How I Became a Coach | ep165 — Wholehearted Coaching

how to become a coach wholehearted coaching shirin eskandani

How did you become a life coach?

It’s one of THE MOST common questions I get in my inbox.

Along with:

Where did you get certified?
How did you get certified?
Did you get certified?

Listen, I get it. A lot of people in this community are interested in becoming coaches. A lot of people also have this icky feeling about “coaches” and the coaching world because honestly, “coach” is such a buzzword now and some of us have had some pretty toxic experiences with the modern coaching industry.

So, today, I’m sharing with you the WHOLE story of how I became a coach and why I became a coach. And if you’re not really interested in it for your own journey, I encourage you to stick around as this really is a story of how I went from being completely unfulfilled and lost in life to an incredibly happy, content life full of joy.

Before we dive in, I have a quick announcement!

I truly believe coaching is one of THE MOST powerful modalities to help facilitate change and transformation. When I was introduced to it, it completely changed my life.

But I know there are also some pretty big problems in the coaching world today.

There are negative stereotypes attached to “coach” and “coaching,” some of us have experienced pretty harmful practices, sleazy sales techniques, and grand promises, but love — that’s not what coaching really is.

This is why I created my 3-day workshop, Decolonized Coaching.

What we’ve come to know as “coaching” today is really a watered-down, toxic version of a centuries-old transformative modality. Coaches have always existed across all cultures and it’s time to bring back the sould and reclaim the true magic and essence of coaching.

If you’re ready to learn how to become a heart-centered coach, join me in Decolonized Coaching. We begin October 22nd.

Click here to learn more.

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Let’s get into today’s topic.

Today’s Mindset Monday reads:

And one day you will look back and realize what you thought were detours was the journey all along.

In all honesty, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever become a life coach. I actually thought it was pretty hokey.

For the longest time, I thought life coaching was for West Coast, New Age, granola-eating folks who were all about love and light and smelled of patchouli and sandalwood (and I say this all very lovingly as I’m known to burn an incense stick or two).

Mostly, I thought coaching was such a scam. But, I said I would give you the WHOLE story, so let’s take it back to the very beginning.

A lot of you know that I used to be an opera singer and when I was really young, I discovered I had a true gift for singing.

When I was singing, I felt the most free, the most joyful. I’m so grateful I did because — as a child of immigrants and someone who had just moved to a new country — it gave me this sense of self and a sense of home.

I would tell anyone that would listen that I was going to be an opera singer! That one day, I would sing at the Metropolitan Opera. It was my dream.

And I threw myself into that dream and actually got pretty far in the town that I lived in. I mean, I was a total perfectionist, overachiever, and people pleaser — classic child of immigrants behavior. And when combined all together, these traits get you the recognition, praise, and love you desire.

I began to see that a lot of my sense of self-worth was really tied into being the best: the best singer, the best on stage, the best, period. So, I quickly became the big fish in a little pond.

In my town, there was a lot of great talent and a really great music school where I chose to get my undergrad. As I progressed through school, I continued getting lots of roles, lots of love, and lots of praise.

Then, I was accepted into a very fancy graduate program in New York City. I was both terrified and excited! I was one step closer to my dream of singing at the Metropolitan Opera and I thought, “You know, Shirin, you just have to continue being the best. All you have to do is continue doing what you’re doing and it’s all going to work out.”

Well, love — moving to NYC was a total wake up call.

how i became a coach wholehearted coaching shirin eskandani

**In New York City, everyone was the best. My whole sense of self-worth and identity crumbled.**

I was no longer “the best” at what I did and this realization would have been such a great time to pause, to look inward, to try to heal what was going on internally. But, I didin’t have that knowledge at the time.

So instead, I doubled down on what I thought worked before: the perfectionism, the overachieving, the people pleasing. And honestly, it actually got me pretty far.

I started getting work. I started getting recognition. I was fortunate to be one of the few students at my school who had work when she graduated. And y’all, I was working all over the world. I was singing at Carnegie Hall, in Itally! I was literally living my dream.

But, it felt nothing like a dream. I was completely miserable.

I never thought I was good enough.

I never thought I was doing enough.

I was always comparing myself to my colleagues, fixated on things I wasn’t doing well, fixated on the roles I wasn’t getting.

So, this dream I’d had my entire life, this thing I loved that used to bring me so much joy was now the source of so much misery.

I was exhausted, burnt out, and questioning whether I wanted to continue singing at all.

I was like…

Shirin, what’s wrong with you!?

You are living your dream!

Why aren’t you happy? Why aren’t you enjoying this? It’s exactly what you wanted.

**I didn’t know then that the problem wasn’t with my dream, the problem was with how I was pursuing my dream.**

So, at this super low point in my life as I was questioning it all and considering going back to school (as most of us do at this point), I got the call that changed my life.

My agent called and I heard the words I had been waiting for since I was a little girl:

Shirin, the Metropolitan Opera wants you to sing in Carmen next season.

This was my absolute dream come true.

It wasn’t just that, it was my perfect dream come true: my dream opera at my dream opera house in my dream role. Nothing about this moment could have been more perfect.

I had imagined this moment a billion times. I believed that if I ever got to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, I will know that I’ve made it and that I am good enough.

And I’ll never forget getting off that phone call because…

I felt none of those dream feelings.

All I felt was fear, insecurity, and worry. All I could think was, “You’re not good enough for this.”

That’s when I realized that nothing outside of myself would ever make me feel the way I truly wanted to feel.

If this perfect dream couldn’t “make me happy” or make me believe that I was good enough, then no accomplishment would ever convince me of that, right?

I had been so fixated on the externals that I never addressed what was happening internally.

So, I absolutely said yes to the job (it was my dream, after all) and I had a year and a half to prepare for it. During that time, I worked on my voice but I also began to focus on what was happening internally.

This was when I stepped into mindfulness and mindset work and I’d never done any of this before. I’d never meditated or read a book about self-growth until this point in my life.

And it was incredible! I began learning so much about myself and I gained all these incredible tools. I was in this amazing time of growth but… I was also hiding it, keeping it my own dirty little secret.

I would hide the books I was reading from my friends. I would go on weekend retreats and not tell anyone what I was really doing. I didn’t want to be seen as one of those West Coast-granola-eating-patchouli folks.

So, one day, I was listening to a podcast with a coach as a featured guest. And when I say everything this coach said resonated so deeply with me, I mean it was like she was talking directly to me. Soon enough, I was on her website and I had booked a call with her.

And all the while, I was totally judging myself.

I also ended our call and immediately joined her coaching program.

It was a year-long program and a BIG investment. And when I put that deposit down, I almost called my credit cared company to tell them that someone had stolen my card. That’s how scary it was! I was investing in something I didn’t know would work and I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.

And y’all, that coaching program changed my life. It truly transformed me.

I had done therapy (and I love therapy!) and it allowed me to understand my past and figure out why I acted the way I did, but what coaching allowed me to do was to take all of those past learnings, my habits, and my triggers and it gave me the tools to help navigate them so I could change my present and my future.

My experience of coaching was all about taking the understanding I’d gotten of myself and shifting it so that I could work toward the future that I truly desired.

All of this internal work allowed me to find my joy and love for singing again. To this day, my greatest accomplishment in my life wasn’t singing at the Met, it was singing at the Met and truly enjoying every moment of it.

Even when things were difficult or didin’t go right, I was able to find my grounding and my joy. I now had all of these incredible tools to navigate the challenges that allowed me to be present, to stand up on that stage each night and deeply believe that I belonged there. I was able to take a bow at the end of the show and deeply believe that I deserved the love and it felt exactly like my lifelong dream. It was a complete 180 from what I experienced before.

So, in finding my love for singing again, you’d think I would continue to sing. That’s not what happened.

In finding my love for singing again, I was now able to clearly see what was and wasn’t working for me as a singer.

While I loved to sing, I didn’t love being a singer. I didn’t love that career. At this point in my life, my priorities had changed and what I wanted for my life was different.

I wanted to be more settled and grounded. I wanted more certainty. I wanted to build a life which I could now see was actually what I wanted (remember when I was thinking of going back to school?).

Before coaching, I wanted to change careers because of the fear that I wasn’t good enough. After coaching, I wanted to change careers because of love, because I desired something much different for myself.

I realized I wanted to be of service in some way to others. I wanted to work with people, I wanted to help them! So, I first thought that going back to school and getting into psychology or social work was the answer. But honestly, going back to school and getting into debt did not sound exciting at all!

Then, it hit me — coaching! Shirin, you should be a coach!

And this realization was a full body yes. This is what I have to do. And even so, it was still a difficult decision to make because of 2 big reasons.

I had already invested so much time and effort into an incredible career. Most of my life had been dedicated to this career and it was so scary to walk away from that. It felt like a waste, like I was throwing it all out. Not to mention the only skills I had were how to move on stage with a corset and 17th century stage presence. How do I put that on LinkedIn?
I was also really worried what everyone else would think. What would they think of me? Not only was I “quitting” but I was going to become some woo woo life coach, too? I felt like a total millennial stereotype hopping from 1 career to another. Even though I knew how aligned this decision was and how powerful this modality of coaching was, other people didn’t, so I kept it a secret from my community.

I didn’t keep it from my family and closest friends, but I always give this advice to folks looking to make a big change: be intentional with who you tell.

When you’re first embarking on a dream, you’ve got Bambi legs. You’re still trying to get your footing and if you tell others too soon, they will begin to project all their fears and beliefs onto you. This will begin to make you second guess yourself.

So, as I decided to embark on this journey, I kept it to myself and began looking for a certification.

After I’d left my first coach, I realized how much harm I had actually experienced as part of that program.

It absolutely changed my life, but with more insight and knowledge, I could see that it wasn’t the safest space for me. I could see this in the wellness world at large.

At first, the world of healing and growth was so incredible as I learned more about myself, how to navigate who I was, and what I really wanted to do in this world. But, I often felt really uncomfortable in a lot of spaces. A lot of the folks I put my trust into and was hoping would “heal and fix” me actually caused me more harm than healing.

This led me to sorting through a lot of information trying to find what was and what wasn’t healing for me. And love, it was exhausting. I didn’t understand then that this wasn’t just how it was supposed to be.

No one back then (and a lot right now, too) was talking about things like privilege, white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, misogyny, trauma, and the list goes on and on and on.

These healing spaces weren’t healing for all. It was healing for some.

It was a one size fits all type of coaching which was much more about the individual than the collective.

I knew when I started my coaching practice that I wanted to do it differently. Coaching is so powerful and I wanted it to be as accessible as possible to everyone in all ways.

I wanted to talk about manifestaion while acknowledging privilege.

I wanted to talk about mindset and also how so much of our mindset is conditioned by oppression and the systems we live in.

This is healing to me.

So, when I was looking for my certification (9 years ago), it was so hard to find a program that fit. So many programs were lacking in diversity, in holistic curriculum, in mentorship, in inclusive and trauma informed practices. It’s wild, right!

People are diverse. We have so many different experiences. How can we be coaches actually helping folks if we don’t have the proper education?

When I finally found a coaching certification program, it ticked off as many boxes as possibly, but I knew there was still more I needed to learn to be the impactful coach I wanted to be.

At the time, the program I joined was super progressive. What I loved most was their philosophy. They believed that the client always knows best and that the role of a coach is to help create a space in which a client can uncover their own wisdom, strength, and resilience. Coaching was this beautiful, empowering collaboration with the client and the coach.

The other part I loved (and also hated at the time) was the amount of coaching practice time we had. We weren’t just learning about coaching, we were actually getting our feet wet and coaching others which, at first, is absolutely terrifying! We began with peer coaching others in the program and then, halfway through the program, we began coaching people outside of the program. That was the scariest thing of all time, but it was so important.

So, as coaches, we were supervised and given support and guidance all throughout. When I graduated, I felt really confident as a coach and in my abilities.

I began Wholehearted Coaching with a handful of one-on-one clients (while I was still singing!)

In the beginning, I did a 70-30 split: 70% singing and 30% coaching.

Then, a good friend of mine invited me to collaborate with her to do some workshops in New York. She’s a jewelry maker who created beautiful custom rings. Together, we created an in-person workshop called Wear Your Mantra. Folks would show up and at the end of this 45-minute workshop, they would come up with their own mantra and my friend, Vanessa, would make these beautiful rings for them.

We did this workshop all over the place (for free!) and I started to get clients from it. At one of our workshops, a Today Show producer was in attendance and she must have been impressed by what I said because a week later, she emailed me to be on The Today Show.

So, 5 months into my business, I was on The Today Show speaking about mindfulness with Hoda and Kathy Lee. It was wild and amazing!

Now, Wholehearted Coaching has grown to what I always dreamed it could be and more. It’s a thriving business with online courses, a membership, a group-coaching program, a podcast, an international retreat! I mean, y’all. I work with corporate clients and I travel for public speaking engagements. I’ve been featured in the New York Times and I’ve been on The Today Show twice.

It’s all beyond my wildest dreams. What’s best is I get to set my own hours, to take incredible vacations, to work with the most incredible humans, and I get to make a real impact in the world.

I truly love being a coach. And this has all be slow and steady. This isn’t any overnight success story. We often think success means making seven or eight figures, and to some, it is. But to me, success is simply working as a coach with people I love, making a good income that allows me to travel and buy all the plants my heart desires, and to take time off when I damn well please.

Now, here I am with my very own coaching certification program, the Wholehearted Coaching Certification, that hits all those areas I needed and dreamt of when I first began my coaching journey. We need more coaches who practice with care, skill, and ethics. Coaches who can weave their own magic and medicine into this work.

It’s time to bring the soul back to coaching. That’s why I created the Wholehearted Coaching Certification.

If this is resonating with you and you’re interested in becoming a heart-centered coach or learning to coach more from a decolonized lens, I hope you’ll join me for my FREE 3-day workshop that starts on October 22nd.

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Tune into this week’s podcast episode — 165 | How I Became a Coach — to hear the full conversation.

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How I Became a Coach | ep165

How did you become a life coach?

Before we dive in, I have a quick announcement!