Tony Robbins says the #1 human need is certainty, but do you know what the second need is? It’s uncertainty. This tug of war between the competing needs of safety and risk are at the heart of so many dilemmas we face in life and for most folks the goal isn’t to eliminate risk – rather it’s to understand this core human need. In our view, the best way to understand or learn is through stories and so we’ve asked some very talented entrepreneurs and creatives to tell us the stories behind some of the risks they’ve taken.
Laramie Otto
In 2020 in the middle of the pandemic I quit my 9-5 job to work for myself full time! It was probably the scariest thing I had ever done but I had dreamed of that moment for so long. I figured if I never at least tried I would never know if I would succeed. I’m celebrating 2 years of working for myself and although it’s sometimes stressful I wouldn’t trade it for anything! Read more>>
Miranda Bonton
One of the biggest risks I have taken was starting my own business. It was tough for me because I grew up in an era where you went to college, got a good job and you worked there until you retired. Owning my own business was nowhere in the plan. The thought of it never crossed my mind because it wasn’t talked about in school. I then came across my husband and his family that are full of entrepreneurs. They encouraged me to try it especially since I was very good at the work I did in my field. In 2017 I took a leap of faith and started my own business MB Financial Consulting Services. It has truly been the best decision I’ve made as I’ve been able to make an impact across multiple businesses across the United States. Read more>>
Rochel Marie Lawson
The risk I took was to start a business when I already had a flourishing career as a Registered Nurse working in the Emergency Department with trauma patients. One night after a long, busy, tenous shift, I decided that there was more to life. I had been thinking about starting my own business however, on this particular morning, after finishing my shift, I decided that I could do a lot for people If I relieved myself of the constraints of what my employer had implemented and set out on my own to help people make changes in their life that allowed them to live the life of their dreams. Read more>>
JESSICA VILLEGAS
Life involves taking risks. Some are big and bold; others may be small and cumulative leading to large scale impact. I’ve never been a big, bold risk taker, but my last risk holds a different story. In January of 2022 I walked away from my career in Supply Chain to pursue a dream I’d had for many years of helping others. I have always known I would do something to help others in big ways, but never knew what until recently. Read more>>
Tramika Craddock
Going from Career Driven to an Entrepreneur was circumstantial for me. Entrepreneurship was never on my radar! I love the idea of busy roads to work, early mornings, the smell of coffee, crowded elevators and busy workspaces. I was corporate breed, thats where I lived, what I loved and my life goals. I made it a challenge within myself. How quickly could I climb the corporate ladder at one company before moving to the next. I found that this lifestyle left me bored easily and unfilled but still daily I played the game. In 2015 after transitioning from NY, to NC to GA, my husband and I were forced to put our 2 children at the time, in after school care.. Read more>>
Jared Thompson
Being a Full-Time Film-Maker is the biggest risk I’ve ever taken, But ironically, Its also my safest bet. I’m risking stability, a piece of mind, a “safe” life, and whatever else seems like comfort. Between my pride and my passion for what I love to do, I’m aware of the depths I could reach behind this before I reach the Heights. But since I already know what’s down there, I’m not looking down. Read more>>
Kendra Marsh
A risk I took recently is, going to another state by myself to work for the day. I currently live in Baltimore City, Maryland. I drove to Washington, D.C for door dash work. I been to Southeast D.C plenty of times, but I never been on the Northeast side of D.C. It was a different experience for me. I ended up making more money, being away from Baltimore City. It was a risk I took by myself and I truly enjoyed it. Read more>>
SHAUNTAMIKA FRILEY Green
I recently walked away from my corporate job. I was working for Rick Hendrick Consolidated Accounting office. I was stressed and unhappy because I knew this job wasn’t my final destination and I wasn’t really growing. Sometimes we become comfortable with a consistent pay check, but to become what your destined to be you will have to be uncomfortable. I mean I literally had a mental break down that’s how bad it was. Read more>>
Holly Turner
Whenever I think back on my life, I find 3 or 4 “butterfly effect” sort of moments; singular decisions that, whether I knew it or not at the time, altered literally everything that’s ever happened to me that came after it. Two of those were career related: becoming the first member of my family to not graduate college, and then, once I had a full time, salaried white collar job with benefits – something almost impossible to attain as a 19 year old college dropout – choosing to walk away from that job in order to pursue my dream. Read more>>
Joey Bellus
The most profound risk I have taken as a business owner is opening my own business. I started OPT in 2008, inside a small 13-foot by 13-foot room in a chiropractor’s office. this was the beginning of the recession and everyone thought I was crazy. looking back I was definitely crazy, I was 23, had no money, and was still in school but I knew what I wanted to do and went for it. here we are in 2022 and I can’t even begin to tell you all of the lessons that I have learned and how dramatically better of a human I am because I chose to stick with my heart and open my business. Read more>>
DJ Cysum
I’ve always worked for what people may consider “corporate America”. So having steady income, of course, is great. But working there as an artist sometimes puts major constraints on your time and schedule. You’ll find that you invest most of your time into making someone else money rather than yourself. So how do you invest time in yourself without compromising your main stream of income? You have to start taking big risk! Read more>>
Jaylin Gilbert
I was working at the front desk of the city’s first luxury hotel. I had to wear a pencil skirt and heels each day. I remember my walks to work were so long. It would take me 30 minutes, and even though I enjoy walking, it was getting to be scary. I remember being on the phone with my dad one morning, it was dark, and I got off the phone with my dad and turned around and saw this man behind me. He was so close I had no clue he was there. It was frightening. During the winter, the sidewalks were icy, and one day I slipped on my way to work and busted my entire leg open. Read more>>
Kendra Abadsidis
I have constantly taken risk to not only grow and improve my business but my personal life as well. I was doing photography in Florida and one year decided to move with $100 in my pocket and a plan to step foot into Atlanta, to build my photography business there. I knew nobody but quickly networked and met so many amazing faces and worked with tons of upcoming entrepreneurs. A few years later I did the same (except this time I was more financially stable) I took a road trip across the country to California, where I am now rebuilding my photography business and putting myself out there once again in front of a new crowd! Read more>>
Kassandra Ocasio
The biggest risk I took was branching out with my own business surrounding spirituality and healing. I have always had a passion for stones, energy healing, and connecting to the divine for years prior to this, but finally felt comfortable enough to want to share that love with other people around me. I’ve always been a private person so sharing this intimate part of me was hard at first, but I saw and witnessed first-hand what a healthy relationship with Spirituality could do for your mind, body and soul. Read more>>
Grace Gionest
Taking risks has never been a problem for me. The biggest roast I took was trying to follow a dream that I should’ve listen to myself on. I moved out to Tampa, Florida over a year ago to learn and work in designing jewelry. I wouldn’t say I regret it, but I do wish I followed my path and did it the right way instead of rushing into a new life. Taking Risk on a career is definitely one of the most scary things you can do and you’ll never know the outcome until later down the road. Being self-made in general is a risk, but if you put your heart to it you can be anywhere in the world and still make it happen. Read more>>
Fiona Anavi
Making the switch from an art director to a photographer who creative directs shoots was…. a change. All change includes risk. However when designing your career it’s vital to keep an open mind and to pay attention to what your strengths are in every situation. Over time I realized I was much more of an asset on set or on location than behind a computer. I hope to always ask myself the tough questions and keep honing and improving for my entire career. Read more>>
Lacee Swan
I am so grateful I have always been a risk taker. As a young girl I always dreamed of working in Fashion. My mom would sew clothes for me and we would spend our free time at the mall. I loved to draw and paint people and clothes as a young girl. But where I lived having a career in Fashion was nonexistent and this was before Project Runway days. I did not have the best circumstances and when graduation came I found myself living out of my car. Read more>>
Ahmad Smith
I was a property manager for over seven years. I was managing some of the most illustrious multi-family communities in Atlanta. However , I knew that there was something bigger for me , something I knew GOD had especially hand crafted for me. I remember one day GOD told me I wouldn’t be at my job too much longer. I sat there with such a baffled look on my face in response to what I had just heard. However, about two weeks later I was fired from my full time corporate job for the most simplest reason. Right then and there I knew it was time to follow my dreams. Read more>>
Jenny King
As a child, I was teased severely in school. The negative words, jokes and isolation impacted me in a major way. I developed low self-esteem and had a very poor self-image. Throughout life those childhood experiences made it extremely difficult for me to find my voice, express myself and truly love me for me. The negative impact showed up in so many ways – let’s see…there was a lack of confidence, struggles with people pleasing, being afraid to speak up, not feeling comfortable in my skin, emotional eating and weight gain, living in my head, over analyzing just about everything and allowing negative self-talk to control my life outcomes. Read more>>
Jamila Muhammad
My biggest risk to date is opening my retail location. I’ve literally talked about owning a bakery for over 10 years (since I worked at Disney as a pastry cook 1). I had to finance my business myself because I could not attain traditional loans. I decided in January of 2020 to work out of a commercial kitchen to gauge what my revenue would look like doing this full-time. Soon after I found myself outgrowing the commercial kitchen situation and started researching retail locations. Read more>>
Rhonda Benjamin
The story of how RJB collections started was definitely a risk and stepping out on faith. I am a hairstylist by trade and my husband Is disabled. In 2020 when the pandemic hit because of my home being immunocompromised, I made the decision not to return to the salon until things got better. But then I ended up pregnant and then I was high risk so I could not return to the salon safely. This led us to think to figure out what we would do to supplement our income. We first Started making hand-painted wood jewelry and eventually fell in love with the medium polymer clay. Read more>>
Jeanne Zierhoffer
I had extreme difficulties in communicating with other people, feeling like I was consistently putting my foot in my mouth and was socially awkward. My nickname became “butter-ball” based on an innocent comment my Mom said, and it stuck, for an 11-year-old in Jr High it was extremely uncomfortable. With no tools at my disposal, I chose drugs and alcohol and became the life of the party, and I was, what a great cover-up, so I thought. “They,” say for people like me, it’s jails, institutions, and/or death, well isn’t that great. For me, I didn’t care, I was miserable. Read more>>
Jehan D. Wilson, M.S.
“Shoot your shot!” As cliche as that phrase is, it serves as a repetitive reminder to live within the moment + pursue every fantasy that I can curate. Life is all about taking calculates risks that ultimately help you to achieve your desires. I have always regarded myself as a risk taker. That quailty has assisted me to push forward throughout all of my endeavors. Read more>>
Taylor Bennett
The best thing I’ve ever done was also the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. I’m a mom of twins, so having stable income to provide for my family has always been of the utmost importance to me. In August 2020, I opened Iced by Taylor Desserts. Originally, I started Iced by Taylor as something fun that I could do on the weekends, for extra income. I quickly fell in love with baking, getting creative with flavor combinations and connecting with my community. Read more>>
Courtnie McCarthy
One of the biggest risks I’ve taken in my career so far was flying out to New York by myself to attend NYFW. I always had a dream to walk in New York Fashion Week, and it was one of my biggest goals that I wanted to accomplished. Everything went so smoothly, and ended up walking for designer (Morgan Saunders/ @officalvireosuits_) from Atlanta. The feeling of being in New York for the first time as a runway model is a feeling that I cannot describe. It may be small to others but it ment everything to me. Read more>>
Talia Lewis
I took a risk being the first in my family to make a move out of state after living in Michigan for 27 years! I had so many emotions up and down, i couldn’t believe it, my anxiety went up! I packed my bags and my children’s and moved to Decatur, Georgia just outside of Atlanta. Read more>>
Cassandra Garza
I moved to Austin from Iowa in August of 2019 to pursue my passion for art, but instead I was depressed and unemployed. I was certain that moving back to my home state after being gone for 7 years would make me happy, but the beginning of this journey just wasn’t good. I was able to find a part time job after being unemployed for what felt like forever (3 months). Soon after, COVID hit and we had to stay home. Read more>>
Arjuna Durrant
Launching Jytte Designs was the biggest risk Ive ever taken. I have always been a designer and maker but it wasn’t until I lost my job with the initial COVID lockdowns that I decided to launch my own business. When the initial lockdown happened in March of 2020, my son was 1 and a half years old. I suddenly found myself at home, without a job or childcare and a partner who worked out of the house. Finding a way to help support our family while working from home and caring for my son was a necessity. Read more>>
Wayne Gui
The biggest risk I’ve taken so far has been to the decision to the leave the comforts of living in Canada to come to the United States for college. I had been raised in Canada and was used to the particular way of life. My family and friends were all there and my plan was to remain in the country indefinitely. Then, one day sophomore year of high school, I had the spontaneous idea of applying to colleges in the United States. American influence in Canada permeates many aspects of life there and although I loved living in Canada, the land of even greater opportunities existed “south of the border”. Read more>>
Jessica Dunn
In June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic I joined the Leukemia Texas team. Walking into a new organization with a new team that I had only met virtually was a challenge. For over 50 years the organization had raised most of our funds through 3 or 4 special events and with them all being cancelled we lost over $750,000 in much needed revenue. Our small team of 3 covers the whole state of Texas but now we were facing so many challenges but yet so many possibilities as well. We took this time to really get to know our partners, patients and think outside the box. Read more>>
Samantha Stewart
After 10 years of teaching fulltime in the Texas public school systems, I made the risky decision to go part time to focus on my business, The Sienna String Quartet. Sienna String Quartet is in it’s 6th year of business. It started out with four friends playing classical music together and slowly started to become a group of musicians performing events like weddings, cocktail hours and corporate events. As we grew, the amount of musicians we needed grew and the style we played changed. We mostly perform popular music now but with a fun string twist! Read more>>
Cassius Jennings
Life is all about taking risk. I took my first real risk at 16 selling all my shoes to buy my first camera without realizing it was my first big investment. To later on creating my film production company and learn how to manage a company to building clients and hitting the road from state to state building clientele all through word of mouth and social media from shooting many free videos just to create a name for myself and studying many hours on YouTube teaching my self how to operate the camera, editing, and coloring videos. Read more>>
Donna Blue Thunder” Peera”
A great risk I have taken was when my mother died of Covid and Mother-in-Law. Both were close to me. I found pictures of my Mother forever smiling in all her pictures, places I didn’t know she went and activities she saw. She was a giver and explored risk taking in her life. After she died, my first dive was taken in Costa Rica in 2021 at 57 years of age. I then bought my first practice didgeridoo and I do everything by constantly spirit communication with the Higher Power in my work via meditation and healing others. Read more>>
D. Lamond
I have always been a risk taker, but I have to credit my parents and Grandmother Pearl for teaching me that it’s ok to take risks. They did so without knowing that it would impact my life forever. My grandmother gave me many opportunities as a child that many grandparents would not have done. For example, letting me help her paint her home at the age of twelve or taking me to play bingo when I wasn’t old enough to play. As a pre-teen, my parents always believed in me when it came to business decisions such as finding us a home to purchase or letting me be in charge of things such as picking the right cell phone carrier for us to have. Read more>>
Cat Lantigua
Interestingly enough, I’m currently in a period of my life where I’m diving into yet another risky decision to move abroad as a way to encourage a sense of adventure and inspire a deeply creative day-to-day life. In 2020, I quit my 9-5 job to pursue the continuation of the wellness community I’d been building for years, and then at the end of 2021 I realized it was no longer aligned and decided to close it down. Since then, I’ve been digging deep and honing in on my life’s true purpose and now that I have re-remembered what it is, I am more committed than ever to embody it. Read more>>
Rachel Scully
A risk? I’ve never looked at anything in my life as that. Let’s take a look back at my sophomore year of high school when my father was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, and I had an abrupt move back home to Orlando FL, from the good ole Smokey mountains, during, of course, COVID.-19. Having a large interest in politics, my father asked me to join the East River High School debate, team. I excelled in the craft, and 2 years later made it through the semi-finals at the national competition for student congress (NCFL), on top of 2nd place in Florida with thanks to my coach, Mr. Mayes! Read more>>
Scott Anthony
Flashback to 2020/21 when Covid was at its peak and I was working endlessly trying to make rent. I was trying everything and anything to make doable. I decided to start posting more about my daily finds and what would then turn to be my present day social media blogging account. As my social media following started to pick up, I knew I had to make fast decisions about my job I currently held. Do I end this job I only know of? Do I risk it and just become a full time influencer? Well I took a leap of opportunity and became a full time influencer. Now when I look back at that decision I am very weary because it was tough decision made right! Read more>>
A Ruth Proctor
Self-publishing was hard work, at times I wanted to give up and table it but I pushed past my fears; 2020 was my year. I went from writing my book out on paper then typing it out on the computer to printing and editing. Then I went through edits with my editor and then a proofreading process. I’m still fine tuning things, I notice each time I read it but all in all I’m happy with the finished product. This has been a learning lesson for me. I will be prepared this next go around; educating yourself on the process is key. Read more>>
Todd Sanders
When I was a little kid, I only wanted to be one thing when I grew up, an artist. But I was discouraged from pursuing it as a career by my father and other ‘practical;’ folks who loved and cared about me and didn’t see it as something a grown man could make a living at. While I went to college to study art, it was to do something more practical like graphic design where I could sit in an office and collect a regular paycheck. I quickly realized that wasn’t for me so when I was out on my own I made commercial signs. Read more>>
Samantha Binkley
Well, starting your own business is definitely a risk, and a big one at that! Ever since taking the leap of faith to start Healthy On You®, I don’t think anything could feel as risky as putting yourself out there like starting a business requires. Getting started though and taking that risk is what separates the dreamers from the entrepreneurs. Read more>>
Nicholas Hardy
When my family moved to Houston, Texas – I was unemployed. To further complicate matters, my wife was pregnant and we had only been married for less than a year. From the outside looking in, it was the worse time to have an “aha” moment and relocate. Although historically, this would not have come as a surprise. I had a history of changing jobs and cities in search of something bigger and better. Some would call it being upwardly mobile, and others would suggest I was running, but in either case, it was customary for me to grow bored and transition to the next phase of life. Read more>>
Ceion
Last year in October I had the opportunity to audition for “Amateur Night at the Apollo” in New York. I’d sent in an audition video having no idea if they would accept or even listen. I was pretty nervous about it until on my birthday in November. I’d gotten a call from the Apollo saying I’d made it in! I’m gonna have the ability to perform on the same stage as countless legends in front of one of the toughest crowds in America. Read more>>
Melissa Bryant
When you want more out of life. You pray and let God lead you. I know I was going to be an Entrepreneur. Because I have lots of talent and gifts. But I was holding myself back worrying if I could really do this. Besides writing book I just prayed step one faith and owned my first boutique store. God work everything out for me. We take risk on raising children in this crazy world. Why not take a risk to build a legacy for you and your family as God lead you. Read more>>
Debby Mayer
I feel like I waited my whole life for Governor Newsom to tell me just to stay home and write. Then he did, and I did.
When the California pandemic shutdown was announced, in mid-March of 2020, I had worked at home for almost ten years, so my routine didn’t change: up at 5:30, write for an hour before breakfast. Stretching exercises, done to prayers; take care of Sizzle, my dog, and me, then back at the desk, work until lunch. Of course I got dressed, including shoes—I masked up and walked Sizzle four times a day, as usual, and did my own local errands once a week. Read more>>