“Unlocking Success through Creativity, Business, and Research.”

Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show podcast, the podcast show where we unlock potential one dream at a time. Today we have another guest whose journey is truly worth hearing. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Moneyway experience.

What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show. The podcast that brings you stories behind the success. Today we have on the show American writer, entrepreneur, and academic researcher Rhonda Parker. Rhonda, how you doing today? Excited to have you on the show.

So nice to be here, and, and it's nice to talk to a fellow Hoosier. I don't know about on podcast, usually they're out someplace else, so it's wonderful. I can't wait to have an engaging conversation with you and just talk about what it takes to be your authentic self. You know, sometimes we are almost imposters. You know, we don't, we don't really realize who we are and what makes us unique. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation. And I, I hope that your audience is too.

Yeah. Well, again, I thank you. For those that didn't know, there was a little mishap in my judgment in time today. So I thank Rhonda for staying on and waiting on me and being in such good spirits. So Rhonda, tell us a little bit about yourself and about your background.

Sure, I'd love to. First of all, like I said, I'm a fellow Hoosier. I'm originally from Noblesville, which is north of Indianapolis.

Yeah.

And now living in, in Indianapolis. And my journey isn't one that most people would have ever thought, you know, would have been mine. If someone would have asked my younger self, well, what are you going to be? What are you going to do? They probably would have said something like, oh, she's going to be in retail or fashion merchandising or something in, in the, in that area and arena. My interest was there, but a lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn't have the confidence to really fulfill my dreams in my earlier self. So if I could say anything to the earlier Rhonda, I would say lean into yourself, not others' opinions of you or not others' thoughts of you, and really stay disciplined to who you want to be. And I found when I did that, and a lot of it was a game of uncle, you know, maybe life pushed me in different directions. I was able to successfully do a, you know, a college career path, college path first and got my doctorate. In business. And then also, you, in the introduction, you said, you know, I work in academics. I do work in academics. Nobody would have ever thought that I had learning challenges when I was young. So, but he would have said, oh, she's going to be, you know, a college professor or a mentor or an entrepreneur because they would have thought that I would have been the lesser version of me. And I think that's so true in so many times of ourselves. But I went from that to writing my first fiction novel. And it became a best-selling not only on Amazon, but Barnes Noble's website, you know, their online platforms, and also in their bookstores, and being endorsed by Hollywood's great Emeril Hemingway. And all of that would never have happened had I not started working on allowing myself to be vulnerable. Mm-hmm. And when you allow yourself to be vulnerable, you allow yourself to thrive.

Yeah, I mean, you said something that I can resonate with when you said that people wouldn't have known that this was your path, especially, you know, with the academic challenges at an early age, which I think we'll get to later. We were just talking to some coworkers the other day. No, we had a family function at the house this weekend.. And I told them, we was laughing about something, I told them, I say, well, you know, when I was in first grade, all through elementary school, I said, I was always in the last reading class, you know. And I said, I never could understand why I was in the last reading class and they was reading Tapestry and we were still reading the little bitty book Rockets, right. And you know, the other group, they used to laugh at us. And you know, but how times change because nobody would have thought that me in elementary school coming up, that I would be the one to write two books, that I would be the one doing the podcast, you know. So you never know what life gonna take you.

Isn't that amazing? We have very similar paths. In first grade, I was petrified to read, you know, in front of the class. You know how you had to read in front of everything? So I would get so anxiety-oriented, I'd run— I'd go to the nurse with a stomachache. Well, they rewarded me by sending me home. Guess what? Every time I knew we had to read in front of the class, yeah, heading to the nurse's office whether the anxiety got my stomach hurting or not. And then I learned if you take the thermometer and put it next to the heater, you're going home and may not have to go back the next day. So, yeah, early age, some of those early age Our experiences don't necessarily define us. That's why I like emotional intelligence and did a study for the UN Global Compact Committee, which is part of the UN at Case Western. They had a conference and my fellow co-author and I tested multinational leaders, CEOs that worked in several different countries. And then we tested domestic leaders that worked only in one country. CEOs and vice presidents, and we tested them on the 21 characteristics of emotional intelligence, which they have proven to be more important than your IQ for success because it's how you navigate your soft skills and people. And we found in that study that multinational leaders had higher EQ, which you would think, well, that's nothing new. You would think that they would be more have a better worldview than ones that just are in domestic area. But they also, except for in two areas, self-impression of themselves and narcissism. Mm-hmm. The domestic leader had higher, you know, thoughts of self than these ones that were doing these large conglomerates. And it's, it goes to show that our leadership and the ability to understand others has a lot to do with our success.

Mm, that was a great study. So Rhonda, you said something earlier that you've written books and things of that nature, so I had to ask the question. So what inspired you to start writing?

Probably my learning challenges. I love storytelling. You know, I've always, you know, my family are storytellers. You know, my grandfather was one that He would talk about how he got a job during the Depression, and he was the only one that could tell a story about getting a job in the Depression that would make, you know, young teenagers want to try to live in that era, you know, where there's food lines and no jobs for anybody. But, you know, the way they weaved the stories was important to me. But the learning challenges and the inability to see, you know, to fix some of the mistakes in those learning challenges on the first draft made me want to be better. And I was in an office setting working for a financial company, and I submitted a proposal that saved the company, and we implemented it— million, over a million dollars in their call centers. But when I submitted it, My boss, after everybody said, yes, we're going to do it, called me into his office and said, you know, you used the wrong insurer in the paper. There was one, there was a typo. I used the I-N-S-E-R-E and the E instead of the E-N. And right then I knew I'm gonna write a bestselling book one day. Because I was humiliated. I knew I needed to improve. I needed it for myself. And in doing that, Crossroads is, I'm going to say, a book of passion, my fiction novel, because I was working in a community service project in the legal system where I was monitoring that the legal system was doing things fair and equally. And in that process, I realized there is no fair and equal. There is no right and wrong, good or bad. Everybody's a loser. Once you step in that room with the jury, the jury's a loser because they're losing their time, effort. The prosecutor is a loser because they're prosecuting somebody and they're, you know, whoever the victim, you know, they're on their side. The defense is a loser. It doesn't matter who really wins the case. Everybody's losing in that process. And so it started simmering that this was going to be the first book because I knew I wanted to do a jury trial where people got not just the case because, you know, like if you read a Grisham book, because it's kind of I would say it's on the same grain of a light read like a Grisham, but— or an Agatha Christie. But it was— I wanted them to get to know the people and see that even the ones that were the worst amongst them had some characteristics that you liked or you understood or whatever. Or, you know, the housewife that just want— that was on the jury that just wanted to get away from the kids.

And so that was a thrill.

Everybody has something going on and they open up something to be there.

Yeah, I get it, you know, because even in movies, you know, we always— a lot of time we like the villain, you know, because it's something that we see in the villain in ourselves. Or sometimes you just based and judge your life, you know, none of us perfect, and, you know, we've all had some deficiencies and things that we went through in life. And so I hear the way that you saying, like, you wanted to bring out certain things and certain people because there are certain things in each individual that somebody may can relate to it. So that was a good analogy as far as with crossroads. But let me take you back for a second, Rhonda. You brought the crossroads. That was one of the questions I was gonna ask you, so that was good. So you say— I read somewhere where you say that growing up you mentioned that you weren't always strong in English reading and writing. And so I guess I have to ask, so what changed and how did you start to see a shift in that area?

So I obviously shared the experience of first grade, but that was a continual pattern. I did enough just to get by.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. And then— and I never wanted to compete. My older brother was considered the smart one, so I became the social one, you know. And so that was my path. And when we got to the high school years, I went to a private school and you had to pass an English proficiency test. And in that English proficiency test, if you didn't get, I think it had to be a B+, you couldn't graduate. And that particular year, it was our, that you take it is between, you get to take it in your junior and your senior year. But my junior year, I'd had a really hard year. There was multiple things going on in my life that, um, in today's environment they would call ACEs, Adverse Childhood Experiences. And I didn't pass. I just didn't pass. And this teacher that I'd had prior, that was the English teacher, you know, was talking to me. She says, I'll tell you what, let's just not worry about the test. Let me tutor you over the summer. And, you know, you'll worry about it your senior year. And so we did. I got a job at Arby's so I could pay for it. And we studied all summer. And at the end of the summer, I asked her how much I owed her. And she said, nothing. Just pass. Because she had learned some of the child— you know, the things that I was going through. And she developed a passion for helping me be successful. Mm. So I passed the test. She changed the whole trajectory of my life by doing that. That's where teachers really can, you know, sometimes we focus on the bad experiences maybe that we had in school. And we don't talk about those gems and diamonds in the rough that make— really impacted us. And she did, because I wouldn't have been able to go to college. I wouldn't have gotten an associate's. I wouldn't have gotten a bachelor's. I wouldn't have gotten a master's. I wouldn't have gotten a doctorate had it not been for this, this tiny woman. She was probably 98 pounds wet, and that took an interest in developing me.

Yeah, that's a great story. All it takes is one person to have confidence, because a lot of times, you know, we don't have confidence in ourselves or we don't believe in ourselves. But, and sometimes people can see, somebody can see something in you that you don't see in yourself. And so it's great to have people like that on your team that encourage you, that encourages you and gives you the, uh, you know, the fortitude to keep moving forward, that I am better than what I am. I mean, because I've had some of the same things that what you were talking about, but my credentials are not, you know, like yours, associate's, bachelor's.

Trying to— everybody has their own path. And I tell people, today I'm an entrepreneur, and I work with others. And I tried to give back the same way that I was given through a mentoring program. And everybody's not intended for that. That was my wanting to prove to myself that I could do it, that I wasn't dumb. I would— the self-talk that I had. I wanted to be the most educated. I also was the first female in my family to go to college. So that meant something to me, for the younger generation of women that, you know, hey, you can, you know, still, you know, you don't have to get married right out of, you know, out of high school. And so many times we buy into these stereotypes that really don't have to be who you are. So I think that, you know, by doing that and finding your— it doesn't matter if you want to be a housewife, it doesn't matter, you know, be the best housewife there is. If you want to be a doctor, to be the best doctor you want to be. If you want to be a podcast host, be the best podcast host that you can be. You know, it doesn't matter if you want to be an author, be the best author you can be and continue to improve those skills. If you like making coffee, you know, coffee, you know, yeah, there is— all of us are different.

Yeah.

And we're supposed to be. Wouldn't life be boring if we were all the same?

Exactly. We was all sent with different gifts and talents. You know, it's just about how you implement them. And, you know, like we were talking about at an early age, we may have been— we may have buried our gifts, you know. And at some point in life, he gave us the fortitude, he gave us the mindset to go back and dig those talents up. And now here you are, author, entrepreneur, you know, things that was always in you now is being exposed and it become a great thing. And so, um, Rhonda, switching courses a little bit. Talk to us a little bit about your experience in business management and leadership education.

Oh, sure. Um, there's pros and cons, like any business. Um, the thing that I loved and, and the college that I was, um, the administrator over was, um, the population of students were ones that struggled, so that worked well for me. Because that means I could teach them and mentor them that, hey, you know, you don't have to be what society has told you that you are or your family's told you you are. You are your own person and you can thrive. So I loved that aspect of it. And then the part that I think that I struggled with most in education is some of the things that we see now where, you know, people might have too much financial debt to go to college, the cost of it, or the mindset sometimes some colleges might have is, you know, they call it butts in seats, where admissions needs to make sure there's a person sitting in every seat. What do we do when we do that? We put them in the wrong path a lot of times out of the desperation of those admissions people to meet their numbers. But what I liked most about the college and academic experience is learning to be a life learner, not only for myself, but teaching others too. It doesn't matter whether it's reading a book, if it's mentoring, networking, becoming better at having a better curriculum, technology. All of those things are so important for us to be successful. Successful. So it kept your skills up to date. I did have to pivot from that career path, and it took a lot of hard thought. But my, my— I had adopted son. I'm in a blend. I was in a blended family where I, um, had met a woman when I was younger that had a young man, and their school district was bad. He was great in sports She couldn't provide what, what he needed at that time. And so we made a woman-to-woman agreement to raise him together, even though my family lived in the northern part of Indiana, her family lived in downtown Indy. And we made this pact that we were going to get him through his life and be successful. And so she really in my thoughts, it was the most selfless act a mother did— could give, is which is turn over their child to another woman.

Yeah.

And so she went through that, and she still was active in his life. And we got him through, um, high school, and he was being recruited from different teams in football. And, and he made a few bad choices and decided to start doing the work life instead of the sports, which was fine, started to raise a family. And he was working one night and a man came in and they had to put him out of the bar. And when they opened the door at closing, the man was outside with a gun. It's one of those stories that we hear every day in the news now. Killed the whole security team. And that changed me. And I think all of us can really— if they've not experienced it, empathize what that means when a loved one is just taken from you.

Yeah.

Over senseless stuff. And I was working still in the college level, but it was very difficult emotionally to work with the same age group at that point. So I kind of stepped back and I looked at, okay, what are my skills? What could I do? And I removed myself from the world, basically, and started working from my home, consulting doctoral students, master's students on their capstone projects and their dissertations. And then I also helped people trying to change career paths that needed to be retrained and started my own consulting organization. Right here out of my house. And that was one because it was something I was passionate about, but it was also self-protection and resiliency of coping with a situation that so many of us have had to do over the, you know, over the past decade. And that is learn to protect ourselves and our families under the worst conditions that, you know, America's got to get it together sometimes.

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Yeah, I mean, you know, just listening to your story, but first of all, I just want to say sorry for your loss because it is a tragic thing to even hear, you know, as far as the dynamics of what you guys went through to get him to the point that he was at. And like you say, to have something so senseless, you know, to happen to somebody that has so much potential, you know, my blessings and feelings go out to you and your family and his mother. Uh, man, it's kind of hard to go to the next question after that one. Uh, but thank you for sharing that with us, Rhonda. That was, that was really, you know, heartfelt and emotional.

Sometimes we share our stories of resilience to realize life will hit someday. And if you don't have the tools to say, hey, I can live through this, I know X did it, or this person did, or this is how I'm going to do it, if we share those stories, we make each other stronger.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And like I said, I appreciate you bringing that to the forefront. And a lot of times, too, We try to, you know, you give your condolences and things of that nature, but on the other end, if a person haven't went through it, you know, sometimes they really don't understand the, you know, the gravity of it, uh, opposed to somebody that actually lived through something like that, you know what I'm saying? So like I said, I appreciate you bringing that to the forefront and even sharing that with us. So on another note, Rhonda, So you founded a business, Intelligent Solutions. So tell us what inspired you to start this venture and what does your business focus on?

Well, what inspired me was that, that I saw a need. I saw a need of people being downsized, right-sized, and then the technology was in, it was increasing. And most people were taught in school to do a resume and you mail it, you hand it in. Et cetera. And that wasn't the environment anymore. So I found that the people that were from like 30 to 40s, even 50s, had no idea how to even go about looking for a job anymore. They didn't have any idea how to navigate all the technology. And then, like I said, the academic part of it is I still work with people that have the MAS, which keeps my skills honed on not only editing, but, you know, what's going on in today's world. Because when someone does a capstone project or a dissertation, it has to be something that's been done in the, you know, that is relevant in the past, you know, and research only in the past 5 years. So I kind of felt like I needed to hone in on those things, which meant Some people might want to start their own business, so it mainly is writing solutions such as business plans, career paths. We can do some testing, find out what career paths, what kind of skills we need to do, find them the resources to get those skills, help them with their resumes, help them with their searches. And help the— so it's individually based and tailored to what the person needs to be successful. So it could be business writing, it could be career path writing, it could be website content, any of those main areas, but it's primarily writing and testing for what's best for that individual.

Okay, so the Intelligent Solutions, so is this for just students or this is a broad—

it can be students or it can be someone that's doing a change or a pivot in their life.

Okay, as far as the business plan and things like that. So where can we find you at? Where can we find, uh, Intelligent Solutions at?

Okay, so first you can go to rhondaparkertaylor.com, and then Intelligent Solutions is myintelligentsolution.com.

Okay, thank you for that. You know, you like to travel, and so what are some of the places, most memorable places that you've been traveling and how has it affected or changed your work or your life?

Well, I think anytime someone travels, it changes your life. Some of my most memorable have been with myself, just traveling alone, and others have been where I've been able to experience traveling with someone else. So I've been to several countries and One of my favorite to, for reflection is to go to Niagara Falls. I love to go to the Canadian side. I used to try to go there once a year. I would travel there typically by myself and spend that long weekend that I chose on redefining myself. But I've been to Greece, I've been to Italy, I've been to England, Scotland. I actually even went to Belgium, which is not like on anybody's top 10 to go, but I highly recommend it. I went there during a season where I was doing my own changes, and I picked it because I thought, oh, well, I could get on the train and I can go to Paris, and I can get on the train and be in Amsterdam, and I could be— and you know, I never got out of Belgium. It was like every day there was a special something brought to me, and I'm gonna say it was through God. And because it was simple, it was— seemed like it was for me, you know, at the time. So like, I got off in Bruges, and, um, they have the canals very similar to Venice. And I was like, this is nice, so I'm gonna walk around thinking it was just gonna be a stop and then I was going to be off to the next stop. And then it started raining and I ran into— under the awning of a cathedral and it said, pray over the blood of Jesus Christ. I don't know about anybody else, it doesn't matter what your religion is, where you are in life, if you see that you can pray over the blood of Jesus Christ, I think you're going to take that opportunity. But it was the Shroud.

Exactly.

And so I felt like that each part of that journey or that day was specifically for me, like it was designed for me. So, and when you're in Italy, you love all the history and seeing everything, um, there is just simply amazing. Um, so I think for me, traveling is about the loss, um, and the ability— or not the loss, but the ability to discover self and others by what you're seeing in their culture.

What you were saying as far as anytime you get a chance to pray and plead over the blood of Jesus, why not take that opportunity, you know? And a lot of times, as you said, that he led you into Belgium and you couldn't come out of there because there was so many things, you know, that was just taking you there. Because being a believer myself, I don't think I would have passed up that opportunity either, you know, because As you say, everything you do.

And that's something that my mom, because she owned a travel agency, taught me, that you can learn from everywhere you go, you know. It doesn't— and she challenged us as children to be open and inclusive in our experiences because, you know, if you don't understand, you can't make decisions anyway. And so like, it didn't matter If there were times that we would have, you know, be having a dinner and maybe we had to be covered.

Yeah.

Maybe we had, maybe we had foods that we'd never eaten before.

Yeah.

Yes. So, and then learning the rules, like, you know, if you're in Turkey, you're not going to eat anywhere but at the hotel where the standards are, you know, what we would want for for our digestive system, you know? So you just learn to navigate different things. And some of the most beautiful things I've seen have been places that you never would've thought you would ever want to go.

And, you know, just a testament to you, just to be able to go to some of these places and see some of the things that some people haven't experienced and seen, you know, that's a blessing in itself, you know, just like— And then one thing that you said too that I, I think that resonates with a lot of people too, is just the covering, you know, just being covered at the dinner table is something that my mother, you know, saying them instilled in me too. So being raised like that, knowing that the covering and the blood is real. And so like when you say you went to Belgium and had this opportunity, like you said, how can I pass that up? You know, I couldn't pass it. Not only am I not gonna pass it up, because I know that at this point it was my destiny to be here at this time where a lot of people don't stay. So that was pretty cool. So as far as the traveling, so Rhonda, tell us, how can you balance life? Can be a challenge for many. And how do you find balance or what is your method for maintaining it?

Well, the first thing is to realize you aren't competing with everybody else. When I was writing Crossroads, I was trying to come up with, you know, what is the lesson learned? And I'm a big life balancer. So you're hitting a topic that's important to me. And when I was writing it, I was thinking about all the characters and why do they— why do people commit crime? Well, anger, fury, envy, you know, those are the main ones. And in Proverbs, it It says, "Anger is cruel, fury is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy? Envy makes the bones rot." I had to really think about that and I redesigned some of my life because like I said, life balance has been something I've been doing since college. I used to take a 2-week trip to the West Coast and drive. And when I would do it, I would do this workbook that I'd created. And actually I'm getting ready to publish it. It's called, you know, it's a life balance book and it goes through the 13 dimensions of your life. Because usually when we set goals, we don't reflect on anything other than career, maybe a relationship, you know, maybe finances, but we don't look at all the other aspects of our lives, like our personal relationships with self and others. So I do a reflect reflection first. And that has to be in every part of my life. So in the morning time, I open the blinds up and I look and reflect in my yard, you know, and say, what is there that I can learn from outside right now? Whether it be the beauty of it, whether it could be a hawk or something that might need to be repaired about myself. And then I go through my whole home and I walk through it with my coffee and I like, okay, What in my home is a value of me? And what in my home says something about me and allows me to enjoy my home? So I really do a lot of reflection first for the life balance, because if I don't understand myself, then I fall into the anger, fury, and envy. I could want a bigger house and try to keep up with the neighbors, or I can—

Yeah.

You know, or I could want to be taller, or I could want to be this, and none of those things are going to materialize.

Yeah.

So I do the reflection first, and then I really try to put in practice, you know, SMART goals in every— all 13 dimensions of my life that I try to follow. So I'm a kind of a Type A personality, but I try to be a human being, not a human doing, which means those 13 characteristics of a person's life and dimensions is important.

Yeah, it is. You know, and I like what you said, you know, life balance, because a lot of time it starts with us, you know. And I like the approach that you said, you go through and, and see, you know, what's valuable, you know what I'm saying. To me, here, what's valuable to me there. And I think that's important. As far as the package that you're about to put out, when can we expect that?

It should be within the next month. Um, it's at the, it's at the, um, editors now. Uh, they have some illustrations that they're trying to, um, to work out for some of the workbook part of it, because when I did it, you know, I was just doing the lines and, okay, these are the, the goals and yeah, I think people want a little bit more from me than that. So, so they're working some illustrations out hopefully before Christmas. Um, it also takes the characters in Crossroads because in my writing I try to make character flaws. So Paris Pennington, the main character, all of the main characters are out of balance. So she's a workaholic that we can all really kind of relate to And so is the prosecutor, some of the characters in there. And others are rusting out because they don't have any goals. And so they are kind of the case studies that if you identify with the characters, you can go to the book then and say, okay, what do I need to do to balance myself out?

Oh, it sounds pretty interesting. I can't wait till it come out and grab me a copy myself. So, uh, Rhonda, Tell us, how do you personally overcome adversity when faced with challenges?

Ooh, you know, life always hits, doesn't it? And that's the hardest thing that, you know, so many people think that, you know, that life isn't supposed to hit. It's going to. It's something. It could be a loss of a family member. It could be a loss of a job. It could be health issues. You know, it doesn't matter. So first thing is name it and recognize it's there. So I'll give an example of when Dee was killed and the police and his girlfriend came to tell me. Immediately, obviously, you're stunned. In anything, adversity, it doesn't matter what it is, you're gonna be stunned first. You have to realize that you have that. And I saw a crack in the wall just where the house had settled. I never even noticed it before, and I followed it to the ceiling. That was my mental challenge to myself to focus. And then I, I'm like, you're gonna be okay, you know, you get, you know, that's all you can do is you just, and you realize you name what's happened. And then you have to realize that you have to put one foot in front of the other and make it through that moment and the next moment and the next and then put a plan to do that. And surround yourself with a network of people that are going to help you thrive. So if it's grief then you're gonna put people— And they can't always be your family. You could drag your family down. For me I was pulling into every religious organization there was and asking them to lay hands pray, pow! No matter what they were gonna do just get me back into the mental state so I could go on with my day. It didn't matter. So, you know, you have to name it and claim it so that you can move on, whatever the challenge is, because adversity is going to hit. And also, by practicing life balance, you're already prepared for when it hits. So if you already have a practice in your day to make sure that you're okay, then when something does happen, you're caught up, you're ready, you know, you're not all stressed out and you are, you know, ready to hit that challenge. I'm going to point out some things that you can't see through my window. And I have 3 acres and I live close to the Eagle Creek area. So we get everything right now. And it's something that I've learned about hawks. There's a hawk sitting right outside my window right now. And there's a squirrel. And you know, these hawks are just like regular predators that you would think. They gain their trust, they hang out, they play with them until they get them so comfortable that they can kill them with no problem.

Wow.

Outside my window right now, the hawk is sitting, sitting on a flower pot and the squirrel sitting, sitting right next to him. And I've got videos on my social media where These hawks will actually sit and eat with them at the table. Sorry, I didn't mean to get off on—

No, no, no, that's a good analogy. You know, that's a good point. You can't get comfortable around people. You know, that's life. You get comfortable around people and they could be the main ones stabbing you in the back, you know.

So adversity can happen at any time. And it might happen here in a moment. We might hear a scream.

So this squirrel gonna be running for his life. So Rhonda, I really appreciate you coming on the show. You gave us some valuable insights, some emotional stories. And so you touched on this since you got something going into publishing right now. So I guess my final question would be, finally, self-publishing versus traditional publishing. What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of each?

I love, in theory, traditional publishing. I originally went that route, but then 2 years into the process, they backed out. So I went and I had to rethink how I wanted to do it and what I could afford, afford emotionally, time-wise, etc., to get Crossroads published. So I started looking at different types of organizations. And I went with a blended matrix. A blended means that it's considered still self-publishing by, like, bookstores, you know, anybody out there, but they're a publisher. They do— they follow the traditional publishing route. They edit, they get it ready, but they also consult you. So So my concern was, do I have time to figure out how to do an ISBN number, the barcode, you know, the book cover, make sure that the spine is big enough, you know, the right size? Do I have that ability to do that? And so what I did in that process was I found Mindstorm Media, and they did— they taught me everything I needed to No, and they took over, they took over the marketing part of it, which benefited me because they also did the introduction to Meryl Hemingway.

Mm. Yeah. So that's cool. So you had a pathway to a whole lot of things, and I wish you great success though on your book Crossroads and your other ventures that you got coming on. And so, like, as I said before, I appreciate you coming on the show today and giving us your insight and wisdom. Where can we follow you at on your social media handles?

RhondaParkerTaylor.com, all of them. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. I'm even learning how to do TikTok. Not very good at it.

Hey, I tell you what, if you put that hawk and that squirrel video on there, you'll get a whole lot of views because people like to see stuff like that.

Did you just hear the bang? I guess there must be little birds out in the bushes too. One of them just hit my window.

So I think that— Must be nice to sit there. You can bird watch and squirrel watch all at the same time. And so Rhonda, is there anything else that you would like to share with us before we leave today?

I want everybody out there to have a great day and just know if it's meant to be, it's up to you. If you want something, go after it. Don't let anything hold you back. And don't let yourself hold you back because that was my problem. It wasn't others holding me back. It was me holding me back.

Hey, you heard it right here on the CJ Moneyway Show. Author Rhonda Parker Taylor. Don't hold yourself back. If you want it, go get it. Go pick up the book Crossroads at Barnes Noble, Amazon, and wherever you can find a number one bestseller. That'll be your girl Rhonda Parker Taylor here on the CJ Moneyway Show. You have been listening to your boy CJ Moneyway. We outta here. Peace.

Thank you for listening to the CJ Moneyway Show. Don't forget to share this episode with your friends, leave a comment, and drop a review. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday and Friday for more inspiring journeys. Who knows? Your story might be next.

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