Brooke Clay Taylor: Your Next Keynote Speaker
Brooke Clay Taylor brings the real reel to her keynotes with raw, unfiltered transparency and a bit of dark humor.
Brooke Clay Taylor has made a life of clearing hurdles, but she’d be the first to tell you she didn’t jump a single one alone.
Born into a farming family in Franklin, Ind., and raised on a ranch in Perkins, Okla., anyone reading the plot to date might’ve said Brooke’s story was more Lifetime than real-life, more Hallmark than even half-believable. When a high school guidance counselor told Brooke her average grades and would-be first-generation college student status made her a better candidate for job training than higher education, Brooke leaped anyway.
She landed with bachelor’s and master’s degrees and firm footing for a career in strategic communications. Her career, and later, love, took Brooke from Oklahoma City to Charlotte, Austin to Nashville. She left Music City for Payne County when the fairy tale proved fiction, trading the keys for a middle Tennessee Craftsman to a red-dirt-speckled horse barn. With three figures in her bank account, Brooke jumped again: This time to launch Rural Gone Urban, a strategic communications business to support farmers, ranchers and agriculture clients worldwide with her digital prowess.
She married Damon — a fellow Perkins kid and junior high crush come full circle — in a snow globe scene, and together, they made a home on the shores of Lake Tenkiller in Eastern Oklahoma.
The next summer, they welcomed their daughter, Elsie, the same day Brooke was diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite extensive treatment and being declared cancer-free, it returned two years later. Whether in finding the courage to take the first step into a lecture hall she allegedly didn’t belong or the infusion center to face another round of chemo, Brooke credits her support system for never letting her fall.
She founded the Rural Gone Urban Foundation to help women jumping hurdles — the B students, the big dreamers, the start-overers, and especially the women in the ring with cancer — who don’t have the support that has propelled her at every leap.
WHEN A STORM ARISES - LITERALLY OR FIGURATIVELY - WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEAN INTO IT, OR RUN.
Bison do what any of us hope we’d do it in that situation — they face the storm.
While the others — elk, deer, moose, et al. - run, bison turn into the storm. And in doing so, they’re in midst of the storm for less time than those who are running with it.
That’s exactly how Brooke lives her life.
Keynote Topics
-
An Unfiltered Journey Where An Ag Career Intertwines with Real Life
Join Brooke Clay Taylor, founder of Rural Gone Urban and the Rural Gone Urban Foundation, and discover the raw truth behind her remarkable career in strategic communications and entrepreneurship in the agricultural industry, intertwined with the personal struggles of battling cancer and raising a family. Get ready to laugh, cry, and be inspired as Brooke shares the real-life challenges and triumphs that shaped her journey from rural roots to business success.
-
The Real Reel
Throw filters to the wayside and embrace the chaos of life through the POV of growing a baby, and a cancer, at the same time. Brooke’s POV paired with a unique sense of humor will have you laughing, and crying, within the same sentence. The takeaway: you cannot live a life without pivots.
-
Stop Minimizing Your Struggles
Hard is hard is hard. Brooke shares the real reel in all its bald selfies glory: showering off chemo sweat before rocking a baby and client conference calls while in the chemo chair. The thing is, your hard isn't insignificant because it's not caner.
-
When Life Says "hold my Beer"
As a tenured marketing professional who buffered in cities like Boston and Nashville while serving international clients in the agricultural and food space, Brooke shares her journey to entrepreneurship while living in rural Oklahoma with spotty internet service. Spoiler: the journey includes personal heartbreak, faith, and doing the next right thing.