Thursday, August 26, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Sunday, August 1, 2010
When The Going Gets Tough, Do You Keep Going?
“When you journal daily make a point to highlight what you have learned and what has changed in you. It is always what is inside that determines what we experience in each situation. We are human and this is the way we evolve and mature.
“We exchange time for experience…That is life.
“Take charge of yours…make goals and keep them.
“Make goals that involve stretching, but allow them to be within your means.
Daily accomplishments strengthen us.
Make some goals accomplishable on your way to major leaps!”*
These words are from my long time business coach and mentor Parisha Taylor. She is constantly reminding those of us she works with of the value of “failing forward.” In her words, when we experience a “mis-take” we can easily do a “re-take” thus turning the learning experience from our “failure” into the building blocks of the next success. It’s that simple.
Grandmother Parisha was raised in a culture that provided a nourishing environment for learning through mis-takes and re-takes. So it’s natural for her to live and teach from this simple truth. For those of us who grew up with parents, teachers or other authority figures who might have admonished, criticized or demeaned us for our mistakes, we have to overcome old feelings of embarrassment or being “wrong” which we learned to equate with being “bad.”
Our upbringings are what they were. We can’t change the people from our past. But we CAN change the lessons we bring forward from the past.
Long after those “authority figures” are out of our lives, we allow their voices to occupy space in our heads. We bring forward those feelings of shame, hurt, or anger that block us from the freedom to make mistakes. We live in a culture that confuses “ignorance” for “stupidity,’ and condemns anything less than perfection, which in itself is self-defeating. Self admonishment is not an effective teacher. I know.
Life is a perpetual learning lab. It’s up to us to decide to be the perpetual student. By freeing ourselves from the old stigmas of making mistakes, we create an environment for ourselves that inspires success through persistence. Far too many people quit when they are closer than they realize to their goal.
By journaling our day at night-time before going to bed, as Coach Parisha Taylor advises, we can stake stock of the day’s successes and failures. We take note of what worked and what we could have done better or differently. These are the lessons we bring forth from our day – be it business, relationships, whatever.
Our experiences change us, if we chose to learn from them. Journaling can assist to gain a perspective on that as well. “It is always what is inside that determines what we experience in each situation.”
Coach Parish once shared these words with us from another great motivator, Brian Tracy: “RESOLVE in advance that you will never give up…RESOLVE to persist until you succeed.” She reminds us that by refusing to stop, we become unstoppable!
She’s also taught that time is the most precious commodity we have. It is the only thing that we spend that we can never get back once we have. We can always get more money, more things…but time, once it’s gone, it’s gone. So exchanging out time for experience is a great way to make sure we get the most out of it every day. Miss no opportunity to learn from an interaction, a situation, however seemingly small or insignificant. For those moments will become the building blocks that we can utilize to take on the mountains we dare to dream about!
By treating life as an opportunity instead of a “sentence” – by realizing that every day is a gift, an adventure – by nurturing and loving ourselves – we can take on the most horrendous of circumstances and triumph – One victory at a time! – Deb Adler
*©1986-2010 Parisha Taylor. All rights reserved.
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Parisha Taylor
I have worked with Parisha Taylor since 1986 when I went to the Center for Human Development to book a concert and a music workshop. I began to attend the Spiritual Development class conducted by Parisha and some of her associates on Monday nights. These evenings included prayer and meditation times for world peace, learning how to live healthier through better nutrition and natural foods, holistic modalities for maintaining optimal health in addition to singing and exercises to help the mind-body connection. From there I began to spend some weekends and attend events at farmlands in Summerfield, for which the Center For Human Development had become stewards.
In time I traveled to many wonderful locations in the U.S. and Canada where I attended trainings conducted by Parisha. By way of example, she taught the rest of us how to value ourselves. We stayed in the best hotels and ate well. We laughed, played, and learned about ourselves, ancient cultures and the traditional ways of Parisha’s people.
These trips cost money – to travel there, for the accommodations, to eat, for transportation. And yes, at the end of the trainings¸ I voluntarily gave a monetary “love offering” to measure to the value of what I had gained in knowledge and personal perspective. As a recovered alcoholic I knew a lot of my life has been an ongoing story of taking from others. It has been liberating for me emotionally and financially to practice measuring the worth of something I have received and delivering my “gratitude” in the form of money.
By her own words, Parisha is of mixed heritage – one side of her family is Native and one side of her family is Caucasian. There are “natives” – themselves half-breeds – whom I have witnessed, try to dispute her heritage. Ultimately they run out of gas. Their prejudice and ignorance can’t stand up to the truth. I have been in Cherokee, North Carolina with Parisha to re-visit her homelands where she was raised by her purebred Cherokee Grandmother. I was privileged to witness the respect with which Elders and local native people approached her. If there was any question about her authenticity it would surely have surfaced in the manner in which these people related to her – in the heart of the Cherokee homelands.
Parisha Taylor is a capable personal coach and like a great coach¸ knows how to pull the best from the people who have asked for her help to become their ultimate success. Not everyone who asks to be successful has the inner fortitude or heart to make it happen. To those people, Coach Parisha Taylor may look imposing. But to those of us who have striven to excellence in our lives, she has been a magnificent reflection of our own capability, and relentless support in helping us to reach our goals.
The great teachers and coaches in life have their share of whiners who complain that too much was demanded of them or that person was crazy or demented. The problem is they quit on themselves and can’t face that fact so they look for someone outside themselves to blame. These are the “sources” Michael Sangiacomo sought out to quote in an effort to discredit Parisha Taylor, along with “real natives” (who themselves are mixed breeds because there are very few pure-bred traditionalists left in the nation today).
One of our beloved members died taking part in an exercise on the beaches of Topsail that she and many of the rest of us had participated in several times over the years. But the papers, led Michael Sangiacomo, started a vicious prolonged campaign to try to discredit Parisha and actually implicate her in the death. None of the allegations were ever proven, none of the newspapers running these stories – including the Associated Press wire service - subsequently bothered to substantiate their facts¸ they just ran the stories. Why? Because sensationalism sells.
That was over 20 years ago. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, through reporter Michael Sangiacomo, has resurfaced in a malicious attack once again, apparently because of the good works Parisha Taylor is currently accomplishing along with members of The Learning Center for Human Development in Kingman AZ.
I am dumbfounded. Other than the fact that the printed newspaper is fading fast from the American scene, and maybe Sangiacomo is trying to help save his paper from extinction (like the comic book heroes he writes about), none of this makes sense. I have known Parisha Taylor for over 25 years. I am a better person for what I have learned from her in classes, trainings, and walking along side her. I am a more effective businesswoman and community member for my association with this generous and dedicated woman.
I’m also pretty disgusted. People’s lives can be destroyed by an arbitrary decision to make them newsworthy, or try to sensationalize an event. I would ask everyone reading this, and certainly everyone who knows me to consider that I choose my friends and associates with great care. I believe in Respect for All. Those who try to make their gain at the expense of others give me a lot of opportunity to practice compassion. But then that’s what I’ve also learned from Parisha Taylor. Compassion and Love for my fellow Humans.
Undoubtedly, Sangiacomo will eventually exhaust himself once again. What will be left is a woman who stands in Truth: Parisha Taylor.
©2010 Deborah Adler. All rights reserved.