Is there ever a “right” time to start a creative career? Our goal has always been help people pursuing their passion. Helping those people often means helping them think through important decisions such as when to start, when to take the leap. Below, you’ll find our conversations with successful creatives reflecting back on when they had to decide whether to start or wait.

DaFemalePhenom

If I could go back in time, I might say I wish I’d started sooner, but honestly, I think I started at the exact right moment for me.

My love for horror started early, at six years old. While other kids were into cartoons and Barbie dolls, I was obsessed with gaming, wrestling (thanks to my mom, aunt, and grandmother), monsters, slashers, and everything creepy. I saw Halloween (1978) way younger than I probably should’ve, and it changed something in me. That eerie music, the tension, the mask—it stuck. Every night when my dad came home from his late shift, we had a ritual: he’d make me a ham sandwich, orange slices, crab Utz chips, and a juice box. We’d sit together and watch horror movies. That was our bond. Horror became more than a genre, it became my comfort zone, my escape, my identity. Read more>>

Jayresa Sass

If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t necessarily wish I had started my creative career sooner or later — I truly believe it started exactly when it needed to. But if I’m being real, I used to wish I had started sooner. I’d think, ‘Dang, where would I be by now if I knew this was possible 10 years ago?’ But the truth is, I had to go through some things to arrive at this version of me — the version that could lead, create, and heal through crochet. Read more>>

Mike Mahon

I actually wrote about this very thing in my recently published book, “Art Principles: Control Your Painting Process & Conquer Your Fear of Failure”.

I had some very unpleasant experiences growing up which resulted in a severe lack of confidence and inferiority issues. Additionally, in grade school I had a speech impediment which with therapy was cured, but my personal confidence remained low. Two primary obstacles that held me back from pursuing fine art for thirty years were: Read more>>

Marine Léa Thomas

In short, I would have been able to start my career sooner. I am an actress now, and I would never have been able to choose this path earlier. For more context, I grew up in a family that is not creative at all. The same was true for my group of friends. The desire to become an entertainer was always there, but it was always an unrealistic dream that I would fantasise about; it was never a realistic option. Not only that, but I never had the confidence to put myself out there like the job requires. I had cribbling public speaking and performance anxiety. Even though I grew up performing in front of my family and friends. My creative/entertainment side was always trying to get itself noticed, but I suppressed it because I was so very scared of everything surrounding it. Read more>>

Stephen Gervais

Unlike most Magicians when you ask how old they were when they got into magic, I did not get a magic set when I was five. I was actually twenty-one years old when I started. Me and my friend Brent Young were working on getting an apartment together and out of the blue he did a magic trick where he made a red silk handkerchief disappear. This blew my mind! The next day he did a card trick, and I think something snapped in my head, because I was hooked. Read more>>

Ingrid McCoy

If I could go back in time and change the moment I started my creative career, would I?

I’m not going to lie, yes sometimes I do wonder where I would be in my journey if I had started my art career sooner. But I don’t linger or worry about it. I love my life and so appreciate my artistic journey; the relationships I have made, the lessons I have learned, the joy (and challenges) of working with kids. Read more>>

Janay Blakely

I have been writing for as long as I have been able to hold a pencil. I have always loved story-telling. When I was younger I did oratorical competitions. When I got older I competed in “Young Talent Big Dreams” and won the spoken word division. I also did some one off performances in college and daballed in one play performance. My more serious pursuits as a creative began when I came home to Miami in 2019 and submitted to the ‘Emerging Writers’ fellowship from Miami Dade college. They did not select my manuscript but, I figured, I had already written to poetry so I might as well put it out there. Read more>>

DAVID STEELE

hat’s a great question — and one that makes me pause and reflect.

Sure, there’s a version of me that wishes I had jumped into the creative world sooner. Maybe I’d have more years of experience, a bigger portfolio, or a few more gray hairs earned behind the DJ booth. But the truth is, I wouldn’t change the timing of our journey — not by a beat. Read more>>

Daniela Delgado

I started painting as a child – my paternal grandmother was a self-taught artist in Venezuela and it was something we did together when she would visit. I was very comfortable with acrylic and even had a piece at New Orleans Museum of Art for an elementary school students exhibit. By high school, I wasn’t really painting outside of the art room. My school, Academy of the Sacred Heart, had an arrangement with New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), the regional, pre-professional arts training center for high school students in Louisiana, where students would start their day with academic classes in the morning and leave by midday to take all elective courses at NOCCA. Read more>>

SHULIN LI

I do sometimes wish I had started my professional art career a bit earlier. Growing up, I was always known as “the one who draws” art has always felt like a natural part of me.

While I majoring illustration at School of Visual Arts, I received my first commission requests for illustration and character design. I took on a few projects, which was exciting, although the results weren’t quite where I wanted them to be. As graduation approached, I gradually shifted my focus toward completing my class works and further developing my technique, thinking I needed to be more “ready” before working professionally. Read more>>

Milaka Hampton

In a way yes. I wish I had, had more faith in myself and my abilities sooner. I’ve always been a very creative person. I learned I had a creative gift in junior high, back then we would have assignments that would require us to make things consistently. We were poor and I had to make do with what I had. My teachers talked about my solar system for years. Everytime they would see me with my kids, they would bring up the solar system I made with an old record, a wire coat hanger, and a spark plug. Read more>>

Kalie Shorr

I was born and raised in Portland, Maine and started my career very early, playing gigs around town anywhere they’d let me have a microphone. My first “big break” happened when I was a sophomore in high school and had a viral video on YouTube. I got flown out to LA and Nashville to open for the Backstreet Boys and meet with half a dozen record record labels. I was ecstatic, and it made me feel like Hannah Montana. I’ve know I wanted to pursue music since I was 6 or 7, but that was the validation I needed to know that I really did have a shot at making it. I decided to skip college and dive right into the music industry. Read more>>

Annette Johnson

I truly believe my start in the creative world happened at just the right time, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Honestly, I never saw myself as a creative person. Growing up, I never dreamed of designing anything—if anything, I avoided it. Even something as simple as putting together outfits for school or work was a challenge for me. I kept things simple and never ventured far out of the box. I didn’t think I was “built” for a creative or crafty life. The closest I came was as a little girl when my brother and I once tried to build an airplane out of drywall in our backyard—we were about seven or eight years old, and you can imagine how that turned out! Read more>>