How Miist Is Using Music, Storytelling, and Small Acts of Kindness to Help People Reconnect
After becoming the first native Chinese artist to chart on Billboard’s Pop/AC chart, Miist could have continued focusing solely on music. Instead, the singer-songwriter, author, podcaster, and founder has built something much broader. Her new book, Make Me Smile with Miist, adapts her Top 10 mental health podcast into a collection of short reflections that blend…
Black News 
After becoming the first native Chinese artist to chart on Billboard’s Pop/AC chart, Miist could have continued focusing solely on music.
Instead, the singer-songwriter, author, podcaster, and founder has built something much broader.
Her new book, Make Me Smile with Miist, adapts her Top 10 mental health podcast into a collection of short reflections that blend memoir, music, psychology, and practical exercises. At the same time, she’s continuing The Love Project, a global initiative centered on compassion that recently launched alongside her single “Love Will Show Us Our Way,” featuring a fan-created music video assembled from real acts of kindness submitted from around the world.
For Miist, every project shares the same purpose.
“Look around us, people are suffering more and more from disconnection,” she says. “My music, podcast, book, all share the same goal, to unite people, and remind everyone that we have a lot more in common than differences.”
That mission is deeply personal. Born in China, Miist was abandoned at five years old and later survived a terminal cancer diagnosis before unexpectedly discovering songwriting in her 30s, despite having no formal musical training. Within just a few years, she had written more than 100 songs, becoming one of the music industry’s most unlikely success stories.
Rather than viewing those hardships as defining limitations, she sees them differently.
“I could choose to think of my life as a burden but I choose to view those experiences as gifts,” she says. “They have allowed me to have more empathy and compassion for others who have also experienced hardships in their lives.”
That perspective became the foundation for Make Me Smile with Miist. Each chapter explores themes like loneliness, fear, gratitude, and connection before ending with one of her signature “15-second actions” – simple practices designed to help readers take an immediate step toward feeling more grounded.
“As someone who is still struggling a great deal, I’m seeing a therapist right now, I understand that when we struggle, the things that we know will help us often overwhelm us,” she explains. “There is hardly anyone in the world who can say they cannot do something for 15 seconds today. So let’s start there… who knows where it will take us.”
Music remains central to that experience. Every chapter is paired with one of Miist’s songs, reflecting the way songwriting first helped her process emotions she had struggled to express.
“Discovering music at 34 years old enabled me for the first time to process difficult emotions,” she says. “I realized it was not only therapy for me, in a way it’s for my listeners too.”
That philosophy also inspired The Love Project. Rather than starring herself in the music video for “Love Will Show Us Our Way,” Miist invited people around the world to submit videos of everyday acts of kindness.
“This is about each one of us,” she says. “This is not just my story or the story of someone I know, this is all of ours… we are in this together.”
Photo credit: Cloud Fazioli
As an AAPI artist whose life has spanned multiple cultures, Miist believes those experiences have only strengthened her desire to build bridges through creativity.
“The more I learn about other people, their food, art, customs… the more I appreciate our similarities and differences,” she says. “Because of my heritage and experiences I feel I can not only connect with people from around the world – I want to.”
Today, success looks very different than awards or chart positions.
“The world tries to tell us that success means education, wealth, fame and power,” she says. “To me being with my family, building authentic connections with people, having a real faith, and doing the things I believe is right, those makes me happy, and that means success to me.”
