S5:E30 - Life by Design with Brooke Clay Taylor

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Our guest on today's episode is Brooke Taylor of Rural Gone Urban. That is the name of her marketing and branding agency, along with the name of her new foundation, the Rural Gone Urban Foundation, which we talk about a bit in this episode. Brooke joins us to discuss, uh, well, it's a wide-ranging, lovely conversation, as many of these end up being, um, but we discuss what it feels like to live a big life professionally in a small town, how to balance a lot of— she called them glass balls in the air— how to juggle them and do that with some, like, some relative ease. We talk about what it means to live your life by design versus default. And this is all wrapped in a really heartwarming, wrenching and hope-fueled story, I would say, of Brooke's personal life. And again, I don't wanna give too many spoilers. I'll let her tell her story. But again, this just illustrates that all over the world, at any given time, there are people navigating things similar to what you're going through. And we just continue to hope, that's our commitment to you in this show, that we highlight the stories of those people, the people that are willing to share their story and willing to be vulnerable vulnerable because it's not always easy. And it was so awesome to finally meet Brooke. I've followed her for years. She's always— she's had an online presence for a long time and she's doing really great work and there's so much we can learn from her. So get out your pencils and your— or your pens, your favorite Sharpie gel pen if you're like me, and your favorite notebook and get ready to make lots of notes listening to our new friend Brooke Taylor. Well, hi Brooke, welcome to the show.

Hi, thanks for having me.

It's so fun to finally meet you. I have followed your story. Um, well honestly, I'll be, I'll be real about it. I've been following you kind of since I started growing small towns. I've been back in my community for 16, almost 17 years now, which is why I—

wow.

But it was in 2019 that I stumbled upon you and, and everything that you've been doing. So, It's super great to meet you in person. And by person, I mean over Zoom. You're not sitting right here with me.

We all meet in 2025, right?

It is. It is. Welcome. I'm super excited to, to dive in with you. So, um, because as we were just talking, um, I already find you delightful. I can just tell that we're gonna have a lovely conversation. So this could go in a million directions. How about we just say, Start, start at whatever you want to consider the beginning. If it's the beginning of Rural Gone Urban, maybe as a business, we could start there. If there's a different place that you're like, actually, I thought it started here, but it really starts here. I'm down. You pick a place to start, Brooke, and we will, we will navigate it together.

This feels like a little much-needed therapy session because I'm in a crossroads. Of all of the things, and I've yet to really dedicate the time in filtering them out and what would be my elevator speech of who I am as a person, what I do professionally, how I navigate through my community. So honestly, this is really great for me and you're saving me a therapy bill. So thank you.

Oh, you're welcome. My pleasure.

So I am a multi-business owner who also runs a nonprofit who is also a serial volunteer in my small town, and I love all of it, and I don't want to say no to any of it. In fact, I'm, I'm a perpetual yes-sayer to the detriment of probably my friends and family. They're always telling me to, to say no to something, but I don't want to. All of it lights me on fire.

All of that.

I love every second of it. So if we were to say what's the beginning, I think we just drop right into the shit show that is 2019, and that is I created a career working for others and I loved it. I ate it up. I was on flights all the time working for national and international brands, for really ginormous advertising agencies. And I found myself in a not so great relationship. And I did the classic Lifetime to Hallmark movie switch. And I love that. I know. And I moved back to Oklahoma and I got my last name back and I launched Rogue on Urban from an apartment in a horse barn with no internet. A digital agency. It was incredible. It was the best year of my life.

Can I ask a quick, a quick clarifying question for anybody that hasn't dug into your past? You were doing advertising and like marketing for, for what kind of— give us—

agricultural and food organization. So I worked for the advertising side for very large, well-known ag brands that y'all see every day. I was behind the scenes and I was behind the brand. My clients knew my names, but no one else and it was kind of the perfect place to be, almost like the Wizard of Oz. Like, I was kind of the choreographer and it was incredible. And I was living in Nashville. I lived in a lot of big cities, but before the transition back to Oklahoma, I'm in Nashville in a picture-perfect house. My agency is on the Boston Harbor. My largest client is in Indiana, and I'm just jet-setting all over the place, living a very big and bold life. And then I moved back to where I grew up in Payne County, Oklahoma, in an apartment in the horse barn. You know, honestly posted up at Panera Bread because it had the best high-speed internet in Stillwater, launching a business. And it was incredible. And I bet on myself and it worked. And I— can I ask you my life?

Can I ask a question? I mean, you're going to say yes. Was there— did you have any of that? Because you just talked about how, like, you actually loved it, right? You were going to be doing this for yourself, but you were, you were back in a place where I'm going to maybe ask, did you always anticipate leaving it? Was there— were you ever thinking about coming back? Did you have any of that boomerang, that weird feeling of just like, gosh, like, I'm, I'm coming back here of my own accord. I've made this decision. But like, what does this say about me? Because you literally just painted quite a— I mean, that's, that's kind of like any young— I'll just say girl. Boys feel this way too, probably. But like, you literally just described the life I always thought I would at some point have, and I never actually totally got there, right? I went to a bigger city, but never— like, that's really— yeah, that's a lot to— and I'm gonna put air quotes on this— like, give up.

It was a lot of pride to swallow, but I also had to do it to save myself.

Okay.

Like, there's a lot of asterisks and side quests that were going with I ultimately had to quit my job for the agency at the Boston Harbor because there are no direct flights from Tulsa or Oklahoma City to Boston. And I knew logistically to save myself, I was going to have to give up something. And I was worth way more than all the others.

Okay.

That makes sense.

It does.

And as a, as a young person growing up in Payne County, Oklahoma, who went to school for agricultural communications and international agriculture, there was only one path at the time for success. And that path was leaving, period. End of discussion. There were no other alternatives. That was ingrained in me as an FFA kid in 8th grade. Like, if you want to do something, you have to leave. I'm grateful that's not the case today.

Same.

But it was really—

it takes— and it takes us, though. It takes people, not just us, but people like us, people— somebody has to actually change the narrative by not only living it But then talking about it, and I just, I like literally shout this from the rooftops because even though my life, like what I gave up isn't even close to what you gave up to come here, I've really had to maneuver and massage and like navigate trying to be who I feel like I was actually put on the earth to be and do it from this little town. It hasn't been easy. Like, I just, I think, and I think it's BS. Like, for me, it's BS to be like, oh, it's just been all great. It's been all super great and super hard, right? But I think That's like, I really want people to hear us say that. Like, it's different now.

You can build— It is a different challenge.

Yes.

Yes.

But the possibility exists now. And also, just for some reference, can you— how big is Payne County?

Well, it depends on how big is the town that I grew up in. So I grew up in what I call a shmedium town, which is we had a red light and Sonic. Yeah. So I graduated with 70. 6 kids.

Okay. Yeah.

Um, so not, not super small because we're a suburb of Stillwater. So in the summertime, a lot less people in Payne County, you know, right now there's no way that you're gonna get front row parking while the college kids are in town. Um, so kind of the best of both worlds there.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. So you move back, you are at Panera, setting up shop in Panera on a regular basis.

Crazy, right? So I then, you know, I told you I transitioned from Lifetime to Hallmark, and I did the classic Hallmark fall in love with the boy, get married in a snowstorm in Montana, get pregnant with a baby, just really leaning into my career. I have incredible clients. I have some national and state clients. Like, I'm just rocking and rolling.

That's so, that's, it's so great.

I love it. It's so, it was incredible. I was like, oh, I literally bet on myself and now it's all happening. Like, this is it. This is everything I've prayed for. I'm working in a rural Oklahoma town with the hot smoke show of a guy. Like, I'm gonna become a mom. I have big clients. This is incredible. Bam. Cancer diagnosis on the day I became a mom. And it just— all of it went up in smoke.

The day you became a mom, like you gave birth on the same day you got a cancer diagnosis. Is that what you're saying?

That is what I'm saying. Yes, ma'am. That is sure what happened. So here's how it went down. The CliffsNotes is while I was growing a baby and working a lot and doing all of the, the things that we do in life, just living, I noticed something happening on one of my breasts and I brought it up to my doctor and he said, that's just something that happens when you're becoming a mom. And I thought, okay, I mean, you're the doctor. And unfortunately he was wrong. And at my 38-week appointment, I took my shirt off and I was an advocate and I said, I'm not leaving until you feel this, like what's happening? And that was a Thursday or Friday. I met a breast health specialist on Monday morning. He called me at 8:00 AM and told me it was cancer. And at 2:00 that day, I became a mom. And I had thought the biggest surprise about that day would be learning if she were a girl or a boy. And it turns out the biggest one was learning that not only is she a Cancer per her sign, right, being born in July, I also grew a cancer at the same time. So, um, pretty wild day. Of July in 2019.

Well, okay, so I read this. I read this, but hearing you say it, it hits me entirely differently. I realize that you're sitting here across from me. I feel like you're right here. One day, maybe we'll be in the same room together.

Yeah, someday.

And I know that you take this situation. I know, I know. I can tell that there's just like a grit and a resilience in your entire being that you've, you've transformed that into something incredible. And we'll go wherever that takes us here. But I just want to pause for a moment and tell you how how sorry I am for that incredible experience. Like, I have 3 kids. I, you know, moms don't forget what it's like to give birth. You don't forget the day that your children are born. You don't forget what was happening. I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine what a conflicting day that had to be for you, Brooke.

So I know it's a thing to say, oh, this was my worst nightmare, but I feel like that actually underplays it because that would, that would insinuate that I was shocked by that happening. But the truth is my dad passed away when I was 6 years old from cancer, and so my literal nightmare my whole life was to become a mom and to get cancer and to leave my kid. So this in a lot of ways wasn't shocking. It was just even more terrifying than you could exist because I had already been the kid who'd lost the parent to cancer.

That's— there's— there is no— to me, there is no way to sugarcoat that. There is no way to like gloss it up. And there's no platitude or trite cliché on the planet that can really articulate how that had to feel for you.

Yeah. And here's what I think. I'm always looking for the silver linings. I think it's just who I was. People ask me why. I don't know. I think it's in my DNA. But what was a silver lining of this was I didn't sit in shock long. Because I'd already processed this and I already knew, well, I can't change it. This wasn't my fault. I didn't do anything to deserve this. It wasn't something I ate. It wasn't my deodorant. It was literally my DNA that I inherited from my dad, if we're being honest. Um, my DNA said that there was an 87% chance it was going to rain in my lifetime. I did not know that at the— please know, I did not know that, to be on the offense. I do know that I do know that now, but it was just a little bit in the cards for me. But it happened. It is a part of my story. It's unfortunately part of my daughter's story. And honestly, it was just kind of a speed bump in the year 2019. Did I go on to look like an eyebrow-less potato? Yeah, I didn't look like the cute cancer girly from all your rom-coms, but I continued to work and I continued to rock my baby and learn how to do all of those things. And it was terrible. And for a hot second that season, was behind me, right? Like, my hair grew back. I went through the Jimmy Neutron phase. My kids started crawling. I went from 3-month to 6-month checkups and I got my clients back and, and everything was rosy for a hot second. But unfortunately, it did come back. Statistically, it should not have had a complete response to chemo at the time of surgery. I did radiation. I gave my ovaries over to the cancer gods. I'd make a joke about that. I'm kidding, but like kind of, you know, I gave them over as an offering and it didn't work. Exactly. And it came back and my kid was 2 and a half and it was the world's worst day. In fact, the day I was officially confirmed that it came back was March 11th of 2022, which happened to be the day that my dad went to heaven when he was 25.

You are like— that's the kind of stuff you just like can't Make up.

Just, you can't make it up. And it happened.

Like, what kind of a sick joke would that be? But like, that's crazy, Brooke.

Crazy. And so, um, it actually happened to be the same day that a drug was approved for my use. Hadn't been approved for my use before. And so I immediately was able to start taking that drug. And, um, this is where it comes in, the biggest silver lining. And I know that you can appreciate this. From a small town perspective, and that is what happens when someone dies too young. The local bank does a scholarship and it goes on for like 5 to 7 years, and it's wonderful, and I do not want to downplay that at all. And also, I'm an entrepreneur. I've been behind brands. I've seen what can happen as when you just take control, and I was scared And I knew, what can I do to distract myself behind how scary this is? And that's, well, let's launch a foundation and I will just own the narrative of what my legacy is because I will literally write it. I'm a copywriter by trade. I build brands for a living. What if I build a brand that's so ridiculous my kid can't outrun the things I love for her? Because if I go out to heaven too early, None of these people are going to want to let me down anyway. So we did, and we are, and it's incredible.

So tell me about— tell me more about the foundation.

So the foundation— so when I was in college, my roommate and I, when we moved to Oklahoma City, we started a blog called The Rural Gone Urban, and it was just two girls in our 20s with this blog. And we just, we didn't have any money. So, you know, we did this thing and she moved home and I kept the blog. And when I moved home in 2019 or 2017, um, I needed a business name. I was in the middle of transitioning of last names. Thank God. And I needed a brand. And so that blog name became my business name, Rural Gone Urban. It was my Instagram handle for years and I had blogged under that name for years and I made it an official LLC. So that's been my brand. And a lot of people just know me as Rural Gone Urban. Which is kind of silly, but I, but I love. And so I thought, well, let's just add a foundation on the end and that can just, that name can go live on forever because it's catchy and it's cute. And so the foundation, I know without a doubt because of my lived experience, if I'm to graduate to heaven early, people will only tell my child how incredible I am. And on paper, I am amazing, truly. Truly, I am a first-generation college kid who was an overachiever in college, who was a homecoming queen, who got her master's degree. I wore an orange robe on graduation day as like the— I don't even know what it's called— a graduate of distinction. I don't even know if that's real, but I did, and it was cute and fancy. And then I went and had this big career, and then I launched my own business. And so now I'm an entrepreneur who learned how to do it from the ground up, and that sounds really wonderful on paper. And then I launched a foundation because I want to help women in the trenches of cancer, because I want them— I want to show them by example that you are way more than your medical chart. You know, just because I've had cancer at one point, or I take— I actively take medicine to this day, that I don't need to lead with that. And so we focus on these 3 tough seasons of my life that bring joy to others. And so we give scholarships to— we don't care about your GPA, just gritty and hardworking young women. We give marketing grants to women in the trenches because sometimes, you know, you're on irs.gov on a Friday night when all your friends are hanging out, but like you are so in the trenches of launching your business, you'll do whatever it takes to succeed. And then we do love bombs because I was the mom, I am the mom who's thinking about how can I continue to mother this child if I'm not here? And sometimes For some moms, it's printing the 40,000 photos on your phone. For other moms, it's buying milestone gifts. For some, it's taking your son deep sea fishing. Whatever it is, no questions asked to do it. Can't use it on a medical bill, but you can use it to focus on your legacy. So that's what we're doing. Isn't that wild? And we will be 4 years old in March.

How many— how much money have you given away? How, like, how many scholarships? Do you know any of your stats?

I'm sorry, you were not prepared for this, of course, but I mean, if you can round about, like, hold on, you asked me that, but I actually have the spreadsheet open, so let me—

how handy, Brooke, how handy.

As of today, $64,900 for Love Bomb recipients. Um, we have done $15,000 in small business grants and $39,000 in scholarships.

That's absolutely incredible.

Mm-hmm.

You, you really are, um, I'm just gonna say it, I, I would say that you're not just impressive on paper, dear, you're fairly impressive just like in the flesh. This is, this is, it's, it's wild to me. Um, how you're basically choosing— it's not even— it's a pivot, but it's also— it's like a reframe. It's like something comes. It's not— again, I just think you're a testament, in my opinion, to somebody that instead of saying— because again, there's so many things we can do and say when really tough stuff happens, and anything that feels like, lands trite on my brain, I just want to immediately dismiss and be like, that's not, that's not helpful. But you are just taking it and saying, like, I'm going to make this my purpose. It's like you're, you're repurposing these really difficult things into, into not only useful but powerfully good initiatives. They're creating more hope. Like, it's It's— I'm actually pretty blown away.

Well, thank you. I think I know that when you receive, let's say, a cancer diagnosis, people immediately like to use these descriptors of you're inspirational or you're powerful, or my least favorite, you're a warrior. Gross.

Can you say that? Yeah, I have a friend that felt the same way who went through cancer.

I didn't. I didn't sign up to be in this war. I got enlisted to a war I don't want to fight. I can't see those air quotes, but I'm using them. But I don't care about— I don't care about it. I don't want to wear the color pink. This— I don't even want this to be part of who I am as a human. And when last week I called to let some of our love bomb recipients know, I'm very honest with them. This isn't like a rom-com. This is literal hell. And there are days where you're going to think, what in— what in the world happened that I would be deserving of this? And the answer is nothing.

Nothing.

First, is it The Good Place? Like, bad luck of the draw. Um, and I, I think women— I know women just want to be seen, right? Like, in college, so many people were, uh, I would say glorified the fact that I was a homecoming queen and I was never in a sorority, or I paid my entire undergrad through scholarships. And yes, all that stuff is incredible, but do you know what was actually the most character-building moments of those years? It was the humbleness. I had to call my dad once and be like, hey, I'm $50 short on my, on my car payment, can I borrow money?. And like, I cried before I made that call, phone call, because I was so proud that I was doing that on my own. And it was working 3 jobs because no one else was going to save me and help me go to college. It was on my own. And, and it was not even knowing what to wear to a banquet because no one in my family had ever gone to a banquet before. It wasn't like I could ask my family, like they didn't know. And listen, young listeners, um, back in 2007, what you wear to a banquet wasn't scroll TikTok and shop the TikTok shop. It was walk into Maurices and buy what was ever on the mannequin, including the jewelry. Right, right. Like, we didn't have a lot of guidance. And I think I know that so many times we focus on the outcome and the good stuff is really happens in the trenches. That's the good stuff.

I totally agree. I mean, well, and it's not like we're calling it the good stuff. It's actually the stuff that, like you said, builds character. Ends up defining what we're really made of. But I think it's also really fair to just say, like, that doesn't mean you're welcoming the depths of some of that pain because you're not. But it's also like, what are you going to do with it? You know, every single person. But it doesn't mean you have to love it all. Like, I think there's just— there has to be more room in our lives, in our relationships, in our life, and like, just regular life for that nuance, for the nuance, for the conflicted feelings. Because like, I can't again, I feel a little bit like you've had a couple of just really poignant moments of just pure conflict and feelings. Getting a cancer diagnosis and having a baby on the same day. It's almost like hope is lost, filled back up, lost again, filled back up. Like, like, simultaneously, like, in sync, in synchrony, right? Like it's happening at exactly the same time. And the same thing with getting your second cancer diagnosis on the same day that you lost your dad. Those things are just right. And you get to just feel all of it and welcome all of it in and then decide how to repurpose it into meaning. Because what you've done, Brooke, is you've made deep meaning out of everything that's happened to you.

Thank you for saying that.

And not everybody knows. We're not told or taught how to do that. So all the credit goes to you and of course, your support system. I'm sure you have an incredible support system. I still, as a woman that knows what it takes to build a strong support system, I still would like to give the credit to you for that. You have to be the kind of person that people can and want to support. You have to be the kind of woman that can ask for help, which isn't always easy to do. Like, if you've got a strong support network, you've built it kind of brick by brick. So damn, I wasn't expecting to, um, be totally inspired on a December Monday, December 1st, 2025, but here we are.

So you bring up a really good point. My friends and I have been talking a lot about being a villager. So many— I feel like I see TikToks about, I don't have a village like my, my mom did or my grandma did. And it's like, well, are you a villager? Are you showing up when it's inconvenient, when it's uncomfortable? Because you're not putting into something you can't take out.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So important in in a small community too. I think there's just a lot of stuff that happens in a small community kind of like by default.

Yeah.

And I think what would it look like if we did these things more by design instead of just like defaulting to the way things tend to be?

So I said at the beginning that I feel like I'm in this chaos of I don't know what my elevator speech is.

Yeah.

Because I'm in this transition of— so I have my business where I do coaching and I have this really incredible client. I do all of my keynote speaking and my brand ambassador stuff. And, and then I also have this new opportunity where I'm an owner of another company. So it's called Empire Ag, and I actually started with them in 2022 when my cancer came back as a contractor and they were launching their business from scratch. So I've been with them as a contractor from the beginning. There were just two of us. And now we are a team of 15, and I bought in as, uh, an owner, and we do brand strategy and all the stuff I did through agencies. And I kind of took that leap to say, you know, there was this hesitation truly of like, what do you mean I can't go be a business owner and take this opportunity because I take cancer treatment twice a day for the rest of my life? And then I thought, no, I tell every woman to go live boldly, and if I I should— I, I'm passionate about this company. I ride for this brand and I love our clients, and we serve farmers and renters and ag businesses all across the country. Like, I can do both. Of course I could do both. And so I just am, and I'm excited and I love it and it's incredible. And here comes the weird, I would say, piece of being in a small town where your job is kind of like this, how we're meeting virtually, and I have clients all over the country. No one actually knows what I do for a living, and that's okay, right? Like, it's I'm walking around town with a banner. And so I find myself like as a PTA mom and an Ag Booster, and now I'm the 4-H leader. And then our state 4-H office noticed this growth in our 4-H club. So now they're asking me to be on, you know, committees for state 4-H. And, you know, I have less, way less hours than Beyoncé because I don't have any of her assistants. And I also want to be like, guys, I'm on cancer treatment and I'm tired. Tired, but I don't want to tell anyone that, you know. And so someone recently found out that I technically have an incurable cancer diagnosis that I'll have to keep in my medical chart forever. And then I take it and they're like, what do you mean? Like, they were confused. They're like, what do you mean? I was like, yeah, it's fine. I just feel hungover and tired every day, but I just keep doing all the things. And they just like could not comprehend that that was real. It's like, I'm so grateful that you didn't know that, and I just power through and you have no idea. And also, I'm tired, but also it's amazing. And the just living is the holding point.

The Growing Small Towns show is recorded locally at the Growing Small Towns podcast studio located in Oakes, North Dakota. It's produced by Pheasant Canteen Studio in Aberdeen, South Dakota, with marketing support from Cassidy Johnston in Canyon City, Colorado. Our intro music was created and produced exclusively for Growing Small Towns by James Bergman, singer and songwriter from Fargo, North Dakota. Local and small, it's what we support and it's who we love. Get your community a shout out on the podcast. Call 701-203- 8337 and share your small town success that you just don't feel is being celebrated quite enough and let us shout you out. You can also share your biggest people challenge and we'll dedicate an episode to offering ideas to help. Hell, you can basically tell us anything and we'll do what we can to answer. We can't wait to hear from you.

You know the hardest part about community work? It's not the funding or the planning. It's the people stuff. The burnout. The resistance to change. The "we've always done it this way" people. And that's why we started the Growing Small Towns Club, a place where community doers and dreamers can bring their toughest challenges, share what's working, and feel a little less alone. It's part think tank, part pep talk, work and 100% heart. Join us for just $30 a month at growingsmalltowns.org/club because communities thrive when their people do.

Today's episode is brought to you by The Yellowbird, the small family-run skincare company that proves you don't need a science degree in chemistry to read a product label. My good friend Nicole started The Yellowbird because she wanted safe, natural, Paula Jensen found super simple ingredients for the products for her own kids. And now the rest of us just get to benefit. Everything is chemical-free, fragrance-free, and full of ingredients that actually do what they're supposed to do, and at a price that you can actually afford. They are practically the official skincare brand of GST. We highly recommend the face oils and the chapstick. Try these products out for yourself and use code GST at checkout to save. Right. Okay. Can we dive into some of this a little bit? Are you comfortable with that? I just want to ask you so many questions. First of all, I want to go back to this comment of you're in this small community where legitimately people just don't know what you do. I have no idea. I completely understand this. I completely understand this. And it's short of wearing a sandwich board and walking up and down your main street. Somehow demonstrating your skill set. I don't, I don't know what—

I don't know, I don't know how you get over that hurdle.

I think, I think it's important for, for women, um, hi, and I, I will— I, I think it's important for men too. I, I feel this really deep need to call this out for women because of the community that women really need, you know, to function. We And men need it too. I don't know, I just feel like women, it's also just— we're not— it's not as kind of culturally appropriate or societally appropriate to brag in any meaningful way. And I'm in the Midwest where culturally we just like, we don't talk, we don't brag at all. I mean, it's like, don't toot your own horn, let someone else toot it. The sound will be louder or whatever. That's, that's how it was. So I just think like, it's really hard. That is a hard thing to navigate because— and Cassidy, who introduced me to you, works with us here at GST. We were talking about this and we were saying like, it's this weird experience to feel like you're kind of a big deal, but like nobody would actually care and you don't really care. But there still is this like— it almost— I think what it feels like, you said it earlier, I think it feels like you're not fully seen. Yeah, it's not that I want people to think I'm a big deal because that isn't what it's about, right? But it's sometimes I just— you have those feelings or those moments where you're like, do you know though? So like, what I do? And I just think it's such a— it's again, back to conflicting feelings. There we go, right? It's so hard.

Yes. So I know that there are certain clients that I— if I were to attend a client meeting and I walk into their corporate boardroom, I do not have to, like, I, there's just an automatic respect there. They, they already respect what I bring to the table. They value my insight. Um, they're excited that I'm there. And then sometimes in a smaller community, it's, oh, Brooke can make a Facebook post kind of a thing. Like, that's the value I can bring, which is fine. And also I'm happy to do that after my kid goes to bed, 100%. Um, And also, you know what I'm saying? Like, I have to explain to people why I— it's uncomfortable to explain, hey, here's actually the value I could bring. Um, you know, I can actually have a whole team of designers that I could, you know, do some comp hours for. But then, then I have to explain to people that I own a business that they've never even heard of. And it's like a whole— it's a thing, you know?

It is. And I just, I, I just really deeply resonate with that. And I also think it's important that we're just saying some of these things because of the fact that, again, I think it's— it feels like we're both pretty passionate about people following their passion, especially if they wanna start a business.

Yeah.

Um, and of course I want people to do that in whatever corner of the world they want, right? Big town, small town. If you're in a small town, you just have to understand that this might be a dynamic. This might be a dynamic that you have to traverse. And it's not— it's not a bad thing. But I do think this is why we have these conversations. This is why you're surrounded by other entrepreneurs and business owners. I'm sure you have a pretty good core of people that you can say these things to and they get it.

Yeah, I just—

oh my goodness, it's so important. It's so important.

Struggle for a while. My— I would say my community of friends who are like-minded are not in my town. They're all across. Right. It's phone calls, Snapchat, like whatever, how we're keeping in touch. Long voice memos. But I am so lucky. I feel like I've been pouring into this small town village, um, for a long time. And now there's this group of women here in my small town.

So great.

And I'm not from this small town. We live— I don't live where I grew up. I live a couple hours away because of my husband's job. And but now, like, if I get invited, let's say that they're going to go to a lunch or do something for someone's birthday in midday, because a lot of them maybe either also work from home or stay-at-home moms, And now they're just like, yes, Brooke, come. My car has Wi-Fi. You can sit in the backseat. And they are so accepting and such great cheerleaders of like, there's no way Brooke is going to be able to reschedule all of her calls, but like, they're okay with it and they embrace and love that about me. And they might not get it, but they get it, you know? Yeah.

And so they get— they welcome it, right? They at least don't actively not get it. Which is different.

So I kind of feel presidential, you know, I'll be in the back of the SUV with like my laptop and I'm just like, with your driver, you know, with a girl gang. It's so, it's so silly, but I love it.

No, it's so great. And I just think that's so, that's so important. So, okay, I wanted, so I wanted to touch on that, but then like, I really want to ask you if you are, you do you feel like burnout or just a little bit of that depth of tiredness that you're talking about? Is it starting to feel harder to ignore? I'm actually asking because I understand that you want to say yes to everything. You're a chronic yes sayer, right? You just say yes. I just want to check. I just want to check in on you.

I love a welfare check. So there's two layers here. One, if you go to the medicine I have to take twice a day, every day, forever, or if it stops working, it literally tells me to take on the website, it advises a nap every day.

And you're like, when am I going to do that?

When am I going to do that? A nap every day. Like it is It is brutal medicine. When I first— my body's acclimated to it now a little better, but when I first started taking it, I would take this small pill and I would literally be in bed for an hour because I could feel my bones vibrating. So now I've just become used to it, but that's still happening to me. I just am used to it. So that level of fatigue, medical fatigue, is so different than burnout. So I battle that every day. And then I would say, yes, there is a little bit of burnout. I would say creeping. I'm trying to do a better job of, of Pausing, but I would say, I don't know what this says about my psyche, but I'm fueled by respect. I don't need my name to be on a billboard. I just enjoy acknowledgement. Like, to me, there's no greater reward than like a, like a silent head nod from across the room. Just like an, I see you. If that makes sense. That's like, that's like buckets of gold to me. Just like, I see you. And I'll be like, I will move mountains for you. Just because you acknowledge that I'm, I'm here to help the greater cause. So there are days. So as I'm a leader of an organization, a non— a youth organization, a local club. And one day, you know, here I am managing these two businesses and a nonprofit, which, by the way, I'm the, I'm the board chair and the executive director. So a lot of people think that we have someone running the nonprofit. It's me. I do that. I don't know when, but I do that too. So the, the person said, oh, I just don't have time to do that. And I was like, they wanted me to do an, like, do something for them. And in my mind I was calculating, okay, if I do this for you, because I know your kid needs this and I want to do this for your kid, I'm gonna have to cancel 2 meetings at a minimum, reschedule my whole day, and it's going to do this. But I believe, and I don't know what's going on behind that parent's story, but like, it sounds to me like you just don't want to. And like, I don't know if that makes sense. I don't know if this is going— if this is even relevant to the podcast, but I think that like—

You're good. Yeah, no, you're good.

Sometimes it feels like I need everyone to care as much as I do, and maybe I just need to talk about that in therapy. But sometimes I feel like I care too much and I just need other people to catch up a little bit.

Oh man. Okay, so I'm not a therapist. Let me just say, I feel like a lot of the conversations we end up having are akin to it. They're adjacent. We'll call it tangential and adjacent to therapy. I think that the hardest thing about that is that there's nothing wrong with you holding yourself to that expectation. There's just not—

you can't expect other people.

Yeah. I mean, and that's just it. And you actually can't step in the gap for other people in that way. So it might be some boundary stuff that you could explore, you know what I mean? Like, and it doesn't—

I took this on a side quest.

Well, you're good.

No, you're good.

Like, this is just reality, though. Like, my goodness, I can't even tell you the number of times we've talked about how hard it is to say no.

Yeah.

You know, and it's not just— and the difference here is you're a vivacious yes. Yes-sayer, and you're a full-throated yes-sayer. But you say it with intention, you mean it. More often, I feel like women are saying yes when they don't mean it, and that's bad for everybody, women and men. People say yes out of—

for all the wrong reasons.

For sure. They feel guilty, they feel shamed, they feel kind of pushed or into it somehow. That's a different story. But I do think that you'll have to, because I don't know, Brooke, maybe as long as you're not looking at people and feeling kind of like low-key disappointed. Oh, no, it doesn't seem like that with you. So, I mean, there's no perfect way to do any of this. I just feel the depth of your fatigue, like, just trying to imagine everything. And we haven't even really touched on how old your daughter is.

She's 6.

Okay.

She's in first grade. Yeah, she's incredible.

Yeah. So that's busy. And, you know, you have a family life on top of everything else. Like, it's a lot.

It is. And also, I would be like this whether cancer was in the chat or not. You know, this is just kind of who we are. This is just who I am.

So, yeah, one of the things I read on when I was kind of, you know, do— I don't really do research for this podcast. I'd rather just do this. So thank you for entertaining just a big messy conversation because that's how it should be to me. But I was looking at your keynotes and one of the things that you talk about, and I just want to call out this particular— I won't— I'm paraphrasing. I won't get the words exactly right, but you had noted that just because your pain isn't cancer doesn't mean it's insignificant. And I would love for you to talk a little bit about that, because I actually think in small communities, we do a lot of that pain comparison that actually manifests in kind of an unhealthy way. And then I think a lot of people are closeted about their pains. That's such a specific word that's usually used in a very specific context, but I simply mean we're hiding it. Right. And when we keep hard stuff in the dark, it starts to kind of metastasize again, to use the language of cancer, like it grows, it becomes more toxic. And I just don't think that's helpful. It's not good for all of us. So I really wanted to ask you about that because you specifically called that out, and I thought that was really important for more people to hear. So would you share a little bit about kind of what that— because that's part of your— one of your central keynote messages. Yeah. Okay.

Yes. So what I noticed while I was going through the season of baldness is no one— everyone else's life seemed to be going really well. And at first I thought, oh, I must just be really in the bad place of going through cancer treatment. And then I realized, no, No one's telling me about what's going on in their lives because— and they, in their minds, it was nothing compared to me being eyelashless and, you know, gaining 45 pounds of steroid weight. Like, in their minds, there was no way it was as close to what I was dealing with. But of course, I want to hear what my sister's going through and my best friends are going through. Of course, I want to know why they're annoyed at their husband. Like, give me the tea. Let me know. Why are you mad at your boss? What, like, you're going to tell me that I've learned about all of the subcharacters of your life for the past 20 years, but all of a sudden I don't get to know why Janet is ticking you off in that, like, at the water cooler? Like, what do you mean? Like, and so what I found was kind of twofolds was one, if we downplay what we're actually feeling, like you said, it just manifests. So like, we have to feel those Care Bears, otherwise they're just going to become monsters. And two, do other people the service of allowing them to sit in the trenches with you. Because just like we have to be villagers and go out and be part of the village, if we don't allow people to sit in the pain with us, then no one's going to come and help us. Like, no one's coming to save us unless we offer them an invitation.

Right, right.

This is also— yeah, just like maybe you did have a really bad morning and you had a flat tire and someone cut you off and maybe you forgot your debit card at home and maybe that was super embarrassing at the Walmart when you were trying to check out, but then you didn't have your card. Maybe it did give you PTSD from when you were a child and your parents didn't have a lot of money. That probably sucked, you know, and it's okay that it sucked. It's okay.

Yeah, I, I think it's just so interesting. I've done— I personally have done a lot of therapy in the last handful of years, and I feel like I've learned a lot about the— just kind of the— how to emotionally process But I think, too, there's a lot of kind of canned personal development ideas that I think they— again, it's that triteness that I was talking about. Like, even the book, like, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, and it's all small stuff. I'm like, yeah, but sometimes the small stuff, it just depends. Like, on one day it might bother you, the next day it might not. And it still is a moment of connection. And I don't only connect with people over pain. I mean, for heaven's sake, that's not true at all. But I think what you're saying is because it is. It's an invitation into your heart, your life, and your experience. And I think it's so important not to do that general comparison of, like, well, it's literally like, well, at least I don't have fill in the blank. Your husband's driving you nuts. And if your friend looks at you and says, well, at least you have a husband, that's not showing up for each other.

That's not helpful.

It's not helpful. And it just makes you then feel bad about feeling bad. I just think that's such a— it's a beautiful part of, um, you're really letting people be human. And I think that's, again, I talk a lot about, um, how we have to avoid letting the robots win, you know, like AI and just everywhere, everywhere that's going. Well, how we do that is that we human better.

Yeah. You know, human better. Oh, that's a really good point.

We have to, otherwise Because, you know, technology is— it's just not— to me, it's never going to replace humans. And I hope I'm not wrong about that. I really like to be right, Brooke, but I really hope I'm right about that one because I just— I think there's something beautiful that happens when people show up for each other.

Before Inspirational or RealReal or Cancer enters the chat, you know, I built a career in communications and marketing and branding and building a brand. And I will tell you that it's just— are you human or are you not? Are you authentic or are you not? Did you run it through ChatGPT 900 times or did you take the time to say, oh, what do I actually want to say here? And that's the baseline of anything I want to work with, whether it's a human or a business, a client. And that's just— I just want more authentic everything in the world. That's it.

Well, because there's no perfect answer to much of anything. Right. And it's because, again, you could tell me exactly how to do something, and I'm still going to have to filter it through my own self, my experience, my lens, my— the life I've lived, where I want to go, all those things. Right. So there's— it's not as if we can't— I don't know. There's steps and there's templates and there's processes and there's all those things. But authenticity means you're applying it in a way that's true for you. And I think it's super special when you think about the fact that none of us are exactly the same. No two of us are exactly alike. I mean, what a cool opportunity. Figure out who you are and become more of that. Things will happen. Things will open up for people.

Yes. Well, I, I believe I'm here where I am today, and all of the doors have opened up for me truly because of 2019 when I, you know, we had talked about I was behind the curtain for all of these brands in my entire career, and I found myself with a newborn scrolling chemo sweat, just living, living a thriving life. And when I would look to see who has walked this path before me, I couldn't find anything. I just— all I could find on Instagram at the time was, or were— and no hate to these people, I don't— I want to be very clear, this is how they chose to walk their path. But it was, it was very a glorified version of chemotherapy. It was It was wigs and makeup and all of this stuff to make yourself beautiful. And I was like, I don't know about you guys, but I feel like Uncle Fester. Like, I am not feeling pretty. And also, I don't want to be pretty. Like, I've seen myself cute before. I know that I was cute before, and I know I could be cute again if we're gonna look at them, you know, the materialistic type things. But so I ordered my kid a black wig, my newborn. She was like 3 months old, a black wig. And I braided it so she looked like Wednesday, and I put black makeup all across my face., and I looked like Uncle Fester for Halloween, and the internet lost their minds. The— I—

how—

like, it was the funniest thing they'd saw because they were like, that is the most ridiculous thing ever. That mom with her newborn, that mom we just saw her beautiful maternity photos of like 3 months ago, right?

It's wild. It's a wild ride.

That is a wild ride. And they were just like, what? Like, this mom is not— and I was like, forget it. I don't need a ball cap. I don't need a wig. Like, here's my head, guys. This isn't great. I'm getting purple stretch marks where used to have white stretch marks, and nothing about this is fun. And that's when I realized, oh, I'll just be my own brand, and I will just create however I want to. And it was so authentic. I believe that's why people were and are drawn to it, because I talk about, yes, my life is wild, yes, I have to take this medicine that I am so appreciative for science, and also it sucks, and also I'm running a business, and also I love my kid, and also I'm not separating and saying separation of church and state. I'm just saying my life is all of it, and it is messy, and that's okay.

Yeah, I know. I love that too. I really— I share that, that general sentiment. I didn't— I don't want to compartmentalize. I like— I've got 3 kids. My kids are all a lot older than yours. They're 16, 14, and 11. And they've been places with me when I'm speaking. They've been— like, my son's been on the podcast, you know. I love that. They know, and they know that this work, my work, is important to me, that the way I show up at home is a reflection of the work, right? Like, all of it. They understand it. They're a part of it. Sometimes I'm gone, right? I travel sometimes for work, and that can be hard. And that's the thing, too. I think a lot of times there's not a lot of understanding of that. It's a quick one that it's pretty easy to judge. And so just again, having that strong support network where you can say it and just know that it's okay, knowing other people that do life that way is really helpful because honestly, like, because I don't know how old you are and you don't have to tell me, but it's almost my birthday. Is it? When's your birthday?

It's 12/12, and I will be 39.

Okay. Yeah, you're knocking on the 40 portal. Is a fantastic voyage. It is.

I moved home a month after I turned 30. I moved back to Oklahoma. So these 10 years have been—

what a crazy—

yeah, what a decade. Like, wild.

And I just— I don't know, I just think like, what you're doing is basically— I don't know, I said this earlier, but it's like every single thing that comes to you, you're actually letting it be what it is, which is a mix of maybe a little bit of good and a little bit of bad, a little bit of hopeful, a little bit of hard. And you're not just dismissing it all as one thing. And I think that's a skill to develop, is to actually hold the tension that sometimes exists in things. And then if it ever starts to tip too much in one direction, maybe that's when you release it. And obviously you don't get to release your cancer treatments, unfortunately. That's just something that you're always going to have to just continue to navigate. But when it comes to the choices we're making, I think that lens of authenticity and you'll continue to shift and grow and change.

Absolutely.

And that's the point.

That's just living with the whole point.

It is. It is. So, gosh, I've loved this conversation, and I knew I would. I read— I mean, I always love talking to people that do speaking for a living. It's a really specific thing to decide to do. And again, I've read the whole basically don't compare your pain. It's not insignificant just because it's not cancer. And I was like, oh, I can't wait to ask her about that. So there was just so many things I knew this was going to be great. As, as we wrap our conversation, what do you really want, especially the women? I— we keep talking about the women. That's okay. I don't mind that being kind of the case. Your foundation is for women, women business owners. What do you want women in small communities? What do you want them to know? What's like a touch of Brooke Taylor, rural gone urban?

Wisdom. You can design your life however you want it to be. Like, you are the captain of the ship. Are there really steep hurdles, and are there steep learning curves? Absolutely. Will it feel impossible some days? Absolutely. And is it possible? 100%. And when I mean design your life, I don't— it's not an MLM, an MLM like get rich situation. I'm talking about the actual how do you live your day-to-day life. Like, it starts, you know, for me it's like cull out the stuff that doesn't fit, cull the humans that don't fit, cull the, the volunteer, cull all it and get it back to what serves you well and then rebuild it how it makes sense for you.

Right. It's beautiful advice. And I think we used the phrase earlier, it's basically the opposite of living by default. And that can be really hard if you have a moment. And honestly, I've walked a lot of women and friends through the 40 Portal. There's something really interesting that happens. Around, I guess, quote unquote, midlife, where you kind of do just start to go, all right, is this really it? Are these things the things I should be doing? And is this the career I should be— it's like you actually start to assess things a little bit, and that's where it starts. You can't call anything if you're not analyzing it or assessing it. You can't address anything if you won't look at it. So, and again, I get it. Yeah. Like, there's not a lot of— not everybody lives this way. Like, I get that a lot of people are just like autopilot and completely doing things by default. Like, I think everybody's made for more.

But yeah, I don't want anyone on this podcast or who's listening to hear, hey, I'm sorry, it's cancer. But you also don't have to hear that to decide how you want to live your life. Like that Tim McGraw song like you could just do it today. And also, if you want to, like, a really humbling experience, like, write your own obituary as if you were gonna die tomorrow and then decide, oh, I love that. Does any of this matter? Yeah, does any of it matter? Because honestly, they only give you so much character space. What fits? What do you want people to say about you? Because there's a difference between what you want people to say about you and then how you actually live your life and if they're going to. Because you actually don't get a say in what they write in your obituary when you're gone. I mean, I'm gonna leave a draft as like a suggestion.

Um, of course you are.

You'd be like, listen, some small edits are welcome, some proofread for grammar, pro Oxford comma. Thanks.

Yes ma'am, we are pro Oxford comma around here too. I love that. But I think I— that's such a great because that's where the don't sweat the small stuff actually is relevant, right? It's like we spend a lot of time thinking about things, pouring our energy and time into things that if it's not obit impactful, what are we doing? You know, what are we doing? And that's just it. I think you had said it to me earlier, and it might have even been before we hit record, where you if you're, if you're a high achieving person, you're going to get tapped on the shoulder a lot, right? To do lots and lots and lots of things. And there's nothing wrong with that. But again, this is where that challenge of, of just actually ascertaining, are you living by default or by design? Are you doing what, you know, people want you to do? Are you doing what will really fill you up? Because when we, when we say yes to those things, it is like actually lighting up. It's our contribution. We're doing it with kind of that full heart and full investment. It's totally different than when we say yes just because we think we should.

Absolutely.

Thank you for sharing everything, of course, with us today, Brooke. It was so great. It was so great to meet you finally.

Yeah, thank you for the invitation.

Well, and And we'll make sure we call everything out in the show notes. And maybe we're going to just have to get you to come and speak in North Dakota sometime.

Oh, my gosh. I would love to. I don't think I've ever— I don't think—

Have you ever been to North Dakota, my dear?

I have driven through North Dakota, but I've not spent a significant amount of time there. But I would love to.

Well, let's figure out maybe 2026 is the year we're going to figure out how to make that happen.

I'd love it. All right, well, thank you so much.

Thank you, Brooke. We'll see you soon.

Bye.

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