Every once in a while, something happens that really matters. Something that will define at least the next chapter of your journey – perhaps it’s a conversation with a client, a meeting with a visionary or a major event in your personal life. Below, you’ll find some very insightful folks sharing defining moments from their journeys.

Katie Arnold

I came into yoga after a friend suggested I try it to deal with the stress I was feeling from working in the music industry. I had no idea what I was doing but found some 20-minute audio classes that came with a PDF pose guide and practiced in my dining room several nights a week. I would relax so much that I would fall asleep on the floor, a clear sign that my body really needed rest. Read more>>

Ali Kay

My name is Ali Kay, I live in Central Florida and am a mom to three boys. Outside of owning and operating a home staging business, Lakeland Staging, I am an online health and fitness coach. A few years ago, my life, mentality and physical health looked a lot different than it does today. After the birth of my second son, I endured the impacts of an unhealthy pregnancy –post-partum weight gain. I have never felt more isolated and disconnected inside my own body. Read more>>

Pratibha Dey

My abortion during the time I was homeless and escaping a domestic violence relationship. Using my resiliency to build my brand, Chai Together, to help others. Read more>>

Chiara Visconti di Modrone

While unaware at the time, when my 33 year old brother succumbed to a very fast and aggressive cancer, something inside me changed forever. Coping with the loss of a loved one is always life changing, but the injustice of losing a young and vibrant man, who witnessed the birth of his daughter three months before passing, defined my life in a way that only now is coming to fruition. Read more>>

Janze Taylor

There are actually two defining moments that come to mind in my life. In high school, I dreamt of becoming a Medical Doctor. In college, I realized that wasn’t the path for me. I changed my major and after graduating college, I worked in the field of Environmental Health & Safety. My first defining moment came in January 2008, after attending a New Years’ service in my church. The preacher’s message was Open Door. Read more>>

Angelica Chapman

I contributed significantly to success during the 21 years I worked in my professional career and kept my enthusiasm for entrepreneurship alive. Although I didn’t know it at the time, this plan led me directly to my current position as a business owner. I started my own business in 2019 and since then, I’ve educated people about high blood pressure and its detrimental effects on our communities. I’ve also helped hundreds of people in our community breathe more easily to relieve anxiety and stress. Read more>>

Diamond Acklin

After serving 8.5 years on Active duty my defining moment was me becoming a mom. I didn’t want to have to choose between being a mother or a having a career. Once a woman has a baby on active duty she basically has to leave the child with caretakers or family members while she serves and deploy for weeks and or months at a time. I knew I wasn’t having that, so I chose to start my own business so I can still be a mommy, raise my baby, work doing something that I actually love and earn good profit while doing so. Read more>>

Keyana Jones Jonhson, LMHC, BC-DMT

There was a very defining moment in my professional career that changed the trajectory of my business and life work. I was shuffling through my dance bag in search of my dance sneakers when a group of seven dance students entered the dance studio I worked at in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It was mid-July, and seventy-five degrees that morning but thirty degrees cooler if you counted the sadness on the students faces. Read more>>

Stephanie Risinger

My professional and person lives and been deeply interwoven over the last 15 years. I’m currently a perinatal mental health therapist, which means I help women, and their families, who are experiencing infertility, pregnancy loss, pregnancy, or postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. But this is not at all what I set out to do. When I started graduate school in 2007 I had hoped to work primarily with children. I had enjoyed working with children and teens for years in other capacities and I knew that’s the direction I wanted to go. At that same time, my husband and I started trying to conceive a child of our own. Read more>>

Joevan Palmer

The defining moment for me in my professional career was understanding my worth and value. When I understood this and took action on this my life and business began to take off. Having the right people in my corner who can see further than I, see me beyond what I see and intense therapy has allowed me to shift the narrative for who I am and what other individuals see within themselves as well. Read more>>

Cynthia Royer

June 18, 2014, the day before Father’s Day, a phone call I will never forget. I got call from my cousin that morning, while I was at work, telling me that my father committed suicide. My father took the life of my grandmother (his mother) and my uncle (his brother-in-law) and then took his own life. A day I never saw coming. I lost the three people closest to me all at once. Read more>>

Aleecia Voglezon

Honestly, there are many memories I can see as a defining moment in my career but one moment in particular would be my first “official” launch during the height of the pandemic. August/September of 2019 I started to talk about the benefits of elderberry and raspberry leaf tea. Little did I know the world that we once knew would be shut down in the matter of months. All of the things I swore I couldn’t get done prior to the pandemic (creating a website, bottling up my syrups, etc.) I was able to do in a month! Read more>>

Desiree Green

I was living the way most Americans live for the day kind of way. I was worried about advancing my career and taking care of my family. My first struggle was when my son, who was 17 years old at the time, was diagnosed with myocarditis. He never had any major medical concerns, so you can imagine its impact on the family and my health. My son eventually needed a heart transplant, and thank God he received a heart transplant. Read more>>

C. Nicole Swiner

I am still and always will be a family physician, although I just recently retired from clinical practice. I talk a lot about self-care, mental health, female entrepreneurship and work-life balance, or what we now call work-life integration. I’m about doing those things that you’re most passionate about and hopefully make a sustainable living from. Read more>>

LAUREN DIXON

There has been a defining moment within my career as a Master Herbalist and alternative healthcare professional that has allowed me to thrive since then, in which I am grateful to receive and adhere to in respect of my pure potentiality. As a former biological researcher, invasive research was my passion in understanding human function and purpose. Down to the cellular level, I thought I would be there forever, making an impact on a science-evidence based level; Read more>>

Cory Robinson

A key defining moment was actually when my 3 year relationship had ended. Up until this point I felt as if I had always had my career and dreams on the back burner. Everything had first changed as soon as this relationship had fell apart. Almost instantly I had turned all my passion back on and had really gone all in on myself. I focused on elevating my physical fitness and decided I needed to post my progress and content for all to see. Before I had been posting content inconsistently and I knew it wasn’t enough for what I wanted to do. Read more>>

Jazmin Barnes

A defining moment in my professional career was when I realized I am not only part of diversifying the clinical research industry but I am the change as well. The clinical research industry is huge but also quite small. When I first entered the industry, I noticed that there were not many people that look like me in various roles. I felt as if I did not have as much support as my other counterparts did. It is so important to have individuals that look like you in the workforce. Read more>>

Kathleen McCue

As a young lactation consultant, I tried to fit my lactation work time into my family’s schedule and became dismayed when a new mom kept canceling her appointment with me. Finally, I explained if I didn’t come that day, it might be another few days before I could reschedule. She said I could come over but it might be an abbreviated visit because her baby had been sick with an upper respiratory infection. They had just returned from the pediatrician’s office who said it would simply take time. Read more>>

Lauren Roberts

When I sat with this question I really thought about what shifted for me to courage to start Rise Up Live Bright. What came forward was a pivotal point in my story. I was about 26 years old and extremely unhappy within myself. It is like knowing the sun is shining but a cloud is blocking the beams from hitting your skin. Then one day I fell to my knees and crawled to a pillow on the floor, then I meditated. I felt my energy field expanding, the pressure leaving my chest, and then unconditional love washed over me. I knew at that moment that there was no going back. Read more>>

Dr. Holly Varona

When I moved to Atlanta in 2008, I left the corporate world as an Assistant Manager of Customer Service in South Florida and got back into nannying. Nannying for this family changed my life. It was the first job that I ever had that I absolutely loved. Monday felt like Saturday. I knew I could never go back to that overwhelming feeling of anxiety and stress that Mondays used to come with. Both kids were neurodivergent (I am, as well), and they were by far the coolest kids that I had ever met. Read more>>