Meet Elyse Bruce

We recently connected with Elyse Bruce and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Elyse, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.
The first thing a person has to understand about risk is that risk isn’t always bad and risk isn’t always good. Risk involves uncertainty and the possibility that the desired outcome may or may not be the end result. Yes, when taking risks, the actual results may differ from expected results, but that may be exactly what’s needed in order to move forward in a positive way.

My paternal grandfather was born in Dublin, Ireland in the early 1880s, and when I knew him as a child, he was already a very old man who had lived an amazing life. Diagnosed with tuberculosis as a teen, he made the decision as a young adult at the turn of the 20th century to travel to New York City where he focused on doing something his doctors in Ireland hadn’t succeeded in doing: Putting his tuberculosis into remission.

Every time he told me the story of how he came to America with his best friend, Glenn Glover, I marveled at how brave he was to take the risk of living in a country where he and his friend only knew each other.

He shared how for well over a year, he would draw a bath at night and leave the windows open overnight whether it was summer or winter so that he had an icy cold bath to jump into first thing in the morning. Of course, some icy cold baths were much colder than others but that was the risk he took as he focused on his objective.

The desired outcome was better than he anticipated, and it wasn’t long before he was well enough to work instead of relying on a monthly stipend from his parents. A few years later, he saw my grandmother and he was smitten. She was with her father who had come to America from Germany and was a respected Lutheran pastor in Pittsburgh. He saw her walking with her father often as my grandmother was a hat model at the time and any trip to New York City was to model hats and every trip to New York City included her father. That’s how things were done back then.

Again, I was impressed to hear my great-grandfather had risked everything to move from Germany to America where he didn’t know a soul. I was surprised he had allowed his daughter, my grandmother, to become a hat model which had a number of risks which he mitigated by chaperoning her on every trip to the big city. And I was fascinated by the way my grandfather had first spied my grandmother.

When my grandfather decided to meet the pastor and his daughter, he made up his mind to speak with them the next time he saw them. He knew the risks of forcing the encounter. He had made inquiries and learned from many that the pastor was strict and did not tolerate those he believed were bad influences. He also wasn’t particularly fond of those who weren’t German and who weren’t Lutheran. By contrast, my grandfather had a relaxed way about him and a great sense of humor, and he wasn’t a Lutheran.

Knowing the odds were against him, he introduced himself to my great-grandfather and his daughter one fine day while strolling along the street in New York City. He expected the possibility of a spectacular failure and balanced that with the hope for polite acknowledgement. It took a number of such encounters before he was able to progress, with permission, towards courting my grandmother. Had he never taken those risks, he never would have cultivated the opportunity to get to know her beyond being the lovely young woman who visited New York City on a regular basis with her stern-looking father at her side.

My grandfather told me a great many stories about his life as a young boy through to being an octogenarian, and every story included the fact he wouldn’t have had the adventures he did had he not taken the chance to have those adventures.

Of course, he also included stories where his risk-taking hadn’t ended as well as expected, and how it was as important to accept the negative consequences of one’s actions as it was to celebrate the positive consequences. Besides, he was of the opinion that when things didn’t turn out as anticipated, it was still pretty good as an important lesson had been learned due in large part to the failure.

As a child, as is true of all children, I sometimes shied away from asking for something out of fear I wouldn’t get what I wanted. My grandfather made fast work of that and every time he suspected I was avoiding asking the question, he would say, “If you ask the question and the answer is no, you haven’t lost anything. You’re exactly where you were before you asked the question.”

He was right for the most part. I know now, years later, that there are times when ‘no’ actually sets you back a bit from where you were before you asked the question. But most of the time, his point of view on the subject of taking risks is correct.

I learned from my grandfather that the worst thing that can happen from asking questions is to hear the answer no. For the most part, I haven’t lost any ground in asking the question. I haven’t gained any ground either, but more importantly, I am still pretty much where I was before asking the question and because of that, this has been my rallying cry in life every time a monkey wrench has been thrown into the works.

I learned that when I do lose some ground for having asked the question, I have an opportunity to reassess the situation, and make new — and better — decisions. It’s in the reassessing stage that I am able to see the flaws in my vision, which provides me with the opportunity to address those flaws before taking another run at the goal.

Risk requires a level of determination most people aren’t willing to undertake.

Failure is where I learned about myself and what didn’t work. Sometimes it was because I lacked the skills to succeed. Sometimes it was because I didn’t fully understand what I was trying to accomplish. But every time I failed at something, it gave me the opportunity to take another chance at succeeding, and none of that happens without taking risks. If a person isn’t able to accept failure as part of the risk-taking process, they won’t have the determination required to succeed.

To sum things up, I developed my ability to take risk from listening to stories my grandfather told me about his life and seeing the connection between the risks he took and how I came to be born. Over the years, I’ve done a lot to continue cultivating a love of risk-taking but not senseless risk-taking. Every risk requires an understanding of the pros and cons of moving forward with taking each risk, and a willingness to embrace the outcome of having taken that risk or walked away from it.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Not many people are able to say what they enjoyed doing as a child became their life’s work. I’m one of the lucky few who can lay claim to this.

I’m an author, not only of the Missy Barrett middle grade reader chapter books writing as Elyse Bruce, but as the author of books for older readers writing as E.B. Taylor and under other pseudonyms. In May, the 7th annual Missy Barrett Stamp and Sticker Search filled Pigeon Forge and Sevierville with scavenger hunters of all ages who were busy collecting stamps and stickers in their copy of the latest Missy Barrett book, “The Case of the Hollow Hawk.”

I’m a visual artist with works in various collections in Canada and in Europe, and my husband, Thomas D. Taylor, and I have co-painted a number of works including the art for the Rose Glen Literary Festival posters for 4 years running from 2016 to 2019. Currently, I am creating original art postcards and sending them out to FB friends, fans, and followers who send me a mailing address so a postcard can be sent to them. As each postcard arrives, people are posting pix of them to their social media pages.

I’m a musician, singer-songwriter, and composer, and these days I am working on writing arrangements of public domain music that people have grown to actively dislike and, in many cases, avoided hearing because they have grown accustomed to the arrangements that have been around for generations. I think of what I’m doing as cleaning these songs up, removing the tarnish, shining them back up, and putting them back on display for all to enjoy.

As a creative dynamo, I continue to work on ways to get “International Missy Barrett Day: A Day To Do Good Deeds” on August 30th into as many communities as possible. The idea is to promote that while we do good deeds every day, on this particular day, we’re going to do even more good deeds than usual. This day began in 2017 with a Proclamation from the City of Sevierville and has grown over the years to include a number of proclamations from counties and major cities in Tennessee as well as over 2 dozen micronations from around the world.

Those are the major highlights at the moment but it’s accurate to say there’s a lot left unsaid about what’s going on in my professional world — things like a book tour in late Fall 2023 and collaborative projects with other established authors (other than my husband who is also an accomplished author).

As I said at the beginning, not many people are able to say what they enjoyed doing as a child has become their life’s work, and I’m able to say that thanks to the risks and chances I have taken over the years. There’s a lot of magic in believing you can do what you set out to do which is why I’m known for encouraging everyone from children to seniors to take chances, to grab the reins, and ride past the fears that keep people from reaching their dreams, wishes, and goals in life.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
While I am a strong supporter of education whether it’s a university or college education or a training school education or even personal and professional development courses, there is more to achieving goals than an excellent education. If I were to rank the top three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge I would have to say education is definitely first followed closely behind by the willingness to ask questions coupled with the ability to hone one’s vision.

Simplify everything into easy blocks that can be managed without overwhelming the individual. This requires patience in what one does as much as anything else.

Learn to ask questions and be willing to hear the answers, even those answers that make you feel uncomfortable or negatively about yourself. If you don’t know what needs to be worked on, those things will never get worked on, and there won’t be any growth.

Don’t just consider the latest technology or most recent discoveries when working towards your goals. Make time to learn how things were accomplished by past generations. In order to understand where you and your dreams are headed, you have to have a solid understanding of how others got to the point where you began. Learn from their mistakes and learn from their successes.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
We all have strengths and we all have weaknesses. We wouldn’t be well-rounded individuals if this wasn’t true. Sometimes knowing we don’t know something or something well provides us with a unique insight about how we reach our goals, and helps us identify where answers to our questions may be found.

Rather than let others take up the slack for your weaknesses, avail yourself of the opportunity to better understand what they do and how you can step up to the plate and improve. The more you improve, the easier it is to understand what others are doing and accomplishing. Sometimes that effort confirms you can do better and sometimes it confirms that you need to reach out to others to help you through those rough spots.

In high school, I struggled with Algebra. In Grade 10, I took Algebra during my first semester and after weeks of studying and doing my best, I was not pleased with my final grade. I marched myself down to the main office and asked to have one of my English classes from second semester removed so I could re-take Grade 10 Algebra. Everyone from the principal to the guidance counsellor tried to talk me out of doing this as I had, in their opinion, an acceptable passing grade for Algebra 10 and they didn’t see the sense in putting myself through Algebra 10 a second time just because I didn’t like my final grade.

But I insisted and I was allowed to drop one of my elective English classes and re-take Algebra 10. Now, you might be thinking that at the end of the second semester I walked away with a much better final grade but that kind of thing is usually reserved for the movies. What happened was my final grade after the second semester was exactly the same as my final grade after the first semester.

That grade was a reflection of my level of skill when it came to Algebra but I knew that in taking the course over again, I would never have to wonder if perhaps I couldn’t have done a bit better. I knew the answer. That final grade at the end of both semesters was the best I could do at the time when it came to Algebra 10.

Most people will say fretting over getting the best mark I could possibly earn in Algebra 10 is silly and that’s because many people don’t realize just how often Algebra is used in real life. I don’t mean basic mathematics (which is not an issue for me). I mean Algebra.

I budget and manage finances, manage time, schedule activities, and am known for my logical, analytical thinking but when it comes to construction issues and taxes, that’s where I rely on the assistance of someone far more capable in those areas.

Re-taking Algebra 10 ensured I knew as much as possible about Algebra. It also gave me permission to admit I needed the assistance of more knowledgeable people in certain areas where Algebra was a vital component of making a solid decision I could stand by. It also allowed me a chance to play to my strengths by allowing others whose strengths include strong Algebra skills to support my vision, ideas, and projects.

This doesn’t mean I don’t try to improve on what I’m not good at when it comes to Algebra. I do. I ask questions, and focus on how others arrive at the correct answers they provide. I hold out hope for that A-ha! moment when Algebra 10 will finally make sense to me because it could happen.

So by all means, lead with your strengths but bring your weaknesses along as there’s always the chance you’ll find the key to unlocking what keeps you from making a weakness a strength. Education and risk-taking never get old, and the endless possibilities that lie therein make what you do all the more interesting for you and everyone involved.

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Image Credits
PHOTO 1: Thomas D. Taylor PHOTO 2: Thomas D. Taylor PHOTO 3 (4 Rose Glen Literary Festival posters and Thomas D. Taylor) Miguel Angel Zavaleta Angel JZ Photography PHOTO 4: Elyse Bruce PHOTO 5: Elyse Bruce

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