Ep. 16 Unbehaved: Meghan French Dunbar with Shirin Eskandani

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Episode Overview

Most people think the cure for "not feeling enough" is to achieve more. To work harder, climb higher, and one day arrive at the version of success that finally proves you belong.

Shirin Eskandani spent her whole life chasing that version. She trained at one of the most competitive music programs in North America. She built the career most opera singers spend their entire lives hoping for. And then she got the call she'd been dreaming of since she was eight years old — the Metropolitan Opera. Carmen. Her dream role, her dream opera house, exactly the contract she'd imagined.

The moment she hung up the phone, the only thought in her mind was: you're not good enough for this. You don't deserve this.

That moment cracked open everything. In this episode, Shirin shares the year-and-a-half of inner work that followed — the therapy, the coaching, the realization that nothing external was ever going to heal the wound she'd been outsourcing. And how, after she finally sang at the Met and enjoyed every moment of it, she realized she didn't want to be a singer anymore.

Today she's a coach who built one of the few decolonized coaching certifications in the field. We talk about perfectionism as a coping mechanism (not a virtue), the two-year test that's saved Meghan from at least three career decisions she would have regretted, what real courage actually looks like (hint: it's the email, not the leap), joy as a discipline rather than a feeling, and the line that may be the headline of the entire episode — our dreams are colonized.

This is a conversation for anyone who's ever achieved something they worked their whole life for and then quietly wondered why it didn't fix the thing they thought it would fix.

What You'll Walk Away With

• Why perfectionism is a coping mechanism, not a virtue — and how to start naming it
• The two-year test: the single question Shirin asks clients (and herself) that surfaces clarity faster than any other tool
• The "courage iceberg" reframe — why the courage that actually changes your life almost never looks like the big leap
• How "sitting with a question" literally changes your brain chemistry, and why you don't need the answer to begin
• Why joy is a discipline (and the magnolia-bloom story that will stay with you)
• What "decolonized coaching" actually means — and why your dreams may be more colonized than you realize
• A permission slip you can carry with you for the rest of your life 

What Stuck With Me

• "I'd always imagined that if I ever got to work at the Met, I would finally realize I was good enough. And the only thought in my mind was: you're not good enough for this. You don't deserve this."
• "Nothing outside of me was ever going to heal that wound."
• "My greatest achievement isn't singing at the Met. It was singing at the Met and enjoying every part of the process."
• "Courage isn't the big monumental shift — it's emailing the person, looking at the website, journaling the idea. The tip of the courage iceberg is the public moment. Everything underneath is what actually got you there."
• "Just sitting with a question starts to change the neuroplasticity of your brain. You don't need the answer. The question itself is doing the work."
• "Our dreams are colonized. We're dreaming within a box of possibility shaped by what people have told us is possible for people like us."
• "Joy is what we need to sustain ourselves through times like these. And we are the exact folks who tend not to prioritize joy — because we're too busy writing our congressperson to look at the magnolia bloom. Yes, AND look at the bloom. Because that is what's going to sustain you to keep writing."
• "The permission to not care what people think. That's it. This is your life."

Timestamps

00:31 — Welcome + Shirin's story 01:22 — Immigrating from Iran, belonging, and the perfectionism trap

04:31 — First opera, the dream of singing at the Met

05:51 — Manhattan School of Music and doubling down 07:30 — The Met phone call ("you're not good enough for this")

09:30 — A year and a half of inner work

11:00 — Singing at the Met and enjoying every moment of it

11:31 — Realizing she didn't want to be a singer anymore

13:51 — Where the perfectionism stories actually come from

17:21 — Mindset work, somatics, and the books that shifted everything

21:15 — The two-year test and the courage iceberg

26:54 — Micro-courage and the power of sitting with a question

28:14 — Joy as a discipline (and the magnolia bloom)

31:22 — Building a decolonized coaching certification

36:41 — How to bring this work to clients who aren't ready for the language

39:37 — Our dreams are colonized

41:59 — The permission slip

42:48 — Where to find Shirin

About Shirin Eskandani

Shirin Eskandani is a coach, former opera singer, and the founder of Wholehearted Coaching and the Wholehearted Certification — a decolonized life coaching certification program now in its fifth cohort. She trained at the Manhattan School of Music, performed at the Metropolitan Opera, and walked away from her singing career to build a coaching practice rooted in mindfulness, somatics, and the work of dismantling oppressive systems within and around us. She lives and works at the intersection of inner work and structural awareness.

• Wholehearted Coaching (Shirin's personal practice): wholehearted-coaching.com
• Wholehearted Certification (the decolonized coaching certification): wholeheartedcertification.com
• Shirin on Instagram: @wholeheartedcoaching

Connect With Meghan 

• Subscribe to the Unbehaved Substack: meghanfrenchdunbar.substack.com
• Meghan on LinkedIn: Meghan French Dunbar
• Meghan on Instagram: @meghanfrenchdunbar
• The Book — This Isn't Working: meghanfrenchdunbar.com/book
• TEDx — Why Success Isn't Making You Happy & How to Fix It: Watch on YouTube

FULL TRANSCRIPT 

Lightly edited for readability — verbal tics, false starts, and cross-talk artifacts removed. Substance preserved.

Meghan French Dunbar: We had the chance to meet at a dinner and I heard the briefest bit of your story and was immediately like, my gosh, I want to know more. Now is my moment. Can we hear a little about your journey? How did you get to where you are today — perhaps with the lens of the ways you've been told to behave throughout your life, and the stories that's brought up for you?

Shirin Eskandani: My goodness. First, thank you so much for having me. I'm so thrilled to be having this conversation with you and to meet your community. Yeah — there's been a lot of unruly behavior when I look at my history, and I foresee a lot more of it in the future.

Let's start at the beginning. My family immigrated from Iran to Canada when I was four years old. We moved to Vancouver, to a part of the city that was predominantly white. For me, being one of a handful of children of color in my neighborhood was a really formative experience — and I know we usually use "formative" in a positive way, but it really did form a lot of the ideas and beliefs I had about myself. I think a lot of folks can identify with what I'm about to share. I felt like I didn't have a sense of belonging. I couldn't see myself in a lot of spaces.

What I discovered as a young girl was that when I was well-behaved, when I was excellent at what I did, when I was as perfect as I could possibly be — that was when I was seen. So this narrative shaped so much of my early life: as long as I am the best, as long as I am trying my hardest, as long as I am being perfect, I will belong, I will have value, I am worthy. Which sounds like a nightmare. But at the time, it was working.

What's really tough about perfectionism, about being a hard worker, about being your quote-unquote "best" — these are coping mechanisms. But what we generally call them is values. They're incredibly celebrated in our society. So it's a negative cycle.

One of the spaces in which I actually did feel like I belonged when I was young — without having to be perfect, without having to work super hard — was when I was on stage, singing. In first grade I was singing with other kids and a teacher said, wait, this girl's got some pipes on her, and told my mom. I come from a really musical family — my grandmother and great-grandmother were famous singers in Iran who were very unbehaved in what they were doing. So when this teacher told my parents, they put me in choirs. They allowed me to express myself this way. It really was where I felt most me.

I don't remember exactly when, but I saw my first opera and I was like, that is what I'm going to do. I am going to be an opera singer. I am going to move to New York. I am going to sing at the Met. I put that into the universe at the age of eight.

As I got older, I kept getting better as a singer. But at the same time, those qualities of perfectionism and overworking were creeping into my singing. I got accepted into a really great school in Canada for my undergrad and was a big fish in a little pond. For my masters, I decided I was going to apply to the top five music schools in the US and Canada. I got accepted to the Manhattan School of Music. I thought, this is it. It's happening. I'm moving to New York. I'm going to be singing at the Met in no time.

And I arrived in New York and realized there was nothing special about me. Everyone at my school was talented. Everyone was hardworking. Some of them weren't even hardworking and they were still amazing at what they did. The whole identity I'd built started to crumble underneath me. I didn't have the wisdom to say hey, do some internal work and unpack some of this. This was 20 years ago. I was young. The answer, in my mind, was to double down on the hustle — double down on working hard, double down on being perfect, double down on being the best.

And that did work for a while. I graduated and was one of the few in my class working right away. I was singing at different opera houses, apprenticing, working in Europe. If you'd written my career on a piece of paper, this was exactly it. Everyone from the outside was like, wow, look at Shirin. She's living the dream. And Meghan, it was anything but.

The way I was doing it was unkind and unforgiving. I was getting work, but all I could focus on was the work I wasn't getting. I was singing really well, but all I could focus on was what I wasn't doing well vocally. The how was making me miserable and exhausted in a field that's already demanding. I reached a point where I was like, I don't know if I can do this anymore. Which was terrifying — I had poured so much of myself into this. It had been my whole identity since I was a girl. I couldn't imagine not doing it. And I also couldn't imagine continuing the way I was doing it. I didn't know how else to do it.

At that very low point, I got the call I had quite literally been waiting for my entire life. A year earlier I'd had an audition at the Metropolitan Opera that I thought I'd totally botched. My agent called and said, Shirin, the Metropolitan Opera wants you to sing in Carmen next season. My dream role. Dream opera house. Dream opera. Really good pay. I, of course, said yes.

But I'll never forget — I hung up the phone, and I had imagined and dreamed of this moment for so long, and I had always imagined that if I ever got to work at the Met, I would finally realize I was good enough. I would finally realize I'd made it. I'd finally feel confident. And I will never forget hanging up that phone and realizing I felt none of those things. The only thought in my mind was: you're not good enough for this. You don't deserve this.

In that moment, I woke up. I realized nothing outside of me was ever going to heal that wound. Nothing was ever going to convince me I was good enough, that I belonged, that I was worthy. Here I was with the perfect external thing — I couldn't have changed a single thing to make it more perfect — and even that couldn't fill the hole. I told myself: you need help.

I had a year and a half to prepare for the role. Of course I worked on my voice. But what I had never worked on before, and really started working on, was myself. I went to therapy. I started working with a coach. That shifted everything.

I always say my greatest achievement in life isn't singing at the Met — it was singing at the Met and enjoying every part of the process. When I stood on that stage to take a bow every night, I knew in my bones that I belonged there. When a performance wasn't as optimal, it didn't matter. I had the inner resilience and the tools to ground myself and stay present. It was an enjoyable, amazing experience — in a very high-pressure environment. Imagine going to the Olympics. I was able to be in the joy of it.

In that process, I rediscovered my love of singing. I rediscovered myself. And I discovered that I no longer wanted to be a singer. Which is like — wait, that's not where the story is supposed to go.

I work with a lot of clients who are in career transition. I deeply believe that if we can get back to what we used to love about a thing and why we cared about it so much, we can make a really clear decision about whether to stay or go — a decision we don't regret. Even when you're ready to leave something, it's hard. We know this from relationships. Even when you're so done, it's still challenging.

I was able to see the career with clear eyes — not through a narrative of I'm leaving because I'm not good enough or I can't handle it. None of that. I saw it for what it was. And it wasn't a career that aligned with what I wanted anymore. The values I had as a 30-year-old woman, the things I wanted in life — I couldn't create those there.

It sounds silly because most people would say opera singing is unconventional. But it wasn't to me. I had my master's. I had poured so much of myself into it, with so much diligence and work ethic, so much money and time and tears. I was like — no, this isn't it anymore. That realization was terrifying.

Through working with my coach, I realized I wanted to be a coach. At the time, I felt like a total millennial stereotype. Am I going to go to the circus and be a juggler next? Take up papier-mâché? It felt so out of left field. But it was real. So I looked into certifications, found what I liked, got certified, and yada yada — became a coach. Not linear. Lots of ups and downs. But yeah. That's a little bit of my story.

Meghan: Such a cool story. Who do you think was writing those early narratives — the ones about perfection, achievement, needing to outsource your self-worth? Where were the stories coming from?

Shirin: Everywhere. And inside the house, too. When you look at young kids who have the privilege of being raised in a household with emotional safety and present, loving parents, most have a really high regard for themselves. They think greatly of themselves — as we all should. But things chip away at it.

For me a lot of that came from not belonging — in the way I looked, in the way my culture was, in the way my family was. And then noticing: in society, it seems like when you do these things, you're accepted. You're not on the outliers. We all just want belonging.

Another big piece, for me and for a lot of my clients who are immigrants or people of color, is the deep guilt. My family left Iran because of the revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. We were lucky we could immigrate — we weren't refugees. But there's a deep sense that your family uprooted themselves for you. It was never voiced explicitly in my family, but I felt it: you better make the best of this. They quite literally left for you. So you want to give them the ROI. Prove them right. Look at what we're doing with our lives.

For me that came through doing all of those perfect things — and also through wanting to be ease. The less of a problem I could be to my parents, the easier this would be for all of us. Kids are perceptive. You realize this isn't easy.

And then there's society, of course — patriarchy, white supremacy, all the things that uphold perfectionism and overworking, that say your value is in how much you produce. And we as humans all have a part that questions our worth. So you internalize all of that and conclude: I guess the answer is being perfect. Easy peasy. Let's go.

Meghan: Between getting the call from the Met and singing at the Met, there's a year and a half. You get a therapist, a coach, and a significant transformation happens. What were the specifics for people in the early part of that story? It probably isn't as easy as just go grab a therapist. What were the actual things that moved you toward self-acceptance?

Shirin: So many things. One of the big ones for me was that I was never conscious of my inner narrative. It was there. It was happening. It was having a huge effect. But I had never actually sat down to think: how am I thinking? I had certainly never questioned how I was thinking. I just thought my thoughts were my thoughts.

Mindset work gets a bad rap because of how it's often explained in the coaching world — it sounds like it's supposed to be positive thinking. It's not. It's very deep work. It's about awareness of what is my mind making me think about myself, and then sitting with that realization — which is sometimes not a nice place to be — before we even get to changing it.

And then beyond the mind, there's the body. Your mind may be on board with something but your body may not feel safe about it. Suddenly you realize: there are all these parts of me that need to be part of this conversation.

I was working with a therapist — a lot of talking, unpacking my past, understanding why these behaviors weren't virtues but coping mechanisms. There's a lot of grief in that. But so much freedom on the other side. I always say I'm a recovering perfectionist, because once you've been one, there's always a part of you that wants to know if you can do this better. It's always there.

Then somatics — meditation, breath work, tapping (emotional freedom technique, which I love). And I was reading every book you can think of. Some of them in retrospect had stuff that was a little toxic. But there was also some really great material. This was 20 years ago — the rise of the modern self-help world. I'd have epiphanies that I had to be very silent about.

I want to say too: this process of healing doesn't have to involve a lot of money. I can't tell you how many podcasts I listened to, how many books I read that shifted something within me. It doesn't have to be expensive.

Meghan: I'm thinking about the move from I'm an opera singer at the Met to I'm going to be a coach. These seem very different. I talk to a lot of people who stay in a role or at a company because of the sunk-cost fallacy — I've invested so much, I've moved up. Or it's too late to change, or what are people going to think? What did that transition actually look like? Where was the courage coming from?

Shirin: Great question. First — it's messy. It's not linear. But there's something I did then and still do, and I give it to all my clients: my two-year test. You ask yourself: if nothing changes in my life two years from now — if I'm quite literally living the same life I'm living today — how does my body, spirit, and mind feel about that?

The answer is usually instantaneous. There has to be a version of you that's courageous enough to ease the load for future versions of you. Maybe this is the version today.

I also think we have a misconception about courage. We see courage as these big acts — somebody quit their job, somebody moved across the country, somebody divorced their partner. That is courage. But it's just the tip of the courage iceberg. Underneath that big monumental shift were all these tiny, even more courageous decisions — emailing the person, looking at the website, thinking about the thing, journaling the idea. Those are pivotal moments.

Related: I was listening to a podcast recently where they said in science, they've shown that just sitting with a question starts to change the neuroplasticity of your brain. Not answering it. People come to me because they want the answer. The magic is in sitting with the question. What would life maybe look like? What could possibly happen? Where could I go? You don't need to know the answer. The question itself is shifting things.

For me, looking back at that time, it was a lot of that. A lot of sitting with questions. Small but very large, courageous inquiries and moves.

I had Amina on your podcast in mind — she talks about purpose. I'd fallen into the belief that your job is your purpose. So if I leave opera, what's my purpose now? Through my coach, I realized: when I was singing, that wasn't my purpose. It was one way I expressed my purpose. And now that vehicle is coaching. That realization — this isn't a huge jump, this is me following the North Star — meant my purpose was transforming people through joy. I used to do it on stage; now I get to do it coaching.

That eased the part of me worried about the time and money. Every skill, every ability still applies. The stories I'm most inspired by are people who change their lives up — either things crumble or they decide it's got to change. Those are the stories I want to listen to. I was like — wait. That gets to be my story too. Mine doesn't have to be I just did this for 50 years. Mine gets to be as compelling and exciting as those stories.

That was a big leap, though. A big leap.

Meghan: What comes up for me is the moments of micro-courage that really are the courage. When I had the insane idea to launch a print magazine, it was those little things — buying the domain, setting up the email address, sending the email to John Mackey to see if he wanted to be on the cover. I have a mentee who wanted to launch a side hustle, and I told her: just post one thing on your website. Just one step. It doesn't have to feel so gigantic.

You also mentioned joy. What an exceptional purpose — helping people transform through joy. Six years ago I realized I was very disconnected from my joy. I find a lot of times that ambitious, high-performing people put joy on the sidelines — we'll do that in God knows how many years after we get through this busy season. Which has turned into an entire busy life. How are you seeing people experience joy right now, and how do you tap into your own?

Shirin: Especially with everything going on in the world — which I feel like I've been saying for a while now — joy is something we have to be very consciously creating. It's something we can easily lose touch with.

I always say happiness happens to you. Happiness is seeing your favorite friend. Happiness is getting to eat a cupcake when you didn't think you would. Joy is something more intrinsic. Joy has a lot to do with being able to accept your life exactly as it is — with all of its beauty and all of its mess. To not be judging, pushing against, or ignoring it. Especially not ignoring the beauty. Joy is about being in awe, being in gratitude.

For instance — as I'm talking, in front of my desk there's a magnolia tree. All the flowers have fallen because magnolia trees only really bloom for one week. But there's one little bloom still there. And I'm like — that's joy. Being able to see that one bloom amidst all of this.

Joy is something we have to be diligent about. It's also incredibly necessary, because joy is what propels us. Joy is what we need to sustain ourselves through times like these. If we're compassionate beings, if we want to make an impact, if we want to be engaged and present and changing things — we need joy. And we are the exact folks who tend not to prioritize it. Because we're like, I don't have time to look at that magnolia bloom, Shirin, because I need to write my congressperson. Yes — AND look at the bloom. Because that is what's going to sustain you to keep writing.

So for me it's a constant practice. I call it stop, pause, savor. Stop what you're doing. Pause in the moment. Savor whatever is around you. The more mundane the environment, the better — there really is something to savor about that moment. As people doing big, brave, courageous things, we can overlook those things because we're trying to get to the next thing, solve the next thing, create the next thing. It's like — wait a second. Right here, there's something to be appreciated.

Meghan: One of the things I heard you talk about earlier was looking for decolonized approaches to coaching — and saying, I cannot find it, so I will build it. Tell us about this. For someone asking, what does this even mean?

Shirin: This is part of my unbehaved journey, too. When I was first trying to find coaching certifications 10 years ago, it was so hard for me to find something that really reflected my values. I wanted a certification that would offer me skills to work with diverse folks from diverse backgrounds. I found something that ticked off most of the boxes but knew I'd need to do more education to really serve the communities I wanted to work with in a way I thought was helpful and in integrity.

A couple years ago I was looking at certifications again because so many people were asking me where I'd been trained. And I realized: not a lot has changed since I started 10 years ago. I thought to myself, somebody should create a decolonized coaching certification. And I was like — somebody, hello. Oh. That person is me.

It was wild at the time. I had a thriving one-on-one and group coaching business. I didn't have time to build and run a certification. But it was my purpose — that North Star. I created the certification about four years ago. We're starting our fifth cohort now.

I know "decolonized approach to life coaching" sounds like what does that actually look like? Coaching is an incredibly transformational modality. It can absolutely change people's lives. It's also an industry full of toxicity and harm. It's hard for folks to figure out what's safe — especially when the more harmful spaces use marketing techniques that prey on your vulnerabilities and your scarcity. Even me, knowing so much, has signed up for things over the years that I later realized were not safe spaces.

Decolonizing coaching is about how we really understand all the parts of who we are as a coach, accept that, and allow it to be part of our practice — and also do that for our clients. We can't help people transform if we can't be with who we are and who is in front of us.

The folks I know who want to be coaches want to work with diverse folks with diverse backgrounds and needs. That means we need a toolbox to do that. We need trauma-informed care. We need to know how to work with neurodivergent communities, with the entire LGBTQIA spectrum. It doesn't mean that's always who we're serving — but we need to be able to hold space for it. We also need to understand that so much of how we think and move in the world upholds oppressive systems. Not because we want to. But the perfectionism, the over-working — those things affect our coaching practice and how we run our coaching businesses.

So the last two months of our certification focuses on building a sustainable, successful coaching practice that allows you to thrive. People leave their jobs because they're burnt out, then start their own thing — and perpetuate the same damn patterns. No boundaries, not paying themselves well. We need to dismantle this in all the different ways.

I feel like I'm the little black sheep of the coaching community. The work is so needed. The coaches who've graduated are doing amazing work. But sometimes I feel a little on the periphery. I'm okay being there now. Really okay.

Meghan: I'm so happy you're there. The language of oppressive systems has been relegated to "woke land." When people can take a step back and approach things with curiosity and actually wanting to understand, these concepts can be revelatory. How are you getting around the resistance to the language — to help people understand that understanding these systems makes us better leaders, better family members, better community members?

Shirin: We have this conversation often in the certification. Coaches will ask, how do I explain to people that I'm a decolonized coach? And often I tell them: you don't need to. The way you're going to hold space is going to be transformational for them. We meet our clients where they're at. If I'm working with a corporate client and I say we're going to be doing decolonized coaching, they're going to say, no thank you. But if I say we're going to work toward your goals, and in order to get there we also need to understand what's going on inside — because in order to sustain anything without me telling you what to do, we need to figure out what's in the way internally and externally — that lands.

Everything I believe in will come into play as we do the work together. When people hear "decolonize," "white supremacy," "capitalism" — they assume we're sticking it to the man all day. But these things are quite literally the air we breathe. So as we coach, it's part of the work intrinsically and at the heart of it.

Same with words like mindfulness. A lot of my practice is rooted in mindfulness, but if I tell a client that, they think we're going to meditate for 45 minutes. So it's about how you talk about things in a way clients can actually understand: this is of benefit to me. Certain terms — trauma-informed — people are increasingly understanding. Others, we're still working on.

Meghan: Has anything been particularly surprising for you as the certification has developed?

Shirin: What's surprised me — and not surprised me — is that the curriculum has been transformational for myself and for everyone who's gone through it. Coaches finish saying I am a completely different human. Because we're not just looking at healing from the useful angles like mindset and somatics. We're also looking at how the world we live in shapes how we think, how we dream.

One of my favorite modules — and the coaches' too — is on goal setting. When I first started coaching, I realized so many of my clients had very similar goals. I can't tell you how many people came to me wanting to get an MBA. Which is fine, totally fine. But I was like — what is going on here? And I realized: we are dreaming within a box of possibility. Our dreams are colonized. They're shaped by what people have told us is possible for people like us. By what we've seen is possible for people like us.

If a client says MBA, cool — let's go with it. But in the process, how can we go deeper? How can we expand their imagination? Maybe at the end we're still at the MBA but with a deeper why. Or maybe it's somewhere we could have never imagined. To me, that is incredible coaching — where you can go somewhere with a client that in session one, in that discovery call, you could have never realized.

So much of how we perceive ourselves and dream and think is rooted in oppressive systems. But it's okay. We can dismantle it. And we don't have to do it aggressively. It can be loving. It can be compassionate. It can be deeply healing.

Meghan: Last question. If there was a permission slip you could give everyone today, what would it be?

Shirin: The first thing that came to mind is the permission to not care what other people think. That's it. I'm not even going to add to it. The things we think other people are thinking — they're not. But if they are, this isn't their life. This is your life.

Meghan: Where do people find you? What are you working on?

Shirin: Instagram: @wholeheartedcoaching. My personal site is wholehearted-coaching.com and the certification is wholeheartedcertification.com. We just opened applications for the September cohort of the certification — open until the end of June. And — knock on wood — we just submitted our application to the ICF to become ICF accredited. We should hear about that in early summer.

Meghan: Go sign up! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm so excited to know you and to hear more about your work. It's extraordinary.

Shirin: Thank you, Meghan. I think the same of you. Thank you for letting me have this beautiful conversation with you.