Defining moments aren’t just exciting – they are thought-provoking and fertile ground for learning. These inflection points often are the result of an illuminating moment where some truth of the universe presents itself in an easier to recognize form. Below, you’ll find talented and successful entrepreneurs and artists sharing the stories of defining moments in their lives.
Nancy Watson
My current endeavors as a yoga teacher make up a very satisfying part-time, post-retirement career. I completed the 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training (YTT-200) before I retired from my position as Digital Learning Consultant in a large educational organization. When I began YTT, people kept telling me to be open to new things, because yoga would open up doors that I didn’t yet know existed, and that has certainly been the case. I wasn’t sure at the time where the yoga journey would take me. My “defining moment” was probably the moment I decided to walk away from a job I no longer loved to discover what I might learn from immersing myself more deeply in the field of yoga. Although I was worried at the time that it wasn’t the most sound financial decision I’d ever made, I could never have predicted the level of job satisfaction I currently have. Read more>>
Tiffany Goss
Have you ever experienced two entirely different emotions, both helplessness and excitement at the same time? I have, and it was in that moment that I realized it would change the entire trajectory of my career. Stay with me here. Recently, I was in the thick of a CME crisis, CME being Continuing Medical Education that I head for the company in which I’m employed. I remember feeling so overwhelmed, more so than I’d experienced in the two years after taking on this role. The uncertainty of not knowing how I was going to rectify the situation, left me feeling, you guessed it, helpless until I decided to take control. I was done waiting around, sitting idly by and within 24 hours, it was handled and couldn’t have worked out more beautifully. Read more>>
Emily Crouch
When my father-in-law suffered a stroke, it turned our world upside down. I stepped away from my clinic for nine months to care for him full-time, pouring everything I had into his recovery and helping him build a new version of “normal.” I discovered that my calling wasn’t just treating day-to-day ailments—it was being a steady support for those whose lives had been instantly and profoundly changed. That defining chapter in my personal life inspired me to pursue specialized education in stroke, traumatic brain injury, and chemo-radiation side effects, so I could offer deeper more meaningful healing to others facing life after trauma. Read more>>
Aumatma Simmons
The defining moment in my professional career was the decision to specialize in fertility – this changed everything! BUT, what led to this moment was my then-husband asking if we could start trying for a baby. And, whenever he asked, I would hear my uterus screaming NO!. Eventually I wondered, what was it all about? Was I meant to never have children? Was I married to the wrong person? Read more>>
Yana Stockman
Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career? If so, please share the backstory so we can fully understand and appreciate the moment and take in any lessons or wisdom that might be learned from your experience and story. Read more>>
Becca Benevento
I had just left a secure, long-term job to join a nonprofit that felt more aligned with my values and purpose. But just one month into the new role, the organization reorganized, and my position was eliminated without warning. No transparency, no support – just gone.
For a week, I sat in pure rage. I was furious – at the system, at the circumstances, and at the sudden void that had opened beneath me. But as the emotions settled, something softer emerged: surrender. I realized this was happening for me, not to me. I intuitively recognized that this pause had been divinely timed. I opened myself up to receive whatever was meant for me. Just a few days later, vibrational healing found me. Read more>>
Victoria Dume
There was a point in my career where I realized I didn’t want to just “coach” anymore—I wanted to create a movement. I had built a solid foundation helping women through mindset shifts and motivational work, but something began to feel off. The more I saw surface-level advice being recycled and repackaged in the coaching space, the more I felt called to go deeper. Read more>>
Lauren Soto
The decision to start my own business didn’t come from one big, dramatic moment—it was more of a slow, steady realization that kept building over time. Deep down, I knew I was craving something more. The ability to make a deeper impact, have more freedom, and be better aligned with the kind of business I wanted to establish. Read more>>
Dakota Rucker
I had always wanted to be a coach. I started years ago with fitness related coaching. I was a bodybuilder myself so it was easy for me to help others reach their goal. Looking back, I always tried to implement mindset into my coaching. I would always say “where the mind goes, the body follows”. I liked to rely on what the body needed vs what the world (social media) said was wrong or right. My mom always said “If it feels good, do it” and that’s kind of always been a life motto haha. What changed the directory for me was when I finally caved and hired my own mentor. My intention behind hiring her was for myself. I had had a lot of life changes, been in therapy, and tried everything I knew to do to try to better myself and keep my mind right and continue learning. Read more>>
Wendy Reinert
My 20+ year professional dance career was marked by many ups and downs, from self-doubt and perfectionism, to magical moments on massive stages. I performed with dozens of companies, including the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and Mark Morris Dance Group, while supporting myself financially as a babysitter, personal assistant, waiter, and eventually, strength coach. There wasn’t one defining moment for me…it was more of a slow burn, a spark that started in 2007 (4 years into my professional career) when I was diagnosed with my first 2 injuries in the same doctor’s appointment. Those injuries led me to discover aerial arts, and while I couldn’t dance on the ground, I learned to dance in the air. A wrist injury several years later forced me back into dancing on the ground. Read more>>
Karina Grigoryeva
I came into skincare world into 2020. I’ve been always passionate about helping people and it’s one of the reasons I became a certified Face Reality acne expert to help those who struggle with acne condition or compromised skin.
There was a moment that shifted everything for me — a moment when skincare became more than just beauty and self-care and my role as an esthetician became something much deeper.
In 2022 I witnessed my ex-boyfriend being incarcerated and that changed the trajectory of my life. Read more>>
Lauren McLeish
New Year’s Eve, 2019, was a defining moment — the night everything changed. It ultimately catapulted me into the world of alternative wellness and energy healing. Though, calling it a “career” doesn’t quite fit… this is soul work. My divine mission. Read more>>
Kendra Adachi
When I was in university I found myself declining in vitality in every way. From my physical health to mental and emotional. I was experiencing a lot of inflammation throughout my body resulting in body rashes and ezcema as well as depression and digestive issues. During this time I was also coming to terms with the truth that university and learning in that capacity was just not for me. I was in a space that didn’t align with how I wanted to express and explore my passions. I was also surrounding myself with others who were choosing different lifestyle choices that I knew were not benefiting me. I found an alternative school called Integrate Institute of Nutrition that was taught online and would be a catalyst to my learning and beginning my journey in deepening my relationship with listening to the internal nudges from my body that were telling me that I needed to choose something different. Read more>>
Debra Mercier
I had started my business with the thought of being a local herbalist, working in my gardens, helping people when they came to see my gardens. Teaching people how to use herbs. Never did I think I would be working with doctors and other medical professionals in this world of Lyme disease. It started back in 2004 when my father came down with Lyme disease, then my daughter and grandson. They were on the treatment of antibiotics, but as soon as they stopped, the symptoms came back. I started researching and reading and finally came up with my own protocol, an eclectic combination of herbs that bring down inflammation, support the immune system, opening detox pathways, as well as eliminating the spirochetes. Read more>>
Rebecca Rasmussen
It was 2015, and I was sitting in the backyard of our Connecticut house with my fiancé, trying to plan our wedding date. We sat on the lounge chairs, notebook in hand, but instead of dreaming about color palettes or venues, I was… crying. Not the kind of tears that trickle down quietly. I mean sobbing. Because deep down, I knew something was ending. Read more>>
Leonard Buschel
I had been a drug dealer for 23 years. On August 3rd, I drove myself to the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage. I smoked a joint on the way there, and had one in the glove box for the ride home 28 days later. I never needed to smoke it. I knew within the first 2 days there, that my dealing days were over, because I lost all desire to ever snort a line of coke, nibble on magic mushrooms, drink a few vodka on the rocks, drop Ecstasy or smoke weed ever again. And you can’t sell drugs without trying them first. Read more>>
Breanna Phillip
For the longest time I had said that I would never be a therapist. I knew I wanted to be a Social Worker, and I knew that I specifically wanted to support Black communities. I didn’t see Black people in therapy, so I didn’t see value in me being in the therapeutic space. However, as I worked in various sectors and increased in my understanding of the gaps in the therapeutic space specifically for Black communities, I realized that the very thing that made me say I would never be a therapist was the very reason why I needed to be one. Black people were not in therapy, because of a lack of representation of us as therapists. My mission as a therapist and therapeutic practice owner is to fill in the gaps and ensure that Black individuals, families and communities have access to mental wellness care that is representative of them. Read more>>
Fiona Emley
My first gift from the universe came in first grade, when my teacher told my parents, “You need to get her into acting.” I’m forever grateful they listened. Acting gave me a safe place to feel deeply, express emotion, and explore the psychology of relationships and human connection. It truly shaped me. Read More>>
Frank Wright
Yes—there was a deeply personal and defining moment that completely changed the trajectory of my career. It was witnessing my father’s health decline due to metabolic dysfunction, despite the fact that he was one of the fittest individuals I’ve ever known.
He had been a lifelong runner, an athletics coach averaging 20 miles a day, and someone I had always seen as the picture of health. But over time, he developed type 2 diabetes, and eventually, Lewy body dementia. Watching someone so dedicated to physical fitness succumb to a condition we often associate with inactivity was shocking. It shattered the conventional understanding I had of what health really is. Read More>>
Lea Jabre
I am 38. I am one in a million. At 34, after more than five years of traumatic medical gaslighting, I was diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS), a very rare disease that has no answers and is filled with a future full of uncertainties. Due to lack of funding for research, treatments are at best band aids for wounds that I never imagined could ever exist. For a little contex, it is a spectrum disorder and in my case extremely aggressive neuromuscular and for the most part “invisible” neuro degenerative autoimmune disease. One of its many invisible symptoms is pain. SPS taught me one of the most important lessons of life: understanding pain is absolutely impossible. Whether it is emotional, physical, psychical or all of them together; pain is a subjective concept. No tool exists to measure it. Read More>>
Fiona Emley
My first gift from the universe came in first grade, when my teacher told my parents, “You need to get her into acting.” I’m forever grateful they listened. Acting gave me a safe place to feel deeply, express emotion, and explore the psychology of relationships and human connection. It truly shaped me. Read more>>
Frank Wright
Yes—there was a deeply personal and defining moment that completely changed the trajectory of my career. It was witnessing my father’s health decline due to metabolic dysfunction, despite the fact that he was one of the fittest individuals I’ve ever known. Read more>>
Lea Jabre
I am 38. I am one in a million. At 34, after more than five years of traumatic medical gaslighting, I was diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS), a very rare disease that has no answers and is filled with a future full of uncertainties. Due to lack of funding for research, treatments are at best band aids for wounds that I never imagined could ever exist. For a little contex, it is a spectrum disorder and in my case extremely aggressive neuromuscular and for the most part “invisible” neuro degenerative autoimmune disease. One of its many invisible symptoms is pain. SPS taught me one of the most important lessons of life: understanding pain is absolutely impossible. Whether it is emotional, physical, psychical or all of them together; pain is a subjective concept. No tool exists to measure it. Read more>>