Writing Your Own Story with Leigh Shulman

Andrea Vahl: Have you had a big goal like traveling the world or writing a book or starting a new business? My guest today, Leigh Shulman has done all three. Tune in to today’s episode.

Hello, dreamers. Welcome to the late starters club, giving you the inspiration, mindset, and tools you need to start something midlife and beyond remember, it’s never too late to follow your dreams.

Hello, late starters. It’s your host, Andrea Vahl. And I am here with Leigh Shulman who has done a lot of different things. But one of the things that kind of really drew me into talking with her is later in life, she decided to move out of Brooklyn, travel the world with her young daughter and husband, and just went all over the place and then ended up settling in Argentina. So I’m super excited to dive into what that looked like and those decisions, but then also talk about her main business, she has founded the inspired writer community, a women writers network for writers at any stage in their writing lives, her bestselling book, the writer’s roadmap helps thousands find their way into the writing world.

So welcome Leigh.

Leigh Shulman: Thank you so much for having me, Andrea. It’s lovely to be here.

The decision to leave Brooklyn

Andrea Vahl: Yeah, very cool. So that must have been such a huge decision. I mean, It’s not like everyone with an 18 month old says, Hey, let’s,

let’s just travel the world and, sell all our stuff. Like how did that decision come into play?

Leigh Shulman: It mainly came about because. We didn’t like raising a child in Brooklyn is very difficult or it’s harder than I think in a lot of ways. It needs to be. Getting into school. Getting her into a school was the catalyst for me because so for an 8. So she would have started soon after that.

And there were. All the schools near us, there were interviews and psychop like psychological evaluations and group date play dates and we had to write essays. And I was thinking I don’t want to put my 2 year old through the level of stress that you go to get into college. It just seems like a train I don’t want her to be in. And we weren’t really happy living there anymore. And it’s funny because when we made the choice to leave people, when we said, oh, we’re leaving people assumed oh, yeah, we’re moving out to Long Island, or we’re moving out to Connecticut or some other place where we’re going to settle down more.

And we’re like no we’re selling everything and we’re going to see where we end up. That was the catalyst with Lila, but I think also, because I was in New York for 911. And I guess the big takeaway for me was anything can happen at any time, no matter where you are.

It sounds terrible to say it this way. There’s no such thing as this is stable and safe. So why not do the thing that you really want to do?

How did she afford to travel so extensively?

Andrea Vahl: Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. And you had means of being able to work remotely or, or you would start a blogging and did photography and did some travel blogging, work and things like that.

So that’s really cool too. You just were able to work wherever you wanted and create a life and you went all over Europe.

Leigh Shulman: Yeah well, I mean, and I will say also, when we first left, we sold everything. And at the beginning. The money that we got from selling it, because we left with almost nothing we use that money to fund the travels.

We also stayed with people. We travel pretty cheaply. When you live in a house and you have a mortgage and you have your payments, you have to be at work on time and you go on a 2 week trip somewhere. You’re staying in a hotel. All of that is much more expensive and you have your payments at home when you don’t have any, we got rid of everything.

We had no payments and the way we traveled, we stayed with people. We couch surfed, we, we would camp in places and things are a lot cheaper when you do it that way. Also spent a lot of time in Latin America where we are now, where it’s cheaper than Europe, but some places in Europe aren’t bad either.

Andrea Vahl: And that’s what I think people forget. Like you said, when you’re on vacation, you’re living it up, you’re doing all the things. A lot of places are not like the big touristy destinations where hotel rooms are 200 a night. You’re not staying. In a 200 a night hotel room.

You’re, yeah.

Leigh Shulman: No. We did not see many of those. So

Did they make travel plans or just feel their way through their destinations?

Andrea Vahl: yeah, that’s amazing. And what an incredible experience as a family to have and the memories to have to be able to do that. And, was it just really sort of a go by feeling or was there any map out of, hey, we definitely want to hit these destinations, or was it just let’s go here and then we’ll see what we want to do next?

Leigh Shulman: It was very much let’s go here and see what happens next. But a lot of the let’s go here was based on something that might be there for us. So we initially went to Europe. So we started out of our trip with 3 months in Europe and we went to visit some friends with ours who were neighbors where we lived in Brooklyn and they had a business there.

So we started with them and then traveled around, visited people, went between people we knew.

I was thinking about this before. Also, one of the big differences between traveling when you’re 18 or 20, you’re right out of college and when you’re older is, you know, more people and you have more resources and you’re more willing to be like, Hey, can I stay or do you know anything?

Do you have any connections that I can help out? And it, that’s a lot of how we went around. And actually the way we ended up in Argentina is Noah, my husband asked a professor of his, who we had traveled to Brazil with him years ago before we had kids, I think we were, I had just, I had, I was maybe like maybe 25 at the time.

And we’d been in touch with him cause he worked a lot in Latin America. So he said, Hey, do you know anything? And he’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m doing this conference in Salta. Why don’t you come? And. I could not have guessed where that would have led me, but just having that touchstone.

Here’s a person who knows somebody there who can help us find some resources there. Was enough to get us started. And then you figure out a lot on your own, but it was. Yeah. We didn’t plan that much. Some people are big planners. We’re not. To this day when I travel, there’s things that I like doing and I will plan a little bit, but I like to leave blocks open to let things unfold as they’re going to happen.

Andrea Vahl: Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. And how beautiful, because then that allows for just all the serendipity to come into play. And you live now in Salton. I was looking at your pictures and stuff. It’s just gorgeous. It’s just gorgeous. And it might not have been a destination that you pick, that’s the thing.

Leigh Shulman: don’t, we wouldn’t, we didn’t even know about it. I didn’t, we’re like what’s it called? Never would have picked this place on our own. Even Buenos Aires, we didn’t actually pick Buenos Aires. We had considered going to Montevideo because another neighbor of ours. Who’s a journalist and he’s traveled around a lot and he really wanted to leave Brooklyn also, he’s you should go to Montevideo.

So the flights to Buenos Aires are the best way to get there. And we just, we’ve never been there. We actually never needed there. We’ve just ended up other places. Yeah. Yeah. And I will say, I think that serendipity that you’re talking about, that’s when some of my favorite travel memories have happened because yeah.

They’re just, you let things, it allows you to talk to people, to check out things that you wouldn’t necessarily do otherwise. I let things happen, which is, which I enjoy. I really,

The power of communities

Andrea Vahl: yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. And you had you had talked about that the community that you need to lean into and that’s something you do in your in your writing groups and retreats and things like that, but that’s, it’s interesting to think about that even in travel or in life and just letting people help you, letting, asking for help and just really let that be a guide to you.

Leigh Shulman: Absolutely. And I’m very big into communities and I feel like I’m connected to a lot of different communities.

And part of that is because I love to travel. I mean, I would say when I lived in Brooklyn Brooklyn is, I mean, New York in general is very much you don’t talk to your neighbors, you don’t do this, you walk on the street, you’re not looking at people, not a lot of eye contact and, it took a long time for me to start being able to ask people for things, but once you do, just everything opens up, you know, a lot of people will say no, or they won’t respond or, whatever it might be, but in my experience.

More people want to support and help then we’ll block you. And that does create community and it does create opportunity and possibility. And for me, it makes life feel more open and more loving. I guess also that you can trust the people around you and, that’s hard. When you said asking for help, like that’s so hard for so many people and it’s, as our world becomes more chaotic, I think asking people for help and listen to me, hear me understand where I’m coming from, we’re human.

We need that. And without that we’re very shut down. For me, travel is very much about that ability to open up. Yeah. Explore and trust a little more. Yeah.

Andrea Vahl: Yeah. That’s great. And there’s a lot, there’s so many studies about the benefits of community and how we, in this day, digital age, how sometimes we’re losing that in person community in the, it can help, connect you, keep you connected in some ways, but for sure, like the in person community is important too, and being able to connect with people.

What was it like to continuously travel with a young child?

Andrea Vahl: So that’s great. That is, that’s great. So what was it like traveling with a young, your young daughter, people sometimes worry about just taking one plane trip. You’re here, you’re going lots of different places. What was that like? And how did that work for you?

Leigh Shulman: It’s actually really nice.

It also depends where you travel, I think, because different cultures have different ways of treating kids and how they see kids. But people really nice. They were extra nice to us. Oh, you have a child. You’re in the family. And they would go out of their way to take care of us. There was once, Lila, when she was nine, we went to Bolivia on our own, just the two of us.

And when I, sometimes I think about it, because we had two weeks on our own, Noah was traveling. He was doing something for work and we’re like, what should we do? And I’m like, oh, let’s go to Bolivia. And we volunteered in a monkey refuge, monkey sanctuary. And I was just amazed at how people would watch out for us, would give us advice on the street.

Like they want to help you, they really want to be there for you and support you. And I felt very taken care of and watched what like the people were watching out for me. And when we’re also, when we’re traveling with Noah, there’s something about families that helps you integrate into other communities and local communities.

So as an example we were in Panama and we went to the Kuna Yala islands. Which is off the northern coast, if Panama City is at the South, like you go north and the Kuna Yala Islands are up north and, the Kuna Yala, it’s really interesting because they’re 1 of the few indigenous people on the planet who own their own land.

It’s all there’s, and if you want to visit there, you have, it’s not hard to get their permission, but you do have to get their permission. So we stayed in this 1 in 1 of the bigger islands and had a village there. They have their village there. And the way it works is you stay with a family, or you stay in a little shelter in the island that somebody make sure you have food and, whatever it is.

And I don’t know, Lila was off playing with the kids there. I don’t think there were many kids that were brought there and so I spent a lot of time with the women talking about things and I, Kunayala traditionally have they do this beadwork that they wrap around their forearms and their, I forelegs.

And I just remember Lila was off playing and I was with women and they were teaching me how to, and I. I just felt so but they weren’t doing that with other people who didn’t have children because it was just so it was not weird. It was just different and brought us into their community more.

So it’s different because I also noticed, we would be traveling and solo travelers wouldn’t really talk to us, cause like you’re separate, but. Local people were like, Oh, Hey, how’s it going? What do you need? Oh,

Andrea Vahl: nice. That’s great. That’s neat. I love that. And I think that’s, it’s great that you can lean into it.

Cause I think that people make it into a bigger deal than it needs to be. Like you don’t, people think, Oh my God, I need all this gear and all this. And I’m like, yeah we didn’t necessarily travel with all that gear and everything. Of course, you need safety equipment and stuff like that, there’s A lot of stuff that we have in the U.

1. that I think is extraneous. That’s awesome. And what a great experience and how wonderful for your daughter to experience all these different cultures as well. So that is just amazing.

How did the Inspired Writers Community Start?

Andrea Vahl: So and now you have Now, did you start your writing group while you were traveling or was it more when you settled in Salta?

Leigh Shulman: I officially started it when we were already in Salta, but the seeds of it started while we were traveling because I was, when you were saying before, the online. Online and internet can connect you with people, but then it’s about I, and I fully agree with that. It’s great to have an online connections, but for me, it’s not real until you meet in person because online people can disappear and you’ll never see them again.

Once you meet face to face, it becomes real. I met a lot of people traveled online. I would travel, go places, meet people would come and visit us. A lot of people in the travel blogging community and the travel writing community. And through that, I just got to know more and more people and like, how do you work online and, oh, people need writing support.

Okay. That’s what I’ve been doing. And. What I, slowly, but surely I would build things up and then, and eventually it was like, you know what I’m doing this in bits and pieces. Let me just make it a business. And that’s how the inspired writer community started. And it is based on all of that sense of how do you use these resources?

How do you make a community? How do you get the support and the feedback and the connections that you need in order? To do everything you want to do to write and whatever that means different for everybody. And I think a lot of times people think of a writing community as like, I don’t know, I don’t know exactly what they think of it or like, again, it’s a writing group or you’re sharing work, you’re giving feedback.

And that is part of it. But the way I see it is more of a toolbox. That there are all these different features that you can use, but the first thing you have to do is decide what is it that I actually want? What is it that makes the most sense to me? And that’s, and my book also came out of having that conversation with so many people, these people would ask me questions and I was working one on one with people.

And finally I was like I should just write a book, write it down because people want to hear it. So that’ll be a lot easier than repeating it all those different times. Yeah. So you figure out what you want and then you use. The inspired writer community and the tools in it to build that and to create that for you.

And you, so you always have a place to ask for help, ask questions.

Meeting Face to Face

Leigh Shulman: And because I think the face to face part is so important, a little bit at a time. I run writing retreats. Sometimes people come here. Sometimes I run them elsewhere when I do go to the States or I’m traveling somewhere. I try to do a get together to meet people, whether they’re actually members of the community or their friends or whatever it might be just to always bring people together so we can meet face to face and have real world connections that then enforce, reinforce what we do online.

Andrea Vahl: Yeah, that’s so important. And I think, yeah, I totally agree that I think about people I’ve met, I do a lot of, I go to a lot of conferences and I think about the people I’ve met in person versus ones I just know online.

And it really feels like it’s they’re not really real until you meet them. You’re like, Oh, now I’ve gotten to really have a conversation with you and you can’t, it’s harder to it. To do that when you’re just online, although, for sure, like things like where regular meetings and, facilitating groups and, mastermind type things, those all can be really great tools.

And so that when you finally do meet in person, you’re like, I feel like we’ve already met, we already, are you sure we didn’t meet?

Leigh Shulman: Yeah, absolutely. No you’re a hundred percent right. Masterminds online classes. I do one on ones with people. I work groups and I teach courses. And so a lot of my face to face is Oh, I’m going to be in Buenos Aires.

Hey, are there people there? Hey, do you want to meet up or New York or Atlanta or wherever it might be? Because it just makes it better. And then our online work becomes, goes another level deeper. You get to meet each other’s kids. You get to see a person’s face and how they move. And there’s something about that does get lost online a little

Andrea Vahl: bit.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So one of the things you would when I do the preparation for these interviews is I ask people that they what they want to highlight.

Why we need to be more selfish

Andrea Vahl: And this one was something I was really curious about. You said, why we need to be more selfish and I’m curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Cause I think that’s such an interesting thing. Cause selfish Has such bad connotations in a lot of ways.

Leigh Shulman: Yeah. In my experience, people who worry about whether or not they’re actually selfish are almost never selfish. So I think that’s why I say be selfish because people who. Worry don’t want to be that way probably don’t put themselves first enough and I see that with a lot of it You know, particularly when you’re talking about writing you have to set boundaries You have to you know, it’s so easy Oh, it’s just one thing or did it and the next thing you know, your writing time is gone, right?

And you have to say no don’t come in here. Don’t talk to me. I’m going out or whatever it is And set a lot of boundaries. And I actually made selfish one year, my, my word of the year and what it comes down to is it’s all about, what is it that you want? What do you want? Because, Even when you think, when you have so many pressures going on, your people ask me questions, or you need this, or you’re having to balance this, that can go out the window really quickly.

And in a sense, I use the word selfish because people have such strong reactions to it. And I’m saying get used to it. Get used to saying, you know what? I am going to be selfish. I am going to put myself first because. I just see so many people not doing that and putting, and because of that, putting things off because of what they want, because of what other people say or what other people think are right, or you have this responsibility and you can spend your whole life focusing on other people’s priorities and somehow yours just then what do you do with yours?

So that, that’s why I think we need to. If you are selfish and you’re like, oh no, I’m not, and you don’t care about being selfish, then this advice is probably not for you. But in my experience, most people are not that way. And they do worry about other people and what they need. And they are too busy putting other people first.

Andrea Vahl: Put yourself first. Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. I love that. And especially with writing because it’s an easy you need a, it’s hard to fit writing in a little five minute chunk. You need a bigger spacious time to get into the flow. At least that’s my experience. I need time. It takes me time to get into it.

I can’t just be like, Oh, I’m going to write two sentences here. Do something. And then another two sentences, that really interrupts the flow. And you need that block of time. It’s easy to chip away at it with let it slide.

Take Your Writing Seriously

Leigh Shulman: And I think also writing is one of those things where people don’t really take it seriously.

So it’s Oh, that’s so cute. You need time to write. Oh yeah. You need time to write in order to write the things in order to move forward. And that’s not going to happen if you never take that time to write. Everyone I work with, I’m like, yeah, you’ve got to set and guard your writing time.

And it’s not easy. It’s a lot of repetition. That’s a lot of, hiding sometimes. Not a lot of hiding, but it’s some hiding and being, and people will call you selfish. They will call it like, why are you spending all this time writing something that you don’t even know if it’s ever going to be published?

It’s an act of faith. Why not have faith in you, and it switches, it flips it on people. We’re like, please, people who care about you want to have faith in you and it requires a lot of conversations and it requires a lot of working through so that you begin to take yourself seriously in your writing and then other people do too.

And that’s what creating that space and saying no, you can’t use my writing time for something.

Andrea Vahl: Yeah, that’s a challenge and it’s a challenge. Because it’s, yeah, it’s interesting that you said that people don’t take it seriously. And I think if you take it seriously, like this is a job, this is a, like people wouldn’t say, Hey, you don’t need your time to work.

That is your, that’s your working time. So it’s interesting how Writing time or something creative can take a backseat and a back priority as something that’s not as important.

Leigh Shulman: Absolutely. I say that all the time that, you know, people, so many people have dream, a dream to write.

So many people tell me like, Oh, I’ve wanted to write this novel. It’s been following me my whole life. And sometimes there’s just never time and there won’t be time until you say like, all right, I’m going to do this. And then of course there’s, it’s not easy to write a book and taking yourself seriously is a difficult having other people.

I don’t really worry too much about other people taking me seriously because that’s, either do or you don’t. And I try to block that out as much as possible, but for me to be able to say. Or somebody who’s writing a book for the first time. I don’t know what I’m doing. Where is this going to go?

Trust yourself. Trust yourself is the best advice. I think it’s great. It’s amazing writing advice. It’s good advice for anything I think, but I’ve seen it time and time now where somebody just cause they don’t, they don’t, they’ve never written a book. They don’t know what to say. I’m like well, what do you think?

And then they’ll tell me what they think. And I’m like, all right, try it. And like really thought it wouldn’t work. I might say, I would say something, but. Most times people know exactly what they want and they know exactly what to do. And, it’s just they doubt that they know. It’s just, you can really trust yourself.

You can trust yourself to make the decisions that are best for you when you are really paying attention to what you want and you’re really clear in that. It’s when other people, you should do this. What about this? Have you published, have you done this? Those voices distract you from your instinct and what you want.

So shout them out.

Advice for starting to write later in life?

Andrea Vahl: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It can be a very distracting world out there. And is there any advice that you would give in particular to late starters who are thinking about writing a book? I know you probably work with all ages, but is there anything unique about starting or writing a book or any sort of writing goal that you might have for people doing that later in life that you think might be.

Good advice for them.

Leigh Shulman: I think when you’re starting later in life, you have so much more experience, you know, things so much more. And there’s so much, there’s so many. Philosophies and ideas that you have come to know, just from living life and seeing how things play out. And so, you know, you can write words, you can write a scene, any of that you can learn, but having a message and a clear message and knowing what that means and how that plays out in the world that takes time and experience.

So what I would somebody starting later out, starting out later is again, it goes back to trust yourself. You’d be surprised how much you know. Really believe in yourself because, a lot, I have people in the, in my writing community, I’ve had people come in who, 70, 80, 80 years old.

I think the old person was maybe 86 and I’m a big believer in it’s I can help you shape your writing, but I can’t tell you your story. And I’m not here to do that. I’m here to help you tell your story and. All of them, they have a story. They’ve learned so many things. All of us, you know, the more you live, the more, you know, so I think it’s just, you know, take the leap and try it and trust that you really do know a lot and the more you’ve lived, the more you have to say.

you know, I can teach you how to do well.

Andrea Vahl: Yeah. Yeah, it’s so great. And why not? If you’ve had this book, I’ve talked to a lot of people who have book ideas and just get it done and keep chipping away at it and, defend your time. So much great advice. Thank you so much, Leigh. This has been so fun.

Leigh’s Favorite Quote

Andrea Vahl: And as usual, I love to close out the interview with one of my favorite parts is finding out.

People’s inspirational quote, motivational saying, what do you have? I’m just such a quote junkie. So love to hear it.

Leigh Shulman: I know. I love it. I’m excited for this. So I have two. One of them is a quote that’s a Rumi quote, the poet Rumi 12th century. Persian poet. What you seek is seeking you.

And I particularly love it because it always makes me feel like, let me just put down my guard. Let me put down all my defenses and that the thing that I want most is going to come to me as I’m moving toward it. And it helps me have faith and kind of relax and just let me do what I want to do or what feels right.

And then my other quote, it’s not from somebody else. It’s my life mantra. It’s all about figuring it out. Wherever it is, whether I’ve been stuck in the desert or I’m stuck on a chapter or, my kid is saying, no, I’ll figure it out. I’ll figure it out.

Andrea Vahl: I love that. It’s so true. It’s so true. Especially traveling, you get into some pretty crazy situations sometimes where you’re like locked out.

In Greece on it, how are we going to navigate that, but we’ll figure it out. Yeah that’s amazing. Leigh, this is so fun. So great hearing about your travels and your writing and where can people find you to learn more?

Leigh Shulman: All right. So the two best places to find me on my website, which is Leigh Shulman.

It’s my name, L E I G H S H U L M A N. com or Instagram. So on my website, you’ll find resources, links, information about writing. I have a course on there where the first lesson is free. It’s right on the main page or Instagram, which is where I have conversations. And we talk about writing, but other stuff too.

And my Instagram handle is The Leigh shulman, same name spelled with the T H E at the beginning.

Andrea Vahl: Yeah. Nice. We’ll have those links in the show notes and definitely you guys go check out her page of like fun little pictures too, in her about section. It’s just. Really beautiful pictures of Salta and who knows, you might think, Hey, I need to go plan a trip there.

I didn’t even know about it.

Leigh Shulman: If you come to Salta, message me, definitely message me. I love people showing around.

Andrea Vahl: Awesome. Thanks again, Leigh. Thanks for your time.

Leigh Shulman: Thank you. Bye.

Andrea Vahl: Bye.

Hope that was helpful and make sure you grab the free guide top tools for late starters on the website at late starters club. com and let’s turn dreaming into