As an outsider, breaking into an industry can often seem like an impossible challenge and so we reached out to some very generous folks who agreed to share their stories of how they broke into their respective industries. Elle Blakeney It was not until my third year of nursing school at Clemson University that my passion…

Often, those who tread off the beaten path are misunderstood or mischaracterized and so we asked folks from the community to reflect and tell us about the times they've been misunderstood or mischaracterized. SAAVI. I feel that my work and I are both misunderstood and mischaracterized. Being a female in a male-dominated industry is complicated enough…

One of the most powerful things about being a business owner is the ability to create a work environment according to your own principles. So many of us have worked within a company or organization and been disappointed by the way things were run, the way team members were treated. So, we wanted to ask…

Great schools and training programs offer learning opportunities that go far beyond the syllabus. We asked some amazing folks from the community to share stories from their educational journey with us. Rose Hinsz “Everything is Connected” This theme from Massage Therapy school changed my understanding of Life in so many ways. It finally tied together all…

You’re working hard, things are going well, piece by piece you’ve built a life you are proud of, you’ve overcome obstacles and challenges, beat the odds and then you find yourself at the center of an unexpected dilemma – do you risk it all to keep growing? What if growing means leaving the job you…

We asked some very thoughtful members of our community to reflect on what they’ve learned from their heroes. Xavier Figueroa My hero is my brother Gabriel Figueroa. I am the oldest of five siblings. Gabriel was the second born. He’s my hero because of who he was as a person. He had a tenacity to always…

Over the years, after talking with tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, artists and creatives, almost every success story we’ve heard has been filled with stories of failure. Unfortunately, in our view the media rarely covers these parts of the story – instead we often read summaries that make it seem like success happened “overnight.” However,…

Having to overcome unexpected problems is a hallmark of entrepreneurship. Almost every business owner, artist, maker, and creative we know has had to deal with countless unexpected problems that arise in the journey and so we asked some brilliant folks from the community to share their stories of the unexpected problems they've faced along the…

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 –…

Internships and apprenticeships are a time-honored rite of passage in many industries. We’ve asked some brilliant folks to share some of the most important lessons they learned during these early experiences in their career. Fabiana Meléndez Ruiz The most important lesson I learned while being an intern was the importance of “being a sponge.” There are…