Pause On The Play

Success is difficult to define. Everyone has their own take on what it means, and there is often a difference between how we think about success and how it shows up in reality.

India and Erica discuss how they have defined success in the past, how the meaning of success has evolved, and share the perspectives of members of the Pause on the Play® Community.

In this discussion:

• How the definitions of success we’re exposed to early in life create narratives of how we perceive ourselves and others
• Why we need diverse perspectives on the meaning of success
• Eight community members share their working definitions of success

Connect with Our Contributors:

• Elaine Lou Cartas 
• Mim Jenkinson 
• Kim Wensel 
• EK Powell 
• Jetty Nieuwenhuis 
• Sean McMullin
• Emily Souder
• Shannon Collins

Ready to dive deeper?

The last thing we need is another echo chamber, perpetuating a single perspective on how we should live, love, and earn. If you know there’s more than one definition of and path to success, but haven’t found a place that encourages this diversity and divergence, good news: your search is over.

READY TO FIND YOUR PEOPLE? Join us inside The Pause on the Play® Community Where entrepreneurs and brands reconsider “normal” in life and work.

Learn more at  pauseontheplay.com/community

Resources:

• Subscribe to the Pause on the Play® Newsletter
• Listen to Kim Wensel and Erica discuss the evolution of Pause on the Play®
• Listen to E.K. Powell on African American Vernacular English
• Listen to Jetty Nieuwenhuis on Unlocking Your F*ck It Factor
• Read Emily Souder on Defining Success at Mother Hustle
• Listen to Shannon Collins on Using Your Visibility and Influence from Behind the Camera
• Listen to Shannon Collins on the Wedding Industrial Complex
• Listen to Amenah Arman on Bad Art
• Read Laziness Does Not Exist, by Devon Price

When you decide that you want to make an impact and create change with your brand and your platform, you have to get clear on your values. 

And those values have to be explicit to you, your team, your clients, and your audience.

Amy Jacobus reconnects with Erica to reflect on how refining and implementing her values throughout her company has impacted her business, and how it continues to grow and shape her brand.

In this discussion:

• How reconsidering her normal allows Amy to create sustainable, and effective marketing plans for her clients
• How making her values explicit has impacted Amy’s relationships with her team and her clients
• Why you have to be willing to question, reconsider, and shift your values over time
• How reconsidering the norms of your industry helps you align with your values

Connect with Amy Jacobus:

• Amy Jacobus Marketing
• Instagram: @amyjacobus

Ready to dive deeper?

Values have been touted as something you should have, but no one has really told you what to do with them. Taking a static word and turning it into action is the sweet spot where values become guiding principles on how to respond, make choices, and create impact with your brand.

Join Pause on the Play, The Community, and get access to Erica and India’s workshop, From Implicit to Explicit: Reconsidering What You Know About Values and learn why identifying your values can change everything in and around your brand, you’ll uncover ways that traditional ideal client workshops and tools aren’t helpful and how leading with your values can shift the way you approach your brand.

Learn more at  pauseontheplay.com/community

There is so much history that we don’t learn in school.

Colonial and white supremacist historical narratives rarely acknowledge the history of Black resistance and rebellion, or the free Black communities created by Maroons, some of which still exist to this day.

Dr. Crystal Menzies joins Erica to discuss the past and present of Maroon communities, what they have to teach us about communal care and collective responsibility, and why we need accessible, intergenerational education.

In this discussion:

• The history of Maroon communities and how they sustain their cultures to this day
• How Maroon communities implement communal care and accountability
• Why we need to learn about the resistance and rebellion of Black people
• Why education needs to be intergenerational and in community

Connect with Dr. Crystal Menzies:

• EmancipatED
• Instagram: @emancipate_ed

Ready to dive deeper?

Pause on the Play, The Community was created as a space to be able to share information, to allow people to connect with one another, to amplify what is important to them, and support one another in becoming the change that we want to create.

In the community, we have conversations where you learn about something that you were unaware of, and how you can shift what’s possible, what can come up in the future if you allow yourself to dream a little bit bigger, to be willing to listen a little bit more intently.

If you would like to be a part of these conversations, if you would like to be in a room with other people that are values-aligned and looking to reconsider their normals, this is the place for you.

Learn more at  pauseontheplay.com/community

Resources:

• Learn more about Queen Nanny of the Maroons
• Watch In Search of Voodoo: Roots to Heaven

We often discuss misconceptions that people have around various topics like marketing, community, visibility and branding, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work.

And it’s important to regularly revisit these topics, to dig in, debunk, and recenter the myths and misconceptions that come up with them.

India Jackson joins Erica to discuss common misconceptions about DEI work, from getting stuck on the right way to engage to why it’s vital to move from consuming information and into action.

In this discussion:

• How perfectionism shows up when we get attached to there being one way to do DEI
• Why community is vital to moving DEI work from consumption to action
• Why DEI efforts require deep internal work and tangible action
• How a diversity of lived experiences, history, and culture impacts DEI globally

Ready to dive deeper?

Being in community is one of the cornerstones that can support your DEI efforts. This is what can take you from consuming information to having conversations about what you’ve learned and forming powerful and intentional actions that you can move forward with.

This is how we create change, and this is how we can do it in community with one another.

Pause on the Play, The Community facilitates a space for these powerful conversations, being able to reconsider your normal, learning from one another, and knowing that you’re not alone in your journey.

If you’re ready to join, visit pauseontheplay.com/community

Resources:

• Hood Feminism, Mikki Kendall

• Eloquent Rage, Brittney Cooper

• Kimberlé Crenshaw
• Listen to Kay Fabella on DEI in the US and Abroad
• Listen to Erica on Why You Can’t Operationalize DEI

Reconsidering your normal is essential to clarifying and living your values.

But it isn’t a one and done process. Reconsidering your normal is a journey that holds space for where you’ve been and what’s possible in the future.

Amenah Arman joins Erica to discuss how reconsidering her normal has impacted how she shows up in her business, in her values, and in her mission.

In this discussion:

• How getting clear on your values helps you evaluate belief systems and come into alignment with your mission
• Why reconsidering your normal is an ongoing process that will evolve over time
• Why we have to normalize suspending judgment and not oversimplifying the lived experiences of BIPOC individuals
• Why some systems need an overhaul not an update
• Using anger and frustration as a generative force

Connect with Amenah Arman

• Sane in the Membrane
• TikTok: @sane.in.the.membrane 
• Instagram: @sane.in.the.membrane

Ready to dive deeper?

If you’re ready to reconsider your normal and what you know about values, join Pause on the Play, The Community for Implicit to Explicit: Reconsidering What You Know About Values.

Erica and India will discuss why you have to establish shared meanings and definitions, how behavior modeling showcases your values through your actions, how common business practices like ideal client profiles contribute to dehumanizing who you want to attract to your business, and more.

Community membership gets you access to this workshop and our full library of past workshops and Q&As, along with community discussion and support.

Learn more  pauseontheplay.com/community

Resources:

• Listen to Amenah Arman on Flaunt Your Fire® discussing Bad Art: Challenging the Negative and Perfectionist Narrative
• Reconsider Your Normal T-shirt

Most business owners have been told at some point that they need to have an ideal client profile.

These profiles are meant to be tools to figure out who we’re marketing to and who we’re selling to. But in practice, they create a Frankenstein of demographics that don’t reflect real people.

These amalgamations of traits are also heavily rooted in white supremacist structures, ignoring whole humans for what we think are the most desirable pieces.

India Jackson joins Erica to discuss how these profiles go wrong, and why rooting your marketing in your values allows you to attract the customers, clients, and collaborators you really want.

In this discussion:

• How ideal client profiles reinforce stereotypes and biases by forcing us to make assumptions based on demographics
• Why ideal client profiles are inherently exclusionary and racist
• How using your values to guide your client relationships gives you freedom to evolve
• Why values-based ideal clients are better customers and collaborators

Ready to dive deeper?

If you’re ready to be in action with your values, Pause on the Play, The Community is offering an opportunity to dive deeper and question what values really are, and what’s really happening when they’re touted as something you need to have, but you’re not sure what to do with them. 

Join us  for From Implicit to Explicit: Reconsidering What You Know About Values. Erica and India will discuss why pausing to establish shared meanings and definitions is an important part of understanding what your values are across your team and your life, as well as why personal values are so important for leaders.

Get access to this workshop, replays, community discussions, and more by joining the Community at pauseontheplay.com/community

Resources:

Listen to Chelsea Stevenson on using your values to inform your ideal client

When we are the only person working for our brand, we can have a false sense of not having anyone to answer to, no reasoning that needs to be vetted before we make decisions.

But if we don’t create culture for ourselves, are we deprioritizing the importance of having an understanding of our company culture?

Erica shares her perspective on why it’s important to establish a company culture, even when you’re a company of one.

In this discussion:

• How to define the scope of your team
• Why your values are the foundation of your company culture
• How defining your values and company culture eases decision making
• How being explicit in your values positively impacts your growth

Ready to dive deeper?

If you’re ready to shape your company culture for yourself and the team you’ll create, Pause on the Play, The Community is a place to explore what’s possible.

Get access to Q&A sessions, workshops, and a supportive community as you define your values.

Learn more at pauseontheplay.com/community

Learning for the sake of learning is never the thing. Talking for the sake of talking doesn’t do it either.

Conversations and content are the places we start, but they have to become part of how you create action, how you learn and unlearn, so you can move through the world in a more equitable way.

India interviews Erica about what she’s integrating in her life and her practice of Imperfect Allyship®.

In this discussion:

• Why confronting perfectionism means digging into the narratives you have about yourself and your work
• How reconsidering your normal extends to Erica’s parenting
• Why community is essential to integration

Ready to dive deeper?

If you want to be in conversation with others committed to integration and being Imperfect Allies®, Pause on the Play® The Community, gives you the opportunity to show up, learn new things and new ways of being that you can integrate into your allyship.

Join a supportive community who are in action to change themselves and the world around them for the better. 

Learn more at PauseOnThePlay.com/Community

Resources:

• Listen to Erica interview India about what she’s integrating on the Flaunt Your Fire® Podcast
• Listen to Amenah Arman on Bad Art: Challenging the Negative and Perfectionist Narrative on the Flaunt Your Fire® Podcast

What can happen when we take the time to actually talk about the challenges that we're experiencing at work, the way that we're feeling, the things that we're experiencing, and ways that we can do it differently? 

We need to bring forward the experiences that we’re told, implicitly or explicitly, that we shouldn’t discuss if we want to make progress.

Damion Taylor joins Erica and India to discuss how we talk about challenges at work.

In this discussion:

• Why discussions of DEI need to go beyond the theoretical
• How zero-sum games keep marginalized people from pursuing collective action
• Why we need to be okay with asking for help
• Why we have to play to the gray areas in order to improve workplace culture

Connect with Damion Taylor:

• Professional Confession Podcast on  Spotify and  Apple Podcasts
• Prometheus Digital Studio
• Connect with Damion on LinkedIn

Ready to dive deeper?

Conversations are the cornerstone of connection and change. When we learn, unlearn, and support one another, we can become part of creating equity and impacting the world in a positive way.

Pause on the Play®, the Community is a space where people who are seeking to change the world, to learn from each other, and to reconsider their normal come together for conversation and accountability.

Be part of creating the outcomes you want to see by joining us at pauseontheplay.com/community

As we move away from some of the urgency that surfaced in 2020 around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, it remains vital to continue doing the work.

DEI isn’t a box you can check and say you’re done. You can’t schedule learning and unlearning.

Erica discusses why DEI is an ongoing project that requires emotional investment and openness and why it can’t just be operationalized.

In this discussion:

• Why DEI has to be the lens through which you do all things
• Why DEI can’t be an intellectual exercise
• How committing to learning and unlearning requires an emotional investment
• How noticing when you’re defaulting to ingrained assumptions creates opportunity for growth

Ready to dive deeper?

Being clear on your values and the impact you want to create helps you use diversity, equity, and inclusion as a lens.

You need to be explicit about who you support, what you support, why you support it, and how your actions are aligned with that.

If you want support in getting that clarity, so that you can get closer to embodying your values in your life and business, join the Implicit to Explicit Masterclass.

Learn more at pauseontheplay.com/explicit.

Resources:

• Jennifer Voss of Martha Beck, Inc discusses the process of transitioning from scholarships to awards in Episode 141: Making DEI Values Explicit in the Coaching Industry