[00:00:00] Aneta: what are some tips that you have for people to ensure that they're living this full balanced life and making time for all of their priorities?
[00:00:09] Rhonda: Let's return to anger, fury, and envy. If you're turning around and comparing yourself to everybody else's life, you're taking the joy out of yourself and your life.
[00:00:24] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breadth depth, and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.
Welcome back to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My guest this week is Rhonda Parker Taylor, and she is multi-passionate. She is an American writer. Entrepreneur and Academic Researcher. She spent most of her childhood in cornfields and cows in Indiana, and she has pursued a life of multiple passions.
She recently wrote her book Crossroads, which is a suspenseful thriller. And it's been hailed as a captivating crime thriller that keeps readers intrigued from start to finish. She also has an extensive background in teaching and training with a decade of experience in business management and leadership education.
She's taught several courses. And then as an entrepreneur, she also founded Intelligent Solutions, which provides training, development, academic research, and business writing services. She is someone who is living the width of her life. I loved our conversation and I hope you do too. Take a listen.
Rhonda, thank you so much for joining me today. It's so nice to have you on the Live the Width of Your Life podcast.
[00:01:59] Rhonda: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be able to engage this morning and talk about some of the things that bring wellness to us and allow us to follow our passions.
[00:02:14] Aneta: Yeah. Your bio is so interesting. When I was reading through one of the things that stood out to me so much is that you are a multi-passionate person. And in terms of your academic, career, in terms of the types of books you've written, but you also just have the strong sense of balance and being able to live a full life incorporating all the things that you enjoy. So did you always know that you are multi-passionate, like even growing up, did you always find yourself gravitating towards many different things?
[00:02:49] Rhonda: I would say yes, but I may not have acknowledged it. Like if you ask my father, he's like you're just like a butterfly that pops from the flower, the piano. I played the saxophone. I always thought I was going to be a Senator or big business executive in my mind, but, at a young age, you don't know how to even approach those things, you're still learning and it's more of a fantasy and a passion but at the same time, I think that lot of us out there have learning challenges or behavioral challenges, emotional challenges.
At the same time, because of my generation, we didn't label and we didn't diagnose. There was probably some ADHD there too, because if I look at my entire family, we're all those people that have stacks of projects and this and that and going from place to place, but we were taught at a very young age. That work is your core, and you work hard, you play hard, and if it's meant to be, it's up to you.
[00:03:49] Aneta: Yeah. And I think there are some benefits to not necessarily placing a negative label on very multi-passionate people because I think sometimes if we do, we feel like there's something wrong with that. And so I noticed that you actually started in fashion, your academic, and then you went in many different directions and discovered sort of your love of books and storytelling. So tell me a little bit more about how you discovered your love of books and how that influenced you to become a writer yourself.
[00:04:23] Rhonda: So I think I probably always had it, but I didn't necessarily, in my younger years, embrace it. Because, I always had people around me, so socially I would tell stories but if you look at any pictures of me, I was always carrying a book, but it was never the kind of book that they would be having us read in school.
So like the McGuffey Readers and the Victory Drill books, all that. Escaped me. That was the last thing. But if there was an encyclopedia that had pictures of the world, those kinds of things. So it was kind of already there, but it wasn't nurtured probably until I got to college. I'm from a very small community in Indiana, which is Noblesville.
It's larger now, but back then it was very small. So my first, like you said, was I wanted to be in fashion. I wanted to be a fashion buyer. So I went to school in Texas. Back then Dallas was on.
[00:05:19] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:05:20] Rhonda: All the beautiful single people were supposed to be in Dallas. And that's also where one of the fashion marts was. So I went down the trail of thinking, Okay, I want to be a fashion buyer. It still was business. And it was still school. So I went and did the two-year program at Bowner College, which was also attached to the University of Arlington, right there in the Fort Worth, Arlington area, and I realized I was much smarter than I thought.
I could accomplish it. It's like I got into this environment and started to blossom and I'm like, okay, now I think I want to get my bachelor's. Now I want to get my master's. And so reading and researching and learning how things worked became more a part of me till I got my doctorate. But then I realized I still wanted to keep that creative side. I don't want to give it up.
[00:06:16] Aneta: Yeah. So would you say you're a very curious person?
[00:06:21] Rhonda: Definitely. I mean, in my younger years, if you dared me, I would have done it. If you wanted to push someone in the door first, it would have been me. Now, I'm a little wiser and I think I'll wait and watch and see what happens. But yeah, so I was always very passionate. Very curious. Always wanted to see multiple sides of the coin, and so it didn't matter.
And I think I get that a lot from my maternal side of my family, because like my mother traveled a lot, she owned a travel agency. She would talk to us about different cultures. Even had us go to meals where maybe we were the minority of the culture and we would have to practice their culture while we were there, whether it be covering or whatever it might be.
[00:07:09] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:07:10] Rhonda: And it allowed me to realize that all human beings have something to provide us. There are lessons to learn in every culture, every religion, every experience. And maybe you never do it again. Maybe it's not your bag of tea. But at least you know, you've had an experience that you can draw upon.
[00:07:35] Aneta: Yeah. So you've continued that traveling even beyond what your mom exposed you to. So I know that travel is one of your big passions. So what are some of the favorite places that you've been and what are some of those lessons that you've learned maybe from other cultures?
[00:07:50] Rhonda: Oh, wow. There are so many. I think there are probably two that I can call highlights in my life. One is traveling to Italy with my mother for the first time. Our schedules were off as far as the eating schedule. And she had found a map that was not their traditional map.
So yes, you want to see all the Coliseum and all these worldwide places, it also had all the markings of all the different places. So we went to All the burial sites of the disciples that are in Italy. We got to see Pontius Pilate's house. But at the same time in the modern context, there might have been a freeway built over it and around it.
Pontius Pilate's the President's house. So you're walking up to the White House. With their form of secret service.
So you have Past, present, and all together. And then when you get into the Southern tip of Italy, there's the island of the gods and you get to see the paganism that was prevalent before Christ's time. And you can see over to Africa at the tip. And so it was just a beautiful experience in not only history but also learning things with parent figure.
Then the second one probably would be one that I did on my own just by myself. I went to Belgium and I
[00:09:20] Aneta: Why Belgium?
[00:09:22] Rhonda: Well, I thought I was going to get on the tram and go to all the wonderful places that are only two hours away.
[00:09:27] Aneta: Right?
[00:09:28] Rhonda: And I never got out of Belgium. It was because it was very cultural, everybody there spoke six, or seven languages.
If there was Americans that only spoke English, they'd all speak English. So I thought I'd get on the train and go to Paris and go to Amsterdam and do that, but I didn't end up going, only as far as Bruges get off. Got to take a break and then find the shroud which is the part, a piece of Jesus's robing that's in there.
And it's like praying over the blood of Jesus Christ. I'm like, well, why wouldn't you wanna do that? So you go in and it developed me as a person. Every single event seemed like it was intended for me and intended to help me navigate my crossroads in life, which prepared me for coming back to the United States and saying, okay, this was a hard period in your life before this.
And that's why I traveled by myself. I wanted to reinvent myself. And then, now, it's time to take this experience, knowing that you can sit in a restaurant by yourself, have a wonderful dinner, then go to salsa dance in the streets, because that's their culture, and not feel afraid of being alone.
And that elevated me. So, I think there are two, one was with a parent figure, and the other was with just me.
[00:10:56] Aneta: I love traveling alone also. I don't get to do it very often, but I find that there is just such tremendous growth in just sitting with yourself, not having to speak. Allowing yourself to just reflect, to think do you journal? When you're on those trips, like, do you journal to capture your thoughts or are you just present in the moment and just allow it to be, become like a memory?
[00:11:24] Rhonda: I would, but I don't. That is the thing that probably would have, I almost think it's a mental record, so it's staying present. I realize, and I might make notes or send me an email or something like that, but most of the time I'm just being present to what is being opened up to me.
[00:11:44] Aneta: Yeah. And so you said the word crossroads, which of course is the title of the book that you just published, I think last year. And you've written both fiction. Yep. And then also you've got another book coming out. It's nonfiction. So tell me a little bit about Crossroads. And it's a crime thriller, right? So tell me about the book and why did you write it?
[00:12:06] Rhonda: Okay, so it is a crime thriller. It's a suspense novel, more like an Agatha Christie kind of suspense thriller than a king. It's more in the clues and the lessons and the people. It's about a workaholic, like I said, in the Midwest, many people are raised that the core value is work, but sometimes when you're in that mode, it takes over and you're not living your life.
So in this case, the main character Paris Pennington, she's a workaholic. She's at the top of her field. She's a type A personality of excellence. And she ends up getting called a jury duty. Of course, she tries to avoid it because she has to work and she has all these commitments and they don't let her out.
It's her civic duty. She's supposed to stay. And, so she stays, and she realizes in this trial that, things in her own life just aren't like they appear. She's not as fulfilled as she thought, as she sees the mother that's wanting to get away from her kids and is glad to be on jury duty, or the bailiff, and a country guy who has all these one-line, southern antidotes for life or the handsome prosecutor that she's like, wow, if I had met him in a different time, I probably would have been interested in him.
But she's kind of alone in her life because of her core values at work. She does have friends, she has a mentor and she has friends, but she's realized that she's reaching a pinnacle. As she's on the jury, she realizes that it's not just her, there are no winners and losers or winners and losers in the legal system.
Everybody's a loser, whether it's the time commitment, whether you're the perpetrator, whether you're the victim's family. And she starts realizing that she's not the only one who's dedicated her life to frivolous things.
That's what the kind of the whole story is, and it really kind of, I don't want to give spoiler alerts, but explores three emotions that not only cause crime, but also are very prevalent in our culture, and that is anger is cruel. Fury is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? And envy makes the bones rot.
[00:14:37] Aneta: Those are good. I just got chills when you said that.
[00:14:43] Rhonda: And how many times are we in those situations? And that really kind of goes back to how you multitask. How do you do this and still live your purpose? Because if you're devoted to work and excellence all the time, how do you get to a point where you are multitasking your life?
There's more than one dimension in life. And you've got your physical well-being, you've got your intellectual well-being, you've got your emotional well-being, you've got your integrity that you have to develop, your romantic partnerships, your spiritual connections. There are all these dimensions of your life, and if you're not exploring them, you're left with a space in Paris's case in Crossroads, she's realized that she's got to make some changes and as she's in the trial, things start happening to her friends, to her loved ones, and it's up to the reader and the police to figure out why are these things happening to the foreman of the jury.
[00:15:51] Aneta: She's the foreman. It's so interesting. And everything you say resonates and I agree with you. And so often when we over-index and place so much of our effort on work, and especially if it's not necessarily, it could be tied to your values or your mission, but you can overwork in that space as well.
But when it's not these other parts of our life can suffer. And then if something happens to the thing that ties to our identity, like a job, if that goes away, many people find themselves in a bad place because they've neglected all these other areas of life. So why did you write this book?
Because I think this is something that the topic is so relevant and I think will resonate with so many people, but you did it in like a crime novel thriller, instead of a self-help book or a nonfiction. Why did you choose to do it this way?
[00:16:43] Rhonda: I was reading a lot of suspense at the time and I love all the various kinds of television crimes, that appealed to me, to be able to write a novel. At that level, reverse my, just my research that appealed to me. But then I was working in a block area that did crime watch, etc.
And I was overseeing different cases in the legal system in Indianapolis. And that's when I had the epiphany that life isn't as cut and dry as we make it. In the crime realm. So I thought it was only going to be about the crime realm. And then as I got to know the characters and built those characters in, I realized, no, this is more than just the crime.
It's also about the decisions that each one of these people is making that can put you in harm's way, it did pick which one. We all have habits that can make you be a victim or not develop yourself to the full extent. So I thought let me make this a little tighter and talk in a voice that resonates with the reader about their own lives and where are we lacking in our personality.
In that process, I was like, how's that going to work? How are people going to perceive meshing the two together? And as I was talking to the publisher, they were like, we think you need to submit a query letter to Merrill Hemingway. And I'm like, why would I...
[00:18:22] Aneta: Yeah. Why her? Because I know she endorses this book. So tell me about that.
[00:18:28] Rhonda: And she wrote the forward and I'm like, well, that's exactly why would I do that? Why wouldn't you pick Tori Spelling or all these suspense people and they're like, no, you need Meryl because she's all about life choices, mental health, and life balance. The reason is that her family has a history as glamorous of a life as they've had.
And if you've watched any of the documentaries, there was a lot of trauma and drama based on those decisions. So Meryl, in her life, has dedicated herself to finding balance in everything she does and she read it wrote the forward, and then also sent a YouTube video out of it.
And video edits called Meryl Hemingway Praises Rhonda Parker Taylor's Crossroads. And at first, she's going through the storyline and then she puts it on a personal note. She's like there's a time in everybody's life when we reach a crossroads. When she talks about her own life, she discovers that even chocolate has an expiration date. So even some of the most valued things that we're loyal to sometimes, we have to reevaluate whether they're still healthy and good for us.
[00:19:57] Aneta: Yeah. That's so true.
[00:20:00] Rhonda: So she got it. So I wrote it in hopes of pulling the reader in and having them reflect and take the meaning afterwards. I brought this with me. This is the cover of the workbook that's coming out.
[00:20:13] Aneta: Yeah. Tell me about it. When's it coming out? A journey to life balance.
[00:20:17] Rhonda: Yes, it's a journey to life balance, and it takes the characters in Crossroads and as their case studies, but it's a workbook so that anybody that Crossroads resonates with can start looking at all the things that they're juggling.
So this is our life when you think about it, and if you add one more thing, this is going to be out of balance. And what ends up happening is if you're not scheduling all of those 8 dimensions, 10 dimensions, it can even go up to 13, 14, 15 dimensions of life, depending on where you are in your life, then if you're not scheduling some kind of practice and goal setting and connection with all of them at some point, at least in the year, you come out of balance.
And it works you through those and gives you some things that you can do, and you can set some easy building blocks for yourself. Many times when we set goals, we set them only on finances, and careers. We don't think about what did I in my spiritual life today.
[00:21:24] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:21:24] Rhonda: What I do in my social connections. How did I do with my life partner? We don't think about those, one-year, three years, five-year goals on building those other dimensions of our lives.
[00:21:38] Aneta: Yeah. And what you measure and what you are celebrating grows, I mean, that's where we place the energy and you're right. If we do not focus on the other areas, we can neglect them. They could die a very slow death. And sometimes people wake up, they say, even thinking about parents or partners who are together, and then their kids go away to college and they find themselves discovering, that they just hadn't been close for the last 20 years or, 18 years or so.
So it's so important to be able to find that time and that balance. So what are some tips that you have for ways that people can make sure that they're living this full balanced life and making time for all of the priorities that they have?
[00:22:19] Rhonda: Let's return to anger, fury, and envy. If you're turning around and comparing yourself to everybody else's life, you're taking the joy out of yourself and your life. So instead of comparing, I want to do this, or I need to have that. When you get up in the morning and you open your blinds, look at the beauty that's outside your window.
Or where can you improve it? When you have a few moments in a day that's your quiet time taking some lessons of mindfulness. A lot of people say I don't have the money to treat my loved ones to anything. Well, it doesn't cost money to show love. One of the things that I've talked to some of my clients is, can you write a hundred things that you love about somebody and deliver that?
Can you send an email, a text, or a call? If you're driving, because you've got a work appointment and you're in an area where you're not distracted driving, can you call that great aunt that sitting home and alone and speak to them on speaker while you're doing so be intentional about your movements and if you're intentional and you live in that moment. Then the lesson is not just for you to find, it's others too because people start reciprocating the same positive energy.
[00:23:48] Aneta: Right.
[00:23:48] Rhonda: Now, if they don't reciprocate the positive energy, then is that one of those areas that you shouldn't be spending time on? How many times do we keep on knocking on the same door and we shouldn't be?
[00:23:59] Aneta: Right. That's so true. So did you find yourself ever in your own life where you realized that you were out of balance and that you weren't making time? Yeah.
[00:24:09] Rhonda: Of course. Yeah. So one of the first times that I did this workbook, so I've had this workbook on my computer for years. I used to do it with my students and I did it probably for the first time myself in, I'm going to say about 1990, I took a two-week road trip from Indiana to Utah.
Because I'd gone to school and taken a couple of classes there and during that trip, I did the work the part of it to re-influence my life and I think you need to do it every three to five years I do because your life changes your taste change your passions change. I did it recently after the pandemic and I'm like, okay, one of the first things you do is what are the things you enjoy?
And you're writing all this out and checking off the boxes. And then you said, okay, now do a journal of what you're doing. And I found out all the things that I enjoy doing, I wasn't doing. Instead of cooking, which I love, I was ordering DoorDash.
[00:25:18] Aneta: Yeah.
[00:25:18] Rhonda: The new pandemic way of getting, eating out. Because I read all day at work, I was watching TV. TV was like the 25th item that I like to do. Instead of being outdoors, I was sitting inside. So it was like, I was completely out of balance. So with what aligns with happiness for me. So that reflection is really important.
And then having those conversations with your loved ones, because are you in competition and power struggles with each other over what brings joy in it?
[00:25:51] Aneta: It's so important to do that assessment often. Like I find myself doing something similar. Probably every month I just kind of check in with myself and see if I'm on track, if there's something, and you can feel the imbalance a lot of times you might get sick, you might feel tired, you might get more irritable.
Like you said, some of those emotions pop up but also doing it with a partner is so important to make sure that you are going in the right direction and being able to share those things. So how often do you encourage your students or clients to do the assessment, do the workbook?
[00:26:25] Rhonda: I would say at least an annual, but you should check back. So it's a checklist too. So by the time you're done, you have a checklist of what you should be doing each year let's say we'll pick the area of travel. You want to expand travel. Well, then you should have things that cost many things that don't cost money that you can do to expand that.
Do you know your neighborhoods? Do you know your own, date? Do you know your own? In my case, I have a group for my family genealogy, and I've been pulling family members that I've never met from all over the world who have the same surname that would be on my tree.
And so I even present to their places they can go see that our family-oriented that they could teach their kids their history. So it could be a drive, that's only an hour away. It doesn't have to be large events, Eagle Creek here. And this is a beautiful park in the Indianapolis area.
So pick things that you can do that cost nothing and pick things that you can save for, and then you put the things that you want to save for and with your financial goals because then you're budgeting and how am I gonna afford this in five years.
Yeah. And everything's aligned too. Then you're working on alignment and making sure that the choices you're making are intentional, are very purposeful.
Right, exactly And sometimes it may be you don't want to cook you may enjoy cooking, but maybe not your focus right now. The cleanup, the prep, all of that. That is okay. But what is your package? It might be eating out, it doesn't matter what it is because it's unique to you. Mm hmm. The authentic you. And when you pick the authentic you, then you find that you're not so envious of everybody else's life.
[00:28:18] Aneta: Yeah. I love it. When is the workbook available?
[00:28:22] Rhonda: It should be available. It is today, today we're in April. So it. Yep, so it's supposed to be out on May 15th.
[00:28:30] Aneta: That's wonderful. And where will people be able to purchase it?
[00:28:34] Rhonda: I know Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites. I do not know if it's gonna be carried in the Barnes and Noble stores yet. Crossroads is in at least the ones in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio area. I have not searched to see if they're in India ones yet, but yeah, so, most of them will be Barnes and Noble. Amazon, Goodreads, any of the major websites, and then some of the local stores.
[00:28:59] Aneta: Excellent. That's so good. So I ask a question of everyone, which is what does it mean to live the width of your life?
[00:29:08] Rhonda: It means peace and it means living your intended authentic self. The width of your life is a great way of looking at it because so many times out of fear or vulnerability, we limit ourselves. Sometimes it's not our world that limits us. It's us that limits us. And it means if you can live your full width, you're reaching your potential.
You're preventing yourself from having remorse in those final days. Because you've lived what you wanted to live and then you can find happiness and peace. So I want to tell you about the topic of your podcast I deeply appreciate you having me on here because I think It's a lesson we all need to learn to learn how we live the width of our lives and what does it do to us.
It doesn't mean you're never gonna have sorrow. I've had my share of hard knocks that knocked me down where all I could do was look at the crack in a wall, and keep my sanity. I've lost a son, I've lost parents. We've all got these life-changing events that happen to us.
But if you're living the width of your life, you have the strength to get back up on the horse.
[00:30:37] Aneta: So Thank you. I love that. And for folks that want to learn more about you to purchase your books, they want to find you to learn more about the programs that you have. What is the best way that they can find you?
[00:30:51] Rhonda: Well, I try to make it easy. It's rhondaparkertaylor.com. Rod is with an H, so it's R-H-O-N-D-A, Parker, P-A-R-K-E-R Taylor, T-A-Y-L-O R dot com. For my website, and most of my social media platforms, I'm on Facebook, Twitter Instagram, and TikTok, as long as it's still going, I'm teaching an old dog new tricks sometimes. ,
[00:31:17] Aneta: Wonderful. Yeah. We'll include all of those links in the show notes. Rhonda, thank you. It's been such a wonderful conversation. I love all the things that you are doing and I'm so aligned with your philosophy and how to live this full life. So continued success for you. And I can't wait to get my hands on the workbook.
[00:31:35] Rhonda: Thank you. And everybody have a blessed day.
[00:31:38] Aneta: Thank you.
Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones, or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.