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OhHello - Shelley Paxton
42 Plays1 year ago
OhHello!
It's episode 73 and this quote is gonna come crashing down on you... (like a DMB concert in the summer of 98)
🌊 "MENTORSHIP IS RIPPLES OF IMPACT" 🌊 - Shelley Paxton,
Shelley is our featured "Hello" (an OhHello.io 🌞☕️ mentor), that left the corporate world, as the CMO of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company, to become the world's first "Chief Soul Officer". Our discussion delves into's Shelley's book "Soulbattical: A Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding Your Best Life", the ideals of authenticity, and overall mindsets that impact us all.
Throughout the discussion, Shelley exudes excitement about her mission to help leaders rewrite their script of success. She emphasizes the importance of authenticity, freedom, and courage in aligning with one's true values. Shelley highlights her concept of "soul set," a mindset focused on understanding and aligning with one's inner truth.
She gives a big shout to the mentors that have helped her along the way: Kate Stephenson and Chip Conley
Shelley's going to be on OhHello.io, in the near future, but for now - come give this a watch, listen, and let us know what you think!
"Authenticity is the truest form of rebellion" ---> an easter egg for those watching the full episode.
#authenticleadership #soul #rebellion #marketing
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Transcript
Reunion Over Coffee
00:00:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's Shelly. There we go. Oh, hello, Shelly. How are you? Oh, hello, Jeremy. I'm fabulous. I'm loving this time with you. Oh, it's great. This that was such a fun just coffee session and catch up. It had been years. It's so good to reconnect. You've got the sun beautifully positioned on you. My spotlight man.
Introduction to 'Soul Batticle'
00:00:33
Speaker
Your background is by far one of the best backgrounds, the natural brick, you're in a Chicago loft. And can you tell me what's over your left shoulder?
00:00:42
Speaker
That my friend is my book called Soul Batticle, a corporate rebels guide to finding your best life. That was published. It's basically I call it a memoir, manifesto and interactive guide. For those of us looking to rewrite our script of success. Yes, published eight weeks before the world shut down. So it also has its own story to tell.
00:01:11
Speaker
Absolutely.
From CMO to Chief Solbatical Officer
00:01:12
Speaker
Well, Shelly, I have the pleasure of knowing you and I'd like to introduce you to our audience. So Shelly Paxton, thank you for joining us today. Oh, hello community. Thank you for watching this VOD, for listening to this pod. We have with us the chief solbatical officer who has also previously been an executive in marketing. Shelly, you are the CMO of Harley Davidson.
00:01:37
Speaker
you have created a lot of cool brands, you've made an impact on a lot of people in the greater marketing advertising media ecosystem. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about you? Who are you? Yes, this journey from chief marketing officer to chief sole officer has been a wild ride.
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah, I who am I? I'm a woman who's living her truth. I am a rebel soul. I'm a badass on a mission to help leaders rewrite their script of success. And I am somebody there's a there's a
00:02:16
Speaker
a quote, I'll butcher the quote, but the idea from Brené Brown was this idea that we share our stories so they can become somebody else's survival guide. And to me, that's what defines the work I do. And I also think that connects to this idea of mentorship. That's why we share our journey. That's why we share
00:02:39
Speaker
what we learned and how we approached it so that we can put an arm around other people. And so I'm somebody who lived.
Redefining Success
00:02:49
Speaker
Ultimately, I understood that I was living my dad's script of success. And I want to be really clear. It served me very, very, very well for a very long time. I had an incredible global marketing career with lots of iconic brands. It took me around the world.
00:03:08
Speaker
And the pinnacle of my career was, as you said, CMO of Harley Davidson, when I got a real wake up call that kind of shook me and I thought, do I even understand who I am? How can you be at the top of this mountain and feel empty inside and feel just freaking exhausted? So that's kind of what spurred what I've been doing for the past seven years.
00:03:33
Speaker
And what you've been doing for the past seven years essentially helps define who you are on your journey. Tell us a little bit more about just the past seven years, what you've been up to. Yeah. Well, the first eight months of my, you know, this terrifying decision that I made this what most people thought was like an insane decision to leave as CMO of Harley Davidson, who does that. I'm that person.
00:04:01
Speaker
So it took big cojones for me to decide to do that. And personally, I was 46 years old. And I thought, God, what if I feel this way by the time I'm 50? Like, will I even be alive to tell my story? Will all the joy be robbed from my life? And so I went on this journey that I had no words for. So I created a word. I called it solvatical because I knew what I was doing hadn't really been done, or at least it wasn't the norm.
00:04:31
Speaker
It wasn't a traditional sabbatical, as you see often in the academic space and now more in the corporate space. It wasn't a vacation. It wasn't really anything I could put my finger on. And so I created this mashup word that ultimately became, I didn't know at the time I was going to write a book.
00:04:47
Speaker
It ultimately became the title of my book because it was, I realized that I needed something unique and I gave myself a title. That was the very first moment where I was like, you girl are chief sole officer of your life because I was very title sensitive and I knew that I needed something that would hold me accountable.
00:05:07
Speaker
to this thing inside to my own truth, not what society says success equals and what all those boxes are that you're supposed to or should take. But what is my soul saying? And do I even have I even been listening? So that was the first eight months where I was kind of traveling around and reconnecting with
Life's Brevity and True Alignment
00:05:29
Speaker
myself. And then as I told you separately, my dad had a massive stroke about eight months into my solvatical and
00:05:36
Speaker
that told taught me a whole other drawing series of yeah I mean shook my world and it also was the moment where I realized there was no going back there was only going forward and then I was meant to do different work in the world because if ever you need the cosmic kick in the pants that's gonna remind you that life is short
00:05:57
Speaker
Man, that's one of them. There are many of them, but often I have realized in the past seven years that so many of us wait for the cosmic kick in the pants. And the pandemic was that for some people, right? Where it's just like, what matters most to you? And so in that moment, I realized that I was focused on taking tiny steps forward toward what matters most to me and in alignment with
00:06:22
Speaker
my truth and my values, which are freedom, authenticity, and courage. And that started to give birth to this work I do around rewriting the script of success and helping others do it for themselves. So that amazing, amazing. And sometimes we just need those unfortunate kicks in the ass, so to speak, and just having to move forward and taking remembering each day one step at a time like today is focused on today.
00:06:51
Speaker
is a series of tiny steps. This is something I repeat to myself every single day. So if anybody needs a new mantra, that's a good one. All we have to do is take the next right tiny step. We're never gonna know. We don't have crystal balls. We never know exactly what's gonna happen, but tiny steps set things in motion.
00:07:11
Speaker
So those tiny steps that set things in motion, how would you characterize the skillset that you'll be sharing with the Oh Hello community? Obviously, please go ahead.
00:07:21
Speaker
Yeah, it's well, I would say, broadly, it's really a mindset. And it's a soul set, right? And which I was hoping you'd go in that direction. Yeah, it's, it's soul set isn't a word I've ever said before. But there's maybe something there. But it's this idea. Yeah, it's this idea that
00:07:42
Speaker
we get to really understand. It took me a while to start to unravel all of the narratives and the stories I was telling myself and how I was defining success and to realize, I don't mean this in a bad way, but just to be honest, that, oh, oh, that was handed
Challenging Traditional Success
00:08:01
Speaker
to me. I never really even thought, is that true for me? So all of the work that I've done and frankly am still doing,
00:08:10
Speaker
That work is what I love to share in my conversation so that the answer is different for every single one of us. The process is different, but there are some tools and some questions and some frameworks that can help you along the way, and that's what I love sharing. Amazing. What excites you about mentorship? What excites you about the Oh, hello community, the platform, and just combining our missions together?
00:08:38
Speaker
A few things. Well, let me highlight two. One, I've already said, because I think this idea, I start my book in the intro and I say, I wrote the book that I wish I had when I went off on this journey. And so I want to put an arm around you and say, I got you. Because often when we're in these moments and we're having these crises, we feel so freaking alone.
00:09:04
Speaker
And so anyone who's feeling alone, if I can be a mentor and at least help guide you through the early, like those darkest phases are the most confusing, they're the most stuck feeling, that's really important to me. And the second piece, especially around aligning our forces is my, the way I define currency today is very different than how I would have defined it when I was at Harley.
00:09:32
Speaker
And my success currency is impact. And I think this is what I talk about in all of my talks too. My way of thinking about it is ripples of impact. To me, that's the new ROI. And that's what motivates me and energizes me every single day. So mentorship is ripples of impact. Us sharing our stories and inspiring the next person. And then I just have this vision every time I say it,
00:10:02
Speaker
imagining you're not only changing your life, but you are impacting how we think about, in my case, success in the world, like well beyond yourself. And the more of us like you and me and so many others in this community who are showing up in different ways and showing up more powerfully, we're giving others permission to do that as well. That's what I love.
00:10:25
Speaker
What a wonderful answer. The ripples, I can see the visual and also as you and I were talking about when we were doing the pre-chat, having coffee together, just the, when you're going to corporations, when you're going to universities and you're making that impact on stage, talking through
00:10:41
Speaker
You don't have to leave your jobs.
Finding Fulfillment Without Quitting
00:10:44
Speaker
You just need to be able to talk to people. I took this risk for you. You don't have to jump. Tell us a little bit more about that. Oh, my God. Well, and it took me a while to get here, but I realized one day I literally looked at a median organizer because I asked this organizer, what does success look like on the other side? It was a massive audience, like a thousand female leaders.
00:11:08
Speaker
it was a talk i did this summer and she said she said what it looks like is these women are incredibly inspired but please don't make them quit and it was such a wake-up call for me i was like oh shit is that what people think of my work
00:11:24
Speaker
And I'd heard it a few times before, but it never landed that deeply. And I was like, oh, wait a second. No, the whole point is I quit so you don't have to. And so I've actually started, that is in my talk. It is the line that gets the laugh and the snaps and the everything every time I say it, because that is the truth. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. I got you.
00:11:47
Speaker
But that's the truth of it. The truth is I'm standing on these stages and I'm doing the work that I do now because I'm sharing what I wish I would have known in their shoes as leaders wherever you are on that leadership journey from earlier on in your career to the C-suite.
00:12:04
Speaker
This is applicable because in my mind, this is about how do we individually and collectively rewrite success so that it's infused with more humanity and wellbeing and soul? I mean, not burnout and mental health crises and attrition and, and, and, and, right? I want to be antidote to that.
00:12:30
Speaker
Who helped get you to where you are
Mentors and Influences
00:12:32
Speaker
today? From a professional mentor perspective, when you look back and you think, wow, these people, it could be personal too, personal, professional. Who are some mentors that have made a profound impact on you, Shelly Paxton? Yeah, well, I think so many, and I'm sure everybody says that, right? Like too many to name. We'll tag some of them then. Yeah, yeah, no, a few that I would call out. I mean, one who is still a very dear friend of mine today, you may even know her from the
00:12:59
Speaker
the ad agency world, Kate Stevenson. She was a boss of mine at Omnicom Media Group. So when I was in the Omnicom space on the agency side before I went to Harley, in fact, Kate was my boss when I had to say I was going to Harley.
00:13:15
Speaker
And Kate is a rebel soul, and I watched her navigate big organizations and hold boundaries. She was a rebel soul, an amazing leader, and she was a single mom. And so I learned so much about boundaries, about how to get stuff done, and also about how do you protect that world? Because it was really important to her that she got home and ate dinner as an example.
00:13:41
Speaker
with her daughter every night. And then on the weekends, she was with her daughter. And so she was really clear with us about when she was available and when she wasn't available. And I see that still coming into the heart of what I talk about today, because boundaries over burnout is a choice.
00:13:58
Speaker
Well said. Well said. Yeah. And the second one I'll highlight here for the sake of time is more recently, Chip Conley. Chip is a New York Times bestselling author. He's a hospitality disruptor. He had his own boutique hotel group, Joie de Vivre. Then he went on to join Airbnb and help them become the behemoths that we know them as today. And more recently he is the founder and CEO
00:14:24
Speaker
of Modern Elder Academy, the world's first midlife wisdom school. And I was introduced to Chip right after my book came out and felt an immediate soul brother, soul sister conversation. And he's really helped guide me through this entrepreneurial journey, through the soul journey, and helped me show up as a teacher and a sharer of wisdom in this soul space.
00:14:50
Speaker
Amazing. Shelly, any other parting words of wisdom that you want to give to our audience?
Authenticity as Rebellion
00:14:56
Speaker
I suppose I can end on what I have tattooed on my forearm, which if you can't read it, it says authenticity is the truest form of rebellion. So be true to you. It is at the core of how we show up in the world. Amazing. Shelly, you are badass. So grateful to have you on the pod on the VOD. Thank you everyone for watching. Thank you for listening. Crushed it. Thank you, my friend. Everyone book with Shelly.
00:15:26
Speaker
She's fantastic. Thank you.