Interview with Dr Tschanna Taylor - Replanted After Loss

You can be doing “all the right things” and still feel stuck in the dirt. That’s why our catch-up with Dr. Tschanna Taylor hits so deep. She takes us from a five-year-old learning business on a brick porch in Durham, North Carolina to becoming an author, mentor, and legacy builder who helps people reclaim their story with courage and faith.

We talk about what happens when life hits hard: COVID stress, a tragic fall with her son, and surgery after a detached retina that left her navigating life with vision in one eye. Dr. Taylor shares how she learned to stop seeing herself through other people’s words, how to erase the lies we replay in our minds, and why “still becoming” is not a weakness but a holy process. Her reflection on the Woman at the well is a reminder that Jesus meets us before our story looks clean.

Then we dig into her 21-day devotional Replanted and the power of “RE” words like redefined and reaffirmed, plus the practical side of turning one message into a journal, calendar, and coaching program. We also explore caregiving, the eldest daughter load, building balance after five, and the work that led to her 2024 Presidential Volunteer Service Award.

If this encourages you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who needs a restart, and leave us a review. What “RE” word are you choosing for your next season?

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:01

God bless you and thank you for tuning in to Blossoms Up My Life Radio. Thank you so much for faithfully tuning in every week. And I just can't thank our wonderful guests enough. I am pretty honored right now. I am bringing back a guest, Dr. Tashana Taylor. We interviewed back in 2020, and I saw just the wonderful things that are going on, and so I like we gotta catch up. And so I'm super excited to have her on the line here. She is affectionately known as Dr. T. She's a speaker and author and legacy impact architect who empowers women of faith and visionary leaders to reclaim their story, walk boldly in their purpose, and build impact that extends beyond their current season. She is the founder of Tashana Taylor Enterprise Enterprises, Emerald Tree Press, and the Success and Balance After Five movement, which helps women pursue purpose, personal growth, and leadership beyond their daily responsibilities. She is an international best-selling author of 36 plus books, marketplace chaplain, TED speaker, and mentor to aspiring established authors, entrepreneurs, and ministry leaders. Dr. Taylor has dedicated her work to helping individuals turn their experiences into messages that inspire transformation and legacy. Her work supporting women who are rebuilding their lives and learning to share their stories with courage and authenticity earned her the 2024 Joseph R. Borden Presidential Volunteer Service Award. Praise the Lord. Through her teaching, writing, and speaking, Dr. Taylor equips individuals with the clarity, confidence, and strategy needed to move forward in purposes, leadership, and lasting impact. Praise the Lord. Dr. Tashana Taylor, it's so good to have you back on the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

It is such a wonderful morning this morning. And I'm very honored for you to have reached out and to have this catch-up call. It definitely has been a long time. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

And so much has happened.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yes, it has.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

And so, I mean, a couple things that we talked about just briefly before getting on the call. So you got your doctorate degree. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

And many other books. And I mean, I'm just so excited about your presidential award. I mean, there's so many things. And so, you know, because it's been a while and we're on new platforms, I would love it if you would just kind of catch us up a little bit and maybe talk about your journey, where it started, and where you're at now, so we can highlight. I know you have a new book out called Replanted, and I really want to talk about that afterwards. But just kind of catch our audience up who Dr. Tashana Taylor is and where she came from.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

So a little bit about myself. I am just a girl from Durham, North Carolina, and it all started from a brick front porch with metal awnings around the porch, having a conversation with my grandmother at five years old about business. We would sit on the porch

A Porch Lesson On Purpose

SPEAKER_01 3:20

at the church and we would snap peas and cut potatoes to prepare the meal. And what she was teaching me in that moment was she would talk about having her own store and her home and how she would sell product to the kids in the community, and how she had to cater food to the members of her church. And so from those lessons, just listening to her of the things that she talked about. At five, I was not a little girl that asked for Barbie dolls. I usually would ask for tater bears, notebooks, pens, and briefcases. And who knew that she was actually sprinkling seeds in my life as early as five to be where I am today? So I officially started business when I was 18 years old, immediately after high school. Back then, and I'm not that old, but back then, there was no such thing as coaches. All we had was the library and we had encyclopedias, and I knew that I had a job that I wanted to be in business for myself. Now, fast forward to today, since being in business at 18, my first business was desktop publishing. So there was no VistaPrint. I was the VistaPrint. And I would serve, I would serve a lot of the people in my community at churches who needed, you know, bullets and desktop publishing, things that, you know, they needed for preparing for their church services on Sunday. And so when VistaPrint came, you know, there I was like, oh God, what am I gonna do? I don't have the equipment, you know, to take on the manpower that VistaPrint can. So then I shifted into telling my story at churches, is what led me actually to write my book about my experience with infidelity in my marriage at that time. Who knew that that one book has propelled me to where I am today, which is the author of 36 books. I've had the awesome pleasure of teaching other individuals about how to share their stories unapologetically and to be able to build a platform because it all ends up being legacy at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Wow. And that's so true. You know, just a lot of times we get stuck in what has happened to us, and we get stuck in how to get out. And even knowing Christ, sometimes people can get stuck in, I don't know how to say that out loud with my words, you know. And um, especially like if we've been in traumatic situations in our life, and that can be hurt in a lot of different ways as far as trauma goes. My trauma can be horrific, and somebody else's trauma is is horrific as well. Everybody carries their own burdens and traumas. But to be able to help women and others to be able to use their voice to speak out of that, that's an important place to be. We need a lot of people like that because you know, people can get suppressed with their trauma. And God, I mean, I can imagine Jesus just kind of like, come on, you can do it, you know, use your voice, speak it out. You know, I'm gonna make good out of this. You know, it's like a Romans 828 moment. Let's do this, come on, and and he's cheering us on, you know, to to to do it. But like we're just so hurt in our physical body, you know, because everything physical that we stand in just doesn't know how to move past that. How do you speak to somebody in that? Like, how do you help them with when they're stuck in something like that?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Well, so I I gotta take it back to when we last talked in 2020. And at that time when we were talking, I was going through the experience of having to have to have a surgery to repair the retina that had detached from my eye. And that came from a lot of stress from COVID. Um, my son had a tragic fall, and we wasn't sure if he was gonna make it, but praise God, he is you know still here with us. He's, you know, 18, just fresh out of high school, in college full time and working full time, so he's really doing good. And so, with that experience, though, there were a lot of lessons that I had to walk out myself. And in order for you to be able to share with other people, sometimes we got to be the first partaker, right? And so, you know, from that experience, I've had a lot of accomplishments. There were a lot of things that I felt like rejection that I had to go through. And I had to really sit with that and come up with a method that really actually worked for me still to this day, having to navigate life with having a vision and just one eye. And so, what I tell people is that sometimes when you are dealing with the different challenges, you can't take these challenges on and compartmentalize it like you did anything wrong. You have to really see yourself as you truly are. And what I mean by that is so many of us see ourselves through somebody else's words. We, you know, take what we hear, and that's the end all be all. And that shouldn't be the case. Another thing that, you know, I do share is that we have to erase the lies. Uh we inception ourselves with negativity. We hear it enough, we believe it enough, and so we make it, you know, like this is what it is for us. But then, you know, as we are going through these different challenges, we have to embrace, you know, who we are and understand that we are still becoming. You know, we hear the scripture that talks about fearfully and wonderfully made, but it doesn't mean that, you know, it's finished. Everything that we go through, there is purpose behind what we've dealt with, what we're going through. And I believe that everything that we deal with and that we go through, it is to help to share with somebody else how we can overcome these very things.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

That's so true. That's so true. You know, I'm thinking back to when I was going through my things and just, you know, bad relationships and the names, you know, that you're called, and just the idea back then, it was so important for me to have a purpose, but yet that other people would claim over me. And I didn't know how to use the words that were on the pages of the Bible to be my purpose, you know. I didn't know how to do that because I was so broken I couldn't even probably even read or understand the word of God at that time. And this is many years ago, but that's something that now I enjoy doing as well is letting other people know. Like the words of a the words of a person are not those those don't define you, right? Like that's what you're saying. Those those words don't define you because those are just a human being's perspective of what they see. And and God is the perp is the

Stress Trauma And Losing Sight

SPEAKER_00 10:55

person that's gonna define us because he's already, like you said, fearfully and wonderfully made. So if we can always go back to Psalm 139 and understand, like, no, what you're saying's not who I am, this is who I am, and and I'm still becoming, it just helps us so much. And it took me, you know, quite a few years to get to that place to where I didn't have to take what they say. And now, now one of the things that I use, Dr. Tashana, is if somebody's not being too nice to me, and I think about it, and it kind of stirs us to where then we think about those thoughts repetitively, like, why did they say that? I wonder what they're trying to do. You know, just the thoughts that the enemy likes to do in our head. Now I've come to the place where I say, wait a minute, stop. Is that word gonna take us, gonna take me to heaven? Because if it's not, then I need to erase it from my mind because it's not something I can take with me. And it helps me to shut it off in my head. I heard I heard a preacher talk about that years ago, and that has worked wonders for me. Is that hurt gonna take me to heaven? Is that person, you know, is that person in their ugliness gonna get me to heaven? And if I can just say no to that, it it just kind of squashes it to where, okay, we're gonna walk away from that, and I'm gonna try to be who I'm supposed to be. And then trying to find people that can surround us with what we're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

May I jump in right here? Yes, if it's okay. Absolutely. I also want to share on that last statement that you just made. A lot of times what I have found was that I'm drawn to a lot of the women in the Bible. Yes. And there's one in particular that, you know, when I was going through all of these different transitions, what really helped me and what stood out to me the most was the woman at the well. You know, she was not, you know, the first woman to feel like, you know, she was off track, you know. And so when she came to the well to draw water, she didn't come in the morning like everybody else did. She came by herself in the middle of the day when she thought that nobody would see her. And she was carrying her past, she was carrying her reputation, she was carrying every label somebody had put on her. And she probably felt in that moment, she felt behind. She probably felt disqualified. She probably felt like her best days were already gone. But what she did not know, oh Lord, was that when she picked up that water pot and she headed to the well, she had a divine appointment. And Jesus was already there. He was waiting, not when she got herself together, not when her story looked clean, not when she had it all figured out. He met her right in the middle of her becoming. And when she left that well, she was completely transformed, running back to tell everybody what God had done. And that same woman came alone and in hiding, but she left as a witness because this is what happened. When you show up to your appointed place, even when you don't feel ready, God is gonna always meet you there right on time, right in the middle of you becoming. And he met her at the well, he met me when I was going through that transition with my eye and going through a divorce and having to figure out like how in the world am I gonna take care of this child of mine, work a full-time job, probably looking at I may have to work a part-time job as well as run this business. How am I gonna do all of that? And so when he meets us there, you know, we have to be ready. So this is why I can tell others that you gotta see yourself the way that you're supposed to see yourself, embrace yourself, but we it's okay to evolve.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

I love that. That's beautiful. That that story stands out to me a lot too, because you're right. You know, and a lot of people might feel like this like maybe you're going through something, you just rather be alone because you don't want to see the looks, because looks sometimes are loud, right? And you don't want to see the looks of other people, and you don't want to hear the words and the judgments, and so you're better off alone, and you're taking that journey alone, but you're never alone. Like you're just waiting for that appointment, like you said, and that's a beautiful story. I love that story too, because there's many times that I fell, and you're right. After a simple conversation, she had a testimony. Yeah, she did just from hearing the voice of Jesus, hearing who she was, and reminding herself, like, oh, wait a minute, I don't need to listen. And and not only did she have a testimony, but she was screaming and yelling and going back boldly where before she was ashamed on just a trip to the well. Beautiful. I love it, I love it, and so such a beautiful story and such beautiful work that you're doing and in just being able to speak to people. Talk to me about I I mean, you have so many books since the last time we talked, but I want to talk about this new book, and you know, I was just super excited when I saw it on Facebook. And so talk to me about Replanted.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Okay, so I gotta take you back to 2018. Okay. 2018, God was actually preparing me for 2020, where he knew that something was gonna happen with my son. He knew that I was gonna lose sight in one eye in 2020. But it all came from his preparation in 2018. And when he asked me to do this thing, I did not understand. I was confused, but I was obedient. And I can look back on it now, and I'm so glad and so grateful that I did it. And what he asked me to do was he wanted me to go on my business Facebook page, and for 30 days, he wanted me to find every word that I could find that began with R-E. And you know, we know that R-E means to do something over again, right? Right. And so I did. I found all words like redefined, reaffirmed, rebuilt, replanted, recatapulted. You know, so I found words like that. And so, you know, 2020, like I mentioned, he had this fall, my son did, and going through that transition only to, you know, jump out of one scene like a frying pan into another, to go through this experience with having lost that sight and one eye. On the recovery, I could not lay in the bed for 30 days. So can you imagine sitting up in a recliner, wanting to desperately go lay in the bed, and could not because of the type of surgery that I had. And so I couldn't even hold my head up high enough to even look at the TV that was mounted on the wall. So, what was I gonna do? I could listen to music and I could write. And writing, you know, has always been my passion, hence for the 36 books, right? But in that moment, God actually downloaded a 21-day devotional. And the first devotional that I had ever wrote was redefined. I did not know in that moment of writing, redefined. He told me, he said, now remember I had you to write all of these RE words, and he said that moment was to prepare you for this moment. And I was like, oh my God. So I wrote redefined as a devotional,

The Woman At The Well

SPEAKER_01 18:55

but even in that moment, he gave me a strategy in business where I took that one devotional and I turned it into a prayer journal, a notebook, a monthly calendar, and used it as a coaching program. Now that came from just sitting there in my recliner, listening to the Lord and writing a 21-day devotional. So what I did was the next RE word that I wrote about, which was a collaboration that I did, and that one was called reaffirmed. So then here we are, you know, since the last time we talked, I've gone through a divorce. I caught myself trying to get back out in the dating scene, but dating has changed a whole lot. Yeah. And so, you know, because of my I am transparent when I meet a gentleman. And, you know, I don't, you know, try to hide, I'm not ashamed about nothing that I've gone through. You know, um, I've had to do the inner work and I've had to do the healing, and I am super sexy and super confident. And and and and if it is your loss, right? You know, if you can't deal with this, then bye. You were definitely not meant for me. And that's okay. Yeah. And so in that moment, my son and I, we moved from an apartment complex and we moved into this townhouse, and it's lovely here. I got an end unit, and I had a patio. And I said, What am I gonna do with this patio? I was thinking, do I get me some lawn chairs? And no, I heard start a patio garden. Now I don't know the first thing about gardening. But I want you to know I was obedient to the instructions and I was able to go grow okra. I called myself trying to go grow cucumbers, but here in North Carolina, last summer it rained so hard. And then the sun was so brutal on the vegetables that I was trying to grow that my cucumbers died. I also was able to grow bell peppers. Um, I grew broccoli and spinach. So it was fun. But in those moments, God had to give me lessons that, you know, he wanted me to learn through gardening. That, you know, that it's okay if you go through change. It's okay if you go through loss and reinvention. And I need you to dig through the dirt because it was some things in me that I needed to, you know, pluck up and pull out so that, you know, again, everything that I've gone through is not just about me, but it's also to encourage other people. Like when these things happen, you do not stay stuck. You do not use that as an excuse. You use that so that you can learn, you can grow, and that you can share with somebody else. And that's the whole premise behind replanting. He had to cultivate me one seed at a time.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

I love that. Thank you. I love that. And so Replanted takes us on a journey from the beginning. How does it how does it take us?

SPEAKER_01 22:09

So it's a 21-day devotional. And it it started out with me, you know, recruiting people to be a part of this, to be another, like at least five to seven, ten people collaboration. But I really wasn't feeling the book because of the lessons that I had to go through. And so I said, well, I don't know if I'm going to really do this book. But there was one lady that stood out to me more than all of the other ones that was interested in participating. And I listened to her story and I said, you know what? This is perfect. Now I'm going to always do book collaborations, and they're going to be in my series R-E, right? So my next one is rebuilt, right? And I'll and I'm using Nehemiah to talk about how we had to be rebuilt, you know, to where we are today. But her story of caregiving is what drew me in because I have been a caregiver. I had to be a caregiver for my mom, my dad, my aunt, and my uncle. And my message now is the eldest daughter. You know, we we are known because we're the oldest, we had to take on all of the responsibilities to help out our parents. And that carried over into our adult lives. And so, you know, I wanted to express what it was like to be a caregiver caring for her parents, and how does that relate to being replanted? And then, you know, so she has day one through day 10, and then I come along with day 11 through day 21, and we both talk about how we had to be uprooted, how we had to be restored, and how we had to be planted in God again. Because when you go through loss and you go through, you know, divorce and you know, you go through grief of losing a parent, you never think about, you know, all of the in-betweens. You know, you never think about, well, I didn't do this to, you know, to feel like I'm a failure, or I didn't do this to think that, you know, I couldn't, I could have done things differently by caring for my parents, you know. But it's all about the rebuilding process. It's all about the transformation that's supposed to take place in our lives through every season, the good, the bad, the ugly, and all. We all have to go through these, you know, these different seasons in our lives. And so that's the premise behind replanting, you know, slowly, you know, engaging uh individuals who read this book to unfold conversations that we had to have with God and how we, you know, reconnect with him through these different life lessons.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Yeah, and you know, I'm as you're speaking, I'm kind of visualizing, you know, the seed that falls on rocky ground, and then it just kind of seeps on in and then starts to take root. And how, you know, the Lord never really intended that seed to fall there. You know, he was hoping that it would fall on good soil, and I'm

The RE Words Behind Replanted

SPEAKER_00 25:10

envisioning that seed, like the rock somehow, like an event happens and the rocks shake, you know, and they move kind of move away and allow the seed to then take good root in the soil and then start to grow, you know, and and we grow in that faith and and really uproot ourselves into where we're supposed to be. Because yeah, life is hard, you know, life is hard. And we can take some knocks while we're here. As we're getting older, you know, I'm 66 now, and I think to myself, you know, I'm getting closer to heaven now. So I don't, I don't, I don't really fret too much about the things like I did when I was 30. You know, and I look at things differently now because I know that everything that I went through is just a part, but but and and I d I keep hearing the word temporary, like they're just temporary things because I want to have the eternal life. My body here is temporarily here, and it was placed here to to find him, and I finally did, and now I'm like on my way. You know, and and and a lot of times that that stuck place that people can get because of a trauma, a hurt, lost the job, lost the house, lost the child. Like I mean, there's so many things that can hurt us, but if we can stay plugged in and and and be able to connect right away to who our loving father is right away, it it does make a huge difference, you know, on how we're planted and how we grow. Wow, I love that. And so, just out of curiosity, so then are all your books with a re?

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Not all of them, but a good bit of them will be because I am in the process as we speak. I am writing about my vision, I am writing the outline for rebuilds, but I have a whole list of R-E words, and I even have some words that begin with UN. Unmovable, unhakeable, unstoppable. Because these words are one word, but they they drive a powerful message behind the lessons that I've had to learn. And so this is the way that he's used me to be able to show others like if I can do it, I know you can do it too.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Absolutely, absolutely, and and you know, I never really put much thought into the re and in that being, you know, to do something over again. I love that you defined that because I never really thought about it. I'm like, that's right, like recovery, you know, recovered alcoholic. So they're get they get to redo it. Yes, you know, a recovering addict. You're not anymore. You get to redo that. Like you're out of that now, and now you get to bloom in it in the real you, you know, in what was supposed to be that temporary thing that helped you mask everything, doesn't have to define you any longer.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

I love that. That's beautiful. Wow. I love it, I love it. And so replanted is out, and people can find that on you have a website, www. It's t-sc a n a tailor.com. W tashana taylor.com. All of your books are listed there.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

A lot of my books are listed on Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Okay. And on Amazon, we can find you under Dr. Taylor, or are you gonna be just under Tashana Taylor? Dr. Tashana Taylor. Perfect. So everybody that's listening can go and look there. And then Dr. Taylor, so do you have information about Tashana Taylor Enterprises, the Emerald Tree Press? What is that?

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Emerald Tree Press is my publishing agency where I produce a good bit of my books, and I do use that platform to teach individuals how to publish their own books. And I do a lot of collaborative work. So I believe that if you've never been an author before and you don't know where to start, you have no clue of what to do, I believe that it's better to be a part of a book collaboration so that you can see the behind the scenes work to determine, you know, if you want to invest in doing this by yourself, or do you want to, you know, invest into a publishing agency such as myself, or do you want to go traditional publishing? Because there are many different benefits and facets to the ways that you can publish. But I really do strongly advocate for individuals to learn how to do it themselves and use that to build their platform. Because again, my whole goal is that you leave a legacy with your family, your friends, and the people that you are called to.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

That's so important. And so people can look up Emerald Tree Press, and if they have a curiosity of how they could start, or maybe they want to be a part of a book collaboration, they can inquire there.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

On my website at Tashawnataylor.com.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

I love it. I love it. Okay, and then tell us about Success and Balance After Five.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Okay, so with Success and Balance After Five, I'm speaking to the woman that is the eldest daughter. And she may not be the eldest daughter per se. She might be the only daughter, but she's had to take on the role of helping, you know, helping to make sure that the kids are fed, helping with homework, helping to make sure that the house gets clean. And at an early age, we don't realize this, but we're learning how to juggle many different tasks. We learn project management, we learn how to do all of these things. And sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes that's not such a good thing because now we carry these same traits into our adult lives. We carry it and how we handle our finances, we carry it in making sure that everybody else is taken care of, but we treat ourselves as the backseat passenger. And um, we take that into relationships or how we date men or women, you know, because I have come across some men that has reached out to me to tell me I may not be the eldest daughter, but I relate as the eldest son. And I'm like, wow, okay, this is this is something here, you know, and it's not a man or a woman thing now, it's really a human thing. And so with the eldest daughter, you know, she has to be the mom, she has to be the wife, she has to do all of the jobs, wear all of the different hats, but yet she has this call in her life, and either she's been called to ministry or she's been called to business. And so, how does she maintain balance after five o'clock with being the wife, the mom, if she's divorced or separated or never married, how does she still manage to be able to balance all of the things yet fulfill the call that's been on her life without losing herself?

SPEAKER_00 32:41

I love that. That's really important. And you know, when you were speaking all that, the first thing I thought about is you sitting on your porch with your grandma at five. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

So

Gardening Lessons On Reinvention

SPEAKER_01 32:55

it so you see, I hope that I painted the picture of where it all started from. That's where it all started.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

That's exactly where it all started from. Wow, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. You know, and through all this, I know that you can attest to this. I mean, God has been faithful. If it you know, hit him, Holy Spirit, everything that he's done for us, you can attest to all of that in everything that you are doing today. Praise the Lord. And you know, oh, we got a highlight too. 2024, you got the presidential award. What was that like?

SPEAKER_01 33:35

Oh my god, I was shocked. I was actually coming back from a trip in Alabama, and I had to speak at a women's conference down there, and I was in Cinema Airport about to board my plane to go home, and this lady called to say, Well, I just wanted to congratulate you, and I'm thinking, what? Congratulate me for what? And she says, Um, people are watching you on social media, and you would be surprised. And I was like, Well, who in the world is watching me? You know, because sometimes I'm gonna be honest with you, on this journey, you know, when you post on social media, you know, people, you know, don't understand that Facebook is a pay and play kind of society, you know, and if you don't pay for the ads and you don't do all of the things, your organic reach can sometimes be hard. Yeah. And so that's where we get into the algorithms, you know. And so if you're not talking, you know, the language that they want you to talk in order to present what you're presenting to other people, they won't show what you're doing. And so sometimes it seems like, you know, when you're posting faithfully every day and you're talking about the things that you're doing, who's really seeing this? So it was a surprise to know that there are people who are watching where whether we know it or not, because you can post 10 times a day and not get one like, but I'm convinced now that somebody is actually watching. And that's what she said. Somebody was watching me, had been watching me for years, in fact. And I was like, Yes, and she said, and she said that they felt were that I was worthy to be nominated for the Joe Biden Presidential Award in 2024, and I was done. Like she said, Well, are you there? And I because I couldn't, I was speechless, I couldn't say anything. And um, you know, and that comes from, you know, the the way that I handle publishing, you know, that's what makes me unique from all the other people who publish, is that I actually listen to the stories and you know, I pull out the content, you know, from the person that shared a story. Because a lot of times people come and they don't believe that what they have to share is worthy to be put in a book, or they feel like people don't want to hear what they have to say. And I don't believe that. I believe that, you know, I've been called to the underdog. I believe that, you know, all of us have a story to share. You just need somebody like me that's gonna nurture you and to show you, let's look at this story that's inside and let's pull it out. But not only that, I take you even further from that. And I take you into, okay, let's how do we, you know, not just write a book, because we're not writing books for our family and friends. They'll support you, they will support you to a degree. But after that, how do you market to the people that don't know anything about you? But you resonate with what they're dealing with, what they're going through. And so somebody's, you know, saw that, you know, within me. And another thing that I used to do, I don't do it anymore, was that I would advocate for the women who were in jail, coming out of jail and not knowing what to do with their lives. And that that came from me also being an ex-felling a long time ago in my teenage years. And so I never forgot that experience. I will never forget the experience, you know. And so I again I remind people to tell the story unapologetically and unashamedly, because everything that we've gone through is never going to be wasted. God is gonna always find purpose in it. I don't care what it looks like, what it seems, He's going to find a way to repurpose. That's one of the rewords. Yes. Repurpose, you know, these things that we've gone through. And so, you know, being called and to receive that award, my family came to support me that day. It was just so surreal to be in a room with other doctors and attorneys and people who have done significant work in Durham, North Carolina. And so I'm still honored. Like I just still speechless to this day, you know, but God gets all the glory. This is never about me.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

And don't you love that? How the father will just all of a sudden surprise us and be like, you might feel like nobody's watching you, but I am. And he'll use something like that just to kind of show you, see, I told you people are watching. Yes, that's exactly what it felt like.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

And it was very, it was very encouraging for me too, because you know, like being on this entrepreneurial journey, sometimes it makes you feel like, you know, am I

Publishing Legacy And The Presidential Award

SPEAKER_01 38:25

supposed to continue to be on this journey or do I throw in a towel? You know, and and with with God with me, like he won't let me throw in a towel. I don't care how much I kick a scream, like, nope, you can do all the things, but you cannot stop.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

And then yeah, that's how like when you and I were speaking before we got on the air about the radio, you know, to 2018 and me feeling last year, like, oh my gosh, is this really over? And then he's like, nope. I mean, I was crying at the table with my daughter, like, I don't know if I did something wrong, or is this just what? And she's kind of trying to encourage me, saying, Mom, you know, you're retired now, you know, look at things different and try to see, you know. And and I'm thinking, but I don't feel like it's over. I don't want it to be over. And so like, you know, and then it wasn't like just like that. He's like popped an idea in my head, and then here I went with the next idea, and then found somebody to help me. And I'm like, here we go. We're going, we're going. I love it, I love it. Well, I have really enjoyed our time together. We need to keep in touch more often.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

I'm definitely gonna go and visit your website, and I'm thinking of some people that I want to introduce you to. I'll do that by email because yeah, I like everything that you're doing now. Dr. Tashana Taylor, it's just been such a pleasure just to know you. And you know, we haven't met in person, and like I said in our prayer before we started interviewing, we're gonna we're gonna recognize each other in heaven. Oh, absolutely. And that's gonna be a glorious day when I say, oh, yeah, that's you. Absolutely. I love it, I love it, I love it. I would love it. Do you have any last words that maybe Holy Spirit wants you to say?

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Again, I just want to remind everyone that, you know, regardless of the things that you go through, because life is going to life. Life is going to throw us some challenges. Just remember to see yourself the way that he sees you. Remember to embrace, you know, all the different things and evolve. Ask the questions, don't stay stuck, reach out, you know, for help. And just, you know, continue to keep shining your light and be who he has called you to be very unapologetically and unashamedly, because nothing that you've been through will ever be wasted.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

And that's the truth, amen. And you used another re-word, re-mind. So that's important because you know, to redo what the thoughts in your mind and do it over, like rethink that over. And I love that. I love that re-word too there. Well, I would love it if you would close us out in prayer. And I just like thank you again. And I hope we can talk again and not wait six years to do it. We'll have to just kind of try to keep in touch with each other, whether it's you know, messaging on Facebook or however we do it. But I just I love, love, love what you're doing, and you're always welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Oh, thank you so much. So I'm gonna go ahead and close us out. So, God, we just want to tell you thank you for this day. We ask that before I even go any further, God, that you forgive us of our sins of old mission, co-mission, and disposition. Thank you. And God, we just want to tell you thank you for this beautiful, beautiful Saturday. We thank you that the sun is shining. We thank you that the birds are chirping. We thank you, God, for this platform, God. And we thank you for Ramona, God. And we ask that you bless her in a mighty special way for opening the opportunity for people such as myself to be able to sprinkle some love and encouragement and empowerment. God, protect her, cover her and her family under the blood, keep her family and finances lifted before you, God, or anything it is that she needs that she spoke on and did not speak on, God, open those doors for her. And God, we thank you for this ministry. We thank you for the doors that are going to open for this ministry. We thank you for every listener. We thank you that something will be said that will ignite them, re-ignite them, and to propel into the things that you call them to do. And we just tell you thank you once again for having me on the show and to remind our listeners to you know re-examine your identity, re-examine your purpose, re-examine the calling that's on your life. In Jesus' mighty name that we pray.

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Amen and amen. Amen. And Father, I just extend a blessing upon Tashana, Father God, and her son. Father, I thank you, Father, that he's progressed and graduated and working and everything, Father. I just thank you for that blessing, Father God. And Father, I thank you for the new family members, too, can and Sam that have joined us in this conversation. Those of you that can hear them in the background. Lord, just bless them to be able to say the words that Tashana's trying to teach them, Father God. Where they will wake up one one morning, she's gonna wake up and they're gonna say good morning, and they're gonna say hello to her.

Final Encouragement And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_00 43:55

So, Father, I thank you for that blessing that she can have that joy in her life, Father God. And I just extend another blessing to her and the family, Father, and healing over her body, physically, spiritually, every place that she needs, Father God. Bless every every area of her life. And bless the listeners, Father. Just like Dr. Toshana said, we thank you, listeners, for everything that you provide and listen and share, everything that you I just pray that you embrace every moment of these God stories that we share. And I just pray that in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. God bless you.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

God bless you too.

unknown 44:34

Okay.