We asked some fantastic entrepreneurs and creatives to tell us about their first job in their field. Check out their stories below. Jennifer Ruggiero It was 1998. I had just moved to NYC to be a dancer. I had a Pilates practice in college that was part of the curriculum and wanted to maintain that practice…

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. Samantha Bown I know a lot of people in the tattoo industry talk about their internship as this horrible experience, dealing with…

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. Bryan Kachel I started my tattoo apprenticeship in Seattle in 2002, a time when tattoos carried a very different cultural perception. There were…

As almost any entrepreneur or creative will tell you, unexpected problems are to be expected. Below, you'll hear some incredible stories that highlight and illustrate the kinds of issues and problems entrepreneurs and creatives are dealing with everyday. It's not easy, but the silver lining is that dealing with unexpected problems is one of the…

  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…

Defining moments aren’t just exciting – they are thought-provoking and fertile ground for learning. These inflection points often are the result of an illuminating moment where some truth of the universe presents itself in an easier to recognize form. Below, you’ll find talented and successful entrepreneurs and artists sharing the stories of defining moments in…

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,…

We asked some very thoughtful members of our community to reflect on what they’ve learned from their heroes.  Flavio Romeo Certainly! Here’s a refined version of your story: — My father, Giuseppe Romeo, is my hero. As the youngest of 13 children, he grew up in poverty in southern Sicily, where he began working at a…

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. Lodro Rinzler I was actually raised Buddhist. My parents became Buddhist in their twenties so by the time I came around meditation and various principles…

We often hear about bad bosses, but we think it’s important to talk about the good ones because we hope that by giving folks examples of how to be a good boss we can inspire future bosses to be better, to do better for their employees and all stakeholders. Fredrik Keith Croona I’ve had two really…