Ungovernable Women with Portia Mount
"Ungovernable Women" (formerly The Manifista) dives into the lives and careers of extraordinary women who have redefined success on their own terms. Each episode offers a glimpse into the journeys of trailblazing women who dare to lead audacious, purpose-driven lives and the lessons they learned along the way.
Ungovernable Women with Portia Mount
Awaken your Rebel Soul with Shelley Paxton
Shelley Paxton, author, speaker, and Chief Soul Officer, joins Portia today for a discussion around what happens when you wake up and realize you want something different out of your life and career. Shelley talks about the power of being honest with yourself and giving yourself permission to rebel for who you really are. Learn how to define your own success and be your authentic self.
Have a question or comment? Email us at ungovernablewomen@gmail.com.
Books mentioned in this episode: Soulbbatical: A Corporate Rebel’s Guide to Finding Your Best Life by Shelley Paxton, The Wild Why: Stories and Teachings to Uncover Your Wonder by Laura Munson, and The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad.
Portia Mount on LinkedIn
Shelley Paxton on LinkedIn
Shelley Paxton’s Website
Hi, I'm Portia Mount, creator and host of Ungovernable Women, formerly the Manifesta Podcast, the lifestyle and career podcast for aspiring women. Our new name reflects our mission to reach even more listeners with stories of women who are breaking boundaries and redefining success. I have a favor to ask you, if you haven't done so already, please rate and subscribe to the pod. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, it boosts our rankings and helps more people discover us. Thanks for tuning in. Welcome to Season 5 of Ungovernable Women, the career and lifestyle podcast for aspiring women ready to break barriers. I'm Portia Mouw and I'm thrilled to be back. We've got a new name, but our mission remains stronger than ever helping women find their purpose, lead high-impact careers and meaningful lives. This season, we'll bring you the stories of women who forged their own paths to success. It's our time to shine. Let's dive in Squad. I am so thrilled to welcome today Shelly Paxton, author, speaker and chief soul officer. We're going to get to that in a moment. You are going to love this conversation today because we're going to talk about burnout, purpose and what happens when you wake up and realize you just want something different out of your career and life, something that reignites your soul, and Shelly is on this incredible mission to help people gather the courage to choose themselves.
Speaker 1:Our guest today, shelly Paxton, is a global advertising and media executive who's had incredible executive roles with DBB, omnicom Media, and she has stewarded brands like McDonald's, visa, intel so many brands that you know. She left the agency world and went to the dark side, went client side and with Harley Davidson, where she eventually became chief marketing officer. She is the author of the bestselling Soul Baticle, a Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding your Best Life. Shelly's motto is I quit so you don't have to, and she's on a mission to help leaders and organizations flip the script from success empty to successful, and we love this so much and we're going to unpack that as well. And this is really about creating lives and cultures fueled by badassery, not burnout. You can learn so much more about Shelly on her website, wwwshelly. That's with an E shellypaxtoncom. And, as always, we link to her socials and her website in the show notes. Shelly, welcome. I am so, so, so happy to have you here today.
Speaker 2:Oh, soul Sister, this has been the highlight of my week and you know I miss you, I miss hanging out with you, and so what a gift it is. So thank you for the invitation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean it's so funny because and I said this to someone and I think I even posted when you and I met last fall is when you meet somebody and you're like, oh my God, I have to be friends with this person. And Shelly, I just need you to know, I don't like everybody. I famously like to say that I only have like four friends, Like I'm super, super selective, but when I met you I was like, oh my God, she's like my person. Oh yeah, I'm going to add that to the list of like 989,000 reasons.
Speaker 2:I love you because we share that as well. And just I mean for anyone listening like don't ignore those moments where the universe puts like the sign, the symbol, the person right in front of you or right next to you, as you were to me and I was to you At this event, we were at speakers and we were not coincidentally sat right next to each other, it was not random.
Speaker 1:It was not random.
Speaker 2:And it never is. It was not random, it was not random and it never is, and so I just think that's a beautiful tone to set for this whole conversation because, none of this is random.
Speaker 1:It's not.
Speaker 2:It was like oh my God, our souls collided with it and we have similar. We were like oh my God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was very funny and I love that you say that too, Shelly, about paying attention, because there's so many articles today about how hard it is for people to make friends, keep friends. There's a lot of reasons for that, you know. Especially as women, we tend to be busy and we have lots of responsibilities, but also we live in much more isolated lives, and so, like I totally agree, like when you meet somebody and you're like I want to be friends with that person, don't ignore that, and you're like I want to be friends with that person, don't ignore that. And like, because we immediately exchange information, we make contact and that's the way to do it, like don't ignore the impulse. So like you're already kicking down advice, right, we're like two minutes in.
Speaker 2:I love it. Well, it was such a gift. I am, I feel, so fortunate to have had that moment where the universe put us next to each other and to have a friend and soul sister in my life and to be doing this with them. And can I just say thank you for having this podcast and these kinds of conversations, because they're so incredibly important.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you, Shelly, and I think what I am seeing and feeling in the world now is there are lots of people like us who are trying to not just connect with one another, but to spread this message and to help people look deeply within and live the life they want to live right. Live the way they. We're here for such a short time. Why not live in a way that is filled with purpose and meaning and sets your soul on fire? And so let me ask you just a very basic question, before we really dig deep into the meaningful things, which is where are you Like? Where does this pod find you today? Yes, I'm in Chicago. The shy, the shy. Yeah, I'm in Chicago.
Speaker 2:The Chi, the Chi, yeah, the Chi town, as some people call it. It's become my adult home over, you know, on and off over many decades and after I left Harley and I know we'll get to that- part of the story. I found this very specific place. I live in a loft that's an old garment factory Nice, nice, what part of Chicago?
Speaker 1:What neighborhood I'm old? Garment factory Nice, nice. What part of Chicago? What neighborhood. I'm in Bucktown oh you're in Bucktown, awesome yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it, so this has become I call it Rebel Soul HQ.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it and I love this thing, I love that and I want to. We're going to talk about that too, because I think rebel is one of those words where people are like, oh my gosh, I can't be a rebel. But you've got a really specific way of thinking about rebel. So when I stalk everybody, even when I've met them, I like to do my homework and see what else I can uncover. And you have this on your website. Your Rebel Leaders Manifesto starts with this we are powerful motherfuckers. We are the leaders of a revolution to bring more humanity to leadership and culture, to celebrate each and every one of us as human beings, not human doings, and when I read that I was like hot damn. So let's unpack this for the people. What are you talking about here?
Speaker 2:I love that you played it back to me. I have not read my own Rebel Leaders Manifesto in a long time and I'm actually in the process of You're like that's so good, I still read it.
Speaker 1:Who wrote that?
Speaker 2:No, I'm dead. Yeah, I'm in the process of like refurbishing my website and it's so funny. I need to dig in and read some of my own stuff because, to my core, every single one of those words that you just read and I think it unleashed in me this idea that what I'm doing it's so much bigger than me and the journey that I've been on. It's about the collective and a movement and this idea that I say rebel for versus rebel against.
Speaker 2:I'll add to the very specific language I highlighted in just a second second. I think, this is important context In my book and in a lot of my work. If you choose to dive deeper, what you'll learn is I've always been a rebel. When I was young, I was the kind of rebel that was like I will not listen to my parents or authority, or the nuns at the boarding school I went to for a year or whatever. It was what?
Speaker 1:birth order. Are you in, shelly? Let's hit the pause. I'm the oldest. Are you Interesting? Because I'm the oldest too, and oldest tent. Well, I guess they're not always known to be rebels, but they are known to sort of do their own thing right, so okay. So I just had to clear that up because that's very interesting to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was definitely doing my own thing in a very rebellious way and the reason that I say that there are lots of funny stories about my youth and being a rebel and what, what I realized when, as I started to go on this journey and reconnect with my own soul, I realized that for so much of my life I had been rebelling against you know my parents and what people were saying you should do, and trying to do it in my own way and it was exhausting in my own way and it was exhausting and one of my big ahas is that's a little bit of why rebel has such a negative connotation you think of, like for our generation maybe your generation's older than us you think james dean yeah, we're gen xers, yeah uh-huh, smoking the motorcycle off to his right and listen.
Speaker 2:I relate to a lot of that, for obvious reasons, the motorcycle part in particular. And at the same time it's usually like it's the outsider they're, they're the outcasts, they're rebelling against.
Speaker 2:And the epiphany that I had early on in this journey was the real power is in rebelling for and all of a sudden it felt empowering and expansive and I was like, wait a second, if I'm rebelling for who I am, my authenticity, what I want, like my truth and my dreams, and the impact that I want to have in whether it's my life, my business, my world, all three of those things that feels so incredibly powerful and badass, and what a beautiful place to come from.
Speaker 2:So, a big shift and really where that manifesto started to come from was this idea of rebelling for who.
Speaker 2:I am and what my truth is, and then this manifesto and my work and my mission in the world really started to spill out of me. So I want to set that context because it's an invitation to anyone listening who feels stuck or maybe you're pushing against your if you can't see the video. I've got a brick wall in my loft behind me and I was 100% that person who was constantly banging my head against that brick wall and now I'm like I'm never going to move that brick wall.
Speaker 2:So what if I look away from the brick wall, dig deep inside of me and rebel for? And that feels again empowering and expansive. And that's where all of my work has come from. And that's the invitation for everyone.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so powerful, and so I guess that I I think that, if I'm thinking about our listeners, one of the questions they're going to ask, they're going to look at your bio and they're going to be like, oh my gosh, this woman's been at the height of the best brands, the biggest media companies, lots of prestige and status when you made the shift to rebel, for what was that process or event or thing that happened and how did you think about it? Because there are a lot of people out there who are like I do not like where I am and I don't know how to create an alternative, a meaningful alternative, to what I'm doing. So I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, if you think about what I said and believe me, I understand, I am not in any way suggesting this is easy work and, at the same time, the investment, it is the most liberating work you will ever do, whatever that means for you. And I think it's really important to say early in this conversation the reason that I quit so you don't have to is my motto is because I do not believe that my work means that everybody needs to take the path that I've taken. It does not mean to mean, or even mean at its core, that you have to leave your job. What?
Speaker 2:it does mean when you think about rebel, for the very first step that I took, and I would encourage all of you to take, is to get really honest with yourself. Yeah, this is where it starts. And I always say and actually there was a, I'm a big fan of young Pueblo.
Speaker 2:Um and a quote of his just like smacked me like a two by four the other day, and at the end of it I won't remember the whole quote, but at the end of it it basically said before any of these other things can happen, before we can move forward, before we can rebel for in my language, we have to face the hard truths we're avoiding oh wow, that's where my whole journey started and I know I'm in that place again. Of what are I say? What are you pretending?
Speaker 1:not to know, okay, so what was that for you? So, when you talk about the facing the hard truths yeah, that you were avoiding, what was I mean the ones that you can share publicly. Let's just be, let's be more specific, but like what was, like what were, what was one for you?
Speaker 2:yeah, and I think it's really important to say that I share almost everything publicly, like I. I think that was part of living my truth. I say authenticity, courage and values at the same time. The number one thing for me when I started asking this question while I was still at Harley was I realized that I was pretending not to know, that I was living my dad's success script.
Speaker 1:Oh, say that for the people in the back.
Speaker 2:Calling it and I know this resonates because all of the rooms I stand in the stages, I speak on the leaders, I work with the workshops that I facilitate. This comes up again and again. It may not be your dad's success script but very often it's one of your parents. It's somebody else's yeah it's somebody else's, what your community expected, what society puts on us, the ways that we define society has traditionally and often from a patriarchal perspective defined success, and so when I started to unravel that and untangle that for myself, I realized that script had served me incredibly well for a very long time.
Speaker 2:So I think it's also really important to say I feel incredibly fortunate. I have zero regrets, because we're on this path at different stages for a reason.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:Right, and then I got to this point where it was no longer serving me and it forced me to get really honest about who am I. Think about all the three questions I asked with Rebel 4. Who am I? What is my truth, my essence, the values that matter to me?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What do I want? What are my dreams? Not my dad's dreams. My dad was super clear with me that he wanted me to be the president of Harley Davidson and then go on to running. You know, president, CEO, chairman of the board of other. Was he at Harley Davidson? No, no, no, my dad wasn't at Harley Davidson. But my dad had a huge career. My dad was president and CEO of big companies like Pillsbury if anybody remembers Pillsbury Doughboy, haagen-dazs, ice Cream, some freaking private companies.
Speaker 1:So that was in your blood. Yeah, these big consumer products, like brands, like in your blood.
Speaker 2:And he started in marketing and my dad came from nothing and made himself and it was his mission in the world to get out of the tiny town that he grew up in in Ohio and to make it quote, unquote, make it right.
Speaker 2:And that fueled me for a long time and I looked back and I'm like I really did follow my dad's success script. I did it with a Shelly flavor and a Shelly way and that served me because I wanted to be very global, I wanted my job to be a ticket or my career to be a ticket around the world, and it was. I lived around the world, I worked around the world and so, coming back to that, it was terrifying to face this truth, this very hard and painful and real truth, that this success script served me well but it was not my own and the emptiness, the lack of fulfillment, the aloneness that I was feeling. I was having a nightmare which we can get into, which was my real wake-up call at Harley. It was helping me to understand and face the truth that this was no longer mine and I needed to reconnect with myself so that it was going to start. Success as an idea is truly from the inside out.
Speaker 1:It really is, and you said something really important that it seems to be a theme with a number of the guests I've talked with who have been on transformational journeys and made it to the other side, which is that who am I? Question is not only very profound, it can be rather challenging to answer because we've never thought about it. It's been about somebody else's success script right. It's a mental model that we carry and so when you finally have the space, you're like holy crap, like who am I? What's really important to me? What do I want to wake up every day doing? What kind of impact do I want to have while I'm walking this earth?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I talk a lot about this idea of releasing what I call the shackles of should, and so much of what terrifies us in doing this work and getting honest with ourselves is that the world is saying well, I mean, you should be on a path to this thing, you know, to the C-suite. You should be on a path to managing partner in your law firm. You should be on a path where you're going to make six, seven, eight figures. You should be on a path that is secure and comfortable and offers you insurance, and it's okay if it's not super exciting, it's comfortable.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm not poo-pooing any of those things, I'm just saying that's not usually our language, it's usually somebody else's should somebody else's story that we have been conditioned to believe as our own, and that, to me, was the hardest part was understanding where are the shoulds popping up in my life and I talk in my book and in my work very openly, and I say it like I just kept saying God, I'm misinvested.
Speaker 2:When I left Harley, I had been in the advertising and marketing world for 26 years. I was 46 years old and I thought you know, I can just keep doing this for a little while longer and just pack away a little bit more money in my bank account.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh Right.
Speaker 1:I talked to so many I can't tell you how many executives I talked to her Like. They're like I'm going to be 55 and I fully vest and I just have to hang in there and like and they're getting increasingly more miserable. But they're like, I just have to, I'm just going to, I'm just going to stay the course. I don't want to change. I have too much social capital. It's too much, it's too hard. I'm just going to and then, you know, I'll ride into the sunset as soon as all my stock vests and meanwhile it's like, you know, you're just getting ground down.
Speaker 2:Well, and also there is no certainty. I think we convince ourselves that there's certainty and I can just stay and I can just stay. And again, I'm not saying leave, I'm saying get honest about how you can make this work for you. In a way, it might not be what you're doing, it might be how you're doing how you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2:How is what you're doing actually making you feel, or how you're showing up and the what you're doing actually making you feel, or how you're showing up and the choices you're making in your life every day how are those making you feel? And I think that's an incredibly important piece of it, because I remember asking myself very similar to what you said. I was sitting there and I was having this nightmare from 45 to 46. I'm chief marketing officer of Harley Davidson. I have arguably the sexiest job, the sexiest job.
Speaker 2:And everybody around me is like. Everybody wants to talk to me. I'm wearing leather. I pierced my nose. I can walk into a boardroom in boots and jeans and a leather jacket. I'm riding motorcycles with my team around the world. I mean, it's absolutely incredible on so many levels.
Speaker 2:And at the same time I'm having this nightmare in the middle of the night that is not letting me sleep. And what I am seeing I later understood to be this I was literally seeing my dog, who had died in the year before I went to Harley In the midst, or actually at the very end, of a very turbulent divorce. I went to Harley alone, reinventing myself, and then I start having this nightmare five years later, five and a half years later, and I'm seeing my dog, who in the real world has passed six years ago, and in my nightmare I find him. He was a little fat roly poly pug. He's absolutely adorable and I would make my way to this like through a maze to a closet, and I would open this small utility closet in this dark room that I didn't even know existed. I had no idea where I was and in there, like neglected, dying, malnourished. Longing for attention is my plug.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, that's not a sign.
Speaker 2:I start to believe like what kind of monster am I? He's not been dead. I've actually forgotten about him. I haven't left him to die in this closet.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:And I talk very openly about the power of therapy and all the work that I've done, whatever works for you, but through therapy, because I was getting desperate, I wasn't sleeping. I was running a global team, I was trying to show up every day and I was like, I know, just like meeting you and sitting next to you in Nashville, I knew 100% that this was happening for me for me to understand and through the work that I did in therapy and Dr Bob, my therapist.
Speaker 1:We love it. By the way, shout out to our therapist, Dr Bob. Shout out, shout out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the whole situation was ironic. I won't even tell you Dr Bob was more of a functional medicine doctor.
Speaker 1:Okay, I love that. Listen, I'm like everybody should be in therapy for the rest of their lives. I'm a huge therapy advocate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a hundred percent and he really helped me. So talk about unpacking all of this. He's the first one who asked me that question. What are you pretending, not?
Speaker 1:to know.
Speaker 2:And when I sat with it, and sat with it, and sat with it, which was hard as fuck. I did not want to see what I know I was seeing and I realized one morning, and I couldn't ignore it anymore, that Mocha, my little neglected dog in this utility closet, was a proxy for my soul. Mmm and that began everything, because suddenly you know that reframe like reframes are so important yes, really, really important right, and so we can all figure out, like even that one degree shift and for me, the shift of.
Speaker 2:you know the terror of believing I'm a monster who's left her dog in a closet to die for years, to understanding that that's my soul crying out to me and that we don't have a relationship anymore, we don't have a connection.
Speaker 2:I have left my soul in the closet to die in a closet to die and malnourished and neglected, was the wake up. And then I started thinking, wow, okay, well, I can keep, quote unquote, pushing ahead, but I might not make it to 50. I might have all this money in my bank account. And this is what I wanted to say when you were talking earlier. We pushed through and pushed through and you know what? We have no certainty and almost always we get some version of the cosmic kick in the ass, absolutely, absolutely we get the pandemic, we get the illness.
Speaker 2:We lose somebody we love. Absolutely we get laid off. Life does not go the way we expected. We have no control.
Speaker 1:We have no control over that. It will kick you in the ass.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, so again what I'm paying forward and why I love I Quit so you Don't have To, which is, by the way, a line I landed on only in the past couple of years, and I left hardly eight and a half years ago. It's really because I realized this journey, like really because I realized this journey, like soulbatical, is not a way of leaving it's a radical way of leaving.
Speaker 1:Right, so it's not a quit, this is not a. Quit your job and go set up a flower stand coffee shop type, by the way, nothing wrong with those, because I love flowers and I love coffee but this is bigger and much deeper than that. Right? You're not. You're not going around telling people like hey, quit your job and becoming an entrepreneur at blah, blah, blah, blah, like that's not, that's, that's not what this is.
Speaker 2:And I always say, when people hire me to speak, I always say there are going to be people there say like please don't, please don't encourage our people to quit, and I always say there's a line in my talk. I say I am not telling you to quit your job, I'm inviting you to quit defining success in a way that's no longer serving you.
Speaker 1:I love that, but can I just say, don't you find it interesting how scared leaders are of saying don't tell people to quit their jobs? Not because the reality is? And this is why I think your message is so profound? Is it's not about your work at all? Right, that's not it. And that's the opportunity for leaders, isn't it Of helping we come to these places of work whatever we do, and they, you know, they pay us and they do other social things for us. But I am always fascinated of the fear of as if, like, my words are going to somehow make somebody get up and like, throw their like and just say, okay, I'm walking out the door and now I'm going to go move to Bhutan and study Buddhism. Do you know what I mean Again, and so I'm just it's. It shows you, like, the fear of people saying like, hey, if people wake up, if people get more awake and I do believe in the word woke, I'm just going to tell you that if people do get more like, would they not choose this place anymore?
Speaker 2:Right, it's fascinating, because I mean, unless you and I are once again one million percent on the exact same page and I always say, like first of all that person, who's going to make that choice, they've already made that decision exactly they, as you say that that didn't happen because they heard a one you know 40 minute keynote.
Speaker 1:Like these people.
Speaker 2:Yes, they were in process. Keynotes too likely in yours. The data tells us that these people we are speaking with, and likely some of the same people who are listening to this podcast right now, they're burned out at different levels. We are in the midst of a mental health crisis. The Gallup engagement scores are the lowest.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. The Gallup data is crazy yeah.
Speaker 2:So you look at the data and it's telling us we have a problem. And so it goes back to that line. You read from the Rebel Leaders Manifesto in the very, very beginning, this human beings, reminding ourselves that we are human beings and not human doings.
Speaker 1:Human doings yeah, they're human beings and not human doings.
Speaker 2:Human doings yeah, this is one of the reasons I fell in love with Brene Brown's work so early on, because she was trying to help us understand that we went from this industrial age into this knowledge age and that we need to make our way to this heart-led age as leaders where we are more courageous and vulnerable.
Speaker 2:Vulnerable and we can be our human selves because frankly that's what sets us apart from the machines and the ai and everything that we're talking about right now. And I just don't believe in the hustle and grind, and that's not because I'm not in corporate. I'm yeah how I can see so clearly how burned out and stressed out I was as a leader and as a human.
Speaker 2:I was not showing up as my most powerful badass self. I was not showing up in any role in my life alive and aligned and energized, and ultimately, that's what my work is about, because I believe that's the like. We can show up that way. That's how we have ripples of impact in our own lives and our own businesses and in the world at large. And the more people, the more of us who are making these choices, the more impact we choose to surround ourselves with.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about the fact that you are using the word soul very openly and you talk about choosing soul over salary. I have a dear friend who's CEO and he openly talks about soul work Like this is my soul work, I'm doing this. He's an incredible human being and so I am fascinated by the fact that many leaders, like the ones who are sort of out on their edge right, they're on their growth edge openly talk about, embrace, soul work, so talk about the choice and intentionality, to use that term, and I'm curious, like what the reaction has been, as you've, as you've been talking, you know, all this time and maybe what the or maybe what the evolution has been, because we're living in a different time from when you started, from like eight years ago, right Eight years ago, leaving Harley to now I can imagine there's been a real shift also in sort of attitudes around sort of that concept.
Speaker 2:All of it. Nobody was even talking about burnout.
Speaker 1:We just started talking about burnout like I don't know, like probably around the pandemic. When all this were, everybody was ready to collapse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from, I was gonna say all the things like none of us remember the world before the pandemic. So I feel like I called them before time.
Speaker 1:Shall I call them? I called them before times. It's the before time totally well.
Speaker 2:So it has been an evolution, and I feel like we can fill three hours on this question alone, and so I will. I'll give you a few highlights. It is you used language that I think is so spot on when you were talking about progressive, who understand that you know looking at their leaders as human beings, more humanity and well-being and soul into their cultures, into their teams, is the future of work.
Speaker 1:I 100% believe this.
Speaker 2:And it's still a very small population of the corporate world, for sure, I think it's starting to shift and if I'm brutally honest and you know me, that's the only way I know.
Speaker 1:I was going to say are you going to do anything else? But okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, authenticity is tattooed on my forearm and for anybody who need a little mantra for the day, it says authenticity is the truest form of rebellion. I believe that I live into that every single day. So this is truly rebel, for is you're rebelling for who you are, and so, if I tie that to your question around soul, it has been an evolution. Originally my, so my book has the word soul in it. I mashed up this crazy word called soul radical because I had no other way to. When I made the choice to leave Harley and I made an proactive on my own choice to walk away, everybody thought I was crazy.
Speaker 1:I'm sure they thought you were crazy. Yeah, they were. Like you're crazy, what are you doing?
Speaker 2:And the chorus of shoulds was so loud that I almost gave up on myself. I almost just said stay. And so, in order to tell the world what I was doing in a way that felt a little bit more quote unquote sane, because that's what the world, you know, the world was telling me, this was insane. I knew in my heart and soul this journey was what I had to do, and even if three or six or 12 months later I was back in a corporate role, that was okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so be it. Right, so be it. It was your choice, you made the choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but in that moment it was soul and sabbatical. I mashed together to say I'm going on this journey to reconnect with myself, to answer these really scary questions about who am I? What is my Shelly Paxton script of success? What if Shelly Paxton was the most iconic brand I could ever lead?
Speaker 2:And that didn't necessarily mean going out on my own. What it meant is I had stood in the shadows of these iconic global brands for a very long time and I got really comfortable there, and I think a lot of us get really comfortable in whatever shadows we're living in right now to step out and think of yourself as iconic, as meaningful, as impactful as I mean.
Speaker 1:I say brands because you and I were advertising people. We're marketers.
Speaker 2:What's your version of that language? And that started to really shift things for me. And the soul language has been a fascinating journey because at first I started talking about this idea of where soul meets success. That's what one of my first keynotes was called, and it was a tough sell. It was it's essentially the same message that people love today, but having soul lead was a tough one, so I have started to honestly Trojan horse my way in this was advice I was given along the way, where people are very receptive to soul Once you warm them up.
Speaker 2:Once I tell my story when they say how vulnerable I'm willing to be, and that what soul really means. This isn't woo, woo, this is right, it's not religious.
Speaker 1:It's not religious, it's, yeah, yeah, it's not, it's not.
Speaker 2:Let's all go commune in Bhutan, even though I would love to go.
Speaker 1:I would like I really we should go to Bhutan together, actually if they're going to if they're allowing Americans in, we those. There are places that don't want us anymore, shelly.
Speaker 2:And sadly I understand we do. I call myself a global citizen, so that breaks my heart.
Speaker 1:You might only be able to go to, like I don't know, some small town in Texas.
Speaker 2:Okay, no, run top of it. Run. Feel like there's a growing appetite for it and so it is still at the heart of my work. And at the same time, I don't punch people with it like right from the get go, because if I lose you by saying soul, whether it's in the title of my keynote or the intro to the conversation, that I've lost you on a much bigger idea, a much more powerful transformation. That really is about how we think about success, how we shape our cultures, how we can be more human in the way that we're showing up and like live the lives we want to live, create the world we want to live in right, leave it for generations to come in a way that feels good and, you know, choose things like pause over push give ourselves a beat.
Speaker 2:Busyness is not a badge of honor. And I just realized that there were so many kind of core tenants to my work. Kind of core tenets to my work yeah, All souls at the center of them. I don't want people to get stuck on that word. Yeah, yeah, so I ease everybody in, especially in bigger corporate audiences. I don't know, does that answer?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does, and I think because you, this invitation that you're putting out, there is again an invitation for people to really look inward and have deep gain, deep self-awareness, and then align their lives with that and then to truly understand what it is that is aligned with their values, which is something that I think is incredibly important. I talk a lot about that as well Values, impact, and then also what is removing those mental models of the shoulds, which I love, and saying, okay, what is that, what is me Like, who am I, what is me and that is. I think that's a message that anyone can take, uh, uh, take, take to heart, shelly, I really do.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and let's make it super practical, because the one thing that I am committed to doing is not making this all feel so lofty and philosophical and theoretical, that you just go, yes, some other day. I don't got any time for that.
Speaker 1:And I understand that.
Speaker 2:I understand like we have choices to make every day, and so one of the things that's become more of a centerpiece of what I do when I'm on stage and in rooms is I'm holding up a packet of orange post-it notes. You can pick whatever color lights you up. Pick your favorite damn color.
Speaker 1:I'm going to look in my drawer, in my handy, really organized desk drawer. I'm going to pick up my pink post-it.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh, that just matches perfectly with what you've got, okay. So, and for everybody at home or wherever you are right now, pick your favorite color post-it note. These are going to become your permission slips.
Speaker 1:Ooh.
Speaker 2:Because here's what I've realized as my work has evolved and as I've been searching for my own ways to do this work. We were never taught to give ourselves permission.
Speaker 1:I'm writing this down, my permission slip.
Speaker 2:Yes, so when I am going to give you the permission question that you can ask yourself every morning, I still do this as a morning practice.
Speaker 1:What's my permission question?
Speaker 2:But let me. But context is really important, and so one of the things as I was thinking how do we unlock these shackles of should when we're starting to realize all the places in our lives where we're shitting all over ourselves? Okay, you said shitting.
Speaker 1:We're shitting all over ourselves. We're shitting all over ourselves. Okay, I caught you. I was like well, anyway, we're shitting all over ourselves. I give myself permission to stop shitting all over myself.
Speaker 2:That is a macro one that should be on everyone's bathroom mirror and refrigerator and laptop every single day. I'd be like please do that. And I think what's really, what's really important is, you know, we were always taught like at least our generation. When you were in school, it was like oh they, the teacher writes you a hall pass.
Speaker 2:The authority gives you permission, your parents give you permission, and somewhere along the way, no one taught us that we get to give ourselves permission, and to me, this is one of the greatest unlocks of the shackles of should is that you get to give yourself permission every day for what you want and what you need. And so here's the question Ask yourself this in just three to five minutes max every morning. So please don't tell me you don't have time to do it right. Minutes max every morning. So please don't tell me you don't have time to do it right. It is what do I need to give myself permission to do, not, do and or feel in order to show up as my most badass self today, or my most powerful self today?
Speaker 2:If the badass language doesn't work for you, what do I need to give myself permission to do, not, do and or feel in order to show up as my most badass self and write yourself one of these, 10 of these, 10 of these, 15 of these. There is no shame in the wallpaper game. I often have orange post-it notes all over my house and I encourage it, and it is a small yet hugely impactful way to remind yourself. Some days. It's like I have one right now. This is one of them I wrote this morning.
Speaker 2:It says play play because this has been a big theme for me. Like have fun let yourself, be you like, smile, joke, find the levity. This is big work and it can feel super serious and at the same time it's like wear your big fucking ring, like swear when you wear it.
Speaker 1:We both love it. We like the blingy jewelry, don't we? Yes, yeah, we have a very similar accessory game, which is the other reason why I was like I'm really going to like her because I love her necklace and we're like Dylan Lex. Is that Dylan Lex? Shout out to Dylan Lex?
Speaker 2:Bonded over shoes.
Speaker 1:Glasses, all of it. Glasses. Eyelashes, our love of stripper eyelashes. Yeah, caterpillar stripper eyelashes. These are looking fabulous today. I just got them done. I just got them done. I did not want to show up on camera looking at because I knew you were going to look fly.
Speaker 2:And I was like I cannot have raggedy ass eyelashes. Well, I love that I almost always have orange nail polish on and I'm like, oh my God, I feel so naked today, so at least I've got my, but you know what?
Speaker 1:Okay, but we'll talk back to your. So, like one of the things I used to not I used to feel guilty about, like all the things we're laughing about I used to feel guilty about taking time out to like, get my nails done every other week, get my lashes done I'd be like God, that's like just like, is that really? Do I really need to spend that kind of money? Like is that? Like I know I can afford it mostly, but like, do I need to do that? Like it seems so self-indulgent. I was like no, I like to look pretty. I like you know, I like the class, I like you know. And so I it was probably a few years ago I said these are the things that I do that make me happy. I do these things for myself because they make me happy.
Speaker 2:Period. It is. It's part of who am I, it's part of who I am. It's like part of who I am. Yep, my sister says to me all the time, because we could not love my sister dearly and we're super close and we could not be more opposite, and she always says it is very expensive to be shelly youard. You know what it doesn't mean I spend a million dollars. No, I just what lights me up? Lights me up what I care about and honestly, this is you know, I really do believe in this idea of, like you know how Beyonce has her Sasha Fierce? Oh, yeah, it's her alter ego. She steps into, yeah, I really believe that part of me stepping into who I am every day. And the badass, because I believe you can't be a badass if you're burned out. So I am not going to Right.
Speaker 1:Badass and burnout do not go together. They don't, they don't, they don't go together.
Speaker 2:Writing myself permission slips, and I do. I write myself permission slips to like find the signature jewelry. I don't buy a ton of it and it doesn't come from Tiffany's. No, nothing against Tiffany's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:I just want the stuff that looks like me Totally. And yeah, I do the eyelashes every two weeks. And I do the nails, because I always paint them orange, because it's my color and it just makes me smile because nobody walks around the fucking streets with orange on their nails and toes. That's kind of true.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you about the orange. What's the deal? Where did the orange? Because you have orange all over the place. It's on your website. You wear it. I was wondering if orange had a special meaning for you.
Speaker 2:Orange has always been my favorite color, increasingly so over the years. It was ironic. The question I get most often is did you fall in love with orange because you worked for Harley? Because Harley's color?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I didn't think about that, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, no and. But I think it's a very common thing. But the thing is, I've always loved orange. That was coincidence, and a very happy coincidence that I got to have more orange in my life.
Speaker 2:That was coincidence and a very happy coincidence that I got to have more orange in my life. And then, as I left and I found my way on this journey, I just gravitated because to me I thought wow, what color is more bold and brave and badass than orange? You can't hide in orange, orange can't hide, orange stands out. Orange is a bright light, orange is sort of a magnet, a drum.
Speaker 1:It's hot, it's fire.
Speaker 2:Since then, and because people see orange all over in my life it's in my house, like you said, it's in my business, on my website I have now had people telling me either their favorite colors orange or like creative colors, like color theory and creativity say that orange is also like a color of creativity. It's um, all these different things. I've learned so much about orange along the way.
Speaker 2:that has only reinforced my love for it, and so I just I keep leaning in, but to me I do love that, Like you can't hide from orange and so much about my work is like showing, like successful is being alive and aligned and energized in your life and in your leadership, which means you're radiant Right, and orange to me is radiant, but choose your color. I'm not saying fall in love with orange.
Speaker 2:I'm explaining why I love it and why I lean into it, but let your favorite color be that for you every day and find something that feels a little edgy, that is, you know, ensures that you can't hide, play small, because when more of us start showing up this way, it's like that tall poppy syndrome they talk about in Australia and the UK, I think, where you know they don't want one poppy to be taller than the others to pop ahead Like people, look at it and go wait, what's wrong with that person, Like who is she?
Speaker 2:Who is he to do that thing? And they want to like, squash it back down and I'm saying, be the tall poppy.
Speaker 1:Be the orange.
Speaker 2:I feel there like there's a whole. I've been thinking a lot about the tall poppy. This is my next podcast. Well, maybe it's about be the orange, or maybe it's my next talk, but I think there is something about like orange is representative of something so much bigger and more important. On this same topic right us really shining and embracing our truth, and it is bold and brave and badass. And if you're the orange in leadership, if you're the orange in life, what does that mean?
Speaker 1:Well, I think to me, I also, so one. I love how you talk about why it's meaningful for you, and I think we all have like find an artifact, find a thing that is representative of who you are. But you also said something else that's really important that I want our listeners to catch, which is you said pick something that like, pick a color where you can't, like you can't hide right, like you can't be small, that you can be the fullest version of yourself, and that's a really that's also a learned behavior. That's also we have to unlearn some things around being small, around adopting other people's success, track success stories and figuring out what are those things that make me shine. And so I love the invitation that you're giving to our listeners.
Speaker 1:My color, by the way, is chartreuse. I am obsessed with the color chartreuse green, lime green, I love it, I love it, love it, love it. It's like my absolute favorite color. There's like pops of it everywhere in my house and I have it in my business. I love that color, but it is, it's bold, it's like kind of edgy, and so I hope that our listeners who are listening to this are like now saying like, oh, you know, like what's that thing that? Because once you know who you are right getting back to sort of what you said at the beginning, shelly like who am I? Like, once you start to really uncover that all of a sudden, these things reveal I believe they reveal themselves too it's like you don't have to go and be like, okay, what's my favorite color? Like you'll start to find that like, oh, I like. I feel most like myself when I look like this or when I I'm in these kinds of environments, and that is why I have these really long eyelashes stripper eyelashes and I'm always wearing lip gloss.
Speaker 2:That is one of the reasons I love it and I just have to say I'm not good at shameless plugs, but I am going to say this because if you're looking for other really simple exercises to start digging into the who am I and what are the things that light me up and drain me and getting deeper into your values and all of that, please check out my book. It's available in audio book. It's available in hardback.
Speaker 1:And we're going to link to it too, in the show notes as well.
Speaker 2:Paperback, all the formats. So there's so much more than we're able to talk about here. I think, it's really important that I don't leave you hanging. This isn't like, oh, I just talk about how great life is and all of the journey I've been on and all the things. The reason I wrote this is Renee Brown has an unbelievable quote that I'm going to probably butcher right now, but it's the idea that we share our stories so that they can become somebody else's survival guide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's like the testing, right, it's like that. It's the test, it's a testimony that can save somebody else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so please like, share your story. Like, do not it it. I do this work and I show up in these conversations not because I love you, because I do it for you.
Speaker 1:It's also like part of your mission, right Like?
Speaker 2:I want all of us to not feel so alone, because the aloneness and the emptiness that I felt when I was in this place at Harley, thinking I was the only person going through this, and again, I feel like we're getting better at talking about this. There are more resources, there's more language for it. But I kind of had to blaze my own trail, creating my own language and tools and concepts, and so I share a lot of that to help you navigate through this as well. So, yeah, and thank you for linking to it. I appreciate that I am not good about tooting my own horn.
Speaker 1:Oh, we got to toot, toot, toot, toot, toot, toot, toot away. We give ourselves permission to talk about what we are most proud of, about what we've done and what we've accomplished, Like that is a thing. I think that's a permission that most women especially I think it's probably not just women, only women, but especially women we don't like to talk about our accomplishments Right what we've done and plug ourselves, plug our businesses. This is a perfect segue. We don't like to talk about our accomplishments right, what we've done and plug ourselves, plug our businesses. This is a perfect segue, shelley, and so one. I just have to thank you for bringing this energy and your vibrance and your humor and your warmth and also the accessibility to like a lot of.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of people who talk along these kinds of lines, and I think there should be more women, especially because we have a perspective. I think that brings the head and the heart together, and I think you've done something really special, which is you've brought the head and the heart together and I think people will enter into wherever they are in their journey in terms of self-discovery and their continued path. They're going to find something for themselves in your book, and so can't wait to share more of it. Okay, but now we get to the lightning round, where we let it rip, because this is where things can become unhinged sometimes, but we have the most fun. This is where things can become unhinged sometimes, but we have the most fun. So, yeah, being unhinged is like something that I particularly like. My first question for you is three books you would recommend to our listeners and we've talked about your book. Tell us the title again.
Speaker 2:Yes, my book Soulbatical, A Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding your Best Life. So yes, if you haven't read it or listened to it, yes, read it. That's one. Yes, okay, two other books you would recommend Okay, so one that I read recently, and I had the honor of interviewing the New York Times bestselling author for her Chicago book launch of this book. It's called the Wild why.
Speaker 1:And her name is.
Speaker 2:The author is Laura Munson.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're going to link to that in the show notes.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it was one of again. Just like meeting you. It was one of those moments where Laura and I were connected through mutual friends. She asked if I would be her thought partner and the moderator for her Chicago book launch event for this book. She sent me an advanced reader copy of the book and as soon as I started reading it I was like no coincidences.
Speaker 1:I got to get this book.
Speaker 2:I'm going to get it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to literally order it as soon as-.
Speaker 2:So good. It's basically about reconnecting with our wonder and our awe and our curiosity, our inner child that we, you know, we lose this playfulness and the curiosity. This is a big part of the reason why play is on one of my permission flips. So it's reconnecting because we have, as she calls that, we have these wonder woo. So anyway, I know this is the lightning round and we don't have time to talk about it, but the wild why? Is unbelievable?
Speaker 1:okay, what's the third?
Speaker 2:book. Oh my, my God, so many good ones. Um, I'm going to stick on the theme of women. Uh, the book I'm currently reading and I just saw her, uh, last week in um well concert slash book launch is Suleika Jawad. Have you ever read any of her?
Speaker 1:So, between two, kings was the first memoir.
Speaker 2:Her husband is John Batiste.
Speaker 1:Oh, and they had a wonderful. Oh okay, I was like wait, I don't know. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and her journey is amazing. American Symphony Amazing.
Speaker 2:We have a link to that documentary on the Netflix documentary because it's so brilliant. Her brand new book is called the book of alchemy and it's all about how creativity specifically journaling slash writing in her world, but it can apply to everything. How creativity is, the is helps us alchemize. Our fear, our doubts, our stuckness are all of it, and it's really beautiful and it can be done. It's a book that can be done as a practice. So I just gave you stuff at top of mind, but um, these are awesome.
Speaker 1:Okay, Last few lightning round questions best purchase under $150 that you've made?
Speaker 2:Oh my God. Um, I don't have it in front of me right now, but I have a bright orange mug that says I am a fucking ray of sunshine. It's from a company called Meriwether. It's so good I drink out of it. I probably wash it like four times a week. I alternate it with my Rebel. Sounds which I created, but I am a ray of fucking sunshine and it's bright orange, you said that.
Speaker 1:So, like you were, you leaned into it when you said yes, I am, I'm owning it and it reminds me.
Speaker 2:You know, it goes back to our conversation. It's like some mornings I wake up and I'm like I'm not feeling it, and then I put my coffee in that mug. And it's like I'm drinking my up and I'm like I'm not feeling it, and then I put my coffee in that mug. And it's like I'm drinking my own courage.
Speaker 1:You're like, let's fucking go, let's go.
Speaker 2:Let's fucking go. So yes, $15, best purchase ever, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:This is why I love this question. Okay, last question, and I want you to like, do not overthink it what is a secret unpopular?
Speaker 2:opinion that you hold. Shelly Paxson, oh my God, I think I have a lot of them. I'll give you two that come to mind. One is cats are evil.
Speaker 1:Nobody, no cat people. Do not DM either one of us. We don't want to hear it. I love cats, by the way.
Speaker 2:I do. I feel like this is a safe space.
Speaker 1:This is a totally safe space.
Speaker 2:There is something about cats that I'm just like hell no to, so I don't-.
Speaker 1:Are you allergic to?
Speaker 2:them? Hate me? No, I just don't like them.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this I hate me, no, no, I just don't like. So let me ask you this, because I bet, because you hate cats, do they try to like? If somebody has a cat, do they like, try to like, come up and like, rub up against you?
Speaker 2:and sometimes we I always just feel like they're like secretly trying to stare me down and hiss at me and putting up a certain energy around them. Cats don't hate me. I hope that this doesn't.
Speaker 1:I don't think it will not. It will not not end our friendship. I cannot say what other people will say, but that is just okay, that's a good one, that's a good one. Okay, you said you had two, though, so let's let's hear the last one.
Speaker 2:My other one is probably even more unpopular. I really think that, like Bravo TV is total, it'll fucking crash and I'm I am like real housewives. I it's so fucking bad and I know people love it.
Speaker 1:People love it people love it, people love it, people love the house. Like, yes, I am not a I am not a reality tv person at all, and the housewives would be at the bottom of my of my list I'll watch like a cooking show yeah, something like that I'll get into that, and I am no stranger to a binge.
Speaker 2:So, believe me, this isn't coming from a righteous place of I don't watch TV.
Speaker 1:No, you just think Bravo is trash.
Speaker 2:Bravo is trash, so Cats are Evil and Bravo is trash.
Speaker 1:You know what? These are really good. I think these have catapulted to the top popular opinions. One of our guests was like movies are horrible, and we were both like what. My guest host and I were like what she's like yeah, movies are terrible. It's so interesting, it gives you a little window into so anyway, I just so again to our listeners do not DM us about Bravo or cats. We don't want to hear it. This is her, this is Shelly's and it's why we call it unpopular opinion.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and also this is a safe space.
Speaker 1:It is, and it is a safe space. We have to be able to speak our truth. I'm being vulnerable and speaking my truth, and we have to speak our truth. So, shelley, this has been such an amazing time, but I want to give you the last word. Is there any sort of thought or insight or idea you want to leave our listeners with before we break?
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, you know what? Because I have it in front of me. I created all of this language and I want to read the definition of how I think about successful, the definition I wrote, and when I say successful, I mean F-U-L-L. Full yeah, Like how do you feel full and not empty, and so I want to leave you with this.
Speaker 1:Reach us out with that. This is perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, courageously, define success on your own terms and in a way that feels fulfilling and energizing from the inside out. It's impact in the world, not on your well-being in the world, not on your wellbeing.
Speaker 1:Shelly Paxton, thank you for the gift of this conversation today. I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 2:Oh ditto, sister love you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Ungovernable Women. Our producer and editor is Megan King. Our social media manager is Destiny Eicher. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen to your pods. Your ratings help other listeners find us. You can follow and DM us on Instagram at ungovernablexwomen, and TikTok at ungovernablexwomen. See you next time.