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- [00:02]
Radim Malinej
Hey, just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode. If this is your first time or you're a regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to be more visible to new listeners and provides them with value. So thank you for being here and for helping out. Thank you.
- [00:38]
Mira Lee Patel
Learn to let go has been my journey over the last five years since becoming a mother and honestly, being forced to let go of the person that I was. Even though I was not ready to let that person go, I still wanted to be that person. I will say, especially in terms of creativity and creative work, letting go of the very large part of me in being critical under the guise of making myself better, to change that person into somebody who is kinder and supportive. And this is the first time in my life that I've approached myself in that way. Foreign.
- [01:26]
Radim Malinej
Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. Becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinej. I'm a designer, author and Italian curious human being. I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that sparked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create? My guest today is an author and artist, Mira Lee Patel, who is known for her best selling journal, Start where youe Are, a newsletter. Dear Somebody. Our conversation touches on every aspect of what it's like to be a creative human in search of artistic expression. Mira shared with me her journey from seeking external validation to discovering inner acceptance through journaling and creativity. How becoming a mother forced her to let go of old identities and embrace new versions of herself. This conversation explores themes of imposter syndrome, the entrepreneurial spirit inherited from immigrant parents, and finding creative fulfillment in life's unexpected moments. How to let go to find freedom and compassion it's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Mira Lee Patel.
- [03:20]
Interviewer
Hey Amira, it's great to have you on the show. How are you doing today?
- [03:23]
Mira Lee Patel
I am great. It's wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me.
- [03:27]
Interviewer
I've been getting you a newsletter called Dear Somebody for the last six years and it's a wonderful body of work that seems to be evolving. It's growing, it's changing colors and shapes and I'm excited for the release of your new book. So if somebody hasn't heard of Mira Haripatel, how would you introduce yourself?
- [03:49]
Mira Lee Patel
I would say I am a self taught author and artist. I am primarily concerned with writing an illustrating book and all of my work, whether it's my journals, my illustrated essays, or what I'm just getting into, which is pictures, book and children's literature. It is all concerned with discovering and holding onto your sense of self. I am very interested in helping other people and along the way myself become more connected to who I am and my place in the world.
- [04:29]
Interviewer
In your newsletters you always say a year from now. Here are five things from this week I'd like to remember. What are the things that you've learned on a discovery of sense of self that have been a revelation for you so far?
- [04:44]
Mira Lee Patel
Oh wow. What a First of all, what a wonderful question. And I can't believe that you've been reading Dear Somebody for six years. Because I think like you mentioned before we started recording, it's been through so many iterations that has changed so many times. I guess every time that I've changed and it's amazing to look back and see all the different versions. But if I had to think about things that I've learned, I'd say that the one that keeps coming to the forefront of my mind right now is that you cannot escape yourselves. So everything that you want to accomplish, all the people that you want to be, they all start with the person you are now. And that means having to look at yourself, having to listen to yourself, and having to accept yourself and who you are in this moment. If you ever hope to grow and become more, I think that's the one that keeps coming back to me over and over again is this is who I am now. So where do I go from here?
- [05:48]
Interviewer
What was the discovery of your self that prompted even that realization that this is me? I can't escape myself. I'm trying to get a sense of myself. Was there a trigger? Was there something that started it?
- [06:03]
Mira Lee Patel
I don't know if there was any one trigger. Rather, it was a series of smaller reminders throughout my life. The fact that no matter what accomplishment I had achieved or where I was or who I met, there was always this tug that it wasn't enough. And I think that's because for most of my life I have been seeking approval and validation outside of myself. And so no matter what I was able to do or who I was able to please, I wasn't able to feel satisfaction or true Joy, because I had not accepted. Or this might sound like too much, but I had not really learned how to love myself. And that was a realization that took a really long time to get to. And that's really where the real work began, right? Career, family, all of that stripped away. Like the real work was just me in a room on my own and having to be with myself.
- [07:12]
Interviewer
Those sort of feelings of not being enough often are formed through our childhood, through influence of parenting. And we unknowingly sort of take it along with us into our adulthood and then find ourselves working in solitude, endless hours of the day and night, only to realize that I still need to add more. There's still a little bit element of haven't worked this out, maybe this should be better. Only to realize that no one really cares. It's about the expression that, no, this is my work and whatever I'm putting out in the world, it should be enough. It should be good enough. Like, I spend time on this. It's an idea that's been around for a while. So it's an interesting story that makes me think, was there any other way of self discovery that helped you to sort of get to a place where now enough is defined?
- [08:03]
Mira Lee Patel
Well, you know, this kind of work is what I was invested in, which is actually in depth. 2015, my first journal, Start where youe Are, came out. And for the last 10 years, people have asked me, what caused you to write this journal? What caused you to make this book? And it's because this is the work that I was doing and it's the work that I needed. And I've released several journals since then over the past decade, and they have all come from me needing that work in that moment in time. So the journey of self exploration, of self reflection, of getting to know myself, is one that I have embarked on my own. But I've been very lucky to be able to kind of chronicle that work in book form and put it out into the world in the hopes that I might help somebody else.
- [08:52]
Interviewer
Your journaling has manifest itself in a publishing contract. And what I want to know is what was the experience of actually sharing what potentially could be quite personal with the world at large?
- [09:09]
Mira Lee Patel
Okay, so there is one thing, which is that I published my first book about two years before I left my job. So Start where youe Are came out in 2015, and I was able to leave my job in 2017 while I was working on my next two books. When I published Start where youe, it was incredibly vulnerable and also incredibly exciting. I think I felt validated that this type of internal work, that, that a publishing company could see it as valuable and as something that could be commercially successful. So there were a lot of different forms of validation, especially for me because I am self taught and that self taught label I think has always felt like a bit of a chip on my shoulder for me. So I, I felt an immense amount of gratitude. I also a lot of imposter syndrome, a lot of do I deserve this? Have I earned it? Did I get lucky? Is the work truly valuable or is it luck? There was a lot of that and it, and the imposter syndrome followed me for quite a while. I would say for the next five, six, seven years. I'll even say until I had children because when I had children I was just too tired to carry the imposter syndrome. I don't think it left. I was just too tired to hang onto it and so I had to let it go. But that did follow me for a while. And I think a lot of, I think a lot of creatives deal with the imposter syndrome and not quite being able to see themselves and they're worth the way other people do.
- [10:55]
Interviewer
Do you remember the first time you walked in a bookstore and saw your book on sale? Was that a peak imposter syndrome or was that a bit of a relief going, Mona, this chapter is finally closed and I can move on.
- [11:08]
Mira Lee Patel
I do remember that and I have to say it didn't shed the imposter syndrome. But in those moments when I saw my books in bookstores, in real bookstores that I had always visited, it was just pure joy, excitement, pride. It was all the good things. Yeah.
- [11:27]
Interviewer
What is really interesting, what you said about your book is that it was validating that there was an interest in the book, there was a commercial success for the book and that people resonated with what you were ultimately sharing with the world. Were you prepared for what was coming next? Like for the wave of feedback and stories and interactions? We'll be back after a quick break.
- [11:52]
Radim Malinej
This episode is brought to you by Lux Coffee Co. The first creative specialty coffee company building a platform to shine the light on emerging global talent. With a mission to make a positive impact on the creative industry and beyond. Lux Coffee Co offers exceptional coffee sourced from around the world through ethical and sustainable practices. You can discover the current range of signature blends and single origins coffee hardware and accessories along with exceptional apparel. At luxcofee.co.uk you can use the code podcast to get 15% off your first.
- [12:30]
Interviewer
Order.
- [12:39]
Mira Lee Patel
I was not. And I'll say one of the things that has been been a. I don't know if you have this experience as well, but when you share and a very honest and vulnerable part of yourself with the world will open up to you. And so the part of this journey that I was really unprepared for were how many emails, messages, letters I would get from people sharing their personal journeys with me. And it was hugely humbling. It was really incredible that something I wrote in, in from my little bedroom in Brooklyn, New York could reach somebody in India, could reach somebody in Australia, could reach somebody in London. And that these people took the time and energy to write to me and share a little bit of their humanity with me. I was not prepared for that. And it was at times very overwhelming as well. And that is something that I had to learn how to respond to, how to set boundaries and how to really just be bottom line grateful that somebody is choosing to open up to me.
- [13:56]
Interviewer
Did you find with the feedback then you've got and I'm assuming some of this could be quite heavy because obviously you're asking people to self explore and I've not met anyone in the world who would be crystal clear diamond with no issues like we all have something, some of us are in denial, some of us are very much working on it. So as you said, you've got a process of like how potentially deal with this because you open basically I'm trying to find analogy of you open the door and there's a hurricane of information coming your way that it was partially unwanted because you're thinking I have put no, this is a one way traffic. I pushed this out and it's coming to you. So how did you create a system and how did you deal with it and did you even engage with some of the stuff that you try to help people or did you find yourself? Maybe there's a book form that just potentially does the work for me.
- [14:50]
Mira Lee Patel
I cycled through a lot of different approaches. I will say I felt very overwhelmed and very equipped to respond to some of the messages that I received. And I think the important thing for me to remember first and foremost is that I am not a licensed therapist and I did not want to do or say anything that could under any circumstances cause the recipient harm or pain. And so I had to come up with a system where I am acknowledging the person, where they are in their life, the emotions, whether it is pain, gratitude, whatever they're feeling. But I also had to learn to detect, I had to learn that I am not necessarily responsible for solving this person's predicament. That I am not the best person to tell them what to do. That is not my role. And that took quite a while to feel comfortable because I really wanted to express gratitude to all of my readers and for especially people who take the time to write to me. I didn't want them to feel forgotten. I didn't want them to feel that I did not read their message, I did not care. But at the same time, their safety and their well being were more important than what they got of me. And so I had to make sure that in my response, that is what I was prioritizing. Their wellbeing, not their image of me.
- [16:29]
Interviewer
It's beautifully said. I'm going to SEGUE this from 2016, 2017, from that time, almost 10 years forward to today, because you're getting ready to release a new book, Learn to Let Go. And I feel like what you just said is a little bit of a sort of segue of learning to let go, like how to do this and we're going to put some color in between of the last sort of nine years. But your new book, Learn to Let Go is again, it's a journal for new beginning. And what I want to know is where does the form of journaling and medium of books come into your life that has become such a important body of your work? I know this is two questions in one, but with the feeling obviously of creating new book, how this new book came about and how is it sort of connected to your love of books and making books.
- [17:22]
Mira Lee Patel
Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love this question because I love talking about my affinity for books. So I guess I'll answer that one first, which is that I did always want to be a writer. I was writing. It's a very cliche answer. I was always writing and drawing my own stories. I was always writing poetry. I was reading at an early age. I think that from a young age I found an escape in books. I found an escape from my very tiny, very safe suburban life. I found an escape from being the only person of color in my school. I found an escape from being the only immigrant family that didn't belong in our town, from the bullying, from the feeling like an outcast. Books were. Books allowed me to travel without leaving my home. And they were a comfort. They were an escape. They were solace, they were friendship. And this affinity for books I've always carried and I always knew whether it is my livelihood or not, I will be making books. The second Part of your question, which is like, where do I get ideas for the things that I want to make? Usually all of my books have come from a topic that I have been unable to let go of. It's kind of like that, that Buddhist teaching which says the lesson will keep following you until you have learned it. And for all of the adult books that I've made, which they're all, they all are on the themes of introspection and self exploration. These are all subjects that I have yet to master and they all crop up during different periods in my life. And learn to let go has been my journey over the last five years since becoming a mother. And honestly, being forced to let go, being forced to let go of the person that I was, even though I was not ready to let that person go, I still wanted to be that person. I still do. But she's gone. I cannot find her. She has a look. There's no room for her in this house. Learning to let go of not only the person I was, but the person I thought I would be, the parents I thought I would be, the artist I thought I would be. There's been a lot of that. And I will say, especially in terms of creativity and creative work, letting go of the very large part of me that finds pleasure in beating myself up, in being critical under the guise of making myself better, letting go of that person, learning how to change that person into somebody who is kinder and supportive and encouraging. The way I want to parent my children into becoming better people. It's not through bullying. It's through encouragement and kindness and wisdom. And this is the first time in my life that I've approached myself in that way. So it's been a lot of letting go for me and a lot of growing and acceptance.
- [20:48]
Interviewer
I really love the answer because part of me wants to talk about the fact that you said, I want to find that old person. I'm looking for her, I want. But part of me thinks, don't do that. Just let's go forward. Let's go forward. Because in one of your journals you talked about the fact that you've got commute with your daughter and that commute is taking a lot longer than you were originally anticipating. And then you find yourself not stressed about the fact that it takes you longer, but then you leaned into it and actually realized that you really relive in some of the really nice bits of your own childhood for your own view. And I think when you said, I'm looking for that old person, you're finding somebody New all the time. You relive it, of course. You relive in your childhood through the eyes of your children. And you said, oh, I don't have. My day is shorter. Of course, as any creative person would say, I want my day to be as long as possible because you want to do it all the time. But speaking from personal experience, my day is totally different to two years, three years ago, five years ago. It's totally changing. It's changing all the time. And the best thing that I've ever found was to actually lean into it, lean into the change, see what you can do with it, and actually think about how long it takes to make something valuable, but how beautiful is to actually have the time to think about it in between. So I just loved how you described that journey because you are someone who writes every day, and the words that you put out there, interest in the form of a newsletter and your books, it just. They just flourish. They just paint stories. So when you find yourself in that car, driving your daughter back through the streets of St. Louis, did you feel like there's a value in letting go? Did you feel like it's something that is actually nice to experience and cherish?
- [22:37]
Mira Lee Patel
Yes. You hit the nail on the head, which is I say that I am looking for the old me. And the truth of that is that I was not ready to let her go. I was forced to by the circumstances of my new life. And what I think what was so hard about letting her go was that I was not ready and I was not prepared for it. And also, there was no time to mourn her or miss her or say goodbye, however trite that may sound. But you're right in that the only choice we have is to move forward. And so what I have learned about letting go is that it's not something you can just do. I can't. Or at least I cannot just say, okay, I'm letting go of this. I'm just moving on. The first, letting go is a byproduct to acceptance. So that's what I've learned. My job is to accept where I am, who I am, what is happening right now. And the byproduct of that acceptance is that I will be able to let go. And so when I'm driving my daughter and grimacing that the commute to drop two kids off of school within five miles of my house is an hour and a half, and I'm mourning the loss of time on my shorter work day, I'm driving, and I look at this kid in the back, and she's fallen asleep. She's got a strawberry in her mouth. She didn't even finish chewing it. And she's falling a freak now. So tired from school. We're gonna go pick up her sister. And the sun's hitting her face. And I just looked at her and I was like, man, this kid is so sweet. And it's so quiet in this car. And I am, like you said, writing all the time. I'm writing in my head right now. I'm still doing my writing. It's just in a different form. And I felt such pride at being able to be in that moment, that I wasn't missing the moment because I was too busy feeling frustrated and focusing on what I thought I had lost. And that was acceptance of where I am, being in the present, watching the sun through the windshield, looking forward to seeing my younger kid when I walk through the doors. And it brought me back to that feeling of being picked up by my dad from school, falling asleep in the backseat because you knew that someone who cared about you was behind the wheel and you were going to get home safely. And I thought, oh, my daughter's asleep because she feels safe, she feels calm, she feels relaxed, because she knows Mom's gonna get her home. And I would not have had any of these thoughts or been able to write that story or even be in that moment. Even though I was in my life, I could have not been living my life. Cause I was too focused on the past or what I was missing or what I thought I should have been able to do. And so that acceptance, it lets me be in the present. It ensures I'm not missing my own life. And what could I want more than that?
- [25:46]
Interviewer
What you beautifully describing is actually focusing on what you can control and let go of what you can't control. Because traffic's always going to happen, the rain's going to always come. There's always going to be elements we can't control. But I think having that sort of internal piece and sort of processing it and go, like right now, I've got actually more time to think about the first draft of what I'm going to write and rewrite it in my head. Because the world of creativity, especially when you're young and naive, or I'm talking about the world at large, you think that you should be making stuff all the time. You're thinking like, hey, I am. I am creative. Therefore, I should be creating. Only to realize that, stepping away from the process and thinking about the process, observing it, prodding it lastly, you know, almost getting yourself ready for the creative process or for the moment of creativity can be more fulfilling because would you agree that with your daily journaling you are tuned into the world differently because you want to remember it, you want to write it, you analyze it differently, rather than just a passing story that's happening past?
- [26:51]
Mira Lee Patel
I do think so. When I think, just like you're saying, you have to live your life in order to make work, and you need to live your life honestly in order to make honest work. So the two go hand in hand. You cannot just make work 24 7. You have to be in the world. You have to let people in. You have to take chances, be uncomfortable. All of that is part of the work of being an artist. You can't leave that part out.
- [27:24]
Interviewer
What is in the latest book that is the process of that self discovery? Like what is the element that's been added that you wouldn't have thought of about 10 years ago?
- [27:35]
Mira Lee Patel
Oh, that's a really wonderful question. I don't know. I might have a disappointing answer because all of my work is propelled forward by the philosophy that the answers that we're looking for, the validation that we're seeking, is already inside ourselves. So I don't know if there is any new principle that I am introducing in this latest release. I think what has changed is probably my expression, my use of language, my ability to create exercises and prompt that a wider audience can connect with and find useful. Probably also my curation of quote that again, a wider audience will find to be encouraging and inspirational. That will get them to actually pick up a pen and do the very cumbersome and often heavy work of sitting with themselves and talking to themselves. The principles behind the work are the same. The philosophy is the same. So I think perhaps just my execution as an artist and a writer is what's changed.
- [28:51]
Interviewer
You see, it wasn't disappointing answer at all. You mentioned exercises and prompts. Are these exercises and prompt road tested? Do you do them within sort of group setting, workshop setting, or is it something that you actually work on yourself and then just you release it out there? How are they validated? How do you put them together?
- [29:10]
Mira Lee Patel
So they are all exercises and prompts that I use myself to unstick myself from situations that I don't know how to navigate, to work through current dilemmas. So for this book about acceptance and new beginnings and letting go, these are all the exercises that I used to move through this period in my life. And as for asking people to do the hard work of looking at themselves I am always going to ask people to do that. And I think that might make me a difficult family member. It might make me a hard friend to have. But that is who I am and that is who I will continue to be. But I have also learned to have boundaries. And I have also learned to let people be responsible for themselves. So if somebody is not interested in that work, that's their choice. That's not up to me. And I feel no pressure or responsibility in forcing someone to do that. So my job is to make the work that I believe can help somebody. I am very honest in that it might not be right for you, and that's okay with me because I don't think I'm right for everybody. So certainly everything I make is not going to be right for everybody. But I believe it can help. I believe my books will add an element of meaning to your life if you choose to let it. And then that's up to you. I make the work, I gotta, and then I have to let go of it. Right. We work, we learn that as artists over and over again, it stops being yours after you release it.
- [30:59]
Interviewer
Absolutely. Especially when you say let go. The fact is, let go of the expectations. Because sometimes our expectations are way too high and our resilience isn't sometimes, maybe often not much to those expectations. And therefore we create this unhealthy equation where we think, am I here to help someone? Because as you said, when you release it and then somebody else's, that's the best way of to get the untethered and just go, yeah, it's out there. It does its own thing and then receive what comes back. Because waiting on something to happen, it will never happen. Whereas if you release it, that's there. So speaking of effects of books on people, you mentioned you read from a young age as a form of escapism, as the environment that you find yourself not being the only family that stood out, being of different color, having your suburban background. What books do you remember reading and what's the feelings that you remember reading of those books?
- [32:00]
Mira Lee Patel
I read a lot of Lois Lowry, the Giver Number, the Stars. And I think the feelings that I remember are of children holding a responsibility that was greater than themselves. And I think for me as a child, it made me feel that a child, someone as small as me, could make a difference, had value and could oftentimes because. Because our maybe ability as children is often underestimated. Children can very often make a greater difference than grownups because they can get by with more. Right. So I had that. Those books made a big impact on me as a child. I read a lot of comics. I read a lot of Tintin. I read a lot of Asterisks. I read a lot of Batman, RT comics, things like that, comic books my dad would bring me back from India. I loved simple stories with morals. I loved problem solving. I loved mysteries. And I also loved books like the Little Prince. I loved bigger stories, like worlds that you could escape into and stories that felt abstract and maybe you didn't know the meaning, but something about it stuck with you. I felt very drawn to. I felt very drawn to stories like the Little Prince, and I still am. I admire that they grow with you and they change with you as you do.
- [33:40]
Interviewer
I love that it was a proper eclectic mix as a Little Prince and there's a Batman as a Tintin, but your access to books. So you just mentioned your dad was bringing comics from India. What did your parents do? Like, what was their sort of relationship to creativity? And how did that influence your world?
- [33:57]
Mira Lee Patel
Yeah, I love this question because my parents are so funny. So they both immigrated here in their late 20s. My dad is a proper Indian immigrant, is an electrical engineer, and my mom was a social worker. And they're both creative in different ways. My dad's so handy. He can fix anything. He rewired our whole house. We like. He always repaved the driveway. We would build things together. And he was also creative in a way that he will dismiss, which is in mathematics and physics. And in a way that I have never been able to be creative. And my mom is. My mom can sew. She made my clothes. She made my Halloween costumes. She knits, she crochets. She is very unbothered with crafting the right way. She does it whatever way she likes. She doesn't care necessarily what the end product looks like. She just enjoys using her hands. And I think I have absorbed a lot of that from her. A lot of the DIY spirit and a lot of the let's just get started. And it doesn't matter about doing things the proper way or following the rules. What matters more is actually doing it. And I would definitely say that entrepreneurial spirit has come from my upbringing and of watching both parents just do stuff, not wait for the right time or the proper education or the right materials, and certainly not waiting for enough money to get started on anything, but just doing it. And so I think that's really what lent me to starting my own business and making my own stuff and seeing if there was an audience out There. I'll never forget when I was still working my full time job and I wanted to start working for myself as an artist. I had a little Etsy shop and I would write and illustrate these really odd books. I wish I had copies to send you. Maybe I will reprint and send them to you. But I made a book called the Rooster and Unicorn and it was a head to toe book. So on one side you read it and you read the unicorn story and then you flip it upside down and you read it and it's the rooster story. And I would hand bind them and sell them. And every time somebody was willing to buy one of these little $20 hand sewn books, I was over the moon and I will never get that amount of pride and joy. I've sold. Start where youe Are has sold over a million copies. And that's incredible. But that feeling of sewing a book by myself and going somewhere in person and selling it like it's unmatched. Like, that was really cool. That was really cool. Yeah.
- [36:57]
Interviewer
When you were talking about your mom, you said she just did things in her own way and I think sounded like she never lost her child spirit. When we are creative as children, we've got no filter. You can do whatever you want. And then we start thinking, am I fit in the right, right mold? Am I doing something for the external validation? And it must have been. It's really great to hear. That's what you got to see. That's what influenced you and that's what ultimately made you start your own business. And it does kind of feel like you did what she was doing. Just I'm making this and I don't care if it's right or wrong.
- [37:33]
Mira Lee Patel
Yeah. Thank you. I feel like that's such a beautiful compliment. That means a lot to me. I want to be someone that just doesn't. And I try to be. And I want to model that for my girls. You don't have to wait for the right moment. You don't have to wait for the right person or the right tools. You can just do it. Because the part that's going to make your art different from anybody else's is your brain and your heart and your hand. And you already got those.
- [38:00]
Interviewer
I think I read somewhere once that the best way to influence your children into doing something is to be actually the role model. Do it yourself. Show them how it's done. And I've got a great story from this summer because my daughter has not only started her own shop, she's nine, she's Launched her own Shopify store. She's got iPad with everything. She's taking card payments, she's creating horn streets. Because my wife's got equine therapy business as one of her businesses. And you see this nine year old child and she's talking about branding, she's designing merchandise. And I'm like, we live in a good breadcrumbs. She's following them. In fact, she's overtaking us. She's like thinking about this stuff. So I feel like we live in this juxtaposed world because I think our kids are picking up the real foundation of what could be and what is and put it together. And then you open the front door, the news and you go like, how is this 2025? This feels like we are 1918 with 2025 didn't jump together because it's just fuck what's going on.
- [39:04]
Mira Lee Patel
I totally agree. I totally. That's incredible about your daughter and I would love to know more about your wife's businesses too. You guys seem like an incredibly hands on creative family. It's really amazing. Yeah, I feel really proud of your daughter. That's incredible.
- [39:21]
Interviewer
Yeah, I mean, she just runs with it. And then we were kind of looking at sort of some certain things that she does. You're like, that's our DNA. You can't, you can't stop it. And I think I just, I was thinking like, if she ever finds herself on a podcast in 20 years time talking about what she's doing, if she ever says, my parents didn't let me do whatever I wanted to do, that'd be a big lie because she'd be just let her destroy the house, do things, do all of this stuff. But I think we've got good hindsight that we can do what some of our parents didn't do for us. I think we can actually show that as there's other way, there's potentially better way, there's more empathetic way, more compassionate way of like how we can be more emotionally intelligent. And this is why like the books that you make and are so well received, it's actually, it's showing to someone that potentially what they haven't found yet is actually available. Because sometimes it's that unfortunate ignorance that people don't know how to fix themselves. People offset their sadness and unhappiness through anger. And part of what we've seen in the world is obviously unresolved people not resolving themselves. So would you ever say, like with your books that there is hope that one day we can see a better world. And I know we're touching on some big topics here, but like, do you ever find yourself sort of creating a title and going, maybe this is contributing to something that really should exist?
- [40:47]
Mira Lee Patel
I think it's an interesting question. I'm not sure I have an answer. I do feel that I do believe I told you that I spent years feeling like an imposter. I don't. I this, I think the first time I've ever said this in my life. I don't feel like an imposter anymore. And that has been a hard won change. And I do believe that the work that I put out and the books that I make are making a difference. And in that way I can say, yes, the world is becoming better because I have enough messages from enough people who are doing the work, who are interested in doing the work, and who are using the books to know themselves and become more open, more vulnerable, more active participants in their own life. They're not just letting the world happen to them. They are responding. They're taking action, they're apologizing. So I don't know how I could receive these messages and see people doing the work and say that the world is not getting better. It is getting better, but is it enough? I could just read the news and say, no, it's not enough. You know, it's not enough. I think in order for the world to truly become better, you have to work on yourself and you have to care about other people. You have to care about people who are not part of your life, who you will never meet, who will never directly infiltrate your life, who don't look like you, who don't act like you. You have to find it in you to care. And I think that is the only way maybe the world will get better if people care about other people.
- [42:42]
Interviewer
Beautifully said. So, as a fellow, someone who writes books, makes books, does all sorts of things himself, I want to talk about a practical process, if you allow me. Like how do you tackle whole book project from planning sketches? Christiano, you illustrate your books, you create pretty much most of it yourself. So how does a book project start and finish for you? Like how? What is the process of making a book for you?
- [43:10]
Mira Lee Patel
So it is different depending on the kind of book. So I make three kinds of books. I do journals, I do illustrated essays, and I do picture books. I'm starting to do picture book, which is very exciting. And so I approach each very mathematically. I'm very type A and the writing for me almost always comes first. So I write all of the books, the journals. There's a spreadsheet of exercises, there's a spreadsheet of quotes. The art comes very last. The essays, all of the writing comes first, before I can even think about visualizations that are going to help explain the material to the reader. And for the picture books, I also do all of the manuscripts first and then picture books, actually. You want the words to tell a story. You want the illustrations to tell, hopefully an alternate version of that story. And that is the one that I find to be the most kind of mathematically challenging. The picture book I'm working on right now, I've been working on since 2022, and it has already gone out to publishers once. It was rejected by everybody. I rewrote the whole story for the third time. I redid all the pictures for the third time. I am almost done. And we will pitch it again probably in a couple weeks, and we'll see. We'll see what happens. But I will tell you the very cool part about this process with the picture book and it being rejected is when it was turned down from the 12 publishers we sent it to, I did not feel despair. I did not feel sadness. I felt it could make it better. And that was very new for me. And it. I felt very empowered to have reached a level of confidence where I can expect more from myself and know that I can deliver on that. And the version that we will get ready to pitch now is so much better than the one I did before. I felt very proud of it. And it's really cool. It's really cool to know that you can grow. You know, you can grow, you can evolve, you can surprise yourself.
- [45:23]
Interviewer
I love that because it's so easy as a creative to fall in love with the first sketch, with the first idea. Like, you don't want to crop it, you don't want to rewrite it, you don't want to do anything. But being rejected ever since 2022 and rewriting the story and thinking about it, even though there's a rejection, it's a good rejection because ultimately the final article is so much better. So it's great to hear it. And did you feel like that sort of almost creative endurance or ultra patience? It's something that it's kind of growing older, more patient, more peaceful.
- [46:02]
Mira Lee Patel
That's also a very good question. I think it is part of. For me, it is part of knowing that I'm working on the right thing. Because it is not important to me to just put out this work. It is important to me to put out the right work. And this book in particular is so dear to me and is so meaningful to me that I don't mind doing it again and again until it's right. And the part you self publish, so when you say it's right. But for me, who's going the traditional publishing route, I have to take an idea and a story that I think is very important. And I have to find a medium between my creative work and, and the audience. And the audience has to be prepared to receive the work that I want to put out. And that's dictated by the market and sales and et cetera, et cetera. And granted, the general public will never be ready for any work that is a little bit strange or a little bit outside the box or that's tapping into very sensitive subjects. And this book is all of those. So I am prepared for that challenge. But I make books because I want them to be read. I expect them to be read. I expect them to put thoughts in people's heads that were not there before. That is my goal. I want people to think. So if I make a book and it sits on a shelf and it isn't bought and nobody reads that, I'm not doing my work. So it is important to me to find that balance between my creative vision and the publisher that is going to say, yeah, we'll greenlight this and put it on a shelf because that's the way it's going to get into hands. And so that is a process I think that I've become more patient with.
- [48:02]
Interviewer
I love when you said that the way you make your books are mathematical. And when you said I've got spreadsheet, I was like, oh yes, it's all about spreadsheets. It's all about just the thing that make the bookmaking so unglamorous. How was your process of learning to make books for you?
- [48:18]
Mira Lee Patel
It has been self taught. My editor is wonderful, very hands off. She lets me work in whatever way feels natural to me and I'm grateful for that. And I will say that my process for journals and essays have not changed that much over the years at all. It's still a word doc. It is still Excel spreadsheets for organization. I make an outline, I follow the map that I create for myself. I reshape it if necessary, necessary. But I am, I like to do all the thinking up front. So the outline like that is the heavy lifting. That's where I'm coming up with all the concepts, making sure that there's an arc Making sure there's a start and a finish. And once I've done all of those roadblocks, I find the map and actual writing part to be a lot easier because I have a guide like you said. So I use that. And that is still the way I work creative writing, like what I do for my newsletters, that's very different. That is way more free spirited. And it's also a shorter timeframe. It is dependent on what I experience that week. So that kind of journaling is more of I spit it all out and then I go back and edit and shape it and I make sure that it makes sense to somebody who did not share that experience with me. But for books, I need the spreadsheet, any of the organization. And those two things are not only. They don't always only serve as the backbone of the book for me, but they also serve as motivation for me because I can see the ending. I can see the beginning and the end. And as I check off each section, I know I'm making progress. And that is very gratifying. Especially when you're writing like your second, third draft, right? And you're kind of maybe sometimes a little bit checked out. And is this gonna keep going on forever? And you already have ideas for your next project that you are excited to work on. You got to finish this one first. So it holds me accountable.
- [50:16]
Interviewer
Do you ever have a sort of set pagination that you have to work to like a certain number of pages? Or do you just sort of make a book and it's the number, it is obviously within the right multiples of 8 or 16. How does that influence your work?
- [50:31]
Mira Lee Patel
I have set paginations for all my books. All of the journals are a certain amount of pages. The books of essays are a certain amount of pages. The picture books are all 32 or 40. So it actually very much informs the book and the manuscript and how much time, how many words I can spend on any one thought or idea. For my last For How It Feels to Find Yourself, which is a book of illustrated essays, it was very restrictive because they were micro essays. Each one had to be less than, I think, 400 words. And I cut out so much that I felt attached to. But in hindsight, I learned the art of brevity, which I think is very important. It forces you to clarify thought. It forces you to kill your darlings and to understand that three sentences can be one. So I do think that book, as an exercise, made me a stronger writer. Sometimes those restrictions, they feel challenging and frustrating in the moment, but you always grow from them.
- [51:36]
Interviewer
I love what you said because from my experience, I'm a non native English speaker and I'm reveling in the amazing opportunity to actually be making books in English. I love it. But I know that whatever I write will always need an editor. And I've worked with three different editors in my last six books and one of them is super cutthroat. And I'm like, where's my jokes? Where's this? Where's that? And I'm like, this is my writing, but where's all the fun stuff? Where is this? And when it comes out, I never really moaned anything that didn't make it. As you said, kill your darlings. The art of brevity is exactly what it is because I get people then coming to me like it's really. Well, have you just said it how you just say what you just need to say in as few words as possible. I was like, I've got really good editor because with this type of work I'm not in charge fully. Like, I let go and I pass it on because I sometimes need people to sort out my mess. And when it comes to the topic of learning to let go, I never felt any form of perfectionism with book writing or book publishing because you said we're going to publish it when it's right. I publish books when I decide it needs to be published. So I set myself a deadline, I announced the book and we've got nine months. It's like a race is on and it has to happen because I think that's the best antidote to procrastination and public accountability. So I just love that you said the micro. Micro essays. You can say the note of three sentences in one.
- [53:11]
Mira Lee Patel
Yeah, It's a good challenge. And you know, I have found that it also clarifies thought. The more you distill your writing and practice saying more with less, you find that your thoughts are less cluttered because you're learning to think more cleanly. You're learning to focus. I think writing clarifies thoughts and thoughts are clarified by writing. They both work hand in hand.
- [53:34]
Interviewer
I love it. I'm gonna need to ask a question. I need to let you go. At some point I wanna try to rephrase my original question. And again, that's influenced by would you say in your newsletter a year from now? Here are five things from this week I would like to remember. Right. I'm going to rephrase it. A book from now. What other things you want to Remember from this book that you just published, what was the one thing that you've learned about this book that showed you something new about yourself and the process?
- [54:06]
Mira Lee Patel
I might have a couple things, if that's okay.
- [54:09]
Interviewer
You can have as many as you want.
- [54:10]
Mira Lee Patel
Okay. So the number one, which I think I mentioned already, is that letting go is a byproduct of. Of acceptance. That is the number one thing I learned while writing this book. You cannot let go without accepting what is. The second is that it's okay to become somebody new. It's okay to let parts of myself go so that new parts of myself can bloom. And a third, third is not to live from a place of desperation. And what I mean by that is not to hold on so tightly because I think this will never be again. Something new is always coming. Something greater is always coming. And it reminds me. It reminds me of a John Steinbeck quote that I love, which I probably will misremember right now. But it's. It's something like, if it's right, it will happen. Nothing good gets away. And I feel like that sentiment really sums up acceptance and letting go and the period of my life that this book came from. Feeling like I had lost so much. But the truth was that it was all building and I just couldn't see it yet. And that's okay. You're not always going to see it. You just have to accept and believe that if it's good, it's not going to get away, it's going to come.
- [55:48]
Interviewer
I love that you said it's okay to become somebody new because the new is coming. And I realized when I asked this question it's a little bit unfair because I know that the true meaning of the work, especially publishing work, comes with time. Things make more sense when you. You publish them and people react with them. And then you've got time to reflect because making a book is, as we now know, mathematical chaotic reliving process. And then when the dust settles, you're like, now I can reflect on this. I've got time to actually reflect and see it back. So I will ask you a year from now the same question and see what you've learned about that process and about from that book. But I celebrate you, what you're doing. We've been following your work from afar for the last seven years. And yeah, it's amazing that you keep going, how you do it, how you created a career, being inspired by your parents to be entrepreneurial, starting your business, sticking with it, being a parent in a broken world. It's all that we need to have and see. And I thank you for your work because it's wonderful. And yeah, I'm looking forward to your next newsletter in my inbox.
- [56:55]
Mira Lee Patel
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. This conversation has been definitely the highlight of my day. Thanks for having me.
- [57:02]
Interviewer
You were very welcome. Thank you.
- [57:14]
Radim Malinej
Thank you for listening to this episode of Daring Creativity Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions and suggestions, so please get in touch via the email in the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinage. The audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 Million Banks podcast. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode.
- [57:51]
Interviewer
Foreign.
- [57:58]
Radim Malinej
If you enjoyed this episode and would like more accessible resources to help you discover your daring creativity, you can pick up one of my books on themes of mindful creativity, creative business, branding, and graphic design. Every physical book purchase comes with a free digital bundle, including an ebook, an audiobook, or to make the content accessible.
- [58:19]
Interviewer
Wherever you are and whatever you do.
- [58:21]
Radim Malinej
To get 10% off your order, visit novemberuniverse.co uk and use the code podcast. Have a look around and start living daringly.