Stories are incredibly powerful – their ability to teach, inspire, and create understanding is why we are so in love with storytelling. Most stories have a defining moment and so we’ve asked some of the most talented, insightful folks across a broad range of industries and markets to tell us about a defining moment in their story.

Kasey Mathews

My defining moment was half-way through my second pregnancy when I went into premature labor. I clutched onto the arm of a nurse, looked in her eyes and said, “Things like this don’t happen to me.” To which she quickly and calmly replied, “They do now.” A day later I delivered a baby girl weighing 1 pound 11 ounces. With that, my journey as a “Preemie Mom” had begun. Read more>>

Christi Nelson

Although I still had a year of adjuvant therapy to go and I was going through medical menopause at age 42, I had finished breast cancer treatment. I knew I’d be heading back to work full-time in a few months, but I was a completely changed person. Read more>>

Brea Sharron Estep

In my early twenties, I began personal training and competing in fitness shows and realized it probably wasn’t a good thing to “need” medicine to pay attention and/or prescription narcotics daily to get going, and birth control never made my periods more manageable anyways, so I managed to use prescriptions only as needed. Read more>>

Hannah Brandt

Picking only 1 defining moment is a deceivingly difficult task, as most of us have been shaped and molded into who we are today by not one, but countless impactful, defining moments, but a few definitely stand out. Read more>>

Janice DaCosta

I can remember back in 2008, my life felt like it was going in hamster wheel mode. I had no passion or purpose in life. I felt stuck and stagnant as if I was caged. On this one particular sunny day, I was laying on my couch looking out of the window and I saw this bird soaring with it’s wings straight out. In that moment, I thought to myself, Read more>>

Barbara Silva

While working in sales in South Florida, I discovered yoga. The corporate environment gradually left me feeling burned out and uninterested at work. To relieve the tension and exhaustion, I began taking classes at a nearby studio. Read more>>

Nedra Stevenson

The moment when I thought I wanted to be an accountant. My brother questioned why I wanted to be an accountant. I couldn’t give him a reason, so he said, well you’re not good at numbers and you’re more of a people person. While I was looking for a career, my stepmother informed me of Sanford Brown Business School and encouraged me to apply. Read more>>

Patty Medina

I founded Hooper Mentality in 2020 after witnessing first hand the needs of the youth in the inner city areas of San Diego and Orange County. These areas lacked free sports programs for their community and the focus on mental health awareness. Read more>>

Kaylah Louiny

A defining moment in my life would definitely have to be the moment I made a conscious decision to live in Truth. This is not an easy thing to do especially when it requires you to uproot old mindsets and allow God to guide and order your steps. After I came to that realization, my life took a complete turn for the better. Little did I know, the greatest lesson was embedded within my ability to be vulnerable. Read more>>

Kara Langill

Health and fitness has always been apart of my life. To keep myself accountable, I would share tips, tricks, workouts, and recipes on social media. I recently was diagnosed with skin cancer and realized that is not something you bounce back from. Read more>>

Darren Stewart

I have had one major defining moment in my career, and it has drastically impacted my business and everything else going forward. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was still going strong, and many trainers were struggling to just stay afloat. Read more>>

Chalene Skinner

A defining moment for me was mapping out my educational background mixed with my passion to help others. Visually seeing it written on paper, it was like the puzzle fit together ❤️ Life coaching, running a non for profit, all help others feel better about themselves and attain their best life possible. I had to see it written out before me though, to put it all together. Read more>>

Eve Smith

The woman beckoning me stood slightly behind a pillar and away from the other conference participants. Smiling, I waved, excused myself from the group of teachers I’d been chatting with and went over. I’d met this teacher two years before in 2012 at a teacher training in Sevastopol when it was still a part of Ukraine. Read more>>

Kelly Reginella

When I look back on my journey as a reiki master healer/teacher, psychic medium and my nursing career I would say that there were three defining moments as a daughter, healer and medium, but the one defining moment of fully understanding who I am and my purpose, was when I was 17 years old and my mom was in a coma. Read more>>

Elizabeth Ansah

During lockdown I awoke one morning feeling lost one and emotionally drained. I was drawn to writing down my thoughts and started journaling as my mind felt overwhelmed and so busy. A lot had been happening my mum got sick with Covid, I had been dismissed from work on the grounds of ill health and felt like I was drowning. Read more>>

Tracy Hartley

I was 49 years old and had a good job that I liked a lot. I had had many jobs before that one, including some really wonderful ones like helping Vietnam Veterans find jobs and training dogs to assist people with disabilities other than blindness. Read more>>