As the cofounder and editor-in-chief of the personal development website DailyOM, Taylor’s inspirational words land in millions of Americans’ inboxes every day. Challenge comes easily to Taylor, 56, a mother to an 11-year-old son. Taylor has been an entrepreneur pretty much her entire adult life. In the 1990s, she and husband Scott Blum started Seattle-based music streaming company iMusic. “Almost every night, we’d broadcast a live show with bands that were coming through town,” she says. “This was a radical concept during a radical time. Seattle was the booming music metropolis — home to bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden. It was exhilarating to be in the center of it.” It was also exhausting. During that time, Taylor had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. Some days she was so sick she couldn’t even get out of bed. “At my worst point, Scott had to carry me to the toilet,” she recalls. In 2000, the couple sold the company to ArtistDirect. As part of the deal, they were required to move to Los Angeles. Taylor was happy about it. Seattle was dreary and gray, and as someone who struggled with depression and anxiety, the lack of sunshine got to her.
How a Move to Heal Led to Various Projects and DailyOM
Moving to Los Angeles changed her. She was away from Seattle’s cloudy weather and was able to get off all her medication and focus on healing herself naturally, which she chronicles in her 2018 book Unmedicated: The Four Pillars of Natural Wellness. While healing, she started Madisyn Taylor, a line of organic products that included things like herbal mists and scented soy candles, all of which she made out of her home in the Hollywood Hills. Since the product line was about healing, she required her employees to be in a good mood. “If someone came in to work kind of grumpy and in a bad mood, I’d make them go and walk around the block and clear themselves a little bit,” she says. That company was wildly successful, but Taylor wanted more. “It wasn’t big enough for me,” she says. During this time, she had been writing daily inspirational messages that she emailed to her friends. They were about everything from natural products to spa recommendations to life lessons she had acquired along the way. The emails went viral; people, it turned out, hungered for motivation. This became DailyOM, which now offers dozens of courses in everything from relationships to nutrition to spirituality and relaxation. Not only are they available all at once, Netflix style, but there’s also a sliding scale, so you pay what you can ($15, $35, or $50). Courses typically last about eight weeks, and each one comes with a built-in community of others also taking it. The idea, says Taylor, who teaches “Meditation for the Highly Sensitive Person,” is for people to connect with others grappling with the same issues.
Being a ‘Sensitive Person in an Insensitive World’
Taylor has personal experience with the subject matter: She’s highly sensitive to all five senses. “I can’t have loud. I have earplugs all the time,” she says. “I hate polyester; I can only have cotton or silk on me. I can weep by looking at a beautiful flower, listening to a beautiful piece of music, looking at a beautiful piece of art. I can’t be in crowds. We sensitive people tend to suffer from anxiety and depression more often than the neuro-typical people without the trait. My whole life I was told, ‘Don’t be so sensitive. Don’t be so dramatic.’ I just thought I had this huge personality flaw.” “The course is really practical and gives tips and tricks on how to navigate being a sensitive person in an insensitive world,” she says. “Because the world is not going to feel sorry for you. They’re going to call you a snowflake.” At this point in her life and career, Taylor doesn’t much worry about what people say about her. “This is my genetic makeup,” she says. “I’m very firm and very clear on what I can and cannot do in my life. I need nine hours sleep. I will not negotiate on that. I can’t do a meeting before 10 a.m. I don’t negotiate on that. “Everybody just wants to be acknowledged as a human on this earth,” she says. “I feel like I went through hell to help other people, and I’ve come out the other side by creating the life that I want to create for myself. I feel very much that my life’s work is to help other people. I’m an open book. There is not anything that I won’t talk about. Nothing.” Madisyn Taylor is a No. 1 Billboard recording artist and international bestselling and award-winning author. She is cofounder and editor-in-chief of the popular inspirational website DailyOM and is responsible for all its content. A recognized leader in self-help and New Thought spirituality, she has more than 25 years experience in personal development and alternative-healing methodologies. Her series of guided meditation albums include Meditation for the Highly Sensitive Person and Releasing Fire Meditation (along with two others), and her books include the international bestselling Hay House title DailyOM: Inspirational Thoughts for a Happy, Healthy, and Fulfilling Day and DailyOM Learning To Live. Her newest bestselling and award-winning book from Simon & Schuster is Unmedicated The Four Pillars of Natural Wellness. She has also appeared in the feature documentary film Sensitive: The Untold Story, and is a popular guest on radio shows and podcasts. When not working, Madisyn can be found meditating in her garden, walking, or communing with nature.
