Jun 30, 2026 · 46 min · 13 segments
Shirin Eskandani got the call most opera singers spend their entire careers hoping for: the Metropolitan Opera wanted her to perform in Carmen. Her dream role, her dream opera house, the contract…
Shirin EskandaniGuestMeghan French DunbarHost
My agent calls me and says, Shirin, the Metropolitan Opera wants you to sing in Carmen next season.
But I'll never forget, I hung up the phone and I had dreamed of this moment for so long.
And I'd always imagined that if I ever got to work at the Met, I would finally realize that I was good enough.
I'm Megan French Dunbar, and you just heard from my guest today, Shirin Escondani, talking about the moment she landed her dream role, the one she'd been working for her entire life, and somehow still she didn't feel like she was enough.
Instead of blowing right past her feelings of not being good enough or trying to stay so busy that she didn't really have time to pause and feel them again — I may or may not be speaking from experience — Shirin started to examine why she felt this way.
She started unpacking that old playbook that tells us if we behave by working hard enough to achieve at the highest levels, we'll finally be happy or we'll finally feel like we're enough.
One that has finally made her feel like not only is she enough, but it's made her feel truly joyful.
We're going to talk about her journey, the limiting beliefs that so many of us hold that she learned to let go of along the way, and what to do when you realize that all the perfectionism, performing, and achieving in the world aren't really going to be the things that actually make you happy.
I absolutely loved this conversation and hope it lands with you the way that it landed with me.
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