Goodbye Life in the AND, Hello Shift Starters

Let's Start Some Shift!

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Shift Starters with Erin Baker. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

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I have been wanting to have Bex Taylor-Klaus on the podcast ever since I decided Life in the And was going to be a thing. Bex - the eldest child of previous guests Elaine and David Taylor-Klaus - is someone whom you may know from their role as Sin in CW's Arrow, Audrey in MTV's Scream, the voice of Pidge in Voltron: Legendary Defenders, or as the non-binary Deputy Brianna Bishop in Fox's procedural drama, Deputy. An "Accidental AND," Bex is a non-binary individual - an identity that we all need to talk more about in society.

In this episode, Bex and I explore what it means to be non-binary and what it looks like in Hollywood. We illustrate Bex's experience with gender & identity as a child and how they discovered the non-binary identity. We elaborate on the non-binary identity's characteristic as a spectrum and explain why it's not about being "in the middle." We emphasize the importance of letting people know that they are not alone and underscore the power of standing in your truth and speaking it.

"You are who you are. Who you are can change, and you can figure it out as you go along." - Bex Taylor-Klaus

This week on Life in the AND:

• Bex's childhood experience and how they discovered the non-binary spectrum
• Why Bex loves Dorothy from Wonderful Wizard of Oz
• How Bex came out as non-binary for the first time during an argument
• The power of knowing and speaking your truth
• Pitching Deputy's Breanna Bishop to Fox TV and why the show means so much to Bex
• Transforming pain and heartache into art and content
• Gatekeeping in the queer community
• What the non-binary spectrum is and why it's not about being "in the middle"
• The superpower of non-binary humans
• How we can become an AND with the pronouns we use and why it's okay to let other people be confused
• Our destiny to make a mark in the world
• Why Bex likes to play characters that make people uncomfortable
• The beauty of our human brains and the squiggly ANDpersand

Resources Mentioned:

• Lessons from Being Complex AND Raising Complex Humans with Elaine Taylor-Klaus
• We Need Our Heads AND Our Hearts with David Taylor-Klaus

Connect with Bex Taylor-Klaus:

• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Instagram
• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Facebook
• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Twitter
• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Tumblr

Embrace Life in the AND

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Life in the AND, the podcast helping you embrace the AND in your life to cultivate more authenticity, creativity, inclusiveness, and love in every area of the world around you. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe to the show and leave a review.

Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and share your favorite episodes across social media. And for more great content and information, be sure to visit our website and join The Heart Leader Launchpad Facebook group.

Niiamah Ashong is a pioneer and outlier on a mission to create a world of true inclusion and empowerment. He is the founder and leader of the World of Joy Movement where he brings his vision of true inclusivity and diversity into life by helping leaders and organizations leverage their uniqueness and strength. Before embarking on leading this movement, Niiamah worked with AppNexus as a People Experience Consultant and a Senior Consultant for management services firm Deloitte Consulting. Today, Niiamah is a dear friend and kindred spirit who continues to inspire me on my mission.

Niiamah joins me today to discuss the Ands we need to create a world of true inclusion. He shares his vision of an inclusive world and explains how he was inspired to make this vision a reality. He explores the paradox of inclusion and exclusion and illustrates how we can become inclusive while maintaining our differences. He also emphasizes the role of outliers, trailblazers, and mavericks in a divisive and uncertain world, and explores the possibility of being fearful and still being authentic.

"True inclusion is about being celebrated and valued for the things that make you different." - Niiamah Ashong

This week on Life in the AND:

• What inclusion means for Niiamah and why it's more about difference than sameness
• Creating a world of true inclusion and what it looks like in 2045
• How innovation comes when people who are different from each other work together
• The "Yes And" game and why And is a skill set that could be honed
• Where Niiamah's mission of creating an inclusive world started and how he came to realize it
• How inclusion and exclusion go hand in hand, and how we can create a space of diversity that accepts outliers and trailblazers
• The characteristics that make trailblazers, outliers, and mavericks, and what makes them important in a world of uncertainty
• Self-identifying as an outlier and how we are alone and belonging at the same time
• The difference between belonging versus fitting-in
• The costs of owning authenticity and uniqueness and why trailblazing isn't safe
• Handling both sides of fear and what it means to be fearful and fear less at the same time

Connect with Niiamah Ashong:

• Niiamah Ashong
• Trailblazer Tribe
• Niiamah Ashong on YouTube
• Niiamah Ashong on Instagram
• Niiamah Ashong on LinkedIn

Embrace Life in the AND

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Life in the AND, the podcast helping you embrace the AND in your life to cultivate more authenticity, creativity, inclusiveness, and love in every area of the world around you. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe to the show and leave a review.

Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and share your favorite episodes across social media. And for more great content and information, be sure to visit our website.

Shelley Paxton is internationally recognized as The Burnout Fighter and Fire Re-igniter. She is the Chicago-based author of Soulbbatical: A Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding Your Best Life, a book where she shares her journey from working in Corporate America as the CMO of Harley-Davidson to becoming the Chief Soul Officer of her life and career. Shelley has spent over 25 years in the corporate world as a highly regarded marketing and advertising executive with some of the world's most iconic brands, including Visa, McDonald's, and AOL. Her work has been recognized and featured in multiple media publications including Thrive Global, Forbes, PBS, and CBS. Since taking her Soulbbatical in 2016 and launching her company, Shelley has been on a mission to liberate a billion souls by inspiring them to embrace their greatest truth, purpose, and possibility.

Shelley joins me today to share all of the "Ands" in her life and career. She discusses her ballsy move to liberate a billion souls by creating a title wave of change in people's lives and organizations. She discusses the magic that can happen when you trust AND surrender to your soul's process instead of the corporate process or the process of others. She discusses how you can trust, surrender, and follow your soul's desires while working in the corporate environment and why the first step to reconnecting to your soul is to get reacquainted with yourself and your personal values. She also explains the difference between rebelling for something versus rebelling against something and why she believes, deep down, everyone has a rebel soul.

"You have to know where you're heading, and you first have to know yourself because getting reconnected with your soul really is getting reconnected with your GPS system." - Shelley Paxton

This week on Life in the AND:

• Shelley's big, audacious goal of liberating a billion souls - one soul at a time
• How Shelley stays grounded in holding onto her big, overarching goal while liberating one individual soul at a time
• The magic that happens when you trust AND surrender to your soul's process
• Bridging the gap between working in the corporate world while following your soul's desires
• Getting reacquainted with yourself and your values and why it's the first step to reconnecting to your soul
• Choosing to believe that crisis always comes as a gift to teach us a lesson
• Why Shelley believes everyone has a rebel soul
• How your 'ands' are the lego pieces of your life
• Using fear as fuel to get to where you want to go
• Why Shelley believes trusting and surrendering to your soul's desires is the "And" everyone should stand for

Resources Mentioned:

• The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Connect with Shelley Paxton:

• Soulbbatical
• Rebel Souls Podcast
• Book: Sabbatical: A Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding Your Best Life
• Shelley Paxton on LinkedIn
• Shelley Paxton on Instagram
• Soulbbatical on Facebook
• Shelley Paxton on Twitter

Embrace Life in the AND

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Life in the AND, the podcast helping you embrace the AND in your life to cultivate more authenticity, creativity, inclusiveness, and love in every area of the world around you. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe to the show and leave a review.

Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and share your favorite episodes across social media. And for more great content and information, be sure to visit our website.

As 2020 draws to a close, and winter is upon us, I start my final episode of the year. Life in the AND is about to rebrAND and expAND. I'm non-binary and non-conventional, I want to bring more of me to the podcast and I'm committed to it not being run of the mill.

In this episode, I reflect on the journey this podcast has taken me on, and the clarity it has given me to move forward as I think about what 2021 holds. I explore what rebranding and expanding means for me, explain what it means to be committed and unattached. I also speak about some of the inspirational guests who have contributed to my podcast so far; Shelly Paxton, Sean Smith, Bex Taylor-Klaus and Niiamah Ashong.

"'AND' is this powerful, expansive word that creates possibility" – Erin Baker

This week on Life in the AND:

• A reflection on my podcast journey
• Is winter a time to slow down or speed up?
• Why it's time to rebrand and expand
• Being committed and unattached
• The power of 'AND'
• Highlights from some of my favorite guests

Connect with my former guests who are in encore in December:

• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Instagram
• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Facebook
• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Twitter
• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Tumblr

• Niiamah Ashong
• Trailblazer Tribe
• Niiamah Ashong on YouTube
• Niiamah Ashong on Instagram
• Niiamah Ashong on LinkedIn

• Sean Smith Website
• Sean Smith on Facebook
• Sean Smith on Twitter
• Sean Smith on YouTube
• Sean Smith on LinkedIn
• Email:info@coachseansmith.com

• Soulbbatical
• Rebel Souls Podcast
• Book: Sabbatical: A Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding Your Best Life
• Shelley Paxton on LinkedIn
• Shelley Paxton on Instagram
• Soulbbatical on Facebook
• Shelley Paxton on Twitter

Embrace Life in the AND

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Life in the AND, the podcast helping you embrace the AND in your life to cultivate more authenticity, creativity, inclusiveness, and love in every area of the world around you. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe to the show and leave a review.

Don't forget to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and share your favorite episodes across social media. And for more great content and information, be sure to visit my website.

I have been wanting to have Bex Taylor-Klaus on the podcast ever since I decided Life in the And was going to be a thing. Bex - the eldest child of previous guests Elaine and David Taylor-Klaus - is someone whom you may know from their role as Sin in CW's Arrow, Audrey in MTV's Scream, the voice of Pidge in Voltron: Legendary Defenders, or as the non-binary Deputy Brianna Bishop in Fox's procedural drama, Deputy. An "Accidental AND," Bex is a non-binary individual - an identity that we all need to talk more about in society.

In this episode, Bex and I explore what it means to be non-binary and what it looks like in Hollywood. We illustrate Bex's experience with gender & identity as a child and how they discovered the non-binary identity. We elaborate on the non-binary identity's characteristic as a spectrum and explain why it's not about being "in the middle." We emphasize the importance of letting people know that they are not alone and underscore the power of standing in your truth and speaking it.

"You are who you are. Who you are can change, and you can figure it out as you go along." - Bex Taylor-Klaus

This week on Life in the AND:

• Bex's childhood experience and how they discovered the non-binary spectrum
• Why Bex loves Dorothy from Wonderful Wizard of Oz
• How Bex came out as non-binary for the first time during an argument
• The power of knowing and speaking your truth
• Pitching Deputy's Breanna Bishop to Fox TV and why the show means so much to Bex
• Transforming pain and heartache into art and content
• Gatekeeping in the queer community
• What the non-binary spectrum is and why it's not about being "in the middle"
• The superpower of non-binary humans
• How we can become an AND with the pronouns we use and why it's okay to let other people be confused
• Our destiny to make a mark in the world
• Why Bex likes to play characters that make people uncomfortable
• The beauty of our human brains and the squiggly ANDpersand

Resources Mentioned:

• Lessons from Being Complex AND Raising Complex Humans with Elaine Taylor-Klaus
• We Need Our Heads AND Our Hearts with David Taylor-Klaus

Connect with Bex Taylor-Klaus:

• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Instagram
• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Facebook
• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Twitter
• Bex Taylor-Klaus on Tumblr

Embrace Life in the AND

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Life in the AND, the podcast helping you embrace the AND in your life to cultivate more authenticity, creativity, inclusiveness, and love in every area of the world around you. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe to the show and leave a review.

Don't forget to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and share your favorite episodes across social media. And for more great content and information, be sure to visit our website.