THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Shereen Sun:
I’m so glad you mentioned that. And that’s definitely something that I wrote about too, is that when you tell your story, your real story, and you come out of the closet and you say who you really are and what your values are and what you love to do, you’re going to attract the right people where you don’t have to hide anymore, because the people that you have to hide in front of are not your people.
Announcer:
It’s the Inspiration Place Podcast with artist, Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place Podcast, an art world insider podcast, for artists, by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host, Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, hey there, my passion maker. This is Miriam Schulman, your curator of inspiration. And you’re listening to episode number 198 of the Inspiration Place Podcast. I’m so grateful that you’re here. Today, we’re talking to a absolute force. Today’s guest is a multiple, six figure, queer woman of color. She’s also Muslim and she’s Sacred Rebel, Creativity Mentor to the star. She’s an artist. She was actually an elementary school art teacher. And now she’s a Sacred Business Strategist. She’s not your average business coach though. And she supports magical beings to transform their gifts into thriving businesses, integrating creativity and soul. She loves weaving in topics including artistry, diversity, truth telling, intuition, magic and soul alignment.
I invited today’s guest to the podcast through an introduction, and I’m always being introduced to people. “I have a friend and she’d be great for your podcast,” or, “He’d be great for your podcast.” And this person, I was like, “Yes, actually, she would be really good for the podcast.” And right before we were getting ready to record this for you, I discovered that she is exactly in the same place I am with her book writing process. So we’re going to actually dive a lot into that book writing process today. So if you’ve ever been curious about that, about going behind the scenes to how books are made, believe me, I learned a lot and there’s many things I wish I had known ahead of time. So I hope you find that part of our conversation super fun and super interesting.
One thing that we talk about during our conversation, or at least that I mentioned is that I felt like my message has evolved as a result of writing the book. So many times, my editor forced me to provide proof of my ideas, to provide research to back it up, to really clarify what I teach. And all this research and all this clarity that I’m getting, a lot of it is changing the way I teach in my programs, inside The Artists Incubator Coaching Program. So my Artists Incubator clients, they always get everything first. Either I have direct lessons that where I teach everything to them first, sometimes I’ll just, when we have an ask-Miriam-anything call I’ll say, “Hey, here’s this research I really want you to see right now,” even if it’s not part of a structured lesson. So they’re getting everything first. And I would love to have you in there.
There are two pathways for joining The Artists Incubator. I have the Mastermind track that used to be the only pathway for joining me. And the Mastermind track is really where you get the highest access to me. It is a bigger investment. It is for artists who already have a track record for selling and already have a website. So if you’re interested in the Mastermind track, to see if you qualify, go to schulmanart.com/biz, as in B-I-Z. But I also have The Artists Incubator Self-study track. Both tracks get amazing results for the artists who go through them. And you have met many artists who have been in the Self-study program. So it’s not necessarily that the Mastermind students get better results, it’s just a different experience. It’s more like everybody is on a plane. We’re all going to Hawaii. Some people are sitting in first-class and they really want that experience. The people sitting in coach, they also get to Hawaii.
So we’re all going to the same destination of sold-out artists. And I would love to have you in there. You get all the same training. You get access to life coaching through Shaun. That actually is you get coaching directly from her in a group format and you do get access to me, coaching from me every month. And we do also invite a guest coach from time to time, which has been really amazing. We’ve had Daniel Weil, we’re having Tarzan Kay. So really amazing copywriters have been helping my artists get even better results. I would love to have you in there. So if you’re interested in the Self-study program and you want to get a taste of what you would learn inside of there, you can get my free ebook in the Masterclass. So the Masterclass comes with that free ebook. To sign up for the Masterclass, go to schulmanart.com/sellmoreart. That’s schulmanart.com/sellmoreart. And now on with the show.
All right. So without further ado, please welcome to the Inspiration Place, Shereen Sun. Well, hello, Shereen. Welcome to the show.
Shereen Sun:
Hi, Miriam. I’m so excited to be here with you. Hello to all of our listeners. Can’t wait to dive in and get super creative together today.
Miriam Schulman:
Let me catch our readers up to our little private conversation. Shereen Sun has a book coming out. You want to tell them your book? I’m so excited about it. I didn’t know this before I scheduled this interview. Otherwise, I would’ve asked to read it, but it’s not available yet. Right?
Shereen Sun:
Right. It’s not available. It’s been a very long journey of writing and editing and publishing it. Super proud to say that I am getting traditionally published with Hay House and it’s coming out on my birthday next year, February 21st.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, my gosh. Wow.
Shereen Sun:
Yes. So it’s called Radiant Wildheart, which is also the name of my business and my brand. And it’s all about finding your creativity, unleashing your inner artist in the world and using it to make a difference. By being your beautiful, magical, amazing self.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m sure it’s going to be a ridiculously good book. All right. So for me, this has been a very long, I hate to call it a slog, but it has been a very long process. I mean, I signed my contract last June with the publisher.
Shereen Sun:
It’s been longer for me. I signed my contract in 2020, but I had already been working on the book for two years before that. So you want to talk about long. And then there was supply chain issues and all the things that happened during the pandemic that-
Miriam Schulman:
Well, they told me that too, but then there’s this person who, I’m not going to mention the name because she’s going to be a guest on the show. So she signed her contract last year and it’s out. How’d that happen? How did she-
Shereen Sun:
Yeah, I just-
Miriam Schulman:
… skip the line.
Shereen Sun:
I don’t mind the extra time because I have needed all this time to really get clear on the book. You might relate to this, being wildly creative, writing a book is super hard in trying to get our thoughts into a linear format.
Miriam Schulman:
Yes, because I’m a circular thinker. And even when I present on the podcast, the way I like to do it is I drop a bunch of threads and I go into different directions. This is when I’m doing a solo. And then I pick up the threads at the end. You can’t do that with a traditional book. They’re like, “No, what you’re saying doesn’t fit with that subhead.” I don’t know if you went through that as well.
Shereen Sun:
Which was a good exercise. I just finished my edits on Friday. Thank goodness. And I feel like a whole different person after going through this multi-year process. So I actually got my book deal partially through winning a contest for Marginalized Voices to get-
Miriam Schulman:
Really?
Shereen Sun:
Mm-hmm. Hay House did a contest and me and one of my friends, they picked two winners. Both of us, one, her name is Asha frost. Her book is You Are the Medicine. She’s an amazing Indigenous medicine woman. And her book just came out. So hers came out almost a year before mine. So I think it also just depends on the book. I needed the time on some level and I was fine with having that extra time. Actually, at first I was not fine. But then after a while I was like, you know what? The balance between running a business and writing a book. I don’t know if you feel this, but how do people do this? I don’t know, but I’m glad I did it.
Miriam Schulman:
I don’t know. And do you feel like your message has changed as a result of writing the book? I definitely have felt that way.
Shereen Sun:
It’s gotten more clear. I think what I’ve realized is it’s gotten more me. So a lot of the things that I’m now integrated with after writing all of these pages and editing all these pages and telling my story, I’ve become more me and I’ve really shed off, which is what the book is about. It’s like releasing everyone else’s expectations and what you’re supposed to be doing to find what is yours. And I feel like for me, it was a coming home, because on my journey of growing my business and being professional and wanting to get clients and wanting to be seen. There’s been many ways where I’ve made accommodations, based on what I thought everybody else would want. And I always find that the more I can just do me, the better things work. And so I feel like it’s been really a coming home and a reclamation. It’s like me going back and finding parts of myself and embracing them more and releasing everything else.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, you have a great story, which I did know about your story before I invited you here. It’s the reason I invited you here. So would you like to share your chapter two story? Is that where you put your main story or is it threaded throughout?
Shereen Sun:
It’s threaded throughout, it’s all over the book. A huge part of my journey, so I’m a woman of color. I’m a first generation American, I’m Muslim American, I’m queer. I’m very queer. This is a big part of my identity. I’m an artist. I’m neurodivergent. There’s all sorts of ways in which I’ve been different or felt othered or didn’t know where I belonged. And through this process of living my creative mission, in my case, growing my business. But not even that, even before that, I was an art educator in schools, helping people access their creativity. I started a nonprofit around mural painting. Throughout this whole process, I’ve been creating the communities that I always needed and creating the spaces where I belong. So a big part of my journey is about finding my place in the world as a queer woman of color, particularly as a queer Muslim American woman.
Miriam Schulman:
It’s dangerous to come out as a Muslim woman. Am I right about that? Can you explain that to our listeners who may not be familiar?
Shereen Sun:
Sure. There’s homophobia in most religions and in a lot of society, especially in older generations. I’m stoked about the younger generation. They’re so free, but that’s in large part because of the work that our queer elders and even me, for future generations have been doing to tell our stories, to come out of the closet. I want to say, if anyone’s listening to this and they’re closeted in some way, I have so much compassion for that journey because even me, having grown an audience of thousands of people, I have been out in various degrees. I first came out to my best friend when I was in middle school. And I didn’t come out to my parents until a few years ago. And I did that partially because I’m out here making an impact as a queer person. And I’m very out online. And I needed to obviously tell my family eventually, because I was going to get back to them.
Shereen Sun:
But I grew up needing to, or feeling like I needed to lead a double life and hide things and create the blocked profiles and just make sure that my truth couldn’t escape my little bubble, because it felt scary. It felt semi inner child in a panic. And you don’t know what exactly will happen sometimes in certain families, it’s not just Muslim families. I think Muslim families in particular, queerness is really not talked about. I mean, for me, sexuality was not really talked about hardly at all. And I know that doesn’t just exist in Islam.
Miriam Schulman:
Correct. And one thing, my kids, so my kids are by the way, are 21 and 24, just to give you context. So when my son was, I forget how old he was. I think when he was in high school, he asked me what was the biggest change that has happened over the last 20 years. And he expected me to say the internet and I forget the exact question. And it may even have been when he was a little younger than that, but basically the biggest change in my lifetime. And it was not the internet. The biggest change in my lifetime that I’ve seen is people’s greater acceptance of homosexuality. Humongous change. So when I was in college, I had gay friends, but I didn’t know they were gay, but I kind of did. People weren’t in the closet. They were more… I like to call it. Some people were like in a glass shower. They think they were in the closet, but everyone can see, but nobody talked about it because that was, you don’t say that and you don’t stereotype because it was considered bad and wrong.
And then it shifted to the more Seinfeld. Well, not that there’s anything wrong with it, but there’s that undercurrent. Well, maybe there is something wrong with it. To all the way to when my daughter graduated high school in 20, was it 2015? When gay marriage became legal. That is a huge shift that I saw over that 20 years or 30 years of people’s attitudes. And I know we still have a long way to go, but my generation and the generation that came before me, it’s a lot different than, as you said, the generation that’s growing up now.
Shereen Sun:
Totally. And even in my generation, so I’m a card carrying millennial, proud of it. And I did not realize until I came out to my dad, who’s in his seventies now and I told him I was queer and he was like, “How could you call yourself that?” To him it was a derogatory term. And I didn’t even know that, I did not realize that for him, his generation, it was a slur, basically.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Shereen Sun:
And it’s been totally reclaimed by people. And now it’s a term of empowerment and it’s an umbrella term and it’s a very liberating term that I, and so many of my community members feel really aligned with because it is… I personally don’t identify as a lesbian. I identify as queer and it feels very fluid and open-ended and subversive even. It feels like it has a political nature to it as well that I really resonate with. So I did not realize that when I first came out to my dad and then once I did, I started looking into it a little bit more. And it was very difficult to put into words, to explain to him what that meant and have him understand. But it’s a revolution out here and I’m very proud of my queer identity. It feels like home, my queer community has felt like chosen family throughout my life. So it’s a lot of what’s in the book also.
Miriam Schulman:
And is your mother still with us?
Shereen Sun:
Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
And her reaction? Because you just mentioned your father.
Shereen Sun:
Yeah. So my dad is, he’s an orthodox Muslim, praise five times a day. He’s a lot more religious. I feel like as Muslim Americans, there’s various degrees of how strict you may be. I think I heard somewhere maybe in Sunday school or something that if you believe in Allah enough, like a grain of sand, then you’re good and you’re Muslim. You can call yourself a Muslim. And there’s lots of rules and parameters of how you could be the best Muslim you can be, which, depending on where you go and which mosque you’re at, is more and more for me, maybe divisive or homophobic. So let me just stick to the one question. So my mom, yes, she is Muslim, but she’s not anywhere as orthodox as my dad is.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay.
Shereen Sun:
So they’re very different. Side note. I grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada also. So there’s that in the mix, which is very un-Islamic place in some ways.
Miriam Schulman:
And you still practice your religion or do you still-
Shereen Sun:
That I was going to say, not real. In some ways I do. And in some ways I don’t. I think we’re Muslims in general, we find our own ways to practice the religion. And there’s so many expressions of what being a Muslim could look like. For me, I could never disentangle it from my culture because in the parts of the world where I come from, it is so embedded into the culture.So yeah, I do practice in my own way. And at the same time it looks absolutely nothing like what it looks like for my dad. I’m not sure if that answers to your question, but…
Miriam Schulman:
I think it answers many questions. Okay. So what is the title of your book?
Shereen Sun:
So my book is called Radiant Wildheart. Current subtitle is A Sacred Rebel’s Guide to Unleashing Your Inner Artist and Living Your Creative Mission. But that might get adjusted.
Miriam Schulman:
Ooh, I like it. And did you pick a cover? That was a big thing with me and my publisher. The cover.
Shereen Sun:
Tell me about your cover experience. I’m still in it, on the cover right now.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. The very first round, I wanted to say to them, but I didn’t was, “Why are you even showing these to me?” They were just so awful. And I had to show it to three different people. “Is it just me being picky?” “No, no, no, no.”
Shereen Sun:
An artist. Right.
Miriam Schulman:
Literally there was, and hopefully they’re not listening actually. I hope Harper Collins doesn’t listen to this podcast. I’m very grateful for everything that they’ve done for me and the cover that we have now I absolutely love, but let’s just say it’s been a journey. And we went through several rounds, but being an artist, I did know what I wanted. I didn’t design the cover myself. I didn’t want my art on it because I, so I coach artists, I teach artists art, but I really wanted my book to speak to people and not be specific to my artwork, but I still wanted it to feel like this is a book for artists and not just painters.
Shereen Sun:
Okay. Totally. I hear that. I’m curious, what did it end up as? Can you tell us or-
Miriam Schulman:
Oh yeah. The color stories also were very janky along the way. And at one point I said, “No more serif fonts. I don’t want Malcolm Gladwell. No Malcolm Gladwell fonts. No-”
Shereen Sun:
Never show me a serif font. I can’t get stand-
Miriam Schulman:
No serif fonts. One day I was like, “No serif fonts.” And then at one point I said, “Here are the Pantone colors that I want you to use.”
Shereen Sun:
Wow.
Miriam Schulman:
And I gave them a bunch of different ones and they did go a little bit variations from it, but in the end we ended up with some smokey teals with midnight blue and then there’s a pale yellow and it has a retro feel and I’m very proud actually of what-
Shereen Sun:
And is your picture on it?
Miriam Schulman:
No. No. Is yours?
Shereen Sun:
Okay. No, it’s not, but my friend’s book just came out and her picture was on it. I’m still in it with the cover. The cover they gave me is beautiful. There’s just so many options in the land of covers and I’m having a little bit of commitment phobia, but I think what I have is great. I’m now working on the colors for it. There’s an ombré situation going on the cover. So I’m trying to figure out what that’s going to look like. It is a two color book, so it’s going to be colorful on the inside, which-
Miriam Schulman:
Me too.
Shereen Sun:
Yay, you got two colors?
Miriam Schulman:
I do.
Shereen Sun:
Two or four. Nice.
Miriam Schulman:
I have no idea what they’re going to do with it though.
Shereen Sun:
So you got two versus four, yeah?
Miriam Schulman:
Two. Yeah. You said two, right?
Shereen Sun:
I’m two. I tried for four. I tried really hard. Did you?
Miriam Schulman:
No, I didn’t. They offered the two to me. I was like, great. And I didn’t know to negotiate for anything else because I’m just, “Okay. Yay. You gave me a book deal. Great.”
Shereen Sun:
I know. Right. A foot in the door, I’ll take it.
Miriam Schulman:
Right. Now I’m asking for all kinds of things. It’s like, can we do a sticker insert?
Shereen Sun:
I asked for a sticker insert. Did you get one?
Miriam Schulman:
I don’t know yet. I only asked for it today. I was like, “Can we get a…” Because I want to give them stickers, but I don’t want to have to do a fulfillment. I want it to just be part of the book.
Shereen Sun:
Wouldn’t that be awesome. I literally asked for stickers too. I’m going to go back and check in about the stickers, but…
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Shereen Sun:
Yeah.
Miriam Schulman:
What kind of stickers did you have in mind?
Shereen Sun:
Well, I have a whole bunch of icons that I use. I’ve got a boombox and a palette and all sorts of little fun, I have a sun and all sorts of cute stuff.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m going to that you’re getting it even though you may not.
Shereen Sun:
Okay.
Miriam Schulman:
Because you know that Hay House…
Shereen Sun:
Cool. Yeah. So the cover is definitely going to be a process. And now I’m working on the interior art. So your art is going on the inside I’m guessing?
Miriam Schulman:
No, it’s not. So that’s what I wanted to know. It’s like, well you’re offering me color, but what can we put in here? At first, I wanted to do watercolor just very, again, I don’t want it to be specific to me. My art, I don’t think I could do it without four colors.
Shereen Sun:
Right.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m not a graphic designer. So there was some watercolor that I was turning into gray scale and then turning into a duo tone, so that would be the two colors. I don’t even understand the printing process to be honest, how this works.
Shereen Sun:
The two color thing for people like us, it’s hard to wrap our mind around that.
Miriam Schulman:
Exactly. I really get it. So I’m either going to let them do it or I might hire the graphic designer who I’m talking to about the stickers to, it’s basically just going to be repeating graphical elements from the cover because my cover has a lot of amorphous shapes on it that they can repeat throughout the book just to give it some color and visual interest.
Shereen Sun:
Very cool.
Miriam Schulman:
When you open it up, I don’t want it to, it is a business book, but I don’t want it to look like a business book.
Shereen Sun:
Oh, I didn’t realize it was a business book. That’s awesome.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, yeah. It’s Harper Collins. What’s the imprint is the business. It’s Harper Collins, leadership. So they do business books.
Shereen Sun:
And what’s it called?
Miriam Schulman:
Artpreneur.
Shereen Sun:
Artpreneur. I freaking love that. So good.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah.
Shereen Sun:
We’re in talks with various illustrators. So I sent them my wishlist for custom artworks to be made based on what I told them. So I went through a process after the book was done to go through each chapter and envision artworks that I want someone to make for me.
Miriam Schulman:
Neat. Cool.
Shereen Sun:
Very cool.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay.
Shereen Sun:
I can’t believe our books are coming out at the same time-
Miriam Schulman:
I know. We’re going to have a party.
Shereen Sun:
… throw a party or something.
Miriam Schulman:
We can do a IG livestream thing, where shows up on both of our feeds and we toast our books or something.
Shereen Sun:
Love it. Very awesome.
Miriam Schulman:
I don’t know what the exact date is that my book is going to go. I think I should know that. That’s like knowing your due date.
Shereen Sun:
Did they tell you it has to be on a Tuesday?
Miriam Schulman:
No.
Shereen Sun:
I was told that all the books are on Tuesday.
Miriam Schulman:
They tell me nothing. Actually I was told it was going to be October and then they pushed it, which is why I got more pissy when I saw this other person sailing ahead of me and a year ahead of me. I just think she was a better negotiator. Just like I said, I didn’t know to negotiate for things.
Shereen Sun:
Were you ready though?
Miriam Schulman:
No way.
Shereen Sun:
For me, I’m down to the wire. I need all the time I can get.
Miriam Schulman:
Same. And I’m telling you, I’m like rewriting whole sections of it. First of all, when the edits came back, I don’t know if you had this, Shereen, but I did work with a private editor while I was creating the chapters because I knew it was my first time and I didn’t want to be embarrassed when I handed it in. Of course, you cannot save yourself from that embarrassment. What happened is when they got their hands on it and it came back and it was so heavily commented and so redlined, I just went in and cried for a few days.
Shereen Sun:
You did?
Miriam Schulman:
I did.
Shereen Sun:
I love the edits. I’m so long-winded and I could write a hundred pages, no problem. And I love someone coming in and marking it up and just, I’m not sentimental about it. And I still went through and rewrote a lot because my issue is that who I was eight months ago is not who I am now. Furthermore, I wanted it to sound like how I talk. And so I think I’ve been working on this book for so long, because I’ve been actually learning how to write, not in an academic way, which is where my background comes from. So I’ve had to rewrite and just make it sound more me and I am nervous now that I sent in this round of edits. I think I get one more, but it’s got to be minimal changes that I can make. And I keep wanting to rewrite the whole book. I sent them four different proposals of four different books trying to figure out what this book was about, because I could write about so many different things.
Miriam Schulman:
Well, the reason I started crying is not because I’m so precious of my words or even thought that they were so good. It was more the other way around, is that I had so much imposter syndrome while writing it. So when all those edits came back, it was like my inner imposter was like, “See, you’re not worthy of writing a book. And who are you to think you could write a book?” But then after I had some space and time and was able to look at the comments and edits neutrally, in other words, I stopped reading them to myself in a sarcastic, mean voice. That’s what I was doing, all the comments, I was reading to myself with mean girl voice. And just looked at everything neutral. I saw that they were right about 98% of everything that I was given. I was like, “Okay, yeah. I can see how this story does not serve. I see how this section undermines my entire point. I see how I didn’t provide enough here.” So-
Shereen Sun:
Did they send you, because my editor has been great at Hay House and she sent me, there were some moments of affirmation in there, in the comments. And those really carried me through. Not only were there moments of affirmations, but there were silly jokes about puns and various things.
Miriam Schulman:
No, I got none of that. Actually-
Shereen Sun:
That’s what really carried me through.
Miriam Schulman:
… I had two editors. So one editor, or three, I mean there was the acquisitions editor who bought the book. I thought she was the one who was going to edit the book. She was not, she did not. So she put out Rachel Rodgers’ book, her book. So she got promoted because that was a huge book. And then it was handed to somebody and then she handed it to somebody else who did all those edits. But then I mostly worked with this third person who was very kind with me and also, it was really great because as I said earlier, she had a different perspective because she’s 10 years younger than me. She’s a black woman and she just was able to bring in different insights and a different perspective to the book than even that first editor did. So I’m just very grateful that I have now so many points of view to help make my book be richer and reach more people with the message and the way I intended it. And to remove some of those maybe blind spots that I might have had about it.
Shereen Sun:
Yeah. It’s such a blessing to have a whole team that can help make the book great because I could have self-published it, but I love having all of this support and people who know how to make great books to help me through this first one. So here’s my question, now that we’re almost at the place where we can let this baby out to the world and we’ve laughed and cried and bled all over these pages, would you do it again? Do you want to do it again?
Miriam Schulman:
I knew you were going to ask me. It’s kind of like when you’re… I assume you don’t have children. Is that right?
Shereen Sun:
No.
Miriam Schulman:
Is that a correct assumption? Okay.
Shereen Sun:
Yes.
Miriam Schulman:
So there’s this thing after you give birth where a woman has all these hormones that make them have amnesia and that is like a biological feature not to remember how horrible pregnancy and childbirth is, because we would never have more children again. And I’m sure it’s going to be the same thing with this book thing. Right now, I feel like I’m still a little bit raw from the whole thing. I’m not sure I’m ready to have a second child yet. So, if you ask me that a year, 18 months from now when the book is really out in the world, then yes. But I’m not even sure what it is that I would say next to you.
Shereen Sun:
Yeah. Unfortunately I have three books ready to go.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, that’s right. You wrote all those proposals. Well, that’s not an unfortunately, why would that be an unfortunately?
Shereen Sun:
Because it’s hard and it’s painful and it’s a struggle to write these books, but I want to keep doing it.
Miriam Schulman:
Good for you. That’s great.
Shereen Sun:
It’s my inner masochist perhaps. But yes, I do want to do it again. I don’t know when, but I’m hoping that this book, I think this book was more difficult to write because of the subject matter. And it really forced me to go into my coming out journey and all my experiences that led me to be able to do this work. But I think the next ones that I want to write will be a lot easier to write, now that I got this first one out of the way. And I really felt that on last Friday when I submitted my edits, it’s like after I had to go through and reread the whole thing again, because I just needed to because I was freaking out. I was like, “This is going to go out into the world. And my story and my parents are going to read it. And my extended judgy family members are going to read it and I got to make sure this is what I want to say.”
Miriam Schulman:
Meanwhile, all the things we worry about, half the things we worry about never happen.
Shereen Sun:
Right. But this will happen in a sense, I told you that I’ve been hiding my truth from my extended family members that would not be accepting. So they’re finally going to hear that. And again, that inner panic, that inner child panic that you can’t really turn off, I don’t think. Or maybe one day I will be able to, maybe once this book comes out, but so I reread the whole thing. And-
Miriam Schulman:
So is it in copy edit right now?
Shereen Sun:
Copy edits. Mm-hmm.
Miriam Schulman:
Mine just went to copy editing too, but there’s still things I want to change. I was like, I sent a message, “I don’t like the way we ended this thing. We really need to say something uplifting here.”
Shereen Sun:
I love that. Yeah. I’m just trusting in the universe. But I really felt different, once I wrapped it up and sent it in, I felt the book close and I felt the next one open.
Miriam Schulman:
Do you feel you’ve evolved as a person from having written a book? Because I definitely feel I have.
Shereen Sun:
Oh, yeah. 100%.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. I think that was the whole point, right? Is to evolve.
Shereen Sun:
Yeah. It’s so interesting, this book journey, there’s so much more to it than just writing a book. The actual process of getting your thoughts down and going over it and turning it into a work of art.
Miriam Schulman:
Yes. And there’s so many things I know to be true. And then to say it in a way that it resonates with people and then also sometimes you can’t just make these, when we go on podcasts, you could say pretty much whatever you want. Nobody’s saying, “Where’s the research on that?”
Shereen Sun:
Right.
Miriam Schulman:
My editor’s like, “Well, where’s the research on that?” I was like, “Okay, I’m going to ask Auntie Google right now.”
Shereen Sun:
Yeah. I had to do some research, but we were probably researching the same thing, which is that accessing your creativity helps you in every area of your life. That’s what a lot of my research that I was finding [inaudible]
Miriam Schulman:
A lot of my research was about, so I had to talk about overcoming starving artist mindset and one part in particular is the part I want to change. So I’ll just talk about it right now. So one part I talked about is I noticed with my clients that women of color have even harder time overcoming it than my other clients. They had what I call poverty mindset. So we dug a lot into that. In my book, I dig, I say, we because at this point, it feels like it’s not just my work anymore. It’s collaboration. But I dug a lot into what we talked about earlier, about how important it is to lean into your values to sell your art because you connect with people. But also even when you want to make a business out of it, the conscious consumer is somebody who really cares about your values and they want authentically what you have to say.
So in your art, whether your art is writing or music or poetry or painting or it’s a digital form, there’s so many different ways we express ourselves, but they also just want to know the artist. So that was why it was so important for me to have you on this podcast. I really like to bring different voices in the art world. It is such a, not just the art world, but we see so many successful white men and we all know the names of Picasso and Renoir, but not Edmonia Lewis or Julia Mehretu or Alice Neel. And the coaching world is also very white and male. So to platform people and so that, Shereen, people can look at people like you and I, and we’re not flukes. And we want them to know they’re not flukes either.
Shereen Sun:
100%. I’m so glad you mentioned that. And that’s definitely something that I wrote about too, is that when you tell your story, your real story, and you come out of the closet and you say who you really are and what your values are and what you love to do, you’re going to attract the right people where you don’t have to hide anymore, because the people that you have to hide in front of are not your people. And at the end of the day, I would rather live my truth than appease other people’s bigotry or homophobia or whatever.
But in terms of my work with entrepreneurs, I definitely focus and center voices of women of color, which is not something that I always did because I had my own decolonization work to do on myself. And I came into the business space and I was trained by lots of white coaches, business coaches in particular, who never emphasized leading with their values or encouraged me to do that. And I replicated some of these systems and my clientele, the makeup of it did not represent what actually matters to me and who I want to be serving. And even just a reflection of who I am. And that was a really hard thing for me to look at and to see that I too was not speaking to even just people like myself.
Miriam Schulman:
I had the same awakening. So when I realized not only was my community not diverse, but they didn’t even represent me. It wasn’t like there were a bunch of Miriams that I was working with. So it was a wake-up call, I’m not sharing my values.
Shereen Sun:
Right.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m not sharing who I am.
Shereen Sun:
And it didn’t feel good for me either.
Miriam Schulman:
No.
Shereen Sun:
I was feeling like I had to cross my own boundaries and people were very entitled and I felt like I had to perform and I had to be perfect. And now, my programs are super diverse. There’s majority BIPOC there’s a huge contingent of queer people as well. I would consider it one of the most diverse programs in the industry. And there’s a lot of people who fall into both categories and it feels so good. I cried before when I was realizing that I wasn’t speaking to myself and I had othered myself in this process. And so that’s a lot of what my book journey has been about too, is just talking to the people who are right there, who want to be spoken to, who are not getting spoken to and in the process, choosing myself as well.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. That’s wonderful. And just also, I don’t know about you, but for me it was also writing to that earlier self, the book that I wish I had.
Shereen Sun:
Oh, yeah. 100%.
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. All right. So I love talking to you. We went way over that time that I set for myself.
Shereen Sun:
Really?
Miriam Schulman:
Yeah. Now I know you have a quiz that would be super powerful for the creatives listening. We didn’t really talk too much about these elemental archetypes. So can you tell people what this quiz is about? I know my listeners love personality quizzes.
Shereen Sun:
We all love a personality quiz. So do I. So the elemental archetype is basically about your specific way that you manifest your creative mission. Your creative mission is where your creativity and your purpose meet. And what I’ve found in all the work that I do with creatives and with entrepreneurs is that we all don’t manifest things in the same way. And so this is going to help you figure out what are your strengths? What are the challenges? What are the gifts? So that you can work in a way that’s really in harmony with who you truly are so that you can find your creativity and use it to make the world a better place.
Miriam Schulman:
Oh, that’s great. Okay. So you can find that quiz at radiantwildheart.com/quiz. And don’t worry, we will link to that in the show notes, as well as all the places that you can find Shereen Sun so that you can search for her in wherever you hang out. Where do you hang out?
Shereen Sun:
I hang out on Instagram, but I’m setting the intention to get my butt over to TikTok. So both, but I’m all up on Instagram.
Miriam Schulman:
Me too, but I’m not so sure. It’s like I’m stepping into this pool over there. I’m putting stuff over there, but I don’t know how committed I am yet.
Shereen Sun:
I’m excited.
Miriam Schulman:
Are you? Okay.
Shereen Sun:
I think it’s going to be fun. Yeah. I’ve got lots of thoughts on why, so if anyone wants to join me over on TikTok-
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. And what’s your handle? Is it also Radiant Wildheart?
Shereen Sun:
Everywhere, it’s Radiant Wildheart.
Miriam Schulman:
Perfect. All right. I will check you out.
Shereen Sun:
[inaudible] the business, the TikTok, the Instagram, Radiant Wildheart.
Miriam Schulman:
Okay. All of those places. Okay. Yes. All right. And don’t forget, if you like this episode, I would love to have you inside The Artists Incubator program, you’ll get access to all the lessons, all the training, all the research, all the most up-to-date strategies that have been working for my artists and for me inside this program. You do not have to wait for my book. My book is not coming out till 2023. And I would love to give you all the strategies right now. And not only that, but beyond the strategies, you’ll get the coaching as well as the accountability to see how you should apply it. So I would love to have you inside the program. To get started, you can experience my free Masterclass. It also comes with the free ebook, go to schulmanart.com/sellmoreart.
Miriam Schulman:
Shereen, do you have any last words for our listeners before we call this podcast complete?
Shereen Sun:
I just want to remind everyone to stop caring what everyone else thinks and do what you love. And that’s really going to help you find your purpose and your creative mission in the world.
Miriam Schulman:
I’m so glad you’re here. You’re definitely going to come back, somehow, someway, with that new book.
Shereen Sun:
Yay.
Miriam Schulman:
High five. All right. Thank you so much for being with me here. All right, my friends. Thank you so much for being with us here today. We’ll see you the same time, same place next week. Stay inspired.
Announcer:
Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place Podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart. On Instagram at @schulmanart. And of course, on schulmanart.com.
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