We’ve been fortunate to connect with so many brilliant artists, business owners and leaders over the years and so we reached out to some of these talented folks to discuss what it takes to be successful.

Casey Davis

Success is a very subjective mindset with an even more personal journey involved . For some, success is being able to provide for loved ones. For others it simply means they have achieved a sought after goal. To me, it always implies the victory over your own battle, whatever that looks like. I have a doctorate in Chiropractic, Dr. Casey Davis, DC. Five years ago I owned my own practice and loved my job and my patients. I sustained a shoulder injury in an auto accident that made it impossible to practice without severe pain. Read more>>

Megan Mason

Firstly, I think the term success has been evolving immensely over time. If you were to ask any random person on the street, their definition of success will surely vary from one person to the next. If you were to ask a corporate executive or the world’s top 1% about the definition of success, you would find completely different answers there. While our current social-media influenced culture places success in terms of what handbag you own, what car you drive, what size house you live in, how much money you make, so on and so forth, my personal definition of success is quite the opposite. Read more>>

Elizabeth Havlicek

I think it takes faith, balance and a sense of worthiness (coupled with self-confidence) to be successful. You have to fully believe that you can do whatever you set out to do, and that you deserve to be successful. You have to quiet the inner voices of self-doubt when things don’t go quite as planned (and do they ever go quite as planned?). Read more>>

Carlos Bustos

I believe that being consistent, a great work ethic, being passionate about what you do, and to never stop learning are major factors and the key to being successful. Read more>>

Dasja White

Over the years, I have accomplished so many goals. Apart of being successful is dedication. Everyday will not be your day. Every client and/or customer is not going to be a good fit. I still have so much success that I want to accomplish. Failure is apart of success because if you don’t fail how do you know how to get back up and try again. Practice your craft and never give up. I have been doing hair since I was 8 years old and everyday is a learning experience in the hair industry. Read more>>

Jamie Rogers

As a small business owner in the hair industry I can say with absolute 100% certainty that it takes a village of support to be truly successful. I joined a building business group, Thrivers Society, early on when I decided to go out on my own. Having a community to run ideas with, get ideas from and everything in between was truly priceless. Continuing my education is also imperative. Color trends change constantly, it’s my job to stay up to date. Read more>>

Jesse & Julia Torres

To be successful, it requires the person to be consistent and dedicated to the goal they set for themselves. It is important to be flexible in certain situations that may happen along the way to the success. Read more>>

Faith Ellis

In order to be successful, I believe it requires persistence. Success looks different for each individual and honestly, for each business. I have started a couple of different businesses and while they may not pull in enough yet to allow me to quit my day job, continuing to be persistent is finally paying off in terms of some kind of financial profits as well as a more extensive and ever-growing audience. The bigger your audience, the bigger your opportunities! Read more>>

Cosha Joseph

Persistence and dedication….. Being a business owner is hard work. It will eat you alive if you are not focused on succeeding. Fear will creep up on you and sometimes cause you to second guess your why and your purpose. Lack of support can cause the same feelings. Read more>>

Briane Lipscomb

I personally don’t believe success can be solely measured by one thing. In my eyes, even getting one booking or one sale is successful to me. I do believe that being your authentic self & hard work can make small success turn into larger success. Patience is great to have for that as well, it doesn’t all happen overnight. Read more>>

Natasha Swanson

Believing in yourself and trusting God’s plan. There were so many times in my career coming up that I would doubt myself because of what other people said about my dreams. I had plenty of people telling me that I will NEVER make a living off of just photography and that I needed a plan b. But see once I started seeing my potential in this industry, I really believed in myself that I can really make this work. I knew I could really make a difference in this world with just my photos and how hard I work to make my dreams come true. Read more>>

Temika Brackins

Being successful is hard work and dedication, to be successful you must have the right mindset. Sometimes success takes long days and nights. I am a serial entrepreneur and I have created a coaching program that shows you how to turn your ideas into a business or a profitable hustle. Success also takes investing in your self, you must continue to learn and get knowledge and information in order to help your community. You must continue to trust God and be a good leader. The measure of success is happiness and peace of mind. Read more>>

Destinee Floyd

I think it takes first off believing in and investing in yourself to be successful. Our greatest competition is ourselves because we must ask ourselves how can I be better than I was last year and so on? We are the only ones that can get our way. Read more>>

Ulises Perez

To become successful you’ll first have to identify what “success” means to you. Nowadays we are brainwashed to think you have to become a millionaire at age 24 and have a huge house with fame. Everyone wants to become successful overnight. However success is what you make it to be. Success is not just one dimension. There’s different levels to becoming successful and depending on what you value most is how you’ll identify yourself being successful or not. Read more>>

Tiffany Woodard

I think it takes a combination of hardworking, having a clear vision & commitment in order to be successful. It’s one thing to have a vision but if you can’t stay committed to that vision, you’ll never be successful. Although your vision may have started off one way and maybe a few months later your vision is slightly different, staying committed to that vision will allow you to be able to not only meet but exceed your expectations for your business in order to be successful. Read more>>

Michael DelVecchio

I think pure and simply, it’s about persistence and tenacity. Talent really isn’t enough. You have to marry talent with work ethic and the ability to take calculated risks in your life. The most successful people I know had a goal or a vision and worked tirelessly until they achieved it. You have to be willing to get knocked down a couple of hundred times and even retrace ground you’ve already covered just to move a single step forward. Most people only see the highlight reel of successful people but not the pain and sacrifice it took to get there. Read more>>

Hassan Ahmad

I think hard work is the biggest thing that it takes to be successful. You can have all the talent in the world but if you don’t apply that talent by putting in the hard work to achieve it, you won’t see any success or results from it. I’ve been designing for about over 8 years now, but it was just about 3 years ago when major league teams and names started to notice my work. I felt like I already had enough graphic design talent and wasn’t putting in 100% effort towards my work, or showing any improvement which caused me to stay where I’m at without progressing or showing any success towards myself and the others who follow my work. Read more>>

Sarah Ashley

From a bedroom window to creating luxury experiences in major US cities. Starting out, TED was built from the ground up only using the pennies we had and a fully debt free company from day one. We started with a small bedroom in our home that would hold our equipment as we grew our inventory. We would load a small pickup truck that we backed up to a window, nearly backing into our home for every job. Read more>>

Dmytro Baumann

Success is not something that can be flatline applied to everyone and everything. Each individual, whether it is in their own business or working for a larger scale company, will define success in different terms. To me, personally, success always revolved around purpose… do I wake up each day excited to do what I do? If I can answer that with a yes, then I know I’m on the right track to success. The big thing to remember, is success is earned and not found. It takes time, a lot of it, and I have not put in enough effort or time to see the real fruits of my labour just yet. Read more>>

Jennifer Sapountsis

The most important thing to remember is, for success to occur you must fail first. Without failure, without mistakes, and without a setback comes no full growth. One must be able to fall or trip in order to know how to stand taller. The concept we are taught as kids still applies to our success stories in business. Read more>>

Manal Hussein

In order to be successful, I believe it is extremely important to be open to the idea of failure. And comfortable with it, to some point. Many people think success is a straight path, but really it is full of ups and downs, trials and errors. I know I have had my fair share, especially in trying to develop my recipes through out the years. I wanted to make goods that were made from scratch that you couldn’t get anywhere else. Read more>>

Leticia Landrau

Passion and hard work go hand in hand to be successful in what you do. These two key ingredients pushed me to turn my love for capturing moments into a business. Read more>>

Katrina Glynn

I think motivation is one of the biggest assets to being successful. I’ll admit as a business owner I have my days where I struggle with marketing & even time management, but in my case that ultimately results from a lack of motivation & procrastination to get things done. Read more>>

Jose Eduardo Ramirez

Consistency, if you could build a routine even better. Trust the process and stay on top of it, things sometimes can take some time but you got trust that you’ll get it done. Read more>>

Latoya McCowan

Often times, sucess is defined as “The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted”. Sucess can mean different things to different people. I think in order to be successful; you have to be “hungry” for more, have a purpose driven plan, dedication, drive, ambition, perseverance, commitment and belief in what you’re pursuing and let’s not forget the most important thing… FAITH! Read more>>

Dorian Nixon

To be successful it takes hard work, dedication, the ability to receive constructive criticism and learn from it, the willingness to never stop learning, constant research, surrounding yourself with like minded individuals, and not allowing fear to stand in the way of opportunities and growth. To be successful you must be humble, you must be faithful and you must be willing to pour into others; just as someone may have poured into you. Read more>>

David Christopher

To be successful it requires tenaciousness. The meaning of visuals who may have the funds and the knowledge to get to a point in some cases that may be easy for them however for most of us who are starting a business it requires us to be determined to accept a failure as a learning opportunity. and learn how to work around that mistake or error in judgment and still get the same result as those who have the ability in skill or with funds. Read more>>

Lourdes K Pinto

The main key is to take action with a vision of success in the desired direction. Once committed to this, navigate the journey to achieve them. In the process, you must be patient for things that take time, persistent when things get difficult and persevere through everything with the intention to reach those goals. Read more>>

Kaitriona Phonhrath

In today’s society, we are constantly juggling work, school, extracurricular activities and obligations, making time for friends and family, maintaining self care, and the list goes on! It can be challenging to maintain life balance when you’re a full time student also working full time and running your own small business. To start off, in order to be successful you must feel confident and motivated to work towards accomplishing your goals. Setting small daily goals and achievements for yourself can help train your mind to push through working towards bigger goals. Read more>>

Kayla Denise

I personally believe determination is one of the biggest factors to becoming successful. From there, everything else will follow: discipline, consistency, and confidence. Once i’ve set my mind on something, there is no letting up until i’ve reached my goals. In general though, success for everybody looks different. I feel like if you want something bad enough you’re going to make sure you take the necessary steps to get there. That means pulling yourself out of bed in the morning no matter how bad you want to stay asleep. Read more>>

Jackie Thesing

Success looks different for everyone, and the timeline of success looks different for everyone. Two of the main things that have helped me reach my goals have been persistence and consistency. I have been blessed with being able to take my work at my own speed, since my primary job is being home with our two little girls. Even though my work hours have ebbed and flowed, and some weeks were more productive than others, I stayed consistent with some small goals every day/week. Read more>>