Rom-Com Lessons for Real Life with Sheila Kazan

"I know what it feels like to be the bird in the cage that doesn't sing. I know that feeling and I don't want to go back to that again."

Sheila Kazan, creator of the podcast Small Talk with Sheila chats with me about navigating the expectations of her Iranian immigrant parents – who envisioned her becoming a lawyer – and her own desire for creative expression. 

From discovering the power of acting in a sixth-grade English class to dropping out of law school and working in the heart of Hollywood, Sheila discusses the 'messiness' of a creative life. 

Now balancing a career in tech with her passion for storytelling, she explains why we should give ourselves the same grace we afford our favourite rom-com characters and why perfectionism is the greatest barrier to artistic fulfilment.

The Law School Dropout: Sheila recounts the 'messy and dark' moment she realized she was living someone else's life and her bold move to Arizona to discover who she actually was.

Creativity in Corporate Spaces: How Sheila carves out room for her expressive self while working for tech giants like Meta and Slack.

The 'Bird in the Cage' Warning: A powerful discussion on the emotional price of suppressing your creative side and why 'just doing it' is the only cure for perfectionism.

Ambition vs. Burnout: Practical advice on managing the 'pendulum swing' of a multi-passionate life and recognizing when you’re steering towards a crash.

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Transcript

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Sheila Kazan: 0:08

We have a joke. In Iran, there's only three professions. You're either a doctor, engineer, or a lawyer. But as I grew up, I discovered acting. And my mom was like, oh, my gosh, what is this? As she saw me become more and more serious about it. It was challenging for her because that's not the dream that she had for me. And I remember just feeling very, very depressed. Obviously, law school is challenging, but it wasn't that, because I love challenges. It was just like I knew it wasn't what I was supposed to do. And one of the things about especially creative endeavors is I give myself the grace to know that I'm not going to be great all the time. I don't treat every episode, every piece of social content, everything I put out in world as precious, because it's not.

Claire Waite Brown: 1:02

Hi, I'm Claire. For this podcast, I chat with people who have found or refound their creativity as adults. We'll explore their childhood experiences of the arts, discuss how they came to the artistic practices they now love, and consider the barriers they may have experienced between the two. We'll also explore what it is that people value and gain from their newfound artistic pursuits. This time, I'm chatting with Sheila Kazan. Hello, Sheila. How are you? Good.

Sheila Kazan: 1:35

Hello, everyone. I'm great. How are you?

Claire Waite Brown: 1:38

Yeah, very well, thank you. Start by telling me what your current creative outlet is, please.

Sheila Kazan: 1:45

Of course. It is a story driven podcast called Small Talk with Sheila. Bite size episodes for 20 minutes or less. And it's all about reminding people that they are the main character of their own rom com. And I like to remind people that, you know, you get to be messy along the way. And I think my core message is we love rom coms and we love rom com characters, but they're never perfect. They're on a journey. And I think that's why they're so endearing to us. So why don't we give ourselves the same kind of grace that we give our favorite rom com characters?

Claire Waite Brown: 2:26

Brilliant. Tell me about your childhood. Let's start with that. And how your creative side was encouraged or discouraged when you were younger.

Sheila Kazan: 2:36

For sure. So a huge part of my story is I was born in Iran. My parents immigrated to the US When I was just a baby, and so I grew up here. I'm an only child as well, which I think is another part of the story. So I like to set the scene. Imagine my mom in her 20s, my dad in his 30s, coming to the US to create a life for their family away from the oppression that was happening in Iran and my dad working 12, 14 hours a day. My mom stay at home. Mom, my caretaker, doesn't speak English, is so far away from her family, can barely stay in communication with them. And so I kind of sort of became her everything. We have a joke in Iran. There's only three professions. You're either a doctor, engineer, or a lawyer. I think even when I was very little, I was very shy, but I was always very expressive. Like, I would do, like, little nursery rhymes and I would always say these things that people would always remember. And of course, like, that was supported. But as I grew up, I discovered acting. And my mom was like, oh, my gosh, what is this? For a while, it was just fun and games. And as she saw me become more and more serious about it, it was challenging for her because that's not the dream that she had for me. And they naturally thought I was going to be a lawyer just because I like to talk a lot. And so. And so I think most of my life I've toggled between trying to find ways to express myself, to be creative, to go to my, like, acting roots. And then also it's hard when your parents are immigrants and you know how much they've sacrificed for you. And I love my parents, I respect my parents. And there have been times in my life where I've just wanted to make them happy and I've appeased them. And so I went to law school. I dropped out of law school. You know, like, I went and got my mba. I, you know, went to Hollywood. Kind of this toggle between both worlds.

Claire Waite Brown: 4:41

Let's break that down a bit. Those two worlds. How did acting come into. And I can imagine when you're at school and when you're younger, it's easier to do that and it's more accepted that you do that. Is that where you were introduced to acting and enjoying it at school?

Sheila Kazan: 4:58

Yeah. I grew up very shy. Like, very, very shy. I remember even my mom would make me do my own McDonald's orders. You know, like, if you want a Happy Meal, you have to go up and order it. And sometimes I'd be like, I don't need the Happy Meal. And fin, I was very, very shy. Very tiny, very shy. And I remember this so distinctly. I would watch Shirley Temple and I would just be like, I love Shirley Temple. I don't know, Saturday mornings in my room, I had a lot of Barbies. But, like, I had these storylines, you know, like, I had this imagination. But I was in sixth grade, and my sixth grade was the year we all had different classes. You had your English class, you had your math class. We had lockers. I couldn't reach my locker, you know, like. And it was Mrs. Cook's English class. And it was again, very quiet, very shy. No one knew me. And we had to do an oral book report. And I was like, how am I gonna go in front of the class and speak up? And I was in my parents living room, and I had this idea. I was like, what if it's not Sheila? What if it's one of the characters from the book? And I wrote it all out. I didn't know I was memorizing, but I memorized it. We were allowed to have note cards. By the end of all my rehearsing, I didn't even need my note cards. And I remember going into class, I was like, I don't know if I could do this, but something in me was like, do it. And I did it. And for the first time, people saw me. And people were like, oh, my gosh. And then Mrs. Cook was like, that was amazing. And I was animated because the character in the book was animated, and I was expressive because the character in the book was expressive. And so she recommended that I talk to Mrs. Olson, who is our drama teacher. It was a performing arts magnet school, so we had a really good theater department. And so that. That became my identity, that became my way of being. And so, yeah, that's how I got into acting. And. But I think I've always been a writer, a storyteller.

Claire Waite Brown: 7:01

Yeah, it's just about how you can tell the stories. And at that point, you needed to be the other character. I completely understand that. I do that often with dance. I get into the character of the dance, and then it's not me, it's this other person. So you mentioned about the. The only three professions that there are and that you went to law school. So tell me about that time.

Sheila Kazan: 7:25

Yeah.

Claire Waite Brown: 7:25

And how you enjoyed it.

Sheila Kazan: 7:27

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I said a lot of speech and debate, so my parents really liked me being in speech and debate, even though I did really monologues. They were very long monologues. I didn't do the debate, but they were very proud of that. And so I was like, okay, well, this is what I'm supposed to do. I was just to go to law school. And I went. And I've always been like, I've always loved learning, and I've always excelled in school. And I remember just feeling very, very depressed. Obviously, law school is challenging, but it wasn't that because I love challenges. It was just like, I knew it wasn't what I was supposed to do, and it felt really, really hard to be there. I had been doing a little bit of voiceovers, too, at an agent. I was booking stuff. And I was like, well, I could do this. And I remember, like, this moment. I had this really nice car, this really nice room. Like, you know, like, almost like this little princess, right? And I was in law school. Everyone was proud of me. Like, but inside it was very messy and very dark for me.

Claire Waite Brown: 8:30

And.

Sheila Kazan: 8:30

And I remember being like, Waite a minute, this isn't even my life. And it was the first semester, and so I told my mom that I wanted to take a leave of absence because I don't think this was for me. And it was really hard. Like, my mom did not take it well at all. I'd never, at that time, like, left home again, just like a good, sheltered girl. And so I was like, I need to go become my own person. And I had a friend in Arizona, and so I was like, I'm gonna go to Arizona and I'm gonna discover who I am. I don't know if you know Middle Eastern mothers, but they're very dramatic. And so the time she was like, go. You know. But I don't think she believed that I would do it, but I did. And I went to Arizona. And that's where I really started discovering who Sheila is.

Claire Waite Brown: 9:23

Yeah. So was that quite a snap decision for you then, to go to Arizona and then what did you do when you got there?

Sheila Kazan: 9:29

I got a job as a legal assistant.

Claire Waite Brown: 9:32

Like,

Sheila Kazan: 9:34

I mean, at the time, it was about, like, just getting away and, like, just proving myself and even just driving there. I remember I got a pack of cigarettes because I was like, this is who I am. Even though I don't smoke, I felt, you know, I was like, I was running away. You know, I was rebelling. And so I was playing the character of. But I remember, like, driving, going towards the desert. I'm from Northern California, so It's about a 12 hour drive. And I remember feeling free. And I remember going like, I'm driving the car. I'm deciding where this road takes me. And it was like, one of those really great feelings. And I had an appointment with a temp agency the following day. I didn't even know errors. Like, I got there, and then I happened to get a job, temp job, a legal assistant at a. At a corporation. There I was getting paid the same amount I was getting paid in Northern California. And, like, I felt like when you're supposed to be on a journey, everything just works out really well for you. And I felt like I was supposed to be on that journey. And so all the little things kind of came into place to allow me to. To thrive there. Yeah. And then I didn't stay at that legal job for too long. Like, I think I stayed six months, nine months. And then I ended up going to Radio Disney. I worked at Radio Disney on our local personality, Sassy Sheila. And so, yeah, and I started doing more theater there. It was like, very much the Phoenix Rising, I think. I don't know why I didn't go to la, because that would have been the, like, the most natural choice. But I think there was. And I still love the landscape of the desert. There's something expansive about the landscape of a desert that makes you feel like you can do anything.

Claire Waite Brown: 11:17

You've mentioned the back and forth as well, because you mentioned earlier that you went to law and then you did some acting and then you went back to law, so. And again, I'm interested in how the relationship developed with your parents while you were away before you then. Actually, I know you went back to finish your law degree or some such.

Sheila Kazan: 11:37

Yeah. I'm also very close to my parents, and I consider my mom one of my best friends. And I think we were probably estranged for a minute. We were still talking. It was just. It was just different. But I remember there was this one moment, though, like, I was like, I don't. Maybe I made a mistake and whatnot. And I think inside of her, I think she was proud of me. And I was like, maybe I should come home. And I remember her saying, I think you should stick it out a little longer. It's just a bad day or something. She didn't say it like, it wasn't like a. Like a big pep talk, but it was a little pep talk. And I wasn't not talking to her, but we weren't as close as we had been when I left. It was really hard for my mom, and it was really hard for her to tell her Iranian friends that I left law school. There was a lot of, like, shame she held. And the only person she told was one of our American neighbors. Her name was Ginger. And Ginger called me, and she was like, sheila, I'm both proud and disappointed in you. I'm proud of you because you made a point and that was a point you needed to make, that it's your life. I'm a little disappointed at you that it was so rushed And I think that's ultimately how my mom probably, like, felt like. I think at the end of the day, she became really proud of me for going. I hadn't lived on my own at all.

Claire Waite Brown: 13:00

So that was a big jump. So you did continue your education after a while, is that correct?

Sheila Kazan: 13:09

Yeah. So I was in Arizona for about four, four years. And then I felt a little guilty for quitting because, again, getting your graduate degree is such a badge of honor in Iranian culture. And so I was like, well, maybe I can get my mba. That's what I'll do. And so I was gonna go to a school in Arizona. And then I had started an application for a school here in Orange County. School, Southern California. I didn't even finish the application. They contacted me. They're like, we saw that you started your application. And I was like, oh, yeah, I didn't finish it. There was a lot of. A lot of steps in there. And then I did it, and I got into this school in Southern California, which brought me back to. Back to California.

Claire Waite Brown: 13:52

And did that lead to a different working life after the MBA?

Sheila Kazan: 13:58

So I graduated in 2007, which is when the economy tanked. So I remember I got out of my MBA program. I got a job as a marketing manager for an insurance company. And then nine months later, I was laid off. And I remember my manager telling me when I got laid off, he was like, you know, you might be disappointed for a minute, but honestly, I think this is the best decision for you because you're not meant to. To be a marketing manager at an insurance company. You're meant for something else. And so I was trying to get some jobs and whatnot. And I was like, hey, I'm here in Southern California. Why don't I finally go and make my dreams happen in la? And that's when I moved to LA and I started this prestigious acting class. I had read this guy's book, Milton Castellus, like, a long time ago, and he had a. A couple acting schools in LA called the Beverly Hills Playhouse. And so I went and I studied acting there, and I ended up getting a job as a Hollywood assistant in independent films.

Claire Waite Brown: 15:07

Oh, wow.

Sheila Kazan: 15:09

It was fun. I actually just did a whole series of rom combing your work life, and I told the different stories of my career. But, yeah, it was not an easy job to get. I was like, you know, I had my MBA and whatnot, but, you know, l. A obviously doesn't care about any of that stuff. Even just getting into the door was really hard. Somebody knew somebody that Connected me to somebody who was a producer. I met with him for like a coffee chat, and then I basically emailed him every day. Can I just come and learn? I'll do anything. I'll work for free. And he had to fire his assistant, which I don't know why he fired his assistant until this day. And so he was like, can you come? And I was like, yes. And I, I worked for free for three weeks until finally. Okay, we'll put you on the books. And it was great. It was awesome. I was there for about five years and I was able to see about five or six movies, go from development to production to post to the film festival, and then being sold and out in the world. So I really got to see that full spectrum.

Claire Waite Brown: 16:16

Yeah, you mentioned there you were there for five years. Why? What happened next?

Sheila Kazan: 16:21

Yeah, I mean, the Devil wears Prada 2 is coming out, but people love that movie, the rom com. But like, that assistant life is very, very accurate. It was hard, you know, I had to do some shady, not horrible things, but, like, one of the producers wanted me to go to his house and get his Prada belt and ship it to, you know, Dublin over, you know, like, just like these crazy things you, you do. I mean, my job was pretty glamorous. Like, a lot of people wanted to, to be at the production company I was in. We were making movies and, you know, and it was, I had a front row seat, but I also didn't have, like, dental insurance. And my parents were like, what is happening? And, and my dad, who's an engineer, I don't often talk about him, but he's obviously there. He's very, he's much quieter, but he's an engineer, very stoic. And he started just having anxiety. Like, I have to call my parents and my mom, you know, like, oh, we're at the hospital. Your dad had an anxiety attack. Your dad had a panic attack. And I was like, why? You know, why, you know, and then one day she said to me, he's worried about your future. He's worried about, I don't know. Again, that makes me cry. But that immigrant story of all the sacrifices they had made for me. And, and here I am, you know, trying to make it in this very, very challenging world. And so at that moment, for some reason, I really craved stability. You know, I, I didn't have stability in la. It is a challenging city to be in, and so I craved it. And so I was like, I'll come back home. And so I did. And I ended up, I Got a job at iheartmedia and from there I ended up working in tech. And ultimately I was recruited by Facebook at the time Meta Now. And so I did a little turn.

Claire Waite Brown: 18:12

And do you still work there now?

Sheila Kazan: 18:14

I don't work at Meta, but I work at Slack. Yeah, another big tech company.

Claire Waite Brown: 18:19

And how have you enjoyed those experiences working in tech?

Sheila Kazan: 18:23

I get it. My story is all over the place. I'm like a frog from lily pad to lily pad. But Sheila has never changed. And who Sheila is and her creativity and her writing and her expressiveness, they've followed me in all of these roles and jobs and I've always been able to just be myself and carve out a role that feels very authentic to me. And so in tech, you know, I am a design operations manager, but I do a lot of people programs and I do a lot of events and I do a lot of the writing and I figure out what is the story of our company, our org, how do we share that broadly? You know, I run our Slack design blog and our socials. You know, like I've always like figured out a way to be creative and expressive in my, in my roles.

Claire Waite Brown: 19:18

So then is the podcast you being expressive for Sheila, being creative of Sheila rather than being creative for Slack or for Meta? Do you think that was part of the reason that you wanted to start this?

Sheila Kazan: 19:34

What happened is I, you know, I spent a good like almost decade in tech. I built my life, I built my investment portfolios, I bought a home, you know, like all those things that you just want to check off, right? And I was like, wow, this is great. I did all those things and I don't regret it for one bit. And what happened is I was looking at my life and I was like, I have the house, but it's empty inside. There was that part of me that was, that creative energy in me was just not there. And it was like a good chunk of my time. I was just all tech and it was just all work, it was just all building my life. And then I was like, I need something and I didn't necessarily want to blow up my life. I finally like, immature and I was like, I don't need to move somewhere else or you know, completely up level my life. And I was like, what can I do? I had this vision of telling stories and I've lived obviously a very rich life and I want to tell the stories of my life because I feel like I do that with my friends and it really helps them. And so I was like, what could I do? And it was going to be a video series at first, and then I was like, oh, maybe it's a podcast. And I work remote too, so it's very convenient for me to kind of live both worlds.

Claire Waite Brown: 20:54

You mentioned at the beginning about the messiness of the people in the rom coms, and you've just mentioned now about your life around here and here and here and here and a kind of messiness there. But I'm also assuming romantic comedies were something that you enjoyed in the first place. How did you come to think I'll put the two together? I'll have that as my theme for storytelling.

Sheila Kazan: 21:18

I also have, like a self help addiction. I remember even, like, when I was in high school, like, Tony Robbins was really big and he had this cassette and I told my mom I wanted it, and she was like, no, it's too expensive. It's all just marketing, you know, And I, like, somehow got $500 and I bought it and didn't tell her. And I would listen to it on my way. You know, I've always, like, really loved self development, you know, and obviously, like, I feel like the self development space has really blown up in the last decade even. And I was just seeing all these people and I admired them and whatnot, but I was like, life is just not that way, you know, Like, I'm a healthy person, but I also, like, last night had pizza and a piece of chocolate, you know, and I wanted to see that. I wanted to see these people that are successful, that are doing great human beings, but I wanted to see their humanness and their mask. I was thinking about rom com characters. Like I had said earlier, even if we go back to the Devil Wears Prada, we have Emily is the perfect character. But could you imagine a whole storyline about Emily? Like, it would be boring, right? And so I started seeing the self develop. There was just this perfection. Or if they were talking about anything that was like, really human, it was always in their past and how they had overcome it. And so I was just. I was like, what if Bridget Jones had a self help podcast? What would her podcast look like? Because Bridget Jones is also very much into developing herself and trying to be the best version of herself. And. And she's messy, you know, throughout. And I think that's what we love about her.

Claire Waite Brown: 22:56

Yeah, you've mentioned you work from home, you work in tech. You do this for yourself. How do you manage to fit it in? Do you. Do you manage to balance? Or are you, like, working into the late hours to do the podcast?

Sheila Kazan: 23:09

I'M not gonna lie. It's not easy. It's messy. It's definitely messy. I wake up really early, so that really helps. I wake up at around 5am and so a lot of my creative ideas are in the morning. Like, I'm just. I feel like I can conquer the world in the morning. And then by, you know, five or six o', clock, I don't care about the world anymore. You know, just we can figure itself out. So I've definitely, like been able to carve out mornings. Cause there's a lot of stuff besides the podcast, though. It's not just like turning on the mic. So, like Sundays I record my episodes and I do a lot of content creation. Fridays we don't have meetings at work, so I'm able to get that in. I don't have children, but I guess, like, you know, working moms feel the same. Sometimes the pendulum swings. Like sometimes I can't give that much to my podcast because work is really, really busy and sometimes I'm feeling more creative and wanting to do more content. So I capitalize on. On that. I think when you talk about ballads, it's not like every day is balanced because it's not. It's just there's a balance between the two that I keep alive. And I actually, I've been thinking a lot about ambition because I. I feel like I'm an ambitious person. I give just as much to my day job as I do to my podcast, because that's who I am. I. I do that in anything I do with ambition. I mean, it's great, but there's a price to pay too. I have to check myself in terms of like, burnout all the time. I steer into burnout. I'm like, Waite a minute, that's not where I want to go. Because I know from experience, like, once you get burnt out, you're going to stop. So you have to really manage it

Claire Waite Brown: 24:56

so you can recognize that when it's coming, you have to give yourself the leeway and know that you can give yourself the leeway, not just with the burnout, but then more things are podcasting at the moment and more things are this at the moment, or I can't do them at the moment. And you have to not beat yourself up about the way you manage your balancing.

Sheila Kazan: 25:15

Yeah, I think, like, right now I'm going through a season where I'm like, I'm not able to be as good of a wife as I want to be. You know what I mean? Because there's like all these Other roles, I guess, that I play, I'm a wife, I'm a daughter, I'm a friend. So it's not just the balancing of the two, but it's the balancing of my, my entire life or, you know, like my health. There's all these different things that come into play. And I would say there's always. Which is the messiness of it. There's always going to be one area where I'm not being the best in and then I like have to pay a little bit more attention to that. So it's never like I'm A plus student in all the roles. It's a give and take.

Claire Waite Brown: 25:56

But if you were a. In all your roles, you'd be that perfect character that will be boring in the film against the other character.

Sheila Kazan: 26:05

Exactly, exactly. No one wants to be perfect.

Claire Waite Brown: 26:10

And for anybody else thinking I need to do something creative for myself, do you have any words of advice?

Sheila Kazan: 26:18

Yeah, I have lots. First of all, just do it. Just do it. And I also find, because I think as I've been on this journey, I'm like, people reach out to me and they're like, wow, like, how do you do it? And I just decided I was going to do it at one point. I am going to go all in on this and I'm going to give it everything I have. And one of the things about especially creative endeavors is I give myself the grace to know that I'm not going to be great all the time. I don't treat every episode, every piece of social content, everything I put out in the world as precious because it's not. And I have to have a little bit of that mentality of I'm just going to put this out in the world and, and see how it does and then refine as I go. And I sort of like had that mentality. I've always known I'm going to continue getting better at telling stories the more stories that I tell. So I can't hold on to every single story and be like, this has to be it. I think that's what stops a lot of creative people, honestly, from not doing their creative thing because they want it to be perfect. And I really do care what people think, but I had to at some point care less and less and less and less about what people think. I don't know. I feel like every creative is a perfectionist in some way. But move past that perfectionism and just do it and know that you'll continue getting better. I think for me, the reason why I'm keeping going and I know I'm not going to give up is because I have before. And I know how that feels. I know what it feels like to be the bird in the cage, you know, that doesn't sing. I know that feeling. And I don't want to go back to that again. I want to go back to The Sheila and Mrs. Cook's English class that was brave enough to be expressive because that feels good. That's the price you're going to pay for not doing it. And that's a much bigger price than what people think.

Claire Waite Brown: 28:17

Fantastic. Thank you so much. Tell us again the name of your podcast and how people can connect with you and all of this content that you're creating.

Sheila Kazan: 28:28

For sure. Small Talk with Sheila bite-sized episodes. I think my longest one is 22 minutes and you can find me on any of the listening platforms as well as YouTube. I'm really big into YouTube these days. I'm really loving the YouTube. So YouTube as well as Instagram and TikTok. And you can email me at Sheila small talk with sheila.com and really, I hope for all your listeners they do that thing that's in their heart because as much as it's been messy and hard, it's been one of the most rewarding things I've done and I feel the most authentic and true to myself by just doing it.

Claire Waite Brown: 29:05

Perfect. Thank you so much Sheila.

Sheila Kazan: 29:08

Again, of course. Thank you.

Claire Waite Brown: 29:12

I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, perhaps you'd like to financially contribute to future episodes at buymeacoffee.com There's a link in the show notes. If you are listening on a value for value enabled app such as Fountain, TrueFans or Podcast Guru, feel free to send a few sats my way. And if you have no idea of what I'm talking about, you can find out more by listening to my sister podcast called Podcasting 2.0. In practice.