Establishing your own firm or practice is an incredibly daunting task. From myriad of legal and regulatory hurdles to the financial and career related risks, professionals who choose to start their own firm have to overcome so much and so we wanted to reach out to those who’ve done it successfully for advice, insight and stories.

Samuel Molina

When I became a financial representative with Northwestern Mutual it was a completely new career for me. I was in the middle of completing my certificate in personal financial planning with Dalton education and I had just received my life & health license. Over the course of a year I worked from my home office and met with clients either online or in-person at local coffee shops. Read more>>

Robert McClure

We started the journey to launching our own firm well before we thought we were ready! With only about a year and a half into Real Estate and 2 Icon Awards under my belt we were fortunate enough to crack the formula and develop our own lead generation company. The firm we were with wanted access and we weren’t ready to give it so we made the decision to go on our own. Read more>>

Katiuscia Baggio

In March 2019, I made the decision to leave my full-time position as the Executive Education Director at CIMBA, a Consortium of 36 American Universities, which is also a business and leadership school. I embarked on the journey of becoming a freelancer. Having worked at CIMBA since 2001, I had accumulated invaluable experience, knowledge, and fostered strong relationships with individuals from all around the world. Read more>>

Rebecca Hardin

Over the years, I have seen many agents, teams and brokerages come and go in this industry due to the everchanging market conditions. As the market began to shift towards the end of 2022, I saw a need in our community for experienced agents with strong negotiation skills and superior work ethic. This lead to the decision to create HELLO LUXURY GROUP with my business partner, Danielle Tringali. Read more>>

Ashley Coffey

Through the pandemic, I decided to leave the corporate world because my passion for supporting women in leadership grew. I found that no matter what consulting job I took or what CEO I coached to build their teams, the conversations were the same; women were still continuously being left out of important conversations, denied growth opportunities and the pay gap was going unchecked. Read more>>

Kathryne Mejias

Prior to starting my business, Born for More, I worked as a flight attendant for many years. This career allowed me to travel extensively and gave me the opportunity to visit sacred healing sites around the world. As I learned more about the art of healing, my passion for the subject grew. As life went on, I took a variety of self-development courses and became more deeply connected to my inner self. Read more>>

Daniel Korolev

Collier Optical Lab ( COL ) was born out of 20+ years experience in the Optometric industry. Fueled by professionals, Ben and Sarah Collier ( founders ) and Daniel Korolev ( Sales Manager/CFO ), COL is bringing a new level of professionalism, redefining the meaning ‘ I am happy with my lab’, and increasing profitability for Optometrists in UT and Nationwide. Read more>>

Sabrina Gelsinger-Rodorigo

Yoga found me in 2014 and provided an abundance of healing in my life. As the years passed and I entered social work grad school, I joined a 200 hour Yoga Teacher training program that had an additional 40 hours dedicated to trauma informed yoga, social justice, and leadership training in 2019. This paired beautifully with what I was learning in social work at the time. Read more>>

Tony Fuad

Setting up my private practice as a licensed educational psychologist was a journey filled with unique challenges that tested my determination and resilience. One of the initial hurdles was navigating the administrative complexities and legal requirements. Establishing a solid legal framework, obtaining the necessary permits, and ensuring compliance with regulations demanded meticulous attention to detail and patience. Read more>>

Christina Acosta

My story of how I established my practice over 10 years ago is a faith journey, which is available on one of my YouTube channels. The short version of this story basically starts with me being in a vulnerable, broke, and truly broken place where I was almost homeless, with no prospects, and in a very delicate place in my life. I was pounding the pavement with resumes in hand, and I came across a room for rent for a massage therapist. Read more>>

Erin Beussman

After graduating from The College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, MN, I specialized in pediatric occupational therapy and soon found my first clinical job in an outpatient clinic. Working with a variety of very encouraging individuals and later joining new clinics in the metro as they were being established, I realized that how I wanted to practice outpatient occupational therapy was not working within a traditional outpatient clinical setting. Read more>>

Shawna Allard

I wasn’t aware that my psychic abilities are unique until the age of nine. When my psychic medium talents became fully activated I shared my insights with friends and family and instead of charging a fee for my psychic reading sessions; I asked for feedback as to the value each person experienced. After a year, it was clear for me that the intuitive information coming through me was accurate and of great help to others. Read more>>

Parthi Patel

The journey of establishing Intentional Therapy has been a fulfilling, yet challenging one. It all started with a vision to create a space that goes beyond traditional therapy, focusing on self-care, mindfulness, and genuine connection. The first step was defining our unique approach and values, setting us apart in the mental health landscape. Read more>>

Alicia Benoit

I decided to create Elite One Athlete after working for the first few years in a traditional outpatient clinical setting. While my experiences in a traditional physical therapy environment were extremely formative for me professionally, they also exposed me to many of the struggles found within traditional medical and therapy settings. Too often I would encounter situations where patient care was being limited by insurance oversight or overfilled physical therapy clinics, both of which prevented motivated patients from receiving the high quality care they deserved. Read more>>

Tsar Kimbell

Establishing my own practice taught me so many lessons, positive and negative. I decided to start my own postop company during Covid. Having the knowledge of being a seamstress, created an opportunity for the medical industry. After I decided to get plastic surgery, I wasn’t left with any postop care instructions, which I had to learn on my own. Read more>>

Lakisha Hayes

I began my journey as a staff nurse in 2015 at a well known facility in my area. I was able to obtain majority of my experience there by working in multiple departments. In 2022 I decided to take a leap of faith and start a business that the community would benefit from. After working in a hospital setting and noting the needs in the community, I decided to start a health and wellness concept. Read more>>

Rachel Buckley

In the beginning stages of establishing my own holistic health & Cosmetic practice – there were SO many reasons to convince myself there were too many risks involved and zero certainty it would work out. However, I had a network of friends, family and clientele that I knew needed me to show up in this way. Regularly, people were coming to ME for this type of advice, so I must be displaying a version of myself that was genuine, trustworthy, and AUTHENTIC. Read more>>

Gary Sweeten

After practicing psychotherapy for several years I saw that many if not most of my clients would not needed to see a professional therapist if they had family, friends, and co-workers who knew how to care and listen deeply so together they could find how to live more effectively. A group of us formed a not for profit to equip individuals, families, and groups to use the knowledge and skills we knew would work to prevent the downward spiral of mood disorders and interpersonal dysfunction that too often led to seeking therapy. It was a wonderful decision. Read more>>