Meet Bryce Taylor

We were lucky to catch up with Bryce Taylor recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Bryce, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.

Well, as a middle-class, white, male I must say that there are some advantages that I assume are baked into the cake, some things that may have made it a little easier for me to be optimistic. That being said, I can also cite several other elements that have also contributed to this way of approaching and interacting with the world. For, as you know, every middle-class, white male is not so optimistic.

I should probably start off by saying my wife has said that I am “an optimist on the verge of denial”. I would agree, and I understand that this may get annoying to others around me who do not look at life in the same way.

Besides just resulting from how my brain is wired, I think my upbringing in a caring, supportive family has much to do with my optimism. My father was a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), but he was not one of those fire-and-brimstone preachers. What he conveyed was the hope, caring, and forgiveness of the Christian message. He was very involved in social justice and worked with people of all religions and walks of life to try to make living in the world better. I believe my parents’ actions communicated very strongly to me that things could get better. I also believe the humor we shared in our family, being able to laugh at life’s twists and turns, did, and continues to, fuel my optimism.

But, of course, it was not just parental imprinting that shaped my optimism, it is also my own experience in the world. While I have experienced losses and disappointments, like others, and, like others, there are times when I have felt hurt, alone, and depressed, optimism has contributed to helping me make it to a better place.

I truly believe that being able to take a step back (or up) and get perspective on situations or life, in general, is essential to my optimism. Both my training as a psychologist and my work as a singer/songwriter/artist contribute to my ability to get this needed perspective. Back when I practiced psychotherapy, I saw that helping my clients/patients to get perspective on their thoughts, feelings, and situations was essential to them being hopeful and getting better. I found that using the creative tools of written word, visual arts, role-playing, music, etc., in addition to the power of putting experiences into words and telling another supportive person their story, were wonderful tools to help people to take a step back and see things from a different perspective. For me, songwriting often serves this same purpose. It helps me explore what I am going through (or another person might be going through) and through this process I am able to both explore possibilities and give meaning to that experience. I must say that all of the solutions I become aware of are not optimistic, but I usually choose to lean into those. And without seeing various possibilities, I might not see the optimistic choices.

So, I guess I see optimism as a bit of a choice. But having the means, socio-economically, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically, to have and see choices cannot be ignored. Yeah, perhaps I am “an optimist on the verge of denial”, but this is way of going through the world that works for me.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I have my Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and for 20 years I had a thriving practice practice in Indiana, focused mostly on play therapy and work with children and families. I loved working with children, in particular, and helping them get through the challenges they were struggling with. I also have had artistic interests (e.g. poetry, visual arts, music) and have played guitar and written songs since I was a child. I used artistic expression as a tool in my therapy work to help those I was working with get insight into and perspective on their thoughts and feelings related to their difficulties. However, I had also gradually began to realize that writing and performance of music was more of passion in my life and something I wanted to take more time and energy to pursue. I think what I love the most about songwriting and performing for other people is connecting with myself and with others through the music.

After years of struggling to balance owning and running a practice and my desire to spend more time and energy on my music, my wife, who is also a psychologist, offered to take over the administration of our psychotherapy practice so I could learn more about, pursue, and put more energy into, songwriting, performance, and audio recording. While continuing my therapy work, I enrolled in a 6-month, intense, audio recording training program, which I completed. I also looked into pursuing a formal university degree in audio technology/recording. As an alternative to a degree program, I was given the opportunity to audit courses in audio technology at the university where I was already teaching graduate psychology courses. During this time, I began performing more in coffee shops and other venues in a larger nearby city and developing a music community for myself.

At some point, the opportunity arose for me to teach graduate online courses in Autism in the Special Education Department at Ball State University. While I loved the therapy work I was doing, I saw the move to online teaching as an opportunity to have greater flexibility, giving me more opportunity to pursue my musical interests. At one point I had the dream or ambition of opening a recording studio, but financial obligations and the limitations of clientele in the small town in which I lived led me away from this.

Five years ago, we moved to Lexington, Kentucky. I was able to keep my online teaching job that I have now had for 11 years. My wife also began working online, providing psychotherapy services out of our home. Because the classes are online, I have had the flexibility to pursue my interest in songwriting and musical performance, as I had hoped.

One year ago, we moved to Versailles, KY, lovely horse country with rolling green hills, stone walls and easy access to nature. I was able to convert a large (16’x24′) shed into my office and recording studio, where I will soon be recording my third album. My daughters still call it my “blanket-fort”. There is a thriving musical community in the Lexington area where I have many venues (coffee shops, bars, wineries, distilleries, festivals) to share my music. As do most singer/ songwriters, I LOVE to perform in listening rooms and for house concerts where my original music is most warmly and enthusiastically received.

So today, after much optimism, hard work, and intention, I am a singer/songwriter, psychology professor, sound engineer, father, and lover of nature and creativity who currently resides in Versailles, KY. My latest album, “Man with the Muse” (2022) was listed in the top 20 albums in October 2022 on the FAI (Folk Alliance International) Folk Radio Chart. More recently this same album was listed in the top 15 of Roots Music Report’s “Alternative Folk Album” chart and the top 40 in the larger “Folk Album” category (8-12-2023). This fall I am planning on beginning work on my 3rd album. It seems that themes of gratitude and hope will be prominent.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. The first quality that comes to mind is having and carrying the intention of what I wanted to do at various points. It seems that for me, rather than having clear goals and specific objectives whereby to reach them, what works for me is carrying “the intentions” and continually making choices that move me in the direction of those intentions. Maybe it is just a difference in semantics, but I believe that how we frame, or talk about, things to ourselves does make a difference.

2. I think being respectful and compassionate to those around me in my journey has been extremely important. More broadly, I would say that developing and maintaining good, meaningful, respectful relationships is key, not only to getting where you want to go, but also to having a meaningful, enjoyable journey.

3. I believe mindful gratitude is also very important. What I mean by this is making the effort to be as aware as possible, in the moment, of what is going on with me and around me, and in this awareness being grateful for the opportunities, experiences, relationships, beauty, etc… that life is providing. This opens me up to needed perspective that, in a state of gratitude, allows me to see even more opportunities for a meaningful life.

Hmmm how to develop these:
1. mindfulness practice and/or meditation, or even just contemplation
2. thinking about, and writing down what is most important to you in life and how to make space to have more of this in yours
3. getting space or time to get perspective of these things…goals, desires,, relationships, what you are grateful for… Walking in nature…. getting away from the busy-ness is important. Meditation and/or visualization is a way to do this without having to go anywhere, physically.
4. Of course practice is useful and important to ANY skill… musical, interpersonal, etc…

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

This really ties in with the previous question for me. When I am feeling overwhelmed, it is always important and healing to find some way to gain perspective on the situation and/or my reaction to it. What I mean by perspective is being able to observe my situation from outside of my immediate experience of it. This may mean trying to see the situation from the perspective of the other person, if I am having a disagreement with them. Or it may mean taking a step back to take a different view of a problem I am trying to solve. For me, there are several tools I have for getting this.

1. Taking a walk in nature, or just sitting outside, closing one’s eyes, and breathing slowly and focusing one’s breathing, or anything other than the problem or situation.

2. Creating art….visual art, poetry. Often by doing so, perspective can be gained as well as a better understanding of the situation and one’s emotional reaction to it.

3. For me, going to my guitar and creating music, particularly songs is important and helpful. Often in these situations, when I am thinking, “I need to write a song about this”, once the song is finished I realize that what I needed to work through or understand, was not what I had originally thought. The song takes me from where I “was” to where I “needed to be”.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://brycetaylormusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brycetaymusic/#
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brycetaymusic/
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/c/BryceTaylorMusic
• Other: https://brycetaylormusic.hearnow.com