Shelley Paxton is the Founder of Soulbbatical, a company she started with the mission to liberate the souls of leaders and organizations by inspiring them to realize (and rebel for) their greatest purpose, possibility, and impact. As an ICF-certified professional coach, Shelley works with executives at Fortune 100 companies as well as fellow rebel soul individuals and entrepreneurs. Shelley wrote the book Soulbbatical: A Corporate Rebel’s Guide to Finding Your Best Life as a manifesto on breaking free from the traditional shoulds and should-nots of life and leadership. It’s about rewriting the script of success—personally and professionally.
At the height of Shelley’s 26-year career as an accomplished marketing executive and global brand leader, she discovered that the view from the top of the corporate ladder lacked the fulfillment she expected. In fact, it was taking the joy out of her life—and the life out of her. Shelley realized that she had been playing by someone else’s rules for so long that she didn’t even realize what she’d lost: a connection to her own soul. It would take her own Soulbbatical for Shelley to get reacquainted with her purpose: to teach people how to rebel for who they are, what they want, and the impact they want to have in the world.
In this episode, Shelley and Bryan discuss:
- Losing connection with the soul and how to take back our power
- How Shelley manifested her world-traveling opportunities
- Finding the confidence to step into her own personal arc
The show is shared on the following platforms:
Transcript:
Bryan Wish:
Shelley, welcome to the One Away Show.
Shelley Paxton:
Thank you, Bryan. I’m so excited to do this with you.
Bryan Wish:
So excited to do this with you. It’s been great getting to know you, your book, just who you are and what you represent. I think the audience here is in for a treat. Shelley, what is the One Away moment that you want to share with us today?
Shelley Paxton:
Oh man. For me, there are so many. The One Away moment, I think, that was the most crucial in my journey was when I made the decision to leave Harley. I felt like I was one crisis away from really losing myself and losing connection with my soul. And I had a nightmare that woke me up to that. And it changed the trajectory of my life entirely in a way that I wouldn’t have met you six years later.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, that sliding door, that train we get on, we never know where it’s going to take us because of those decisions. So you said something I want to lean into, actually a number of things, but I think a nice primer here is you said, “Lose connection with my soul.”
What does that feel like? What does it mean to be close to that feeling? How did that show up for you?
Shelley Paxton:
Well, here’s the way to describe it now, and I’ll be honest. I think some of this, I now have the language, the vocabulary for it, six years into this journey. When it was happening to me, and when I say it, the first moment that I became really aware of this was a recurring nightmare when I was a senior executive at Harley Davidson. And I’m like, “wait a second.” At the time I was 45 years old and I’m having the night terrors like I was a five year old. And the best I can describe it is, not feeling that connection, I felt really empty inside. I felt like I was dying a little bit on the inside, even though on the outside my life looked really shiny and perfect and probably most people’s dream on a resume. It was that disconnect, that tension of… How can I have done all the things, ticked all the boxes of traditional success, and yet I feel alone and empty and unfulfilled on the inside?
The flip side of that is what I now call truly feeling success full. What I just described to you is success empty. I think if you are chasing someone else’s version of success, you will often, like I did, have a wake up call. It might have been this pandemic that we just weathered our way through. It might be a tragedy, a loss of somebody in your family, a critical illness, but we’re all going to get some sort of cosmic kick in the ass at some point that says, “Are you living the life true to you?” And that was the beginning of a whole series of choices and a whole journey I know we’ll dig into that led me to saying, “No, I want to live a journey that’s aligned with my truth, and a life that is more authentic and courageous and purposeful.” And that’s led me on this journey toward what I think is truly success full. It’s a feeling, not a checklist. And it starts on the inside.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, very vivid. I love the language you use, right language is powerful. I think it brings clarity to so much. And you did that so well. You said something as well, you said “my truth,” get closer to living that out. But before maybe even realizing that, you also described a dream that was so vivid. Mind giving the details of that? Or that wake up call?
Shelley Paxton:
No, I’m happy to share. And honestly, I’ve had situations where people say, “Tell us about your dream!” And I’m going to say this again, it wasn’t a dream. It was a total effing nightmare. It was a nightmare.
Since revealing what this nightmare is, I’ve had a lot of people come to me and say, “I’ve had my own version of this.” And sometimes it does, it ranges on a spectrum from a dream of a life you want, but maybe are afraid to go after to a nightmare that is truly waking you up to what’s happening. Mine was on that. We all have our own unique lived experiences. Mine was definitely on the nightmare end of the spectrum. And what I was seeing, night, after night, after night, this was in… Just to give a little context, I spent six and a half years at Harley as a marketer.
It is an absolute dream job to be the chief marketing officer of a company that people tattoo on their bodies and has one of the most loyal followings in the world. So I just kept going, “What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me?” Thinking it was me. Because what was happening is that, in the middle of the night, was almost always around 2:00 AM, I would wake up drenched in sweat, bawling my eyes out, having seen the exact same thing. And what I was seeing was, it was like this invisible force. I know we’ve all had some version of this in our lives, whether it’s when we’re awake or when we’re asleep, but you feel like you’re being pulled forward and you can’t explain why that you continue to take those steps forward. That’s what was happening to me in this nightmare.
And it was creepy. It was like, I was kind of in the apartment I lived in, but it was really dark and it felt like the scene of a murder. And I was lured down these hallways that didn’t actually exist off the main part of the apartment I was living in at the time, until I was lured in, almost forced to turn the handle on a door to a room I had never seen before. And I go into this room that is dark and it’s lifeless and there’s no window and there’s no light and there’s no decor. And I’m like, “Oh!” And then I see it on the opposite wall. There’s this very faint outline of flickering light.
You know when you see, if you’re in a dark room, if a closet still has a light on inside of it, you’ll see the little perimeter of that light flickering.
And again, I was pulled toward that until I opened that door. And in that moment, looked down, because I hear this whimpering. And I see my pug, my dog, who had passed away maybe six and a half years prior to this moment. But in that moment, in the nightmare I am led to believe that my dog is still alive, that he’s been in this closet, neglected. He was this fat, roly-poly pug, and now all of his wrinkles and all of his rolls are cloaked on the floor. He’s emaciated, he can’t pick his head up. And I grab him. And I know, this still hurts my heart to say, and I know for anyone who loves their fur babies or their pets, it’s hard.
I just picked him up and I was like, “Oh my God, I didn’t know you were still alive. I’ve been neglecting you. I didn’t know you were here. I’m a total monster. I’m so sorry.” And that’s the point at which I would wake up.
Bryan Wish:
Wow, you really took me on a journey. I mean, vivid.
Shelley Paxton:
It’s still vivid.
Bryan Wish:
Right?
Shelley Paxton:
It’s still vivid for me. And it’s where I start my book. It was actually, when I remember telling the editor I was working with at Simon and Schuster, I was telling a bit of the story and what led me on this journey. And she was like, “Your book starts there.” And it’s true, when I do keynotes, I start there, too. Because, one, storytelling’s super powerful. And I think for a lot of people, it’s like, “What is that moment in your life? That moment where you’re like, ‘I’m just not getting it. I am missing something.'” And that moment was so… It ripped my heart out every single night. To the point where I would go to work in the morning pretending I had slept all night, pretending I had my act together, putting all… I say that I had my armor spit polished to a deceptive shine. “Don’t look over here. Everything’s good, everything’s good. I’ve got it together.”
But when no one was looking, I went to a doctor and I said, I don’t think I’m going to survive this, because I’m going on no sleep. I’m like, “This is stressing me out. I know my psyche and the universe are trying to tell me something and I don’t get it.” And he’s the first person who slowed me down. And he introduced me to meditation at 45 years old. I was almost 46 at this point. And, actually, maybe I was 46 at that point. And he was like, “You need to just slow down, take a beat, understand what this is.” And it was through the process of meditation… And I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I’m an expert meditator, and I do it two hours a day, and I sit in white robes on a mountaintop, because none of that is true.
But the power of that slowing me down, and inviting that stillness, and listening to my inner voice, which I probably hadn’t done in decades at that point, I was just stuffing that inner voice down, that’s what led me to understand the significance of that dream. And that picking up my pug, Mocha, was holding my soul in my hands and seeing it completely neglected.
And the messages that kept coming through after about three months of meditating were “Love me. Nurture me. Listen to me. Feed me. Acknowledged me.” And I realized in that moment how disconnected I was from my soul. And I believe that our souls are our essence and our truth. That, to me, became the moment where I said, “I’m not going to survive this. What’s my life going to be like when I’m 50? I want to be vibrant and alive and just really vital when I’m 50.” And I thought, “Wow, I could have a lot of money in the bank and be a shell of a human being if I continue to move on this way.” And it wasn’t Harley. It was that I was chasing somebody else’s dream. How ironic, or not, that the message came to me through a dream slash nightmare.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Well, I appreciate you sharing your truth in such a visceral way. I’ve read parts of this, but for the audience hearing it for the first time, I think it’s a powerful message not to stuff the inner voice down, because it’s going to catch back up to you here at some point in time.
Shelley Paxton:
Our body tells the truth!
Bryan Wish:
The body keeps the score.
Shelley Paxton:
Body keeps the score.
Bryan Wish:
Once you had this dream, you said you went to work with this shining armor, “Don’t look here. Everything’s fine.” But how long did you keep going to work until you said enough’s enough?
Shelley Paxton:
Yeah. I think this is really an important point, because I also recognize that there is a lot of privilege and good fortune in my story. So let me say that now. I say that in the introduction to my book as well. And I also understand that not everybody can up and quit their jobs. That’s not actually what this message and my journey and my story’s about. I was called to do that. But even in my privileged circumstances, I knew I couldn’t just go, “I’m out of here.” I didn’t wake up… As soon as I figured out that this was my soul crying out for help and longing for this reconnection, I knew I had some choices to make. And I knew that they were not going to be easy, they were not going to be comfortable, and I was probably not going to get a lot of support along the way.
That made it hard, and fear gets in our head. This was the only thing I’d ever known. I started working in the advertising and marketing business in between my years in college. I immediately went into a plum advertising job as soon as I graduated. It’s kind of all I ever knew. My identity was so wrapped up in serving iconic global brands. That’s probably the easiest way to say it. And I really had to come to terms with this idea of, “Well, what if Shelley Paxton is the most iconic brand you could ever serve? What if you get to know her and connect with her values and her truth and start down that path and see where it takes you?”
So I worked with a coach. I worked with a financial advisor to say, “What would this look like if I took a break?”
Because I knew it wasn’t a vacation. It wasn’t something that could be solved in two weeks. And I also knew it wasn’t a sabbatical, because Harley didn’t have an, at that time, didn’t want to support that kind of program. So I was like, “I don’t know if I’m ending my corporate career or if I’m pausing my corporate career, but I know I owe it to my future self to explore this and make this investment, however terrifying it might feel.” And so what I did… Ultimately, from the first time I had that nightmare to the day I walked out the door of Harley, was about a year. From the time when I understood the message of the nightmare was probably eight or nine months. I made sure that… My team felt like my family at Harley, and I had a lot of responsibility, so I wanted to make sure that the marketing organization was going to be in good shape and people were taken care of. And there was a succession plan.
We were undergoing a reorganization at the time. And so, unbeknownst to them, I was basically working myself out of the organization, but making sure that the brand and the people were going to live on. And that felt really good, and that was important to me. Others may make a different choice, no judgment, but it was important to me. And I also set a timeline for myself. And I coach people on this all the time. I said it was 12 months for me, but I also gave myself permission to say, “I don’t know. If in three months, I’m like, ‘What on earth have I done? This is ridiculous.’ And somebody comes to me with an offer that lights me up, okay, well then I boomerang back into the corporate world. Or, if I go completely the opposite direction and I just am sitting on a beach in Bali with an exotic lover, ‘Okay,’ well, I go in that direction too.”
And maybe it’s longer than 12 months, but I gave myself a timeline, but also permission to say, “This may change. I’m going to learn things along the way. I’m going to follow these little breadcrumbs of my soul and open doors. And let’s see where it goes.” So I also think people can spend… If you’re in a situation where you’re like, “Oh, something’s got to change in my life,” how do you start just taking baby steps toward that? It might not mean leaving your job. I’m super clear that I was called to leave my job, because I’m called to do this work now. I’m on a mission to help people and culture, rewrite the script of success, and all of us to live and lead more authentically and courageously and purposefully. But that may look very different for you, and that’s okay. But I think not letting fear stand in our way, to say, “Well, I’m going to try this. I’m going to take a baby step forward. I’m going to see.” Is really important.
Bryan Wish:
A lot of empathy for your journey. And just remarkable, though, that you did. You followed that voice and you decided to act on it. But I have a lot of respect for you, as you said, I wanted to leave my people and the brand I worked with for so long in good shape. So when I did peacefully exit, I didn’t ruin. I didn’t walk out of a place I worked so hard at prior and protected my-
Shelley Paxton:
Yeah, I did not set the bridge on fire. That was important to me. That was really important to me. And I knew I wasn’t going to be going back to Harley, but I was so grateful that I had that experience in my life. And frankly, I’m so grateful for the 26 years that I spent in the corporate world. There is no part of me, there’s nothing in my cells, in my soul, that regrets the journey I took. Even if I did realize I was following my dad’s dream, it served me really powerfully. And I think that’s an important thing for all of us to realize. If you wake up to this and go, “Yeah, you know what, it just doesn’t feel right. I’m not living my truth. I’m living someone else’s truth.” And let’s be honest, one of my favorite things is… You must know this, Bryan. Bronnie Ware, she’s an Australian palliative nurse, she wrote the book called The Top Regrets of the Dying. Have you ever heard of this?
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. That sounds something I would love to read. I’ve not.
Shelley Paxton:
Yeah. So she, being a palliative care nurse, was at the death bed of hundreds and hundreds of people, and she started interviewing them. And in this book… I’m getting goosebumps as I’m talking about it, because it’s something I’m so passionate about. She talks about the top five regrets. And the number one, I’m going to paraphrase this, because I don’t have it perfectly memorized, but the number one is basically that I lived the life I was expected to live instead of having the courage to live the life I wanted to live. That’s the number one regret of the dying.
What a powerful reminder to all of us!
Bryan Wish:
It seems like a great book. The fact that that’s the number one regret, not surprised, right? Because…
Shelley Paxton:
Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
That means you never took the time to step into who they needed to become, which is a daunting and scary place to be, especially at the beginning.
Let me ask you this. You said “my father… I was living that dream out for him.” Describe that a little bit for me. What truth were you living that wasn’t your own, or was someone else’s?
Shelley Paxton:
Yeah, so it’s… I guess a little bit of context.
My dad made his way, came from pretty much nothing. A very small blue collar town in Ohio. Put himself through college. And my mom helped take on secretarial jobs to put him through graduate school to get his MBA. And then he was a rocket ship to the top of some really, really big brands that we would know today. I mean, I grew up in Minneapolis because my dad was a senior executive and climbing the ranks at Pillsbury back in the day. And he was the CEO of Hagen Dazs many moons ago. And he just had this very storied career where he worked with characters, like the Jolly Green Giant, Pillsbury Dough Boy, and Speedy Alka Seltzer. And I’m sure I could come up with a bunch of other ones. I was always really attracted to that.
It just seemed creative and sexy. And early on, he helped me to get some really great internships. I mentioned at the start of this. I fell in love with the… honestly, it was a sexy business. And when I was entering into advertising, it was like the fat happy days of advertising. It was the early nineties and everything was under one house and agencies got paid a lot of money. Even as a young account manager, I would get flown to London to do cool things for my clients. And I kind of got pulled into the allure of it. Even though I had always… As a child, I had an obsession with Legos, and I’d always declared that I wanted to be an architect. I think I got really turned off by the math and science and was like, “Oh yeah, that’s not a forte. There’s a creative spirit inside of me.”
And there is a creative spirit inside of me. I didn’t explore all the ways that she could come to life.
I got really caught up in this, because… I talk about this in the book. I am so clear that my first sabbatical was when I was 26 years old. I asked for a leave of absence as a 26 year old account manager at an amazing global agency. And I was like, “I need to go soul searching.” I just laugh now. I’m like, “How did I have the balls to do that at 26 years old?” I don’t know.
But there was something there! And that was a sliding door I missed, to be honest. I went on a solo backpacking trip by myself. I did a bunch of volunteer work in Eastern Europe at the time, and I knew that my soul was crying out to me, but I was also really in love with this idea that my career could take me around the world, and my career could feed this wanderlust and this desire to see the world.
That’s how I saw a lot of my career. And that’s why so much of it was focused on global brands. And that’s why I can also sit here and say that my career served me really, really well, because I got to see corners of this earth and live in amazing places like Istanbul and Shanghai, and do unbelievable things in service of these amazing brands. So I guess that’s the connection, is I kind of stumbled into it, and I was like, “Well, this is sexy.” And then I realized that it was my ticket around the world and it was going to bring me all these really cool experiences that on some level did feed my soul.
But on another level, I was really starting to play the game and bend over backwards and my boundaries were eroding, and lots of things were happening. I was experiencing illness and burnout and all the things along the way, but I was clutching that identity so tightly until this nightmare took me out.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah.
Well, thank you for sharing just what it was back at 26, and also about your dad. I loved what you said about him not being a storied career. I mean, sounds very storied. A lot of allure, I’m sure, growing up watching that, feeding a part of your creative soul, but not all of it. You said something though, too, and then I want… We will hop to your journey forward, but I think this is a great segue.
You’ve clearly started to go on that journey the last six years, but you said 26 was a sliding door that you missed. So maybe a good segue is, knowing what you know now about yourself, at 26, what would you have done differently then when you took that opportunity?
Shelley Paxton:
I mean…
I don’t know if I would’ve done anything differently. What I would say to my 26 year old self is “Hold it all loosely.” I think I was just so afraid of… I didn’t know, because of the way my dad operated, my dad is one of the most driven humans I’ve ever met. And I guess I didn’t really understand that there were these other options that maybe weren’t as neat and clean as climbing the proverbial corporate ladder. And that’s what I was clearly wrestling with. I mean, in my book, I highlight passages from my journals. I went back and found the journals that were traveling Europe with me, and I was like, “What would it look like just to let my soul go with the wind?” And I was standing at an intersection where I said I could continue to travel, but I had also gotten a call from the agency, and this was pre mobile phone days, so this was old school landline, had to check in on the voicemail.
And I had said to the president of the agency before I left… Again, not sure where I got these cajones from, but I’m really proud of my 26 year old self. And I said, “You know what?” I suspect that this trip, this journey, this solo backpacking adventure, is the beginning of me really craving international experience and wanting to find out.
I think I was always in search of my people. Who are my people? Where are they? What’s going on outside of this country? And so I said, “You know what? If something pops up, a job opportunity, in this global network, that’s in a place that nobody else wants to go, I’m your girl.” And I mean, this was the first… And I didn’t see this for many, many, many years. Probably until decades after that. That was me manifesting what’d happened next, because I was nearly done with my backpacking trip.
And on that voicemail, there was a message from the assistant to the president and it said, “We just won the McDonald’s business,” which at the time I had a ton of experience on. “We just won the McDonald’s business in Turkey.” And Turkey was literally in my journal! I had started a list of countries that I was super curious about and just dying to go to. And I was trying to figure out, “Do I get on that train and continue this journey?” And then I get a call that says, “We’d kind of like you to go do this for six months and teach everybody about the brand and set up a team. Do you want to go down and interview?”
In a way, I don’t want to tell her to do anything else. Now, I probably would’ve done that and then paid attention to what happened after that, because I think I got really caught up in the machine and my career and everything.
But it was beautiful. That just… I mean, listen, giving oxygen to our dreams and speaking, putting words to those things that are way down here in our soul and we don’t even know it, I don’t know where that came from. Me going “Yeah, send me to that place nobody else wants to go,” and before I know it, four months later, five months later, there’s this voicemail that says, “Want to go to Istanbul?” A place I’d never been to. And I did. And that was a part of this incredible global journey that I went on.
So I don’t know. I would definitely tell her to listen more closely to her soul, to slow down and check in, and that it’s all going to be okay, that her career didn’t need to look like her dad’s career. And it took me a long time to figure that out.
Bryan Wish:
Powerful. Very powerful. So, Shelley, I want to transition now back to where we started.
I love the deep dive, and I think the book, Soulbbatical, is about this journey forward that you’ve taken. I thought it would be also good for the audience to just get so clear on you in your past, which you described so beautifully. You should speak more. And so-
Shelley Paxton:
That’s the focus of my business going forward!
Bryan Wish:
Great.
Shelley Paxton:
Keynote speaking.
Bryan Wish:
Shelley, tell us this. You decided, you left. You said eight to nine months after that dream, you realized why this had happened. Where did this lead to you all? What happened next?
Shelley Paxton:
Well, back to that thing about fear, right? Fear does crazy things to us.
So I work up the courage to resign. Harley thinks I’m crazy. My parents think I’m crazy. My entire network thinks I’m crazy. And I’m not using that word loosely.
It was really scary to me to feel something so true and deep inside of me and to look around and have people just shaking their heads. I mean, it is like you know you’re standing on the precipice of something life changing when that happens. And it’s hard to summon the courage to keep moving forward. I just knew it. I just felt it. I say now at a “soullular” level, like at a cellular level. At a soullular level, it was almost like that force in my nightmare that just kept pulling me forward. I was like, “I’m committed to this.” And this is interesting, because this was the juncture at which, looking around and seeing all these people looking at me quizzically and asking if I’m okay and asking if I’d lost my marbles and all of that, I was like, “How do I explain to people what I’m doing?” It’s not, like I said, it’s not a vacation, it’s not a sabbatical. I don’t know if I’m leaving my career. It’s not a retirement. I don’t know what I’m doing.
And that’s the point at which… I mean, I love language. You can tell I love language. I have since created I-don’t-know-how-many words to just try to put language to my experience and my journey, but this was the moment. It was the moment I was going public, beyond that Harley family inner circle, with people going like this. And I said… I woke up the next morning and it was like a love letter on my bedside table. I will never forget it. And it was like, “Oh, you’re going on a soulbbatical.” Nobody knows what that is yet, but this is your chance to reconnect with your soul. And you don’t yet know where it’s going to lead you. And then I was like, “Oh, and I’m going to be chief soul officer of my own life on this journey.”
And those two things hit me like the one-two. And I was like, “That’s it!”
And maybe it’s because I’m a marketer and I love language, but I think there was also a deep, fear-driven reason that that language manifested, because I didn’t know how to explain it. And I wanted people to just leave me alone, to go on this journey. That started to get some attention. I literally put it on LinkedIn the day after I left Harley, I was like, “Okay, close out Harley. I am now chief soul officer of this journey called soulbbatical.” I wrote a two-sentence description of what I thought it was at the time. Obviously it’s evolved quite significantly since then. But it was a really beautiful thing. I laugh and I say when I do keynote talks, “Honestly, the chief soul officer thing probably came about because I was a total title whore at the time.”
My entire identity was wrapped up in being an executive in this really sexy world. It was hard for me to let go of that.
It also on… That’s the funny but true side, and I think on the more poignant but true side, is I knew if I had a title that had soul in it, and that it was chief soul officer, that I was going to take that obligation and that responsibility to really, truly reconnect with my soul and listen deeply and figure out an aligned life going forward. I knew I’d take it seriously.
And little did I know that I still hold that title today. It’s my favorite title I’ve ever held, because it really is like a GPS. It’s my filter for how I live my life. And soulbbatical, while I thought at the time that it meant taking a break to nurture your soul, and in some ways it can mean that. If that works for you, awesome. I think we all really need to spend more time nurturing our soul and connecting with ourselves. And I now see soulbbatical as a way of being that’s in alignment with your soul, in alignment with your truth.
That is really the path of living a life that’s more authentic and courageous and purposeful. It doesn’t mean leaving your job, it means finding yourself.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Shelley, you do give language to things so well. I don’t think it’s just because your marketing background, but the transition to “I’m going to close this chapter, and moving forward, this journey of your soul is forever,” and you’re, at least while you’re in this human physical form, you’re going to listen and follow that for as long as you possibly can.
Shelley Paxton:
So as long as my soul resides in this body, absolutely. A hundred percent.
But I say that, I like to articulate that detail, and I’m so glad you led me down that path, because it’s really important. We don’t know these things. I didn’t know why I was creating it. That’s why I say I’m so clear at the time it was fear driven and I was title-centric. But it also had a really powerful meaning that evolved over time, as did soulbbatical. So I also articulate that, because it’s like, “Don’t be afraid to take that first tiny step! You’re not wed to these things forever.”
In this case, those two things have stood the test of time. Soulbbatical became the name of my book.
But here’s an interesting… And maybe this brings us to where we are now. I just launched a website as Shelley Paxton. I just launched shelleypaxton.com. I had been doing business as Soulbbatical, and I realized, “Oh, Soulbbatical will always be a door. It’s a very important moment in my life,” my One Away moment. And it’s an entry point into my message and my work, but it’s not the beginning and the end. It’s actually the beginning. So I am finally stepping into that iconic brand called Shelley Paxton. And it is literally in this moment that you and I are talking, I really haven’t… I haven’t talked about it yet. I’ve been dark on socials, as you know I’ve had a bit of a trying summer. As I emerge, I’m starting to come back out as Shelley Paxton, and doing business as Shelley Paxton, the author, the speaker, the podcast host, the whatever else I decide to do.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, well, I think it’s great. And like you said, it’s an entry point into what’s next. And it’s an extension of you. This journey, this chapter. This journey, this chapter is something that’ll continue. And you’re right, Shelley, this iconic brand is an evolving organism. The soulbbatical journey is part of that. I want to definitely focus on your work. That is super important, because now you’re giving away the thing that you know so well. For yourself, though, I want to talk a little bit about that journey of once you’ve left and then go into the business.
You left, where did you go? And more importantly, what did you start to maybe peel back or uncover about yourself?
Shelley Paxton:
Yeah. Well, the identity piece was huge.
I thought at the time, and this will answer the question of where did I go, I was like, “You know what? I love to travel. I want to slow down. I want to start this dialogue with my soul, for lack of a better description. And I’m going to do it in some fabulous places.”
I decided at the time that one of the ways to connect with and nurture my soul was to reconnect with my creativity, because I knew that was a big part of me. And there were three things at the time… These are varying weights of importance for me today, but it doesn’t matter. At the time I was like, “You know what? I’m going to reconnect with my soul by really diving into travel that fuels me, that’s not business travel, that just will help me see the world and myself in a different way.”
Writing, I knew I wanted to start writing again, and I always knew I wanted to write a book. I didn’t know what I was going to write about. I most definitely didn’t know I was going to write the book that I did write, or that the reason for this journey might have been so that I could write the book and give me the content. And I wanted to dive back into my photography, because it’s something that lit me up. But I had let go of… And I don’t mean professional photography, I mean as a passion. And as a perspective. All three of those things, I just let them guide me. And that led to a series of trips.
But let’s be honest. Each place I went, and these were fabulous places, an invitation from an old friend to come spend time in the countryside of France with them, and they had created this amazing lux b and b, and I got to start my soulbbatical there and really slowed down to every day at the pace of the sun, and buying fresh produce, and just getting out of that frenetic city vibe that was all of me. And connecting and putting my phone away and all of that stuff. It was a beautiful start.
And that winter, I ended up going to New Zealand. New Zealand is probably where I had the biggest breakthroughs. And I’ll talk about identity in a minute, because New Zealand is where I really started to do The Work. I’m using air quotes, because I know that gets overused, but that’s where I really went inside and was like, “I have got to confront my demons.”
“I’ve got to go into the cave!”
Joseph Campbell, Hero’s Journey, This is my chance. Go into the cave and face my truth.
But I also realized the power of place can feed your soul, but it can’t fix it. And I forget who said, “Wherever you go, there you are.” I was definitely experiencing some of that, but I also was being fed these powerful lessons. So I’m not advocating that you have to travel around the world. That was the initial part of my journey. I spent some time in the Canadian Rockies as well, but the New Zealand piece is one that I want to hone in on, because that’s where… The first three weeks of it, I was having fun with a girlfriend of mine who went over there, and then I was like… I knew I packed a bag, going, “I don’t know when I’m going to come back.”
I always had this sense that New Zealand was a spirit land, and it was proven. I put my friend Carrie on a plane after three weeks and I stayed. I just grabbed the car and I started driving, and then I started riding, and then I started digging in deep to understand who am I, when you strip away, and the universe helped. Because, as I tell this story in the book, and I tell it in more detail, but the cliffnotes version is I finally find the perfect writer’s cottage that’s on the water. And I was operating on a shoestring budget, so this was not something glamorous. It was the little two room cottage, kind of a shabby chic situation. But I was there on this sacred Maori land with the sea across the street, and I was like, “This is it. This is it. This is the place.”
And I get there, and this massive, unprecedented monsoon situation moves in, and I am stuck by myself in this little cottage. And I’m so clear that it was the universe going, “Yeah, okay, so you find your cottage. Now, do your freaking work, right? Stop going out and playing and hiking and eating all the yummy food and meeting strangers. Do the work.” That was four or five days where I was alone in this cottage, thinking the sea was going to come into the living room of this place.
And I really did. There’s a Who Am I exercise that I talk about in my book and I give as a framework or a structure, but I did that for myself. I was like, “Okay, if I take away all of the titles and the accolades and all the things that we seem to be obsessed about in this culture…” And I’m raising my hand, calling myself out, because those things were super important to me for a long time until they weren’t.
I’m like, “Okay, underneath all of that, who is Shelley Paxton?” And I just started focusing on, “Well, what are my traits? What are my beautiful inherent qualities? What is the essence of me?” And I say it now like “Oh, it was so easy. I wrote a poem to myself!” And it wasn’t easy. I cried my eyes out and I screamed and I ripped up a lot of paper and I flipped out and I contemplated going back, getting on a plane and finding a corporate job again, because I really struggled with “who am I?”
But when I started to read the words that were coming out of me, I was like, “Okay, I like this woman. She has potential.” I was like, “I’m a badass! I’m a trailblazer! I’m a leader! I’m sexy!” I did all kinds of push-the-envelope stuff that I would never have said about myself.
And that’s why I intentionally just said the word sexy, because… Not words. I want those words to come out of all of our mouths more often, but it was hard. I was choking on these words almost. But I ended up writing myself a little “I Am” poem. And it felt so powerful to own the essence of me. And I was like, “Wow, maybe she is an iconic brand.”
Because I was used to these marketing exercises. We were like, “What defines this brand? Who is this brand?” And I’m like, okay. So I really spent then months getting comfortable with this idea of there’s something here. The foundation of me is really beautiful. And what if I start from this place, and I follow these things, and I play into these strengths? I am a wordsmith. I am a creator of language. I am. And I just kept leaning in and leaning in and adding to the list. So it’s probably one of the most profound exercises I did. And I had so much reading with me that I honestly can’t remember which book, which author, which beautiful soul gave me the idea. But that was a turning point.
Bryan Wish:
You’re giving me vivid… Given a year I had, you’re giving me just these vivid flashbacks. Just hitting.
Shelley Paxton:
Yeah.
Well, very similar! I know our journeys were different, but-
Bryan Wish:
No!
Shelley Paxton:
I think, ultimately, where we were trying to get to, that deep place of truth, so… I mean, we were on a similar journey.
Bryan Wish:
So once you started to… You started to get a little more clear on the picture, or the essence, of who you were, and then maybe you started to see more promise and go through these exercises of just the self love, loving yourself, and worth, and these things that showed you who you could be and become. How has that evolved for you, and how you just show up as you look at, since you’ve started that six years ago to today, where would you compare your sense of worth or value in this world and how you show up versus, even back then, when you were stripping away all the armor?
Shelley Paxton:
Yeah, back then I think it took me a while to get comfortable. And listen, I’m human. I have days where I’m like, “Oh my God, what am I doing?” I definitely have those days. And when I left Harley, I had those days, too. So I don’t want to candy coat or sugarcoat any of this, especially the entrepreneurial journey. It’s not easy. You know that. You’re on a similar journey. I wouldn’t change it for the world. You could offer me millions of dollars to go back and take a corporate job and I would tell you no, because this is such… I mean, this journey has become such a powerful expression of me. Me leaning into my writing and my language creation. Me leaning into storytelling. Me leaning into standing up and inspiring audiences by telling my truth. And if it impacts one person, I always say I’m on a mission to liberate a billion souls.
And by liberate I mean other souls who aren’t living their truth, to help them inspire others to align to their truth, whatever that looks like for them. And to create that life they want to live, not live the life expected. And that’s why I say I’m on this mission to rewrite the script of success, because I think for too long, so many of us have been shackled to this generation’s old patriarchy-defined definition of success. I was, too, and the pandemic shook a lot of people up and woke a lot of people up to what matters most to me. What do I want to be doing with my life? Where do I want to live? You just made a big life move of where you want to live. And that, to me, is so important. My work is an extension of me. You said it earlier, it is an embodiment of me and it’s leaning into all of my strengths. And it’s challenging me in new ways every single day.
I thought I wanted to start a coaching business.
A couple things happened. One thing in particular happened that I think is an important part of the story. And I mentioned this to you earlier when I told you that I was having a rough summer. My parents aren’t well. Eight months into my soulbbatical… Reminder, I gave myself a year. I said, “See what happens in a year. Follow the breadcrumbs, see where it leads you, how you feel. Reconnect and trust.” And eight months in, my dad had a massive stroke. So this is my dad with the storied career. My dad, who at the time was 71. Healthiest human I know. Super driven, super healthy, and just went down. The left side of his brain just exploded, basically. So I get a call, I happen to be in Chicago at the time, thankfully I wasn’t in New Zealand or France or some other place.
My dad was being wheeled into brain surgery, and they didn’t think he was going to live. And that began the second portion of my soulbbatical, which was all about really understanding how precious life is, how short life is. And that was probably my second One Away moment that made it really clear to me that I was never turning back, because anything could happen and life is too short. And I was like, “I’m just going to go for it.” I am going to see what being the… Just espousing this message, standing for living a life that is a very conscious choice, living a life that is true to me. And by that point, I also had a lot of people going, “What you’re doing is kind of interesting.” A lot of those same people who gave me the quizzical looks early on. They were like, “Oh, this is sort of interesting! Tell me more about soulbbatical. What are you doing?”
Because of my dad… And he ended up having a second stroke, and as he was coming out of that second stroke, he had a really poignant conversation. My dad, to this day, can only find some of his words. He was like, “I was basically going to die. But I realized that I still have work to do on this earth, and it’s different work.”
And I at this point am bawling my eyes out and I’m like, “Oh my God, that’s the message for me, too. I have different work to do.” Don’t be afraid that this is, yeah, it’s unfamiliar from my own storied career, frankly.
But that looked very familiar, and this was going to be blazing my own trails. And even though my dad is quite brain damaged, when I put my book in his hands and I told him I wrote a book and it was always a dream of mine, he was like, “I’m so proud of you.” And I actually think in that moment, my dad was more proud of me than he’d ever been. And this is the dad who was like, “Why are you leaving Harley? You need to be the president. You need…”
I got no love from my dad when I made the decision to go out on this journey. You just never know how things are going to change. You never do. Trust. Trust and believe in yourself.
Bryan Wish:
Well, that was my next question to you, is how your parents respond, which just seems like you answered for your father’s response. But I think it’s hard. It’s hard when you’re making the life altering decision that they just can’t and will never understand. And-
Shelley Paxton:
Of course. And they came from nothing. So they’re like, “Don’t be stupid. This is silly.”
I get it. I don’t fault them. I know it wasn’t… They love me. They loved me then. They still love me now. But it’s interesting. I ended the book with an apology. My dad doesn’t really remember what I did. I’ll tell him occasionally, but he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t have that memory anymore, which is bittersweet for me. A lot of times, it’s actually sweet, because I think I was just held to such a high standard, and I think I haven’t even explored the fact that the universe had these things happen at a time when I was making such a big pivot in my life. But my mom actually sat me down one night and just said, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that we didn’t believe in you. And I can see now how much happier you are, and how fulfilled you are, and that this is exactly what you’re meant to be doing. But we didn’t understand it.”
And I just said to her, “I get it, mom. I didn’t know what I was doing. How could you know what I was doing?”
And frankly, I didn’t know that it was all going to work out. I still don’t know if it’s all going to work out. That’s the daily thing, right? I’m like, “I’m just going with it because I feel so called to speak my truth into the world and to inspire other people to do the same.” And I don’t know what it looks like. I’m not making zillions of dollars doing this, but I’ve never woken up feeling more on purpose in my whole life.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Well, I think what you’ve done, you’ve set an example for… Even though your parents didn’t understand, probably still will never to the full extent you, because it’s your journey. Paving a road, though, for other people now to walk. That is, I think, the beauty in what you’ve harnessed and are creating. And they say the quote that you can’t give away what you don’t have, but you wrote a book to share this. You speak on this. As you look in the next five, 10 years, what do you see for this and how you’re inspiring and impacting? I mean, I want more like the vision not, “Hey, I sold this many books,” but you-
Shelley Paxton:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bryan Wish:
What is the impact of you going out in this world and building the iconic Shelley Paxton brand?
Shelley Paxton:
It’s such a good question. I mean, I’ve never been a planner. I’ve never done a five year plan in my whole life. And this month is the six year anniversary of me leaving Harley. And I could never have articulated the bigness and richness of this vision. I know that Soulbbatical’s only the beginning. I’m starting to plant the seeds of the second book around what this idea is of what it really, truly means to live success full, what it means to live a life where you are defining success on your own terms. And how do you do that? I think that’s one of the next evolutions of this.
I just got invited to do a TEDx talk in January, so this is going to be obviously a big part of what I speak about. I’m ramping up my keynote speaking business. I would love to place some small part or large part in a culture that looks back and says post-pandemic we got really clear about what matters most to us. And we did rewrite our script of success. We changed what it means.
All this ridiculous pressure we put on to people to go down very narrow channels and do very specific things, and if the idea of living success full as a feeling, not this checklist, not all this external validation, but if that can grab hold and inspire more people so that number one top regret of the dying just falls off the list, I’ll feel like I’ve had my little impact in the world.
I always think of my work in terms of, my ROI is Ripples Of Impact. It’s not Return On Investment, although I’m not… I am a business person. So I don’t think one replaces the other, but to me, there’s a higher order. And the higher order for me is when I think about doing anything in my life or business, it’s what ripples of impact will this have? And that’s important. It’s kind of living a legacy.
Bryan Wish:
Right, yeah. Oh, go ahead.
Shelley Paxton:
No, I was just going to say, I don’t know exactly what shape or form, but I hope it still has to do with writing more books. And I’ve been on hiatus from my podcast, but I’m bringing it back this fall and speaking on more stages and doing more programs. I teach down at Modern Elder Academy, and I want that to continue to flourish. I don’t even know, I feel like this is so much bigger than I can even grasp at the moment.
And that excites me. That gets me out of bed.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, that’s amazing. There’s so much in front of you, and like you said, six years ago when you left to where you are today, can’t even fathom what has been created, but then also because of the ripple effects of what you’ve already done, what it’s creating for your future. And the closing note, too, is your work. Sure there might not be ROI tangibly today, but the ROI of your work long term and the transformations you’ll create for people has ripple effects, will impact them and the people around them for years to come.
Shelley Paxton:
That’s exactly why ripples of impact is so important to me.
And listen, I know I’m already having an impact. I always say my currency is love notes. The number of people who have sent me notes, whether they’ve been exposed to my work through my teaching, or my speaking, or they’ve read the book, or they’ve done all of the above, or they’ve coached with me, those love notes that I’ve gotten that said “This made a difference. Thank you for telling your story. And being really vulnerable in the good, the bad, and the ugly of that journey, that means everything to me.” So I’m shifting how I think about ROI. I’m shifting how I think about currency. Then I know every day, one soul at a time. That feels really beautiful to me.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah.
This was beautiful, Shelley. Such a great interview. Is there anything else before we close out here that I did not touch on that you want to give note to or share to that would just be necessary to bring us home?
Shelley Paxton:
I’d say one final note to bring us home, and I would encourage if any of this is landing with you, put this phrase… There are two phrases I want to share. Put these phrases on your refrigerator, near your computer, on your bathroom mirror, wherever, if you want daily inspiration. One is “Authenticity is the truest form of rebellion.” I believe that. I believe society doesn’t want us to be ourselves, so go be a rebel.
And the second part, when you get frustrated along the way or feel scared or start to doubt like, “Oh my God, I’ve made… I don’t know where this is all going. I can’t see 10 feet in front of me.” Every badass accomplishment is a series of tiny steps. Just keep saying that to yourself. That is what I do every morning. “Just take the next tiny step.” That’s what I would say.
Bryan Wish:
Love it. Thank you so much for your time. I loved everything you had to share. And Shelley, where can people find you? By the way, your new website looks beautiful. But where can people find…
Shelley Paxton:
Thank you!
Bryan Wish:
… Your website? Your book? All the new things?
Shelley Paxton:
My new website is shelleypaxton.com. Shelley spelled with an E Y. So shelleypaxton.com. On Instagram, you can find me at soulbbatical. The book, you can find where to purchase it on my website. But honestly, you can buy my book anywhere it’s sold. If you buy from Amazon or support your local bookstore, Barnes and Noble, wherever you buy your books, you can find Soulbbatical: A Corporate Rebel’s Guide to Finding Your Best Life. And my podcast is called Rebel Souls, and we talk about what it means and just explore people who are breaking the… disrupting the status quo and life and business in the world at large. You can listen to that wherever you listen to your podcasts, I think. And LinkedIn, I’m Shelley Paxton. Think those are all the things. And the one stop shop is shelleypaxton.com.
And I just realized I’m wearing the same thing that I think I have on my homepage.
Bryan Wish:
I noticed that, too.
Shelley Paxton:
That’s hilarious. Yes. That’s funny. That was not intentional.
Bryan Wish:
This every time, is this a brand thing? It’s fine.
Shelley Paxton:
No, that’s so funny. It was not intentional. Just because it’s a warm summer day and this is nice and good colors for me, and also relaxing. Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
Good. Well, look great.
Shelley Paxton:
Thank you.
Bryan Wish:
Awesome.