We recently connected with Dr. Tschanna Taylor and have shared our conversation below.

Dr. Tschanna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

There are 4 C’s that comes to mind when I think about what it takes to be successful. To achieve a level of success, depending on what success means to the individual would be Clarity, Consistency, Community, and Collaboration. When I started in business in 1994, I did not have any of these things. Life happened. There were a lot of growing pains as life was “life ‘Ing.” It was only when I took doing business seriously in 2015 that I had to learn about the 4 C’s. Without clarity, you are unable to clearly see the things to which you have been called. Experience has taught me that when you do not trust your process, clarity can be wishy-washy. Now, let’s shift to consistency. This word alone can start the entire magazine feature, lol. One thing I share with my community is if you ever need to do personal development work, start a business. Business has a way to show you areas in your business and life that needs attention and often immediate attention to get the desired results. Consistency in doing something repeatedly is what drives success. I used to beat myself because I heard the word consistency drilled in my head by previous coaches that I felt like I had enlisted in a military branch. And all it takes is when we beat ourselves up about a thing, we end up getting stuck. What I can share with everyone is that sometimes you only have 60% to give no matter what the thing is that you are wanting to be consistent with. Count the 60% as a victory and do not beat yourself up about the 40%. But if you can add in a little bit more, go for it. With consistency, make what you can do to get a better result what feels normal to you. Community to me is COMMON- UNITY, where a group of like-minded individuals comes together to support and encourage and enlighten you on a particular subject. Without community, you do not have the tight-knit unit to work together to achieve the vision. There is strength in numbers. Collaboration, when it comes to building a business is vital. Collaboration is all about relationships. Relationships are a big key to success. When you partner with someone, you must make sure that there are common values and goals. That there is a balance between give and take. There must be productivity and progress. Everyone should feel valued, heard, and appreciated. Collaboration is about connection and compromise. These are the 4 C’s I have used to define what success means to me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Hello, I am Dr. Tschanna Taylor, aka, “Dr. Tee”. My entrepreneurial journey started as early as five years old, teaching my teddy bears lined up on the coach. Instead of asking for Barbie dolls, I would ask for briefcases and notebooks, and colored pens. My grandmother told my father that I would be an extraordinary businesswoman someday. When I did get started in business in 1994, I immediately graduated from high school. Then, there was no such thing as coaches (Side note: I am not that old, lol) but all I had to help me was the local library. Then in 2015, I took business seriously because I was working hard and not smart. I wrote my first book in 2016 about experiencing infidelity in my marriage. The book afforded me an opportunity to speak as a keynote speaker for a local Women’s conference. From there, I have been developing my craft as an author, TEDx speaker, publisher, and now marketer. I teach aspiring and established co-authors in book anthologies (collaborations) how to take their chapters, leverage their stories and produce additional income streams so they live the life they desire. The problem I solve for them is once the hype is over from the book launches that they have spent money to have the nicest outfits and professional photos made, sometimes they are not always clear or have a road map of how to continue to make money from their chapters. My mission is to teach them how to make more money from their manuscripts. This is what sets me apart in the industry. I am most proud of my resilience to show up despite the challenges that should have stopped me dead in my tracks. Legacy building is so important to me. I was given an opportunity by a family member when she passed away in 2011, to the importance of leaving a legacy. Therefore; I go so hard in building a legacy for my family. Legacy for me is not just making sure I leave something when I die to my son, nieces, and nephews, but legacy building for me is also important to the lives that I have impacted in some way or fashion. That each of them is given the tools necessary to make the sacrifices and persevere through adversity to get to where they want to be in life based on their God-given purpose. What I want potential clients to know about my brand is, I am my brand. I am a fearless marketing and business powerhouse who loves encouraging and empowering others to build their confidence and level of trust within themselves to do whatever it is that they are called to do. This is not just a hobby for me. I am enthusiastic about every service and product I offer. I am a big advocate for building strong relationships with every client. I love the publishing industry and am excited to continue to grow and invest in not only this industry, but with the clients I serve.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Sure, I’d love to! 2020 was a tough year for us all. My son had a tragic accident at the same time as the pandemic was declared. The experience of having your son not remember you’re his mother was devastating. The stress from ICU overnight stays, having a husband who was experiencing PTSD, working full-time, and the dynamics of now having to setup to work from home, running a business part-time that was impacted because the world came to a screeching halt and self-care for me during this time wasn’t even an option. There was no room on my plate for anything else. Stress can affect us in so many ways. Because of all this stress, I ended up having limited sight in one eye. This was another blow but I knew that I never wanted to be defined as “disabled”. So in my downtime of recovery after having two eye surgeries, I had to teach myself how to continue to do things like I normally did them. I didn’t want to burden anyone else because everyone was in a place of having to figure it all out. We never experienced a pandemic before. In 2021, I received an honorary doctorate, I graduated from a theological seminary and became certified as a marketplace chaplain. This entire experience taught me that resilience is built before you need it. As I reflect on this question, I can look back on my life before all of these occurrences happened and can see that everything I had experienced previously, prepared me for what came in 2020. Nothing we go through will EVER go wasted, NEVER! Resilience to me means having the ability to get back up when life continually tries to keep knocking you down. I hope that after you read my story that you choose resilience for whatever you are facing. You got this!

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

I laughed as I thought of this question. Why? Because I used to be a professional poker player. Taking risks is my middle name, lol. Life is full of risks, right? I recently wrote a book titled, “Go All In and Get the “F” Out”. When I would market the book or put major emphasis on the title as I spoke it, a lot of people I know who are faith-based assumed that I was using the F-bomb. The title is edgy but that is not what the intent was. The book focuses on the principles I learned as a professional poker player and how these same principles can be applied to our lives centering around the negative “F” words that keeps us stuck in life and business. The book also reshapes our thinking by replacing the negative “F” words with positive “F” words to help us make decisions to move forward and keep striving towards the goals we desire to meet. There was so many people in my DMs complaining about why I would put a book out like this and my response would always be, because of how you are reacting in this very moment. Get the book and read it for yourself. After posting a Facebook live, a lot of those people understood the meaning and intentions behind the book, only to share how bold and courageous I was to write the book. Lessons can be found everywhere. We just have to be open and apply what we learn.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tschannataylor.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/tschannataylor
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/tschannataylor
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/tschannataylor
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/tschannataylor
• Other: TikTok @tschannataylor

Image Credits
Kimie James-Photographer