Finding his voice

Over the course of his life — more times than he can count — Chris Taylor has looked for his voice, and it just hasn’t been there.

“I’ve always had a speech impediment,” he said. “I used to go out behind my house and try to call girls, and I had so much trouble. They’d hang up on me before I could ever get any words out.”

So as a young guy, he struggled with his identity, he said. He tried to find his self-worth in the fact that he could run fast or that he drove a nice Jeep.

“I covered up a lot of things on the inside with what I had or what I was able to do. Ultimately, it didn’t work,” Taylor said. “That’s why today I really have a big heart for our millennial generation. I want to help them see that they need their own purpose, their own platform, and help them find their own voice.”

And he does that by putting his own voice in front of a microphone, surprising as that may be, he said. These days, he’s a motivational speaker, challenging people from teens to corporate professionals to add a voice to their story. 

“One moment, I can’t order a Big Mac, and the next I’m speaking in front of a crowd,” Taylor said. 

It’s a testimony to how God can bring hope in the middle of our hardest struggles, he said. 

“I want to help teenagers feel a sense of redemption when they step in as a hero, or when they help someone out who’s being bullied,” Taylor said.

His nonprofit organization, Bridgework, is aimed at building that sense of redemption — making connections in the community so people reach out and give their neighbors a hand up.

It’s a powerful message, said David Bobo, who first heard Taylor speak at a father-son breakfast for the football team at Oak Mountain High School.

“He’s got such a good story,” Bobo said.

At that breakfast, Taylor talked about a group of boys who made fun of him relentlessly in school until one day a football player stepped in and told them he’d had enough.

“It meant the world to Chris that someone chose to help him, that someone was willing to stand up for what was right and say, ‘We aren’t going to tolerate this,’” Bobo said. “That story stuck with me.”

It was vivid and raw, and because of that, it was impactful, he said.

“Chris is excellent about showing vulnerability,” Bobo said. “It’s a gift he has. He doesn’t mind ripping off the veil and letting people see his shortcomings. It gives people courage to share their own struggles — maybe it’s that dad who is struggling with raising his kids, or that teenager who doesn’t know how to succeed. Chris empowers you and allows you to connect with others in vulnerability.”

And those connections, Taylor said, link us all to life’s big story.

“If we stay in our little bitty stories, we can get caught up in depression,” he said. “We have to see the bigger story. We need to be a part of something larger than we are.”

For instance, one of his little bitty stories was the fact that he got an 11 on the ACT.

But he didn’t let that stop him from pursuing the bigger story.

He now has a Ph.D. in educational psychology and serves as a counselor, chaplain and educator, helping others learn how to work through their struggles and succeed.

“You have to find your story based on how you’re wired and how you’re made,” he said, noting that he’s helped organizations start movements among their employees and helped high school students learn how to be themselves and make a difference.

“He’s a great guy, encouraging people, helping them and connecting them and showing them how to base their life around biblical principals,” Bobo said. “And he uses examples from his own life to show how guys can be a lifesaver for other people.”

Besides that football player, another lifesaver for Taylor was a man who stopped to talk to him one day on the campus of the University of Arkansas.

“It was Chris’ first day of classes, and he was nervous, so he had trouble speaking and he got really overwhelmed,” Bobo said.

His class schedule was a mess — some weren’t where they were scheduled to be or weren’t meeting at all, and Taylor didn’t know what to do. He was starting to think maybe he wasn’t cut out for the university life.

“So he was sitting on a bench on campus and starting to cry,” Bobo said, “and a gentleman walked by and said, ‘What’s wrong?’”

That gentleman happened to be the university’s admissions director, and he took Taylor back to his office, rearranged his schedule and got him back on track.

“That guy kept him in it, and he was able to keep going,” Bobo said. “And these days, he’s a lifesaver like that for a whole lot of people.”

For more information, go to bridgework.biz or email Taylor at chris@bridgework.biz.