We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Taylor Stevens. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Taylor below.

Alright, Taylor thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I’d like to think that I’m a big risk taker in life. I never want to look back on moments and think to myself “I should’ve done this” or “I should’ve said that”. I never want to let the fear of the unknown hold me back from making decision because without taking a risk, you’ll never know what can happen, I’ve taken two of the biggest risks that have changed my life and my perspectives. The first being to follow my dreams in my acrobatic career. Being a type A personality, I find comfort in having a plan, making lists and being prepared. When I decided to move to Las Vegas, it was the most spontaneous and terrifying thing I have ever done. I have never lived away from my hometown, and then deciding to move across the country to a city that I’ve never even visited before, without a job in sight. Only the hopes of trying to succeed in my dreams. After a about a year of hard work, hustling, pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, the ups and downs and seizing opportunities, I finally landed a position in my dream show doing what I love.

The second biggest risk I’ve taken is in my music. Music has always been something I loved and even dreamed about making into a career. But the idea of doing music full-time wasn’t something that ever seemed logical to me. So i continued on doing it only as a hobby and something I enjoyed for myself, singing acoustic covers every so often and posting them to my instagram account. One of those cover videos that I posted was seen by a colleague of mine from the show. He, among other musicians in the show, have experience with music and putting songs out there. He offered me an opportunity to record a song, put my voice out there and gave me the courage and support to chase after this kind of dream too and just see what happens. At the very least it’s something that I would do and be proud of for myself. I’ve written songs before, but none that have ever seen the light of day. And having an opportunity to record something in a studio and put it out there on all music platforms, I wanted the full experience and to create something of my own. Something that is fully mine. So after years of not having written anything, I wrote my own song, of course using my own personal experiences and heartache. Now, writing it and recording it wasn’t the biggest risk, but releasing it for the world to see. Of course the first concern is what people would think of my voice and my sound. But the biggest risk lies in the type of vulnerability that I’d be allowing everyone to see, especially those who know me, whom I work with. The pages of my diary being fully exposed. Thinking about what would everyone think? What would their opinions be? They’re going to know everything. My “secrets” shining bright in the light. And no matter how terrifying that feeling was for me, I wasn’t going to let the fear of it stop me from continuing on. Even if nothing ever came from this song and this experience, I did it for myself. And I learned a lot about myself from this experience and at the end of the day I’m mostly proud of myself for having taken this risk.

Taylor , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m an east coast beach girl that ran away with the circus that is also now creating music. I was born in upstate New York but moved to Myrtle Beach, SC when i was 7. I lived there my whole life. I started gymnastics when i was also 7 and competed until the age of 15, i stopped to have a “normal teenage life”. But I remained active, finding another sport that was in a similar field but more flexibility which was competitive cheerleading for about 2 years. These two sports gave me the fundamentals and resources for my acrobatic career that I now I have today.

I moved to Las Vegas in early 2019 hopes of landing a position in one of the well known Cirque du Soleil shows. After a long year of networking, training every day, and facing many challenges mentally, emotionally and physically, I finally secured that position.

Throughout all this time, music has always been something I tampered with. I started playing guitar when I was about 16. Teaching myself from Youtube videos and by learning specific songs. It was something that was on and off for years. After high school, i dove deeper and wrote a few of my own songs, but they were never recorded or seen by anyone. Since then, music remained only a hobby where I would hear a song that I loved to sing and taught myself to play, record it and share it my social media. Until meeting a friend from work who gave me the confidence and support to record my first ever song in his studio.

The biggest take away that I hope anyone could learn from my experiences is to go for it. Whatever it is, go for it. You have an idea? Go for it. you have a goal? Go for it. You have a dream? Go for it. Take the risks and go for it. Even if it nothing happens from it or it doesn’t go “the way you want” you will still learn from it and learn so much about yourself and at the very least feel proud of yourself for having the courage to take a leap. Life is full of moments and choices and we just need to go for it.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The satisfaction of being proud of yourself. Working hard for the achievements and having the courage it took to be creative. Being an artist of any kind will come with failure. It will come with criticism, and the worst kind of criticism too, that being yourself. It’s very difficult to talk yourself out of creativity. But if you push past all of the self doubt, the criticism from others and yourself, and give yourself grace to fail, when you do succeed, it’s the most gratifying feeling.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I have the type of personality that is always striving to do more, be better and grow. Usually that always applied to my acrobatic career. Every time I learn something new and feel that I’ve either mastered it or realized it’s “not my thing”, i discover more. More recently this started to also apply to more than just acrobatics, but also with music, song writing, vulnerabilities. I never want to stay stagnant or plateau. I never want to settle or feel “bored”. I believe that as we grow in age and physically, we also grow mentally.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tayannesteve
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taylor.stevens.9
• Linkedin: https://linktr.ee/taylorstevensmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmS9LEQ1LkM