Transcript: This is David Brower with your 20 minute podcast and our special guest today is Meiyoko Taylor from the garden state, the beautiful state of New Jersey. Is that how you say that?
Meiyoko Taylor: That’s how some people say it.
David Brower: It was hard for me to go there. I’m glad I got it out of my system. One of the things that I’ve read about you is it really appears to zero down to one word and that is “amazing.” Getting whatever amazing means out of yourself of course and out of other people. How did that all start with you?
Meiyoko Taylor: Well, pretty much I believe that everybody born is a miracle. The aspect of childbirth is absolutely amazing to me. I believe that we were all born with unique gifts, talents, abilities, skills, that other people aren’t born with. Sure there are some skills and talents that you can develop, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the natural talents and abilities that you have been given, that just really identify who you are. That’s what finding your amazing is all about.
Meiyoko Taylor: Some people are using these talents and these skills without even knowing they’re using them because it’s second nature. Then there’s other people that have these hidden talents and abilities and they need someone like myself to unlock that hidden potential.
David Brower: Wow. That’s got to be … That sounds like the ultimate win-win. Where you’re able to get in with somebody, develop trust with them, have them open up to you, and then have you with your unique ability and talent obviously, help them find theirs.
Meiyoko Taylor: Absolutely. It’s an exciting process when you can take a person and actually sit down with them and get to the bottom of what’s been bothering them, what they’re passionate about, how to find their passion, and really, really hone in on that skill set or that gift that they have. It’s an amazing experience. You can see the person light up and it’s like this new ray of hope and purpose and mission and it’s just awesome. It’s an awesome experience all around.
David Brower: Well, and you can feel it in your smile just as you talk about it, so that speaks volumes. Before you started helping people find their amazingness, if that’s a word, what were you doing? Were you on a quest to find your own?
Meiyoko Taylor: You know, it’s funny you said that. I’ve always known that I wanted to help people. The feeling that I get from helping, nurturing, teaching, educating, there’s not too many feelings quite like that, so I always knew that that was what I wanted to do. I started out, I said, “You know what? I want to help people. Ah, dress up every now and then and have my own business.” I started out in the financial services industry, so I did that for a very long time. I still do it every now and then. What I really realized what was missing is, I really wanted to do the whole nurturing process. What happened ironically in my own life is I allowed outside influences to dictate the things that I was doing. Whether it be parents, and parents mean well, but sometimes what parents …
David Brower: Yeah, it’s hard sometimes when they feel the love and they feel they know what is right for you.
Meiyoko Taylor: Absolutely. I took a job and it was something that I absolutely hated and I did it for awhile. I was in a relationship for a number of years that was not serving me or the person. We were just not right for each other. I think the both of us were just scared to part our ways because we adapted to this dependency on one another. My health started to decline. I was depressed. I was frustrated with life. I was just doing all of the things that I really didn’t want to do. I knew I had to make a decision and I said to myself I said, “You know.” I was looking at myself in the mirror and I’ve always been a skinny guy. Thankfully I’m skinny now. I’ve always been a skinny guy, but I was 70 pounds overweight at the time.
David Brower: Wow.
Meiyoko Taylor: I remember looking at myself in the mirror and bursting into tears and I said, “What happened to you? I don’t even recognize this person.” I said, “I have one of two choices.” I said, “I can continue to go down this road and continuously spiral out of control to even worse health and make myself even more miserable and God only knows what happens then or I can make the scariest decision of my life and just ignore everything that I was hearing, doing, seeing, and really searching within myself and what I really wanted to do,” and say, “You know what? I’m going to take a chance here.” Then I did. I faced some resistance from the outside world, whoever that may be. Just my environment at the time.
Meiyoko Taylor: I noticed once I did that, I was scared to death, it was one of the most scariest decisions of my life, because I finally started to do what was in myself to do as opposed to what I was hearing and what I felt or what I heard was the norm. Once I did that, I started to see a little bit of progress and it really hit me. I said, “Wow. I’m venturing out doing things that I really want to do and I’m progressing.” Then I saw that and then little by little the burdens just started to lift and I started to interact and do more things that I was passionate about. That’s when it really started connecting to me that if I can do the things that I’m passionate about and that I’m great at, then I really have a shot at creating the level of success that I truly desire.
David Brower: Wow. That’s a wonderful story. It always amazes me and I don’t say it lightly, because we all have our own path that we take, whether it’s by our own choice or an assumed choice from our circumstances, but oftentimes when we find ourselves reaching near the bottom or actually hitting the bottom and bouncing back up, we have this clarity if we’re lucky, that helps us to go, “I think I’m going to go that way now.”
Meiyoko Taylor: You know, absolutely. Because you’re at a space now where everything … You got all this chaos around you, so you have no choice, but to look for alternatives.
David Brower: Yeah.
Meiyoko Taylor: You’re at this space where it’s okay, it’s not going to get any worse. I’m completely at the bottom now, so let’s regroup and let’s really decide what it is that I want. What am I doing? What am I not doing? Because if this is my absolute worst at this point in my life, then I owe it to myself to go completely the opposite way. Because nothing else is working the previous way, so now it just opens the door for me to have guts or to just take that chance because at that point, I feel like I have nothing to lose and everything to lose at the same time.
David Brower: Well said.
Meiyoko Taylor: If that makes any sense.
David Brower: It makes perfect sense. The other part of that I would think is you want to get out of that dark place so badly, but with that said, you don’t want to get out it so rapidly that you miss some really positive opportunities along the way, right?
Meiyoko Taylor: Oh, absolutely. When I was in my state, when I was in that situation, there’s only two things that really get people to change and it’s pain or pleasure. I was in a state of really, really severe pain and I said, “Okay. Something has to change,” but at the same time I was open. I realized, I put my ego to the side and said, “There’s a lot of things in life that I don’t know and will never know, but now is the time to depend on my resources and to really find out who I am.”
Meiyoko Taylor: At some point in my life, I lost who I was, and that was part of the problem. I was just going through the motions and just existing and not really living. I lost who I was, so I had to rediscover that and reconnect to who I was and in the process I found out more of who I am.
David Brower: I don’t know if this is a similar circumstance to you, but it feels like it is, so I’ll share you mine. Bad relationship, long time. We both didn’t want to get out of it, but we both needed to get out of it and so we’re both accommodating each other the best way we know how. Then whatever the reason is, the switch goes off and you go, “Man, we’re not doing either one of us any good.” You make that break and you know it’s a healthy break and you know it’s a good decision and you know it’s going to be a struggle, but you’ve been living in that place for so long, even though you walk away, you’re still in that place. You’re just by yourself now.
Meiyoko Taylor: Well, you said something very, very key and I’ll just bring it out a little bit more.
David Brower: Sure.
Meiyoko Taylor: You had a certain level of comfort. That was your comfort zone.
David Brower: Yeah.
Meiyoko Taylor: That was your safety box. That was your safe place. You couldn’t progress any further in life or what you wanted to do in any capacity until you left that situation. That’s pretty much … That’s not only just relationships. That can be a job.
David Brower: Absolutely. You got to face your fears, but you got to be able to identify what they are, right?
Meiyoko Taylor: Giving you this false sense of security because that’s what it is. It’s a false sense of security when you remain in your comfort zone.
David Brower: Yeah, absolutely right.
Meiyoko Taylor: You really need to get out of it and then that’s what most people struggle with is removing themselves from their comfort zone. That’s the best thing for us.
David Brower: It is, but how do you … Maybe that’s the magic that you have and I use that term loosely, but how many of us know that we are in a comfort zone? Maybe we’re okay with that.
Meiyoko Taylor: I think it’s having a strong level of self-awareness and you really have to sit down with yourself, or someone like myself, and really assess if you’re really doing the things that you’re passionate about. What’s your life structure like? How are things in your personal relationships? Your business relationships? How do you feel when you get up in the morning? If you were to die tomorrow, how would you feel? What would you feel you have accomplished in life? That’s something that I ask all my clients and it’s actually in the book that I just finished actually doing. What can you say to yourself if this was the last day you were going to be on this earth? That’s something.
Meiyoko Taylor: It’s a very, very, I guess morbid question and doom and gloom type of question to people, but it really raises an awareness when you ask somebody that because it’s just like, oh my God. They start thinking of so many things that they really wanted to do or should be doing. Then that’s the indicator. The buzzer goes off, these are the things that you should be doing now. Why wait until that particular time comes? I think that’s the deception that we get caught in. We get caught in everyday life without really focusing on the things that matter and the things that are the most important.
David Brower: When you ask somebody that question, they have a couple options I would think. One is to, yeah you’re an idiot, I’ll see you later, bye, or wow, this is really an opportunity for me. This is very empowering for me. I need to see where this goes.
Meiyoko Taylor: At first, it’s pretty scary.
David Brower: I would think so. Yeah.
Meiyoko Taylor: Because when I ask myself the question, it was very scary. Oh my God, what can I really say? First of all, death naturally is scary to many people.
David Brower: Right.
Meiyoko Taylor: When you propose that question, it really makes you search within yourself and it gives you that self-awareness. I’m going to say that 50 million times probably.
David Brower: That’s okay.
Meiyoko Taylor: Self-awareness is really, really important and when you really think about what you do everyday on a daily basis and what you focus on, sometimes it either scares you, disgusts you, or you really realize that you’re not really taking any steps at all towards the goals you really want to accomplish. I do that even now. I tell everybody just because I do personal development and I’m a speaker and all those things, you take all those things away, I’m still a human being myself. Everything that I recommend someone else to do, I still do it today. These are things that I reevaluate myself and continue to do. It’s not something that I’m just telling everybody else. I do these things myself and it’s very, very important.
David Brower: I would think that when you share these conversations, when you have these conversations with people, and they begin to trust you and they begin to open up more and more, that allows you to open up more and more. All of a sudden, you’ve got this, I would think, this huge interaction. It may take a day, it may take a week, it may take a month, but you’ve got this huge interaction thing going on where you’re really helping each other aren’t you?
Meiyoko Taylor: Well, you’re right. One of the things that most people miss the mark with is that they don’t really identify with the people that they’re speaking to.
David Brower: Yeah.
Meiyoko Taylor: There’s so many different motivational speakers, personal development, gurus if you want to call them that that pitch these amazing thing to people and they get them motivated and inspired. That’s all well and good, but now it’s the implementation. After I hear your presentation or read your book, that’s it. I still have my regular life to deal with, so show me how to implement specific things in my life and to go a step further, show me how you relate to the things that you’re trying to teach me. Show me that you’re a human being. Show me that I can engage with you.
Meiyoko Taylor: That’s one of the biggest things I really focus on when I’m writing, when I’m reading, when I’m speaking, when I’m doing whatever. I want people to feel like they can relate to Meiyoko. I am a random regular person just like you are. I’ve just learned a few things and I’m able to express myself in a way where I can help you learn from your mistakes or not make the same mistakes that I made and take certain steps to better your chances for success in your own life.
David Brower: Absolutely. The thing that was always frustrating to me when I went to conferences or seminars or training or motivation or whatever, everybody would get fired up. Everybody would get amped up and you’d compare notes and 72 hours later you go, okay, what was that about?
Meiyoko Taylor: Exactly.
David Brower: With your approach, it’s not the shock and awe. It’s the shock and here we go.
Meiyoko Taylor: Exactly. You know what? Sometimes it’s not a shock and awe or it is an awe, but it’s not what most people think. Sometimes it’s the inspiration or the motivation, “Yes I’m on fire. Let’s take some action. Yes, let’s go.”
David Brower: Yeah.
Meiyoko Taylor: Then sometimes it’s just like, “Oh my God. What am I doing with my life?”
David Brower: Right.
Meiyoko Taylor: “I really have to go home and think about this.”