Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host. Psychotherapist, coach and empowerment expert, Beverly Glazer.
Beverley Glazer:Psychotherapist coach and empowerment expert, Beverly Glazer. In this episode, we go on a bold journey of resilience, purpose and pushing the limits of what's possible. Are you ready to rewrite your story? Well, welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverly Glazer and I help women navigate the stress of business, family and relationships, and sometimes even addictions, and you can find me on reinventimpossiblecom. So I want you to meet Gail Taylor. Gail is a Canadian songwriter, author, entrepreneur and philanthropist who shares her music on stage as an inspirational keynote speaker. Her mission to inspire, entertain and coach people to live their best lives using music, self-development tools and personal stories. But life wasn't always so inspiring for her. Let's dive right in. Welcome, Gail.
Beverley Glazer:Oh, thanks, thanks for having me, Bev. I really appreciate this.
Beverley Glazer:You're very welcome because your story is so inspiring and, as you know, this podcast is all about stories and we are who we are because of where we come from, and so this is why I've chosen specific people to be guests on this show who have a wonderful story. So I want you to share a little bit just about what you were growing up with and what was going on in your life back then as a child.
Beverley Glazer:Okay. So when I was 12 years old, my dad died and that was a pivoting point in my life. But prior to that I had the perfect life. I had the leave it to beaver life that's what I call it, and some people won't even get that reference. But my mom and dad were in love. I had five siblings. There was six of us. We lived in a small town in northern Ontario and life was good. Life was just absolutely perfect Went home for lunch, hot soup.
Beverley Glazer:And then, when I was 12, my dad died. He was actually a bush pilot and he crashed his plane and I didn't do well with it. I did not. I was at that age where they say you're not supposed to change anything in your life, don't move, don't change schools. So when he died, you know part of me trying to cope with it I actually pretended he was still alive. For two years I made him a spy for the government and for two years I said that you know he had to pretend he was dead to go save the world.
Beverley Glazer:And then my mom. He worked for a mining company, so we had three months to move out of our house because they owned the whole town. So my mom took us to Ottawa and so from small town to fairly big city. It didn't work for me. It literally swallowed me up. I couldn't cope. I mean, my mom was doing everything she could to keep us off welfare, to keep us together, and so you know she didn't have a lot of time for us. She was working, she was putting one foot in front of the other, she was grieving, she was in her mid-30s, right Mid-30s, six kids, and so, yeah, I turned to drugs and alcohol and reckless behavior and I was dysfunctional for a good 10 years before I hit my starting point of trying to turn things around 10 years 10 years.
Beverley Glazer:10 years yeah when did you start to hit that point and turn your life?
Gail Taylor:around and I yeah, so I'm not. I'm gonna say it took more than 10 years. I wasn't 22, I was more like 24 or 25. I, I, I woke up one morning and I, my house was a mess, my soul was a mess and, you know, I was obviously hungover and I just thought, you know what? There's got to be more to life than this. There's got to be something. I mean, I have control over my life. Why, why am I doing this? And there was just that little spark of hope that I could change things, and it just put me on the path of wanting to try to figure it out. And so I started on the personal growth books, and I started with Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, which a lot of people have read and or heard of, and and that was really my starting point, and it was, it was the first time that, like, I was literally, uh, looking at doing something other than getting high all day, every day yeah, but how did you just stop it?
Beverley Glazer:Because that's a lifestyle, you know, it's not just drugs, it's friends, it's, it's, it's all of the above.
Gail Taylor:You're right. You're right, it is, and and there was. When I decided to make that change, I actually still didn't know I was an addict. I honestly did not realize denial is one of the symptoms of addiction and I didn't know I was an addict and I had a child. I had a child when I was 21. So my son when I started to turn things around, he was about three or four years old. So you know, his first three years mom was drunk, all I'm not going to say drunk. All the time I was stoned and drunk and in a place where it's not really conducive to to parenting, right. And so then, when I started changing things around, for the first few years, I wasn't any better because I worked hard, played hard. Now we're getting into the 80s, and that was the theme of the 80s, right, it was that me, me, me generation work hard, play hard. And so here I was, deciding I was going to become a businesswoman, get some education. I dropped out of high school when I was 16 years old, so the turning points were okay. So now I'm going to become a workaholic and then when I finish work, I'm still going to party, because I haven't changed that. And that's the new group of people you just talked about. Right Now it's the overachievers that like to party.
Gail Taylor:And at the time I thought, like I loved my son, I loved him, I loved him. I had no idea that I wasn't the best parent in the world. I assumed that just loving and caring for him was everything. I had no clue Like my emotional immaturity was off the scales and I would make sure that he was with babysitters or caregivers that loved him. And that's what I thought. As long as he's with people that love him and care for him, then when he's with me, it becomes quality versus quantity. Well, we both know quantity is important too. I just didn't know at the time and so, yeah.
Gail Taylor:So one of my second turning points big turning points was when he turned 12. He went down the same road. I did right. When he turned 12, I actually moved him to another city. I brought a new man into his life. I put him in a new school, all the things that had happened to me I did to him Again, total ignorance of what's going on here, and so he started to spiral.
Gail Taylor:And you know what, bev? That was the first time in my life that I really stopped using substances every day. I guess I was what you would call a functional addict. Right, I could go to work every day, I could party at night Like I was what they would term our society would term as a functional addict. And when my son started going through his rough time, I thought, whoa, I got to be here for this kid. And so, for the first time in my life, I stopped using and I started paying attention.
Gail Taylor:But anyone that you know, any of your listeners that have gone down this road, they know, like I was dealing with social services contracts, jail time on his part, like there were all there. This was not an easy journey. Now I have his permission to share our story. So I'm not telling. You know, I don't think you talk about somebody's journey without their permission and he is in recovery and he's one of my best friends. We're very, very close right now. But he got caught in the opioid world and had he not got clean when he did, I don't think I'd have a son right now. So I'm very, very lucky, very lucky.
Beverley Glazer:Yeah, so educated yourself, gail. You know, through it all, you quit high school at 16. You had this child at 21,. You were going through like really rough periods in your life and then decided also to educate yourself and really go into finance world, which is tough and, as you say, there's plenty of drinkers, plenty of functional alcoholics in this and it's high pressure and you're also dealing with a child who has its own problems, as you know. And how did you get out of that? Because that is a whole other life as well. You know you went from one to another to another. What happened there?
Gail Taylor:Well, you know that comment you made about reinventing yourself. I got that thing mastered. I just kept going until it finally worked and I got to say like I've been living my best life for decades. And one of the things that I share when I talk to folks about, you know, taking the next step on their journey is that I come from a place of healed scars and not open wounds and not open wounds. And yeah, it took me a while to get here, as it will for some of the listeners, but it's there, it is there for your taking.
Gail Taylor:And so, as the journey continued and I started, I kept reading and I decided that my goal at the time was to be financially independent. And that came from. It started when I was dysfunctional 20-some-year-old and, like what we said about in the 80s, it was the me-me generation and so I wanted to be a millionaire. I wanted to be financially independent. So I started reading the books how people become financially independent, real estate investments and I started down that, studying that, those areas and then I started to study finance. I started in real estate actually, and then, and then I started to study finance and I thought, oh my God, I just love this. I started in real estate, actually, and then I started to study finance and I thought, oh my God, I just love this, I love math, and so that made it a good part of my journey. And then you're going to find this interesting, and the listeners that read the personal growth and peak performance genre are going to find this interesting. There's something that they always say to you is figure out what all your resources are, all the things that you know that you have that can help you with your journey. And then what's holding you back? Well, I kept writing down I party too much. I party too much, right, I plan on doing something on Saturday or Sunday, and I can't because I'm hung over. And so when, all of a sudden, a light bulb came on and I went and bought a book that said are you an alcoholic? Take this quiz. It was like 20 questions, and the most bizarre part of it was none of the questions had anything to do with how much you drank. That wasn't what they were asking you. They were asking you whether or not you like to go to social functions that have no alcohol at them. Nope, right, nope, right. They were. They were. Uh, do you structure your time and your activities around being available to drink when the would that? Yep, right. So so there was. It was that that's how deep denial goes, right. It was that it was like between Corey going through his stuff and me starting to read, because of it, on what's going on. It was like the second autumn right, it was the second One time I was at rehab with him for family day and I had this conversation with a consultant.
Gail Taylor:I said how come I didn't have to go to rehab? How come so many people did and I don't have to? And the answer I got was because you hit what we call a high bottom and because the disease addiction, whether your drugs, alcohol, whatever it is there's four stages. Clinically, I started reading all the medical and I know there's a lot of controversy on what's this, what's that, but I just started consuming everything that was out there and that was one of the. You know what stage you're in. A lot of people think if you're not in stage four and living on the street, then you don't have a problem.
Gail Taylor:Yeah, right, like if I yeah, yeah.
Gail Taylor:When I would tell people I'm a recovering addict, they'd say you are not. You know you like they, they don't they. But to understand what it is is to understand that you know some people live their whole lives as functional addicts and and that's you know, that's part of our culture, that's it.
Beverley Glazer:But where did music come in? Now, music is a whole other thing.
Gail Taylor:I know this is actually. This is the part of the story that has me here with you. So 25 years, I was a financial advisor. I was at the top of my game. I was quite good at it. I did responsible investing, so I was helping my folks. I was helping all the clients with their own retirements and financial independence, but I was doing strategies that were environmentally, socially and governance related. So the tagline was creating your wealth while strengthening the world, and so I was on purpose. I was on my purpose and my passion.
Gail Taylor:But then, when I was 58 years old, I started taking piano lessons and I'm honest to God, I started taking piano lessons and I'm not honest to God, but I had no background in music and I started taking piano lessons as a little hobby. And music started flooding into my life and it was like, oh my God, this is so amazing. I was basking in the dopamine that you get from music right, who find it in another source? And so, after two years of this, I decided I'm going to sell my practice and retire sooner than I had planned and study music full time. That was the goal. So, when I was 61, I sold my practice and I started studying for two years and I was like Berklee School of Music, because they have online courses, so you don't have to audition, you just have to pay. And by now I was financially independent, so all was good. So I was studying with Berklee and private teachers.
Gail Taylor:And after two years of that I thought, whoa, I'm going to reinvent myself as a musician. And when I shared that story, I kept getting over and over again oh my God, that is so inspiring. I'm going to go do something they had put on the back burner. And, honest to God, I was hearing that from strangers on the airplane. And so and yes, I'm one of those Talk to everybody. That's why songwriting ended up being my superpower. And I just say it's because I talk so much and songs are just stories turned into lyrics, right.
Gail Taylor:And so after I kept hearing that, I thought, whoa, never mind being a musician, I'm going to recreate myself as a songwriter, a keynote speaker, and I'm going to help share my story and help folks become their best selves and live their best lives. Because, man, I was really fortunate that things went the way they did for me and if I can inspire anyone to know that, hey, you know, you got it, you got it in you then yeah. So now, as a songwriter, I produce all my own music. I have it produced and recorded in Nashville. I hire musicians. So when I go on stage and I share my stories, the music ends up being played on a big on video, on a big screen, and I get everybody up dancing and getting their own version of the dopamine and just you know, realizing music has a healing power. It really does, and so yeah, so that's how the music came into my life and that's how it stayed.
Beverley Glazer:That's beautiful. Let me ask you what advice would you give to women who are really stuck in their own place and they don't know what to do? How do they get unstuck? And you seem to be so vibrant and moving from one reinvention to another reinvention. What would you do? What would you tell a stuck woman?
Gail Taylor:um, two things. The first one I would say is um, take the like, watch the, the, the Ted talks. Talk to coaches like you, uh, take those steps. Like, don't, don't get caught up in what's the saying, if you're in your head, you're dead. Right, don't get caught up in oh no, I can't do it, because I tried it before and I didn't succeed. Or like, like your internal dialogues, everything, and so find the route to get to, to, even if you're I call it fake it till you make it, even if you're telling your internal dialogue I've got this and and and you're not sure that you have that doesn't matter. Right, take watch the YouTube, uh, inspirational programs. Talk to the coaches, read the books. Take the steps that you need to take. It won't come overnight, just you know. Just work at it and define what it is that you really want.
Gail Taylor:And then the second thing I'll say is go help somebody that needs help, because the amount of strength that you get, the inner strength and the confidence that you get from helping somebody else that's struggling with life, can lift you up, like so, so much I mean the power of giving. It's huge, it's absolutely huge. And so, yeah, those are kind of my don't give up. Don't give up. There will be times when it's a grind, but as long as you start down that road, you'll be able to. You'll be able to do. I always say, hey, if I could do it, believe me, if I could do it, anybody could do it. I could do it, anybody could do it.
Beverley Glazer:Thank you so much, gail. Gail Taylor is a Canadian songwriter, an author, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, and she shares her outgoing personality and her musical creations on the stage. As an inspirational keynote speaker, her mission is to inspire, entertain and coach others to live their very best lives using music tools and personal stories. And where can people find?
Gail Taylor:you Gail, so the easiest place to find me is my website, which is gailtaylormusiccom, and Gail is spelt G-A-I-L, so gailtaylormusiccom. And then all of my social media handles. You can access them all from there. And yeah, if you want to stay in touch, just sign up on my site, and I just love to keep in touch.
Beverley Glazer:Absolutely awesome, and all those links are going to be right here in the show notes and that's on reinventedpossiblecom. And now, friends, what's next for you? Are you just going through the motions or are you really elevating your life? Get my weekly self-coaching tips right into your inbox. That link will also be in the show notes, right at the bottom of this episode, and you can connect with me, beverly Glazer, on all social media platforms and in my positive group of women on Facebook that's Women Over 50 Rock, and you can also schedule a quick Zoom to talk to me personally. I want to thank you for listening. Have you enjoyed this conversation? Please join me next week, subscribe, drop us a review and send it to a friend, and remember you only have one life so live it with purpose and passion and celebrate life.