Life experiences develop into inspirational presentations

ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — Brooke Taylor stumbled into becoming an inspirational speaker. It was not something she had set as a career goal.

“I run a strategic consulting business from my guest bedroom and I launched a foundation, so every day I get to hustle two businesses,” said Taylor, owner of Rural Gone Urban and founder of the Rural Gone Urban Foundation.

“Inspirational is weird for me. It’s not how I would describe myself. I’m just doing whatever I need to get through the next day,” she said during a presentation at the Women in Agriculture Conference at Bally’s Quad Cities in Rock Island.

“I’m just a regular person and my dad gave me this perpetual double chin and I love it because it’s from him,” Taylor said.

“He graduated to heaven when he was 25 years old and I experienced losing someone significant when I was in kindergarten,” she said. “I think that’s something we can all relate to — something that we don’t want to happen happens.”

However, for Taylor, the silver lining is Bobby Clay.

“I had an incredible childhood, growing up on a cow-calf operation with this guy,” she said. “He taught me all the things I needed to know and I’m the luckiest person in this room because I got two incredible dads.”

In high school, Taylor was making plans to go to college.

“My high school counselor said she didn’t know if I was smart enough for college,” she said. “But I went to college and I joined everything, because if I was going to be there, I was going to prove that I deserved to be there.”

After completing her college degree, her first job was at the Pork Council.

“They kept talking about an agency and I thought, that’s cool, I want to work at the agency,” Taylor recalled. “That’s when I took my first pivot from ag and it was scary.”

The agency gave her a budget, a camera and a brand-new website.

“I was a travel blogger before a travel blogger was a thing,” she said. “It was the coolest job I ever had.”

Taylor fell in love, got married and moved to North Carolina.

“My career started taking off, but my personal life was not good,” Taylor said.

“So, I left and I launched a business because I really wanted to move back to Oklahoma,” she explained. “I moved home, I had an attorney that cost me $450 per hour and no clients, but I had grit and within a year I had national and international clients.”

When Taylor moved back to Oklahoma, a man she went to high school with also moved back to their home state.

“We got married in a snowstorm in Montana and everything was great,” she said. “I have my dream job, my dream guy and he has his dream job working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife.”

On the same day Taylor gave birth to their daughter, Elsie, she received the diagnosis that she had breast cancer.

“Elsie is the best thing that ever happened to me because at one point I thought I would never become a mom,” she said. “She’s the coolest human I’ve ever made from scratch.”

After completing her chemo treatments, Taylor said, everything went back to normal. However, she received a second cancer diagnosis.

“This type of cancer gives you an expiration date of 13 months,” she said. “So, now I’m here with a 2-year-old, my dream guy and I have been given a ticking clock — that stung a little.”

In an effort to take charge of her own legacy, Taylor started the Rural Gone Urban Foundation just two weeks after the second cancer diagnosis.

“That summer looked pretty awful and I had a lot of blood transfusions because the medicine I was on was trying to take out my bone marrow,” Taylor said.

“I spent a lot of time getting people’s blood,” she said. “So, if you have ever donated blood, thank you for saving my life.”

In 2022, the foundation started raising money, and in 2023, women began receiving money based on three pillars of giving — scholarships, small business loans and love bombs.

“For the scholarships, we don’t care about GPA because some people might be taking care of their younger siblings or working jobs,” Taylor said. “We give the love bombs to women who are facing the impossible.”

Two love bombs have been presented to Illinois women.

“We sent one of them on her last trip before she graduated to heaven,” Taylor said. “I can’t even explain to you what that’s done for their family because now they have memories that have nothing to do with something scary.”

The foundation, which was established three years ago, has presented 21 love bombs, 28 scholarships and three small business grants.

“When we give a love bomb, my daughter calls with me, and when we’re doing a fundraiser, she is on the floor dancing,” Taylor said. “She knows that we focus on the brave and strong women.”

For her cancer treatment, Taylor takes a pill in the morning and at night.

“From the case study, of the people who did that, only 9% were there two years later and I’m in that 9%,” she said. “Big Pharma and Jesus showed up for me because there’s no reason I should be here. I’m way past the 13 months.”

Taylor stressed that she doesn’t share her story because she thinks she is better than other cancer survivors.

“I share this because I don’t understand why I get to be here. It doesn’t make sense to me,” Taylor said. “I think for some reason Jesus said, ‘I’m going to give you some winning, but you’re going to have to talk about it.’”

“We all go through ridiculous hard things, so take a step forward and do something scary,” she advised. “Because if I can do it, you can do it. I’m just a rural girl from Oklahoma — there’s nothing special about me; I’m just like you guys.”

For more information about Rural Gone Urban and the Rural Gone Urban Foundation, go to www.ruralgoneurban.org.