119_Shelley_Paxton === Shelley: I found one version of it, which I'm very happy to read. I don't know if this is the exact one that I wrote. I know in the book I have the one, the exact one that I wrote. This might be an updated version, but it'll, it'll serve, it'll serve the purpose. So here's the I-am-a-festo so I think this probably version 2.0. I am a free spirited global citizen. I am a woman of wanderlust 66 countries and counting. I am a proud corporate refugee now liberator of souls. I am a bold, brave and badass trailblazer. Creator of movements. I am a rebel soul rebelling for who I am, what I want and the impact I wanna have in the world. I am a wholehearted kind and compassionate leader for myself and others. I am a lighthouse for truth and authenticity. I am the most iconic brand I, I will ever represent. I am successful. I am enough. Hmm. And I haven't read that in a long time. That makes me emotional. === Monica: Welcome to The Revelation Project podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women, to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a revelation project, and what gets revealed gets healed. Hello everyone. And welcome. To another episode of the revelation project podcast. I'm super excited to introduce you to my guest today. Shelley Paxton, you know, just think Brene brown meets biker babe, with a dash of Liz Gilbert as former chief marketing officer of Harley Davidson. Shelley found herself at the top of the proverbial mountain feeling success empty. Instead of successful that awakening led her on a profound sabbatical journey that became her mission, business and best selling book Soulbbatical, a corporate rebels guide to finding your best life. She's leading a revelution to rewrite the script of success and liberate the. A billion souls. She's also the host of the rebel souls podcast, which invites you to flip the middle finger to the status quo in life business. And the world at large Shelley is based in Chicago and when she's not indulging her wanderlust, she's obsessed with the color orange. Join me in welcoming Shelley. Hey Shelley. Shelley: Hello, Monica my soul sister. I love you. Monica: I know, I know. We definitely, we definitely clicked, you know, for our listeners, Shelley and I were on video. The first time we met and literally she's sitting in like this, like my dream office house, which is like this industrial warehouse, modern meets industrial. And then of course I made her like, show me around the place on video and she had color organized her books. So of course I had to do that too. So now I'm sitting and it was just showing her how I just organized all my books by color. So she's just in a very short time already inspired me to rebel. So be careful. Shelley: It's all good. I love it. Yes, yes, yes. Danger ahead. But is the best kinda danger possible? Monica: It is. I mean, you know, I love this term sacred rebellion too, because that's how it feels to me. You know, when you have been. Brought up to behave to be a certain way to be what's becoming for a woman and to just finally flip your middle finger at all of it and just be like, you know what, it's either me or you. And I choose me. Shelley: Yes, it's interesting. I was reading your bill of rights. Mm-hmm and I was like, oh my God, I am not at all surprised, but there's so much beautiful overlap in our work and what we are rebelling for for ourselves. And for all of the, these beautiful souls. I loved it. I loved it. I wasn't surprised, but again, it filled me up. Monica: I always forget about the bill of rights because it was, it was so long ago. Right. And I have, uh, the last time we read it out loud, it was with a retreat full of women and each one read stanza. And what was really interesting was. Each woman got the exact stanza that applied to her life in that moment. And I forgot, forgot how applicable it is to every woman, because of course I wrote it for me, but I was really inviting women to write their own. And a lot of women have just been like, Nope, I'm just gonna keep it as is. Cuz it totally works for my life too. Shelley: Yes. I mean, it covers all facets of our lives. It resonated with me every bit of it from top to bottom. And I had written it so interesting in the middle of the pandemic. I wrote what I called my rebel leaders manifesto. So it was a little bit more toward the leader who might be in corporate, but it was the same thing. It's like, We have got to take this back. Like it is time to infuse humanity and soul and wellbeing into the way we're living and the way we're leading. And the more of us who are doing this and really owning this bill of rights, we can shift culture. We can be the ripples of impact. So I got super excited about like the meshing of the, of these two things Monica: Completely. And I would love for you to take us back because as much as you and I got to talk that day and to really. I out how much synergy we had together. I have yet to really know much about your background and like, take us back to kind of where you were before you kind of chose like, oh, hell no, I'm not doing this anymore. Shelley: Yeah. So I'll give you the abbreviated version and then you can tell me if there are pieces, you know, stop me if you wanna dig deeper in any place, or this can just be a beautiful stage setting for wherever we wanna go from here. So for context, for everyone, I'm someone who I I've spent 26 years in the corporate world. I had an incredible career that, uh, by most standards by society's standards was wildly successful working with iconic global brands, like visa and AOL and McDonald's and Intel and PepsiCo. And I mean, you name it and Stewart, these brands and living and traveling around the world and ultimately. I didn't know at the time capping my career, like getting to the top of this proverbial mountain, being invited to come be a at the time, VP of marketing for Harley Davidson and then ultimately becoming chief marketing officer of Harley Davidson. And so here I was after. Right. Listen, this incredible career that took me around the world that you know, was my love of travel and global culture and helped me learn a lot about myself. But I also got really wrapped up in what I was quote, unquote taught or conditioned to believe was success. Mm. And what, Monica: What were some of those things? Shelley: Yeah, those things. So, so they were like the external markers. I had the big titles and they kept getting bigger and companies kept saying, you're really good at what you do, and we're gonna promote you and promote you. And suddenly you find yourself at the top of the mountain as chief marketing officer at one of the sexiest most iconic brands in the world. I also had, you know, a great paycheck, big title. Big paycheck promotions, tons of accolades, right? In the company in the industry, material goods, you know, were taught like the accumulation, like, oh, I have a nice home and car and sexy motorcycle in my case and, and all the things. And so, and the list could go on and on, but the were the things, um, I was like, okay, I've amassed all of these things. And I've gotten to, as you described in my bio, like the top of this proverbial mountain top, and I'm like, huh, I honestly felt really guilty because the thing that kept going through my mind was why do I feel so empty inside? Mm-hmm . And is this all there is. And then if I'm honest, I felt super guilty for feeling that way. I was like, yeah, but you've worked all these years and this is what everybody says. Success looks like. And Shelley, everybody tells you you're really good at what you do. Well, news flash, just because somebody says you're really good at what you do does not mean it brings you joy and fulfillment. Yeah. Monica: What a revelation. Hmm. Well, it seems so right now, five and a half years later, I'm like, duh, Shelley, but it's not duh. I mean, to be honest, it's not. Shelley: So I appreciate that you paused on that because we can't always see it. And we have so many cues and messages, the media, and we there's so much in our society and our culture. And especially if you're in the corporate world. You're being incentivized to chase these things. Yeah. So it's hard to see outside of that and to even be aware of role models outside of that. Monica: Yeah. I couldn't see it. I couldn't see it. And I was an entrepreneur, but again, like what you just said is so important because it's like, I didn't have a, there. Role models who had any kind of counter narrative. It was all like lockstep and it was what I call business douche speak, you know, where it was like it was like, yeah, the low hanging fruit and the, all of the stuff that like you. Shelley: It's like Monica let's circle back on this conversation. Monica: Oh my God. I just wanted to poke my eyeballs out with a, I know like an ice pick, like all the time and then getting into like the whole world where I was raising venture capital and like, I'd go into a room full of men, like do the tap dance and feel so completely. Again, all that external validation. It was like, I was tap dancing. Like, am I good? Am I good? Mm-hmm like, do I got this? Am I worthy? I. and it was so like, I was just a shell of myself. I was a ghost of myself, you know, by the time I actually had that Eureka moment where I was like, I like all these things, all these things that are feeding my ego, have nothing to do with what my soul wants. Yeah. There's that card we chose. Shelley: I was just about to say the same thing. Oh my gosh, exactly. And I wrote it down. I wrote down my takeaway from the card was ego in service of soul equals divine timing. Monica: so for my listeners, yeah, we chose from Megan Watersons, deck, the divine feminine, and we got queen Ester. And so it was all about the ego. And of course, you know, I was making reference to how it was. Helping me understand something about the book that I'm writing. But when we just said that I was like big, that's it? You know, like it was a big, that was just a big thing. Shelley: Yeah. And it's a recurring theme in my life. Listen, it that's when it started really showing up for me where I started to understand that this was absolutely my ego at the wheel because that I had been. So there was like my ego and also the only form of leadership I knew at the time was masculine. So I was operating entirely from my masculine and in service of my ego. And so of course, I couldn't see these. Things at the time. And for me, maybe just to I'll continue the story and we can pause where it makes sense. So what ended up happening for me is, so here I am, I'm in this big ass job. I'm like everybody in the world is telling me like, oh my God, you've made it. And it's so. Sexy and oh, I hope to be in a position like that one day. And like, I'm going home at night, drinking too much wine and bawling my eyes out because I can't make sense of how I'm feeling. And frankly, I didn't have, like, we talked about the role models. I didn't have the tools, you know, I didn't have the support system. I didn't have all the things that I understand now. And we, you know, I'd love to dive into is this conversation evolves. I didn't have any of it. So. As they do the universe and my soul conspired. So talk about this card coming back again, right. To remind you that, you know, we are in service of our soul. It is what we're doing here. The universe of my soul conspired, because they were like, Hey, listen, We're gonna whisper and then we're gonna shout. And if you're still not listening, we're gonna whack you with a two by four. Exactly. And you know this, right? Like we're looking at each other going Uhhuh. And I know every, everyone listening to this cat say, we've all had this. I mean, minimum one time in our life, I've had more times than I would even like to acknowledge if I'm honest and clearly. I ignored. I ignored. I was pushing it down. I was pushing it down. I always say like, it's a reminder that yeah, sometimes what our soul is, speaking to us feels like an inconvenient truth. And one of my favorite questions to ask anybody is what are you pretending not to know? Mm-hmm . Because we usually know what's going on and we're like, Nope, Nope, Nope. So for me, I was like drinking it away. I was busying it away. I was, you know, I was, I was like, well, I'm just gonna keep achieving and striving. And you know, all these very sort of masculine ego driven behaviors and what ended up happening. And by the way, some of the big, you know, universal wax in the solar plexus for me had been serious illness and all that stuff. I still kept pushing through all of that. Monica: Mm-hmm . Shelley: So here I am now at Harley 45 years old, and I, so this was the universe of my soul conspiring to go. This is not gonna happen one more time. This is it. So this nightmare started ripping me out of my sleep five nights a week, 2:00 AM. It was like clockwork. I would see the same thing over and over and over, and it was devastating. So I'd wake up. It was always between like two and two 30 in the morning is the first chapter of my book. So spoiler alert. If anybody decides to read my book after this. Soaking wet crying and like heartbroken and devastated by what I'm seeing. And I mean, I'll tell the story of what I'm seeing. Cause I think it's, it's important for. I am not important, but I think it will resonate with a lot of people. What ended up, what I ended up seeing is like, I was taken on the journey and it was the exact same journey, but you know, you see this over and over again and you can't stop it from happening. And you're in the nightmare in the dream. And you're this unidentified force is pulling you forward. And I was pulled into like a dark and. Barren and lifeless room with no windows and no furniture. And all I could see across the room was the outline. You know, when there's like you see an outline of a closet, mm-hmm small closet and it still is the light on inside. So you kind of see it like flickering. And I was pulled across that room to the closet, end up opening the closet and on the floor of the closet, my little puppy who had died. I wanna say like six years prior to when I'm having this nightmare, but I find out he's still alive. And I had forgotten about him and he's in this closet and he's male nurse. He was a fat little Rollie, pulley, pug. He was so cute. His name was MOCA and all was like, all of his rolls are now like, you know, cloaked out on the floor. He's in, macci it, he can't even pick up his head. He's whimpering and I'm like, Oh my God. And I scoop him up every time. And I just tell him how much I love him and how sorry I am and how I didn't even know he was still alive. And boom, I would wake up Monica: Holy shit, Shelley: Uhhuh. And it's crazy because. At the time I was like, I felt like a kid again, you know, when you keep getting woken up by these nightmares, but you have your parents to come comfort you and tell you it's okay. And it's not real. And, you know, monsters, aren't real, it's just a dream and all the things. And I didn't have any of that. And I was like, I'm gonna lose my mind. I literally would then not be able to go back to sleep. I would try to put myself back together. So now I'm like, you know, fuzzy because I try to drink to incapacitate. This nightmare. I've been up since two or two 30 in the morning. I try to spit Polish the armor to go back into Harley and pretend I've got my shit together. Cause this is what we were taught. Like we were taught. Vulnerability is a bad thing. You need to have the answers you need to look like you have your shit together. You need to look nose to the crack, Can tell you, make it right. Like pull yourself, stop by the boots, boots, straps, Totally all the things. And it's like, it is so devastating. When I look back at that time, I wish I would have known how to ask for help. Mm. And if there's any, I mean, there are many messages in all of what we're gonna talk about, but that's a big one that I talk about. It is a sign of strength to ask for help. Monica: Mm-hmm Shelley: it is a sign of strength to be vulnerable because that is the most courageous thing we can do as humans, period. End of story. Monica: Period. End of story. Shelley: And I didn't know. Any of this. So fast forward, I think I'm losing my mind. I'm having this nightmare for the last year I was at Harley, so I was there for six and a half years. Total. This was happening the last year I was there and about three or four months into it, I was like, I can't go on like this. I have got to figure this out. So I went to a doctor who had more of an integrative medicine perspective and he was like, you got like, like many executives. I see, like you have monkey brain and you know, we need to like calm your nervous system. We need to like, settle your mind. We need to slow you down. And so he had me read this book breakfast with Buddha and he introduced me for the first time ever at age 45 to meditation Monica: For the first time ever at age 45 to meditation. Yeah, Shelley: Just the simple, right. . And I think that's important to say because, you know, I felt kind of embarrassed. Like once I got into this, you know, more kind of spiritual community, I was like, everybody felt like they'd been meditating forever. And I was like, well, I just kinda started like a couple years ago. And now I'm like, I don't care when you start, but the idea that you had made the choice to intentionally slow down and frankly, I don't care what your meditation looks like either. That's the other message. Take it from someone who one had a hard time getting into meditation and two still does it her own way. Yeah. Even if it just means I get quiet for are 10 minutes in the morning, there's no sitting on the mountaintop for hours and robes for me. And there never will be . No. Monica: And thank you for saying that because. It's so it's such a racket. It's such a racket. How, again, we're not taught how important this piece is. Yes. We're not taught to check in with ourselves. We're not taught to slow down and be still to know, to trust our own, knowing, to listen in, to attune ourselves, to the messages that are coming up. Yeah. And so when they do start coming up, they come in these nightmare forms like a malnourished puppy that you loved so much. And you're like, oh my God, like I forgot the puppy in the closet. Like the thing that I loved most in the world, I just neglected it completely. Shelley: Yeah. Monica: And so obviously, And I wanna also say that I think dreams are so fascinating. And I think that the symbols and the archetypes that come through dreams are so powerful and we're also taught to ignore those by the way. Yeah. We're taught. Like, I love this. My ex-husband used to, I was horrified when he told me that his mother would say, don't talk about your dreams before breakfast, because she knew that he would forget his dreams and he, and he had all these powerful dreams, but it was like taboo. Yeah. To talk about your dreams. And then again, to be. Taught your whole life. Like it's just a dream instead of, Hmm. Let's get curious. What's the symbology in the dream and to actually like recognize that indigenous cultures, that is the way that they manifest and create as well as how they get messages is through their dreams is, is universal messages. Like the cosmos. You know, comes through and, and by the way, can come through any of us in all of us, if we're willing to just attune ourselves to what our dreams are actually telling us. So I'm curious. Shelley: Yeah. And, and it may require some behavioral shift. So for me, it was like, Okay. After all these years, I'm ready to listen. Like I recognized that I could not go on this way. It wasn't sustainable. And so, you know, I kept asking myself the question like, Okay. I'm 45. Like if I continue to feel this way, when I'm 50, you know, am I moving closer to who I meant to become or further away? And of course I knew the answer to that, and I didn't like the sound of. Well for a whole lot of money and sexy titles and looking really good and polished to the world, I could continue to live this way. I'm like, you know what? I'm not, not even make it to 50 because I'm clearly burning out. I am mentally and physically unwell and my soul is crying out for help. And so to the point that you just made about, you know, especially with indigenous cultures, really. Seen and understanding and appreciating the power of dreams. This is what, this was the initial gift of meditation for me as I started to slow down. Once I was, you know, introduced to it. I started to slow down. I would play with it. I was not wildly successful at the beginning. So it goes, don't give up. That is my, that is my message. Don't give up. It's not easy. I was doing my grocery lists in my head. Like all the things were happening and. The more, I gave myself a few more minutes and a few more minutes and I sat with it and I just slowed down long enough. I started to understand that that puppy was a proxy for my soul. And of course you and I can sit here today and go, yeah, that makes complete sense. Like, it doesn't take like in a nanosecond, you can make the connection, but I couldn't make the connection then. And so that was literally the get woke moment for me, where I went, oh my God. My soul is crying to me, love me, feed me, nourish me, acknowledge me. We have become so disconnected. And again, I think of the card. We pulled a reminder that we are in service of our soul and everything happens in divine timing. And it's another surrender message for me. I I'm constantly learning the lesson of. Surrender. And so that was the moment for me that I realized that I was like, This is serious. Mm-hmm , this is really serious because I can't imagine, like, I had flirted with this idea of like, oh, you know, my soul's kind of pulling me in a different direction, but I'm like, I always went back to the shoulds, which I call the shackles of should. Right. I'm like, well, I should stay on the corporate track because sunk cost. I've done this for, for so long. I've been striving. It's. You know, my dad's dream and his legacy and all the things I had, every excuse in the book, I was telling myself every story, well, my ego, right. You know, from a place of my ego, I was telling myself all these stories. And I suddenly realized that it's like, I will not be fulfilling my purpose on this planet if I don't listen and had no idea what that meant. I only knew in that moment that I had to find a way. To take some time to reconnect with my soul, rebuild that relationship, listen even more deeply and then just start to follow, like whatever breadcrumbs emerged from that point. And that was the real beginning of sabbatical and, and all the work I do now. Monica: Well, and what you're pointing to is what I call the revelation project. It's that moment that you realize that you. Are not in control. Like, you know, that you can continue right. To kind of white knuckle life and, and hold on and force things. But there's that moment where you actually listen to that soul voice and you allow the soul voice, you allow that to come through and that's when. You start following the breadcrumbs back home to yourself. Shelley: Absolutely. Monica: And that's the moment that we come back from this fractured place back to reclaim our wholeness. And that is the heroin's journey. Shelley: It is. Monica: And to understand that it's not a formula. It's every woman who is doing this journey has to find her way home to herself. And that gets to look, however it needs to look like my project is not Shelley's. Project is not Marcy's project. It's like whenever I find myself paying attention to somebody else is doing their project, I'm like, Bring it on home. Monica stay in your own hula hoop, do your own project. Like I don't need to do her project for her, not my mother's project, not my sister's project, not my daughter's project. And that we all have this way. I think in our unbecoming process of learning how to. Remember these feminine values that are, and do belong in, in an integration at some point with the masculine. And I think like in true form, right? There's that massive swing of the pendulum where we realize that our whole life has. Been spent on one half or one pendulum swing. Yeah. Of like the masculine and then, and so we can tend to kind of overcorrect, but then we have to at some point really integrate and come back and recognize that. All of it gets to belong and then it becomes integrated. And that's the true quest for wholeness and in our feminine heroin's journey includes and is inclusive of the masculine, which is so beautiful because that's how we really start to understand as well that a woman's quest for illness includes everyone else, not in service to everyone else. It's in service to her and her soul. but our natural inclination is to want to remember the Shelley: Whole well said sister. That was beautiful. Monica: Well, I mean, it's, it's you, you were really like feeding me the breadcrumbs. to do that. Shelley: Hey, good tea. Good teamwork. Not really. I mean, it, it, it lands, I don't even feel like I wanna add to that because it just, I think it was a beautiful way to bring that piece of a piece of the story to a close, like it really was that moment. It was the moment that I embarked on my heroin's journey. Mm-hmm . That's exactly what I just described. And I think it's worth saying, and I know you say this too, like it was the scariest fucking thing I've ever done. Yeah. Terrifying, terrifying, terrifying. And I say every day, even though it's been a wild and crazy rule, Lu coaster ride with loop de loops and upside downs and some nausea along the way, like all the things it is. The most rewarding journey I've ever been on and zillions of dollars could not replace how I feel on the inside and knowing I am in service to my true purpose in this lifetime. Yeah. Knowing that by me understanding that it, I was being called to liberate my own soul. Mm-hmm . That I was then as I followed those breadcrumbs, I was called to be in service of others and help liberate a billion souls. And yes, that's a big number. Like you, you said it, Monica: you said it was when you not just a thousand or 5,000 or even a million. How about a billion? Shelley: Well, and if you'll indulge me for a second, I'd love to say where that comes from, because I am hopeful that this is inspiring to someone. I was sitting with a friend who's in a, was in a coaching community at the time. This was a, a few years ago. And. I was telling him about my work and sabbatical and this journey that I'd been on and, you know, many of these pieces and more, and he was like, yeah, you know what? You are the kind of client that I want. He's a coach. And I was like, well, say more like what, what about me? And he said, I only ever want to work with impact billionaires. Mm. I was like, Hmm. Okay. I'm intrigued. What's an impact billionaire. And it turns out that he was just like, I, it's not about like, I don't care about working with people who make lots of money because there are lots of people who make lots of money and just don't care and don't wanna do the work. And aren't in service. I wanna work with people like you who have. Impact as, you know, the, the, the thing that's in their crosshairs, that what they wanna do in the world. And it was in that moment that I realized that I was on the planet to liberate a billion souls. Mm. Monica: I love that. And it it's really true. There is a very, there is like a current, a, like a true energetic current that I think some of us are. Born with maybe all of us, that the moment kind of, we get that we have the potential to actually help liberate others. Once we've been liberated, it's like, oh, that's fulfilling. That's inspir. Yes. That's where yes. That like to, you know, I'll have what she's having that whole feeling that starts to just Bon. Yeah. Where it just is, is like here I've been okay. So. I wanna talk to about this crossroads, because again, we, we are conditioned in this very kind of surface level life to follow this very linear path, which is very hierarchical where we like get to the top of the rung and we can see all of what's around us and we're, but I am like this empty shell. Mm-hmm I have all this. Tough. I might have all this ego recognition, but at the base level of who I am, I feel empty and I feel sick, sad, whatever the word is. And it's interesting, right. Because I don't, even though part of my business was to serve because, you know, I, I. At, at one point I had a retail chain and I was producing and manufacturing and I was employing people, right. Like I was doing good in the world, but it wasn't, it wasn't coming from a place of true intention and possibility where I could really own. And this is, this is the interesting, I think. Distinction is that because I didn't know my own worth because I didn't know my own. Enoughness my own sufficiency at that point in my life, I wasn't truly claiming my gifts. Yes. Other people could say, you're so good at this, but. I didn't know my own worth. I couldn't see it. And it's like the second I could see not only my own worth, but also how my sense of worth and liberation of myself, my self love could literally impact others. It was like, then suddenly that true alignment had happened. And that was when all these doors opened everywhere that. I could have felt like I was literally like facing the guillotine at some point. And then suddenly the guillotine turned into a waterfall of, you know, like a magical waterfall with like unicorns. It, it was just like, How did that just happen? Like, everything just started happening because I was going against the current before and now I'm like going with the flow that my, that was alignment to my soul. And now I was like, oh, this is how the universe works. Shelley: Mm it's a feeling you said this earlier. And I, I I've been reflecting on it, but it is, it's a feeling. And I think, you know, we aren't taught that. Success is a feeling we aren't taught that to really check in with. Wow, does this light me up right from the inside out? Like you said, check in, how does it make me feel? So that's how I think about successful. Like that's how we know we're on the journey. That's how we are on the, to the waterfall with the unicorns. Right. We're checking in, like, how do I feel? I mean, I, I didn't check in on that ever in my career. Right. It wasn't about how I felt. Monica: Yeah. And I also had this joy ceiling. I don't know about you, but like, I couldn't, I couldn't kind of get past this certain place. Shelley: Well, this is what, this is what gay Hendricks called, um, the upper limit problem in the big leap. Have you read the book? The Big Leap? No. Oh my gosh. Add it to the show notes and definitely read it. It's one of the books that was like, I, I, in, in my book, I talk about a whole host of books that like. I threw a treasure trip books in a backpack. When I went traveling, when I finally left Harley and that informed like that were me figuring out like how to excavate, like what's in there. How do we process all of this? Uh, and that's one that he talks about really brilliantly like that upper limit problem, no matter we we're gonna grow and we're gonna have a upper limit problem and we're gonna grow, we're gonna have a new, upper limit problem. We hit that ceiling always. And it's. Such great awareness. And he has all kinds of tools to think about how to get through that too. The other thing that hit me as you were talking, and I was actually going to grab my phone cause I was curious if I had it really accessible in my notes without going down a rabbit hole. This idea of. Like really reclaiming our wholeness, our worthiness, our enoughness, all of it was a big piece. So if you fast forward to, I, I had this nightmare for a year. I. Started to understand what it was telling me. I started to realize that I wanted to make the decision to really honor my soul and rebuild that relationship and repair it and listen to it and see where it was going to guide me while also giving myself permission to say, You know, what, if at some point along that journey, it doesn't feel right. You can course correct. You can go back to corporate or you can do something else, but give yourself this space. And that's when I made up this ti this, um, term sabbatical, I called myself chief. So officer, I went on this journey because I had no idea how to describe this thing to our earlier point. Nobody around me was doing this. I had no role models or what I call soul models, right. People who are honoring their soul and on the journey. And. And so I go out there and, and one of the things that I was. A hundred percent unprepared for was really like being, you know, dark night of the soul being in that cave by myself and realizing that all of the worth I had ever known was tied to my corporate identity. Monica: Mm-hmm . Shelley: All of it. And that is a very scary place to be. When you have severed ties, you don't have a community around you. Your family thinks you're nuts. And like you're in the starve by yourself, like curled up in a ball. And so I had to do some real work and I bring that up because it was a super vulnerable moment for me to go, how do I reconnect with who I truly am at my core, that has nothing to do with big global, sexy brands that has nothing to do with what titles somebody has assigned to me that has nothing to do with how many zeros are on my paycheck and on and on and on. It was the hardest work I've ever done like that initial step. And it was also the foundation for exactly where I am and I, and I continued to do the work, but I wrote at the time, this was the thing I was saying. I wondered if it was just really quickly in my notes. I wrote what called. So, you know, we all, a lot of us have manifestos. You wrote this beautiful bill of rights, I've written different manifestos. So I have this idea. What if I write this, I am a festo mm me, like what? I am not titles. I'm not all those things. Monica: Well, and I love like manifesto. Hello. Right. Shelley: I just cause that, so. I never even thought of that. I didn't either Monica: until you said it. And I was like, wait a minute. Yeah, I am FTO versus Shelley: Manifesto. Yeah. I love, I love that on so many levels, right. I'm a language lover and a language creator and that's so yummy and I shocking. Right? Yeah, I know exactly. And so it, it's an interesting exercise for anybody to, to do. Like, I invite, like if you're having this thing, it's like put the titles, put all this stuff. Society wants to place on us and they call us a mom and a CEO and a this and a that and a, whatever. It's not who we are. Mm-hmm and yet our entire value and worth gets tied up in that. So no wonder we're, you know, over pleasing and over yessing and doing things shoulding all over ourselves, right. Doing things is out of guilt and obligation because we're like fighting for the security of our self worth. And this, i-am-a-festo, which I think I did like multiple versions of was a really liberating exercise to simply sit down and go wait. Yeah, who am I, if I strip all of that away and, and I will say it was not an easy exercise. I did this by myself in like the middle of a monsoon in New Zealand. cause I was like trapped and it was really liberating to just understand Monica: well, and what I'm hearing is, is the moment you'd befriended yourself. Shelley: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So you have of that journey. I found one version of it, which I'm very happy to read. I don't know if this is the exact one that I wrote. I know in the book I have the one, the exact one that I wrote. This might be an updated version, but it'll, it'll serve, it'll serve the purpose. So here's the I-am-a-festo So I think this probably version 2.0. I am a free spirited global citizen. I am a woman of wanderlust 66 countries and counting. I am a proud corporate refugee now liberator of souls. I am a bold, brave and badass trailblazer. Creator of movements. I am a rebel soul rebelling for who I am, what I want and the impact I wanna have in the world. I am a wholehearted kind and compassionate leader for myself and others. I am a lighthouse for truth and authenticity. I am the most iconic brand I, I will ever represent. I am successful. I am enough. Hmm. And I haven't read that in a long time. That makes me emotional. Makes me emotional. I'm like, Monica: woo. Yeah. Oh gosh. That is so gorgeous. That piece about the iconic brand just hit me. I mean, all of it did, but that there's something there that's so powerful because talk about a trance disruptor. Mm it's. This superficial, you know, it's like, it's just. we're never gonna fill the whole. Unless we find our whole. Yeah. And it's just, it's this way again, that we're just taught to keep striving, reaching the dangling carrot out in front that just keeps us. Distracted and, you know, forever kind of grasping and the moment that we just stop and turn toward ourselves and just there is a reckoning that happens. And that's what you were describing in that monsoon, because the reckoning has to happen before for the reclamation. And the reckoning is where we say. I have been shitty to myself. Shelley: Oh, again and again. I Monica: have been so shitty to myself and, and that's the moment too, that we see ourselves through compassionate eyes. Through the eyes of the beloved, which is kind of the God, you know, the spark, whatever you wanna call it inside of us, the divine that, that, where we get remembered Shelley: it's so, oh yes. So. I can't wait for you to read the whole book because what I ended up doing after this was a little ceremony that is, I didn't have all the words for it, but as I'm listening to your language first, the reckoning, right. And then ultimately, It was the remembering what I did as I went to this really famous point. So I'm in this little cottage, monsoons hitting I'm freaking out. I'm realizing that I've given up everything that I've attached, all of my value and worth to making, coming to terms with that reckoning moment. Five days later, sky's clear and I'm start to make peace. And like you said, befriend, it was the beginning of the befriending. Let's be honest. This does not happen overnight. No, it does not. It was the beginning of the befriending. And I wanted to mark this occasion with some sort of ceremony. So I went to the tip. There's this very famous point. It's northernmost point of the north island of New Zealand. And it's called Cape Ranka. And it's known by the, the Maui it's where it's celebrated by the Maui people for, or being the place where your spirits jump off into the underworld, because it's this turbulent place where the Pacific meets the Tasman sea, and it's known as this wild thing. And it's where the spirits jump off into the underworld. And I was fascinat needed by this story. And I thought. I wanted to go out there anyway, what if I go out there and I say goodbye to corporate Shelley? Mm. I say goodbye to all of these trappings and everything I've been hanging onto and giving so much weight to for so long. And that I just let that go like off the cliff. And I welcome soulful Shelley, who knows she is all of those things. And more that I just read in the, I am manifesto and I welcome the. Owning of being the most iconic brand I could ever represent, which was so meaningful to me because as a marketer, I had placed the value of every other brand above myself. Yeah. And I'm finally, it's interesting. We're having this conversation well, not interesting at all. Whereas of course we, are it not a coincidence that we are having this conversation this moment. Because I am doing the work of stepping into the Shelley Paxton brand finally, after talking about it for two years, because I've every, I've put everything through this sabbatical filter, which served me very well. Sabbatical's powerful. And it was the first step on this journey. And yet I started to feel really constrained by it. And I'm like, well, of course you do, because you're up here now you're talking about what it means to be successful. And you're on this more expansive part of the journey because you're Shelley backs in. Duh, Monica: so good. I know. Right? Well bragged. Yes. And it's like, thank you. It's true. Right. I am expanding. I am growing. I back to the, I am a FEO, right? Yeah. It's like, that gets to just continue our whole lives, where we just keep expanding and expanding and expanding. Now doesn't necessarily look the same for everybody. Again, like part of my expansion is simplifying. Right? It's. Pulling things in closer is honoring the hermit in me. You know, that really I have this definite kind of, I love people. I hate people. Like it's just depends on the day I wear the t-shirt. It's just, I'm just honoring that instead of making myself wrong about it. And it just it's, there's some part of me that really just needs. That self approval. Yeah. That becomes a real practice for me. And of course I'm joking. I always love people. It's more a matter of what is my soul need right now. It's like, does, do I need just to be in the quiet for a while and. You know, I mean, I love this conversation because of course in true form, we've like gone out to the cosmos and it's been such a great conversation. And I think for our listeners, I'm just really in tuned with where we're at as women also in kind of what's happening in the world. And I almost feel like to go back to these two, these two places where these seas meet, that we've been taken in some ways, all of us, I don't think anybody has been spared into the underworld to some extent. And it's really an incredible time, an incredible opportunity to. Rebrand ourselves, right. To remember ourselves to re-author our stories and the stories we've been telling ourselves about ourselves. And these are all I think. Invitations. Like, I often say like, it's all happening for us, but we can tend to kind of play the victim a lot of times. And I know that I have at many moments in my life. In fact, I think I did it yesterday. , Shelley: that's just, I've been there. Believe me. Monica: Yeah. But, but you know, the, the age part of me knows that it's always happening for me. And yeah. So I wonder Shelley. You've already been so generous with your, just the depth of your storytelling and sharing. And I I'm really curious. What, what do you want the women who are listening based on kind of what's happening in the world right now? Like what do you, what do you want to encourage them think about, or to look into. Or to feel. Shelley: Yeah, I would say to, well, to feel, I mean, beyond everything we've talked about, I'm the kinda, the next piece of the mission. I feel like I'm on. And this is what I would invite everyone to do is to really think about, especially coming out of these to, well, I we're still in tumultuous times, especially coming out of. These last two years, where all of us have had our worlds shook in some way, shape or form. I say I had my, I had my nightmare five years before the world did, and I think there's a lot of truth to that. And I think we all have an urgent invitation to rewrite our script of. And to do it on our terms and it is a feeling, not a checklist. And so the invitation is to take a lot of the things we talked about, getting quiet, slowing down, really checking in. What is that for you? Mm-hmm . I was never even taught to think about what success means for me, it was never an individual idea. It was this collective striving toward these things. And so when you get really quiet and you think about. What does success mean for me, truly from the inside out, I wrote, you know, we were talking about language and I, I write definitions for all the words that I make up. And I wrote a definition for successful. One day after somebody asked me and I said, it's courageously defining success on your terms. And in a way that feels fulfilling from the inside out. And it's accomplishment and impact aligned with your soul's truth, right? Mm-hmm , it's not the striving and the achieving, but it's like, especially the impact. I saw a quote from Michelle Obama the other day, and I had the pleasure of hearing her speak live on a zoom the other night. And she said some thing to the effect of success. Isn't about how much money we make. It's about the, how much. Impact we have in changing in others' lives. Mm-hmm in, in essence. Right. And I love this idea, like ripples of impact. What if every one of us thought, what does that mean in my life? And what does success truly mean to me first as a feeling like if I went to bed feeling totally exhausted, but with a smile on my face, What does that look like? What does that feel like in my body? Yeah. And how do I start to create my world and my, my truth, my reality around that. And I'm still on that journey, but I would love to see more of us doing it because I think the more that intentionally and consciously decide to be the change we want to see. The more of it that's gonna happen. Monica: Yeah. I love that. And I love what you said on my terms is actually something also that is really a big one. And I would encourage all of us to think in the moment that we're about to do something it's like, are we doing it on our terms or are we doing it on their terms? Because has this whole idea of even playing with this concept of. Is it on my terms? What does that even mean? We start to see where we continually give our power away. Yeah. And it's, it's quite revealing. , you know, even to take just that one distinction on my terms. And think about how that can play out and get amplified more in your life. And there's this big wall that I think so many women come up against, which is the that's selfish. Yeah. And so that's a really hard one for a lot of women tos. Start to UN become from that training because it's not selfish. If you are not fulfilled, you will never be able to make the impact that you wanna make. And that's the other thing is like, I'm always reminding women. It's part of our DNA. Like we've got this, we don't have to worry about whether or not we're selfish. We're givers by design. It's how we were built. Shelley: Oh, so true. You Monica: know, it's like, so let it go, sister. It just cracks me up because that was a big one for me. Shelley: Yeah, yeah. For me as well, for me as well. And I, you know, I think I'm always gonna wrestle with it to a degree, but, you know, I always say self first, isn't selfish and I don't know how on earth we can serve if we ourselves aren't feeling whole and full mm-hmm Monica: I agree. I agree. And Shelley: to go back to the very beginning, I know this. So let this be the last thought. I just love the idea that the more of us who are being this in the world and setting this precedent and being soul models, it gives everyone else permission to just be like, fuck yeah, I'm going there. And that's what I want. That feels so liberating. That idea, Monica: it feels so liberating. And honestly, that the stuff that gives me energy and vitality, you know, and I didn't know. How I could feel, I didn't know how good it could get, and that's a really amazing game to play. How good can it get? And so, you know, I really do invite everybody to join us. So she, Shelley one last question, which is okay. I've been asking women this question lately. What does revelation mean to you? Shelley: Oh revelation. I mean, listen, I, I feel like I've lived it. I don't feel like I have a, I don't feel like I have a beautiful one liner to me. Revelation revelation means coming home to your soul. Mm-hmm coming home to your truth. That's what it means. That's, that's the way I'm interpreting what it means. And I feel like it's the beautiful journey that I've been on. And I would say rebel for revelation, which merges my language with yours. And that means means rebelling for your authenticity, your courage and your purpose. Monica: So good. And so where can. Everybody find more out about you. I don't know if you want them to follow you yeah. More than welcome to invite. Shelley: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I'm starting work on book two. So if you want kind of like inside peaks into that, you can find me on Instagrams with playground. So at. Sabbatical and sabbatical has two BS and one T my website right now, before it becomes Shelley, paxton.com is sabbatical.com. If you're a LinkedIn woman, you can find me as Shelley Paxton, and you can listen to rebel souls podcast anywhere, you know, anywhere where you get your, your podcast. I'm on a brief hiatus now, but I will be back very soon and we'll keep. Keep flipping the middle finger to the status quo. So I would love to continue this conversation. And by the way, you can buy the book sabbatical, corporate rebels guide, defining your best life, anywhere that you buy your books, Amazon, or your local independent bookstore. I Monica: can't wait to read it. And yes, and, and have so much fun. She's about to head off to Mexico for a month. And is that just for Shelley: play? No, it's um, it's teaching. So I'm teaching at modern elder academy. I wanna give you the link because I think it's, it's a, a community that might speak to the women in this, in your listeners. And, uh, so I'm teaching a workshop there about so many of the things we just talked about, I am writing, starting writing book number two, which is all about this concept of successful. And yes, I will also be playing. Yay. Monica: All right. Well, this has just been such an amazing conversation. I knew it would be, but it, it was even better than I thought it would be. Shelley: So I feel the same so much. Monica: It was like, thank you Shelley: for having me. Monica: It's an honor. Absolutely. And we'll be sure for our listeners to put all of she. Links and the, the books that we mentioned and all of the resources in the show notes. And until next time more to be revealed, we hope you enjoyed this episode. For more information, please visit us@jointherevelation.com and be sure to download our free gift, subscribe to our mailing list or leave us a review on iTunes. We thank you for your generous listening and as always more to be revealed.