We recently connected with Taylor Geas and have shared our conversation below.
Taylor, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
What do I think it takes to be successful? Success has always been a funny one for me. It’s like one of those subjective terms that fits one criteria and not all. I guess I’m talking a bit existentially, but what I’m trying to say is if you give a rocket scientist a violin, even though he’s incredibly smart, he’s going to look dumb. Same goes for success. What makes me more successful than a man that spends his day fishing off the pier? Money? Status? Power? Some might say yes, but I’d rather be driven, passionate, or interesting than successful. I think what it takes to be successful is to not chase success. Find that thing that makes you grateful to get out of bed in the morning and do it for as long as you can — then success will find you.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
I’m Taylor, you can call me Tay if you want though. I’m a writer, and my day job is Copywriter for the Los Angeles Lakers. Copywriter means it’s my responsibility to examine and understand who the Lakers are, what they believe in, and what they want to say, and then I take that information and share it across their many different mediums in the most compelling way.
My writing takes shape in the forms of seasonal campaigns, video scripts, speeches, feature articles, and general brand strategy. I’m a big proponent of research, I can’t get going on something until I uncover the insight that fires off an idea in my brain. That bodes well for me as my writing is always really deliberate. I have a firm belief that no matter the brand, your voice should always sound like a person. I enjoy spending the time figuring out who that “person” is from brand to brand, and I write from that place.
I’m incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to write on behalf of the Lakers. I think I ended up here because I was relentless. I got kicked down plenty of times before landing this job and every time I kept writing; writing for myself, writing through the rejection, writing to find what was next.
Working in the sports industry has been incredible. I’ve been encouraged to grow so much as a writer and I’ve been really focused on honing my strengths. I’ve discovered my knack for scriptwriting. I’m also very drawn to conducting interviews and then crafting a feature or profile on the athlete or person I chatted with. I’m hoping to do more of this in the next stage of my career.
Is there a mission driving your creative journey?
My creative journey has been motivated by this idea of shattering illusions. In my 29 years, which isn’t very long, I’ve seen how caught up people can get in the “standard.” I think these expectations can be really debilitating. I’ve always loved writing because it offers another side to the story — and then another, and another. We’re all told to follow this script for life, I’m hoping my writing offers something for people to connect to outside of the script.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
You should have a vision, but not a plan. Be specific about what you want, but don’t sabotage yourself by being tied to one path to get there. Say yes to opportunities when they come along that could align with your vision but may deviate from your plan. I always had plans in my head and there has not been one thing in my pursuit of this dream that has gone according to any of those plans. I was supposed to live and write in Cape Town, South Africa. When that fell through, I was going to get a job at an advertising agency in Boston, Massachusetts. Didn’t happen. Then, I was going to spend six months in California, get writing experience, and go back to the East Coast. I’ve been here for four years. My vision was to be a writer. That might not have happened if I was too concerned with the plan.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.taylorgeas.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taygthang/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorgeas/
Image Credits
Abigail Keenan of Abigail Keenan Photography http://www.abigailkeenan.com/