At the time, I was still single, I had just started wholehearted coaching. And while I felt like I was on the precipice of something really big and exciting, y'all I was a mess. Because I wasn't seeing the proof of that amazingness like I knew something really amazing was about to come my way. But of course, it wasn't there yet. And so that 34th birthday for me, oh gosh, I remember there was so many tears, so many breakdowns. And I want to talk to you about it. Because you may be there, when we have a really big dream in our hearts, when we want to do something really huge and amazing. That means such a great deal to us. One of the first questions we ask ourselves is, how? How am I actually going to do that? That question of how is what snaps us out of the joy of the dream out of our imagination? out of flow out of ease? It's the how are you going to do this? How are you going to execute it? How are you going to control this? And I remember in that 34th year for me, there was so many how's, you know, 34 I was just about to turn 35. And I had all these intentions and dreams for my 35th year mainly to have a thriving business where I was making you know X amount a year where I could really support myself and to be married. So here I am turning 34 I am single, right? And I'm just starting this new business. I was an opera singer for like all my life, right? So this is something completely new. So I'm like okay, okay, Sharon. So I know you've made your vision board, which has like a wedding on it. And it has like a thriving business on it. But ma'am, you're on vacation with your family in Mexico, and he can't afford anything. You're super single. So we got a year. We got a year to make this happen. How and love. It did happen. I got married when I was 35. And I was making six figures by the time I was 35. Now this isn't an episode on manifestation. It could be but it's an episode about how you need to sometime Like go over the how, and allow for the things to happen and trust that they're going to happen. And if my story instills any faith, or hope in you, that is my goal, really, that is my goal. So today's Mindset Monday reads, one day you will realize what you thought were detours was the actual journey. So let's go back to my 34th birthday. My family really doesn't do family trips. Like if we do we go to Iran, that's where I'm from. And like, literally, I can count, like a handful of times, we've done a big ass trip, you know, where we've gone to a resort, or we've planned something really big. And so 34th birthday, my family is like, let's go to Mexico. Not for my birthday, guys. It wasn't for my birthday. Okay. But, you know, it was just a lot of things. My nephew was almost a year and a half. And it was just we thought it'd be a great way for the family to connect. So I was like, great, this sounds like a great idea. And again, setting up the scene for you. At the time, I was technically single, but I was dating a lot. And one of the gentlemen I was dating was my now husband, Raj. But we had just met we had just met in July. And he was a really sweet guy. But if you have ever heard our story of meeting, which I really recommend, we have an episode, which we recorded in February around Valentine's Day about our relationship, Raj, Raj. Oh, how do I put this, you know, he showed up to our first date in shorts, jean shorts, and a unicorn hat with a unicorn on it not a hat with like, you know, a unicorn horn on it, that would have been a real red flag. And like a tank top, like this man was not out to impress me, you know, and wine and dine me, Raj, one of the beauties of him is that he is just always himself. And at the time I was used to the new york flash and blend of dating, I was like, This guy is really sweet. But, you know, he never takes me to fancy dinners. He doesn't really, you know, put in any effort into how he looks. Yes, he's super sweet and kind. And he texts me. And he checks in on me. But like, what about the blame? So again, Raj was there. But at the time, I was also dating this British guy. And man, he, he was everything I had written down on my list. He was super, you know, British. That wasn't on my list. But come on, y'all. Come on British. He was very well educated. He worked at the UN. I mean, come on. And tall and dark and handsome and funny. But you know, now looking back, he wasn't emotionally available to me at all. But again, tick, tick, tick that that list of flashing blink he had that all and so really, I thought, yeah, that's the path. It's a British guy, obviously. And unicorn hat guy will, he seems really nice, but I don't know. So setting up the scene there. And I was at this point about a year into wholehearted coaching of this business. And I was still singing at the time. So I was part time coaching, part time singing, and kind of still unsure of how to navigate this online coaching world of how to really stand out but not stand out in a way of the flash and bling, but stand out and like, what is my actual purpose here? You know, who do I want to be working with? And how do I want to be transforming their lives like read that real soul searching and digging deep of Who am I in this space? And so I'm trying to figure that out. And I'm also trying to figure out how to make money, right, how to make an income that will be able to support me support the work, I want to do support the life that I want to live. And I was doing a lot of free workshops at the time with a girlfriend who was a jewelry designer, Vanessa Leanne jewelry, check her out. She is amazing. And she had this amazing idea of us doing these workshops, where we would collaborate, I would do a workshop at the beginning around intuition and trust, which has now become one of the pillars of my work. But again, I was like, I don't know, I really like intuition and trust. So I guess we'll do this. And then she would create jewelry around the intentions that the workshop participants would come up with. So we were doing the workshops, and again, I really enjoyed it, but I was like these are free and i don't know i'm a little blue. How am I gonna make this money. So here we are. We're going to Mexico. We're going to Mexico and I am the youngest daughter in her family and mice. Esther had just given birth to my nephew. And if anyone knows anything about family dynamics, whenever a child is introduced into a family, it is a blessing, it is a gift, it is a joy. But all the focus, of course, is going to be on that child on the baby. And so we're going on this trip, my sister and her family have a room all to themselves a beautiful sweet and 34 or 33 at the time, right? 33 year old me is staying with my parents, I'm staying my parents sweet. And I will be staying on the pullout couch. And so at the time, I really didn't think anything of it, because I'm like, yeah, this this is, you know, this makes sense. And we get to the resort, and you know, the rooms are not as big as we thought they would be. And so it's like, not a lot of privacy, not a lot of space. And again, I think, you know, sometimes when you're the youngest in a family, you're still like in child mode. And I think people see you as the child and I think you sometimes see yourself as the child. And so I was like, yeah, of course, I'll be fine on the couch. And I got there. And I was like, oh, okay, this is not grown ass adult shit here. So we get to the resort. And I'm like, Okay, I'm going to make this work, I can make this work. This cap situation is totally fine. Mind you, we're going to get this resort for a week. And we get there. And it is more children's resort. So not to say that it's like, you know, some sort of Disney thing, although I know Disney can be very adult. But you know, you know what I'm trying to say here, but let's just say there weren't hot men to ogl because everyone was married or coupled up or like my parents age. So okay, 33 years old, and the prime of my sexual youth. I'm here like, okay, okay, this is gonna be great. Like, I just want to be with my family, this is going to be fantastic. And it was a fantastic trip. But my birthday was a very intense day. Because I think for me, all that pressure of you were 33 years old turning 34, you were on a family trip, single and alone, sleeping on a couch with your parents in the other room. And, you know, you aren't making enough money to pay for any of this. So it was just like, I was in a bad place, y'all, I was in a really bad place. And it was like, Okay, and so you've made these intentions for 35, which is now you know, 12 months away, literally, you know, 365 days away, how are you going to do this. And all of that, I think really made me in a really dark, reflective place at that time. And so I remember my dad really trying to make me feel happy and trying to make me feel special. And they plan this dinner for me on the beach, and we got to the beach, and we were eaten alive by mosquitoes. And so we had to like rush indoors to have our dinner. And it was it was great. But I was just so bogged down in judgment. I was so bogged down in overwhelm, and really in the house, like, how are you going to get there, this is not even possible. And I remember like my dad and I even had an argument that evening because he was just trying so hard to make me happy. And I was just so not having it. Like I was really being a petulant child like, I can see that now. And so that was my 34th birthday. All right, getting into an argument with my father. mosquito bites all around on a children's resort in Mexico, again, like very privileged problems to be having. But at the same time, just I was in such a negative headspace because I could just not see how I was gonna get out of this right how I was gonna make this thing this dream actually happen. But it did. It did. When I turned 35 the next year. At that point, I was making close to six figures in the business. And Roger and I were a full on couple like totally in love. And I think we took one of our big trips together. In September of that year, we went to Thailand. So like literally 12 months later going to Thailand with the love of my life and the person that I wanted to be with forever. So how did that happen? Well, I can't go into all the ins and outs of it. But I can tell you this. I could have never predicted how it happened on my 34th birthday. I often say this and there is an episode in the podcast about how this topic of how this question of how But oftentimes when we have a dream, a dream, to a destination that we've never been to before, right, like being married, or having a six figure business, we're trying to create a map to a destination that we've never gone to. Right. So we're trying to reverse engineer a process that we've never been through, and are how will only be unveiled to us once we get there. And I get how, like, frustrating and annoying that is, but really love, we are never going to know our how, until we get there. And we can plan and we can scheme and we can try to be 20 steps ahead. But those steps are usually not the actual steps that we need. And I'll get into that a little bit with my journey. You know, I always say that we kind of know maybe the next step to take maybe the next two or three. But beyond that, it's kind of really a guessing game. And that's where we get into that place of trying to control things because we want that safety and security. But really, we don't know our how we can take the next step that feels the best to us the next step that feels the most aligned to us the next step that appears for us, but beyond that, we kind of don't know. And it's really all about opening ourselves up, trusting that we know what we're doing that the universe knows what it's doing, trusting the process. And also, of course, putting in the work I put in so much work, but also really being open to whatever came my way. So we talked about the detours, right? Remember those workshops I was talking about which I thought like okay, I'll just I'll just do these. One of the people who had attended one of those workshops, was a producer on the Today Show. And in October of that year, she asked me to come on the today's show for the prime our prime our today's show, Al Roker Hoda, Kathie Lee, and at the time, Matt Lauer, but to come on the prime hour of the today's show to talk about mindset and mindfulness. And that was one of the biggest things to happen in my career in this entire wholehearted coaching career to be on the prime hour of the today's show, that thing that I thought was the detour, that thing that I was just doing for free, because I was like, I don't know, ended up with me being on the Today Show. That producer ended up being a client of mine. And she referred so many of her colleagues and friends, to me, that whole thing about trust and intuition. That's the basis of so many of my programs and the work that I do with my clients. So that thing that I thought was a detour or whatever, ended up being one of the foundational pillars of my business. And then of course, the guy situation, right? I have no idea what happened to that British guy, I do not know. But I thought that he was the journey. I thought, yeah, de un British, this is my man. But the detour, the thing that I thought was the detour. racz ended up being the love of my life. And when I got back from Mexico, we started to date. And I started to see quite an incredible human. He was, and we got engaged in December, oh, gosh, I'm so bad with yours. But it was my 35th year and we ended up getting married. Six weeks later, we have our story on the podcast, you can listen to it, it was very fast. We literally met and got married within 18 months. But all those intentions I'd put out there they happened. The things that I wanted manifested. Looking back, man, if you had told me the how I would have been like you are lying. That is not how I get married. That is not how I create my six figure business. But it was so love. I hope this episode is a beacon of hope for you is a source of light for you. If you find yourself in that deep, dark place of I have this dream that means so much to me. I have this thing that I really want to do. I have this thing that I really want to realize and I have no idea how I'm going to do it, how I'm going to do it in the place that I am in now. I truly hope that my story that this episode is a source of inspiration for you live if you are in that place, because let me tell you 33 year old and 11 month in three weeks me was really questioning how the hell all these things were going to happen. And I am really proud that I didn't dial back on what I wanted to create even though I was caught up in like, Oh my gosh, is this actually going to happen and I had no doubt in my insecurity. I didn't compromise on my dream. I didn't. And so I want to really underscore that for you live, if you are in this dark place of overwhelm, and frustration and confusion, and how is this going to happen, don't start by compromising on what you want to create. Really, it's about opening yourself up to, okay, I trust that it's going to happen. I don't know how it's going to happen. And I'm just going to take the next step that presents itself, the next step that feels aligned, the next step that feels good, the next step that could possibly take me there, that's all we can do. That is all we can do. I look back now on my journey, and I see that it was just that it was just me taking those baby steps. I know we want to plan the next 20 or 30 steps, but it's just not possible. And if we do, then that's when we get caught into lives that aren't meant for us. I probably could have gotten married to that British guy. But also it would have been a really terrible marriage. I could have maybe created six figures in some other ways. But I also could have become a really hokey coach that wasn't aligned and grounded and rooted in her true mission and purpose and values. So love, I just want to reiterate and tell you it is going to happen. That big dream in your heart will happen. And just know that one day you are going to look back and look at all these things that you think are detours that you're like, oh god, I don't know, I don't know about this, you're gonna look back at those things and say, damn, that was the actual journey. So love that is this week's episode. I'm going to be announcing some really big things in September, in the coming weeks, things that now looking back 33 year old me 3311 month and three weeks old me would be like, Wow, that is exactly it. That is exactly it. I'm so excited to announce these things because they are really a combination of all of it. So stay tuned for that. Thank you for being here. I'm just so happy to be back having these conversations with you again. Until next week, I will talk to you Ben. Thank you so much for joining me this week. If you liked this week's episode, please share it with a friend. comment and rate this podcast until next week. See you later. Love