Every once in a while, something happens that really matters. Something that will define at least the next chapter of your journey – perhaps it’s a conversation with a client, a meeting with a visionary or a major event in your personal life. Below, you’ll find some very insightful folks sharing defining moments from their journeys.

Victor Elmurr

As a sophomore in high school I was pursuing a college football scholarship which meant pushing myself both on and off the field which included the weigh room. Over time, I was pushing more weight than I could maintain proper form with which lead to breaking the lowest part of my back. I avoided surgery and after landing an internship at a local training facility, I ended up finding relief from a local massage therapist who did extremely deep tissue work, it was painful but gave me about 70% relief in 1 visit. This led me to massage school which turned into chiropractic college because my massage license allowed me to take continuing education courses. Read more>>

Luke Michael Howard

Yes, in 2016 I attended the world’s largest Hypnosis Conference Hypnothoughts in Las Vegas. And sorry, Hypnotist talk and give a lecture that completely changed the way I did Hypnosis. For years, I felt that I had to be like somebody else so I had to suppress who I truly was. I thought I was different to everyone else, but in a bad way. Add Hypnosis had to be done at one specific way. Read more>>

Jaclyn Andrews

There have been two pivotal moments that reshaped the course of my career. The first was developing a stress-induced ulcer. The second was realizing that Life doesn’t happen to me—it happens from me. I looked to external circumstances and work in particular for fulfillment for my entire life, creating a constant emotional rollercoaster. That imbalance eventually manifested physically and I developed a stress-induced ulcer, which became the catalyst for a major shift in my life. Read more>>

Keya Murthy

I was trained to be a Physicist and a Software Engineer. I thought I would do that until I turned 58, and retire and live happily ever after. I was in middle-level management, earning 6 figure salary in 2000. I was 34. By 2001, the dot-com bust had occurred, and September 11 followed. Read more>>

Markus Reinhardt

The Defining Moment: Meeting Mike Mentzer and Unlocking the Power of HIT
It was a moment that would shape my entire philosophy—not just in training but in life and business. Meeting Mike Mentzer, the mastermind behind High-Intensity Training, wasn’t just an encounter; it was an awakening. Read more>>

Heidi Pasch

Ballet and gymnastics were my first passions, and where I fell in love with movement.

A defining moment in my career was when I endured a knee injury that required six surgeries and a hospital stint in the ICU. As a 19-year-old gymnast and dancer, I found myself combatting osteoarthritis, post-operative weight fluctuations, and learning to withstand the drastic change in my activity level. I felt suddenly stagnant, watching physical therapy patients who were senior to me by half a century skip past me in agility and independence. This knee injury resulted in resilience and patience, forcing me to develop intelligent training strategies.  Read more>>

Andrew Daye

The defining moments of my career weren’t successes; in fact, they were from failures. A few of them. First was a life-shattering hit rock bottom, losing my car, my job, and being left with -$133 in my bank account, which came from a strong imbalance of high performance and well-being. I rebuilt, hit a new peak, but the same imbalances surfaced again, causing my first supplement brand to fail right in front of me. Read more>>

Jessica Green

It was less one specific moment and more a collection of moments and experiences that taught me the power of food as medicine. From my Dad having a heart attack when I was 10 years old to struggling with crippling gastrointestinal issues and struggling with depression and anxiety. Initially, like many individuals, In my own health journey, I was overwhelmed by the conflicting nutrition information available, struggled to determine which sources were reliable and trustworthy and was unclear about what I should really do to feel my best. Read more>>

Karla Garjaka

From the time I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a mother.
It wasn’t just a dream; it was something I felt in my bones. I
imagined the joy of raising daughters, laughing and playing with
them, and becoming the kind of mother I had always admired.
When I married the love of my life and we decided to start a family,
everything seemed perfect. I cherished every moment of pregnancy,
despite the challenges of morning sickness and complicated deliveries. Read more>>

TK Huynh

Absolutely. In 2020, when the pandemic led to the cancellation of Burning Man, my wife and I joined a group of Burners in Santa Fe for a Shamanic Journey ceremony involving BUFO. That experience became a profound turning point in both our personal and professional life. Read more>>

Renee Bethel

Yes, there was a defining moment that completely shifted the trajectory of my career – and it came after one of the most challenging seasons of my life. For six years, I was in a full-time caregiver role as my husband faced a serious illness and my daughter recovered from devastating injuries after being hit by an 18-wheeler. During that time, I was pouring out everything I had for the people I loved, but somewhere along the way, I lost sight of myself. I came to a painful but powerful realization – I had been caring for everyone around me except me. Read more>>

Amanda

It wasn’t when I won a title or landed a big opportunity. It was the day I couldn’t get out of bed. I had spent years climbing the corporate ladder, working in finance and real estate—externally successful but internally breaking down. What no one saw was that I was silently battling PTSD, the ripple effects of years of trauma, and a growing sense that I was living a life that didn’t reflect who I truly was. Read more>>

Umar Farooq

When I was a college student, I worked at a health supplements store in NYC. I was getting really overwhelmed with consistently being micromanaged and over corrected, no matter how many times I approached that position from a different angle with different strategy, nothing was good enough. So I prayed and researched to figure out a job that is unsupervised workforce. Read more>>

Javier Alegre

There was definitely a defining moment. I remember going to college and picking an major, plans developed and ideas came to mind as to what I wanted to do with that major, Business and Finance by the way. I was excited, imagined myself working in a nice office, a big corporation where I could not only further develop my skills, but also grow and advance my career. I came from a family where everyone one had one job, and they stay there until retirement, certainly mother, my father, and my older sister all followed that path. I was imagining the same path for myself. Read more>>

Daria

Interestingly enough, my defining moment didn’t come from a big, dramatic event. It came from a single comment during a clinical rotation in my last semester of nursing school.

At the time, I was fully focused on becoming an emergency room nurse. I was deep into rotations and felt confident that ER nursing was the path I’d follow after graduation. But one day, while shadowing a nurse in the ER, she told a patient something along the lines of: “You should be grateful you’re stable enough to not need us every second of your stay.” It was a simple comment, but not one that is said often enough. For that reason, it hit me hard. Read more>>