Taylor Rooks Says 'Standing Out' Is One of the Many Reasons She's Successful in the Sports World: 'I Showed Up as Myself'

Taylor Rooks cemented her place within the broadcasting world, so it's only fitting she would use her platform to foster authentic dialogue about mental health, stress and more to help others succeed.

"The number one thing that has encouraged me to be vulnerable and discuss my emotions is that I ask myself, 'I feel what I feel and what are the things that trigger me?' in order to feel these good things and bad things. I attribute that to therapy," Rooks exclusively tells OK! while discussing her "LG Transparent Conversations" podcast.

As an African-American in media, Rooks has become an inspiration for many and an advocate for women navigating the professional space.

"I feel like every single person should try [therapy], but specifically Black women, because so often when we have these thoughts, we have trials and tribulations and we have things we are trying to figure out with the world, but they tend to be cast us aside, and we're not taken seriously," she notes.

In recent years, the cultural figure has been vocal about how she's grown into herself and developed her own space within a competitive and male-dominated field.

"I don't think that my career opened up and I was able to accomplish the things that I wanted until I showed up as myself," Rooks admits. "It is so easy to feel like for things to work the way that you want, it has to look a certain way because that's sort of what's said to us. It's said to us that this is how things have to be."

"When I first started, I thought my hair had to be straight all the time, and I thought that I had to dress a certain way," Rooks shares. "Now I dress the way that I want in ways that express my style, my fashion and how I feel that day."

Whether she's on the sidelines chatting with the likes of Lamar Jackson or attending a red carpet, Rooks always lives her truth.

"I don't think you have to make yourself smaller or dim your brightness down to fit in because you don't want to fit in; you fit in by being things that you're not," the University of Illinois alum stresses.

"Standing out is actually something that we make sound a lot harder than it is," she adds.

As a celebrated voice in sports, Rooks is using her expertise to amplify wellness among NCAA collegiate athletes with the second season of her podcast "LG Transparent Conversations."

"I think my absolute favorite part of 'LG Transparent Conversations' is the honesty that has come from [college athletes], and it's been cool to see even just how student-athletes have evolved from the time that I was in college," Rooks reveals. "I graduated in 2014, so 10 years ago, and when I was in school and talking to student-athletes, there wasn't this comfort level with being vulnerable."

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"I want the person to feel like they can be their full selves and they can have space to show who and what they are and not feel like I am putting my projection of what I think about them onto them," she shares.

Rooks has become a safe space for athletes, and she hopes to have more important conversations moving forward.

"That's the environment that I try to create with both 'LG Transparent Conversations' and with all the work that I do," she concludes.