Over the years as we connected with incredible from folks from almost every imaginable industry we realized that every nook and cranny of our economy is full of small business owners, artists and creatives who live and breathe what they do – and their stories are nothing short of heroic. It’s the immigrant parents who overcame the odds and kept their small business alive for decades allowing their next generation to thrive and the artisans who pour their passion into every piece and refuse to let even the most common items remain mundane that make our communities come alive. The stories below will inspire you and we hope you’ll take the time to read and connect with these incredible folks.

Juri Jinnai-Cramer

Emergency Tiara is finally coming back from the fight against stage 4 colon cancer and going to release her next EP “Custom Made”. While we embrace the much anticipated excitement of the release of the new EP “Custom Made”, “YUM” got released just in time to celebrate the deliciousness of the summer ahead as one of single releases off of the EP. The song is playful, edgy and really fun to sing to and dance to! Emergency Tiara is the New York based artist you need to get to know. Fronted by Juri, she is the lead singer, writer, queen, curator, and ringleader extraordinaire to the Emergency Tiara kingdom. Read more>>

Christy LoPresto of Kinn

I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. The idea of working for myself and being able to create something and share that with others was always a dream of mine. I feel extremely grateful that I have been able to walk in this path of opportunity. Being a NYC restauranteur and entrepreneur has come with many challenges and lessons. One of the biggest things I learned is that change is inevitable and when one door closes another one does open, movement is constant. Read more>>

Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito’s Story

The last couple years have been a whirlwind for writing and publishing. In my first interview, I spoke about an incident of Asian hate that prompted me to find meaning and purpose in everything that I set out to do. https://boldjourney.com/meet-frances-lu-pai-ippolito/ As an update, I’ve been working steadfastly on setting up the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Qilin Press, and finalizing the publication of our first book. This has been such an important project for me for so many reasons. The mission of the non-profit says it best. Qilin Press seeks to change the world, one story at a time. With a focus on the untold narratives of community voices, our books seek to improve the outcomes of all communities through storytelling and narrative plenitude. We are committed to supporting impactful storytelling and publishing stories of survival and resilience that would be lost or forgotten otherwise. Read more>>

Corinne Eckert of Corinne Eckert

When I was a teenager, I saw Justin Bieber perform at Madison Square Garden. As I saw Justin on stage and felt the crowd’s energy, I just knew I was supposed to be on stage doing something similar – creating a space where everyone is present, alive, and having fun. This became my dream, but as I got older, I quickly learned to keep it to myself. When I talked about my goal of “being famous”, people would laugh at me or tell me that I should “get a real job”. This added to my own limiting beliefs and ultimately led me to putting this on the backburner for over 10 years. Read more>>

Georgia Mitchell of Confident Ground

I’ll admit it’s been a rough road at times! While I was raised with everything I needed in the material sense, I grew up in a region known for poverty and white nationalism. My parents taught a form of Japanese natural healing that was still very new to the West when I was born in the ’80s. Since we lived in a rural, conservative area I felt I had to keep quiet about my family’s beliefs and practices. Looking back it’s easy to see how this sense of social isolation caused me to look for connection in other places, and I developed strong ties to the land. We lived on 86 acres of ponderosa forest without a TV or much access to media, and I formed strong attachments to the trees and other species I met in the woods. Read more>>

Sonji K Grandy Consultants LLC

I come from very humble beginnings. It may sound cliché, but it is true. As an African American woman, I grew up in Curries Woods, one of the worst housing projects in New Jersey. I was a childhood victim of physical, sexual, emotional, and mental abuse. I am a living, breathing statistic of society’s impoverished community. Society got it wrong, though, because they counted me out without giving me a chance to survive or thrive, both of which I am doing now. Read more>>

Holly Goodman

I started Sablewood Paper Company in 2015 in my little Florida hometown, right after leaving my graphic design studio job. My parents and I co-owned a paint and sip studio and during classes, I would sit behind the bar and practice calligraphy. I filled notebook after notebook with hundreds of versions of the same letter, all to perfect my skill. After my husband and I got married, he landed a job 3,000 miles away in Seattle, Washington. I stayed behind in Florida to grow my business, and got my first invitation client, then my second…and found I really loved invitation design. Once I made the move to Washington, it became my goal to make it my full-time gig. Within a year, I had achieved that goal and had won my first Best Invitation Designer award from Washington Wedding Day magazine! I’ve been awarded the honor several times since then, most recently this summer when I won Best Invitation Designer in all of Washington state. Read more>>

Monica Rivera of YOU WANNA DO WHAT?!

My story begins in the Bronx, New York, as a first-generation Latina raised by immigrant parents who valued stability above all. Life took an unexpected turn when I lost both my parents by age 23, leaving me without a safety net. Driven by survival, I immersed myself in corporate America, climbing the ladder for over a decade. However, in my thirties, I began to feel unfulfilled, like a dimming string of Christmas lights. I realized my survival mentality, while crucial earlier, was now holding me back. In 2017, I took a leap into podcasting, despite having no experience beyond being a super fan. Read more>>

Elisa Datcher of Vet2Mom Solutions

My entrepreneurial journey began with five transformative years in the Army. Despite my commitment, I always knew I wanted more—a greater purpose that extended beyond military service. Balancing my duties as a soldier and a mother of five, I craved more time with my children and yearned for a way to make a lasting impact. Transitioning from the Army to corporate America, I observed a significant need for leadership development. It became clear to me that there was a gap in the training and support required to shape individuals into extraordinary leaders. Moreover, I noticed that many service members, upon leaving active duty, lacked direction and struggled to find their next steps. Read more>>

Theresa Kulikowski-Gillespie of Fit Intuit

The first half of my life was dedicated to gymnastics. I started at 2.5 years old, and it quickly became my first love. I was talented and motivated, which allowed me to excel in the sport from a young age. In my 21-year career, I competed at the 1995 World Championships and won a team bronze medal, was the 1996 Olympic alternate, and was an NCAA all-around and two-time balance beam champion. Although I experienced great successes as a gymnast, I also struggled with a lot of injuries, tearing both anterior cruciate ligaments in my knees (at different times), avulsing my hamstring, and tearing my rotator cuff. I also dealt with immense depression at times, anxiety, and disordered eating, which certainly put a damper on some of my time as a gymnast.

Lindsay Hua

My professional journey began in 2002, when I graduated Cum Laude from Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines with a degree in Management Engineering. With a heart full of ambition and a mind sharpened by rigorous study, I took my first step into the corporate world at Procter & Gamble. There, as a Systems Analyst, I dove into the intricate web of global systems for Shipment, Finance, and Market Measurement. A pivotal moment came when P&G’s IT department was acquired by Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. Embracing this transition, I became a Service Delivery Manager, leading global accounts in Product Lifecycle Management and Lights-On Services. Managing a diverse team of up to 45 members across different continents, I was honored with the HP Excellence Award, a recognition of our collective drive and innovation. This role also took me from the Philippines to Cincinnati, Ohio, where I continued to lead teams spanning the Philippines, India, Costa Rica, Canada, Ireland, and Poland, navigating the challenges of global leadership with determination and grace. Read more>>

Jesse Gebryel

As a child, I spent a lot of time with my mother, who was an artist and writer. My father was a pilot and highly technical in addition to being a photographer, so I absorbed technical aptitude and artistic inclinations through him as well. I was always predisposed to art, loved stories and was an avid reader. I could always place myself in the world of a story and feel completely enveloped and consumed by it. This led to writing stories, drawing, and above all playing— imagining scenarios and pretending to be in them with friends at a young age, very innocently. Video games were around but for whatever reason, they were on the periphery and not a central focus of play. That forced me to rely on my imagination to create situations and given circumstances, which further developed a capacity and inclination to tell stories. Later, in high school, I picked up my grandfather’s old Super 8mm camera and started to make films with my friends, inspired by all the films I was watching. This led to me pursuing filmmaking and theatre in college, which I loved. Learning all the technical aspects of filmmaking and the craft of acting, directing was immensely gratifying and important. But it was all for naught without the story and imagination to drive the need. Read more>>

Cara Matsukane-Ho of Matsu Love

My story to creating Matsu Love can be defined by three main experiences: FIRST, I became conscious – I woke up. Before that moment, I was sleep walking through life. I was often a victim of my circumstances, and didn’t do much self-reflecting outside of worrying about what others thought of me. I didn’t understand or experience the ways in which what I ate and drank impacted me physically and emotionally. My life and my own forward motion was on auto-pilot in the direction that society and other people’s opinions were pointing me in, and I didn’t question that. I was numbing myself so that I didn’t have to feel “negative” emotions. I was trying to fit in but didn’t know what true belonging was like. I projected a version of self that I thought other people wanted, and it left me feeling really insecure and ungrounded because that changed depending on who I was with. In July 2014, I confronted my alcoholism and got sober. Read more>>

Mari Galloway of Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu

Before getting into tech I was an assistant manager at a clothing store and was an armed security guard for the Department of state in DC. I ended up leaving physical security as I took a Network Engineer position with Accenture to help NGA transition their operations to Springfield, Virginia. From there, I went on to work for the Department of the Army in North Carolina as an Information Security and Assurance Engineer. There is was responsible for ensuring the classified network of systems were secured for certification and accreditation. I then began working at the Department of Homeland Security US-CERT, now known as CISA, in a SOC capacity managing and monitoring the IDS/IPS systems used. DHS is where I became a federal employee, which led to me joining the Incident Response team before I moved to Vegas to work private sector and help build a vulnerability management and pentesting program and security architecutre for a major casino in the valley. My latest roles have been with a major security vendor and now a major retailer, Footlocker. During this time the Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu was born and I became a founding board member of one of the fastest growing technical hands-on training communities for women and girls. The #cyberjutsutribe is place for members to grow their networks, build their brands and learn real worlds skills through our workforce development programs. Read more>>

Cristino Chavez

I am where I am today through a series of unexpected and challenging experiences. Currently, I’m a social worker specializing in criminal justice, a path shaped by my personal encounters with the criminal legal system. During my senior year of college, just a month away from graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and with aspirations to pursue a Master of Social Work degree, I was arrested for a first-time offense. Feeling those handcuffs on my wrists and being forced into the back of a police car was a moment that made me feel like my life was over. Navigating through arraignments and court hearings, I had to prove my resilience and ability to overcome this traumatic experience. With the support of my criminal defense attorney, I received a conditional discharge, but the trauma from that experience has stayed with me. Read more>>

John Presnell

One person can make all the difference, and I’ve been blessed with an incredible mother. Born in Cuba, she was raised on the Golden Age of Hollywood, and had a vision that one day her children would be a part of that world. It’s often said that America’s greatest export is entertainment, supplying dreams to all. At eighteen she moved to the US, and later, to England, where I was born. Despite the hardships of being a single parent, she always put her children first, and spared no expense in giving us music and acting lessons, as well as karate and gymnastics class. We were taught to appreciate culture. When I look back on my childhood, I’m grateful for the foundation my mother laid down. It was a very productive, very loving household. Read more>>

Stephanie Swift

Where to begin my story? Butler, PA where I was born on a Tuesday morning to James and Catherine Swift. My nickname was tornado baby because my parents survived a tornado in July 1978 in East Brady, PA and I was born in April 1979 (you do the math). I am the youngest of three children and my family still lives in Butler and I am in Irwin, which is right outside of Pittsburgh. From a young age, I always enjoyed entertaining others and loved to sing. One of my favorites was “Part of Your World” and I would perform for my Mom, Cathy, and anyone else that would listen. I took dance classes at Lee’s School of Dance and studied ballet, jazz, gymnastics and tap. I especially had a knack for tap and the rhythmic nature of that propelled me to auditioning for musicals and mixed chorus. Read more>>

Jacob Kleinman Phillips of Touchpoint Design

Sure, so I actually went to school down in Georgia to study industrial design at SCAD. Which gave me a great foundation for design thinking and creative problem-solving. Then I went into the industry, immersing myself into different creative paths and diverse experiences from product design to a marketing to even living in England for a year teaching design to students. What I realized was, I was starting to build up my confidence on how I would make my own mark in this world. During that time, I had met a couple people along the way that opened my eyes into how I could use my skills and abilities to make more of an impact. This led me to open my own design agency called, Touchpoint Design. Our focus specializes in building bold brands and websites for the visionary leaders, advocates, and changemakers, who want to make an impact in the world. So on any average day you’ll see me wearing different hats from business development to marketing to working directly in the trenches with my team bringing to life my client’s visions. Read more>>

Georgia Ratcliff of Riverside Veterinary Care on Columbus

I studied to be a veterinarian in Queensland, Australia. After Graduating i completed my internship at Advanced Vetcare in Melbourne, Australia. I then worked in general practice in Australia for 2 years before moving to New York City. I have been working at Riverside Veterinary Care since this time as an associate veterinarian and became the Medical Director in 2019. Read more>>

Sarah Bayliff

Sarah’s journey has always been fueled by a passion for movement, psychology, and exploration, with a deep appreciation for community and personal growth. From her early years engaged in various sports to finding her love for volleyball and rowing, Sarah discovered that beyond the thrill of competition, it was the camaraderie that truly resonated with her. High school marked a pivotal moment when Sarah took a psychology class with Mr. Grove, setting her on a transformative path. Pursuing her academic interests, she earned a dual degree in Biological Sciences and Psychology with a focus on Neuroscience, along with a minor in Sociology from Virginia Tech. A defining chapter unfolded during the Summer of 2011 when Sarah studied abroad with Semester at Sea, immersing herself in the cultures of Trinidad, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize while exploring the realm of Global Health. Read more>>

Indy Lau

My name is Indy, and I started Doodles by Indy back in 2020. I’ve always been an artist and loved all things art– from going to museums and galleries to drawing on every surface possible as a kid. It’s something that never went away even as an adult. Fast forward to 2020 when I started making fun, custom stickers for friends and coworkers. When I lost my job that year, I decided to take the plunge and open up an online store to sell more stickers. Surprisingly, it started going well and that’s when I made more and more stickers and new product– including pins, keychains, and greeting cards. What started as a hobby later turned into a side hustle in which I can sell online and at in-person markets. Read more>>

Debra Driscoll of Big Life Magic

As a woman the mystical realm and the potential of our spirit and the universe have always fascinated me. My curiosity has driven my studies in varied modalities of spiritual practice, healing, applied theater, storytelling, and personal development. For 30 years I have been both student and teacher, researcher and subject. I anchor into the belief that we are spiritual beings having an earthbound experience and are here to explore and expand. All of this was a journey of discovery and delight until my earthbound life shattered and my spirit showed me why I was here. Read more>>

Reneé The Entertainer

I’m a singer-songwriter, musician & I’ve been a performer for over 15 years! I grew up in a musical family and I was always writing poetry as a child so the transition from poet to singer-songwriter was very natural. I started out in bands playing piano and singing pop, jazz, & pop-rock. I even had a brief time in a country-folk band, and another jazz band with an impressive 8-piece horn section, but after going solo I completely fell in love with Hip-Hop, and R&B-soul. I’m so grateful for those I’ve met along my musical journey because I’ve experienced playing multiple genres so I never think of myself as “just a jazz singer” or “just a rapper”. I can do it all! Read more>>

Jonathan Beres of The Sabal Collection

When the covid pandemic started, I was laid off from my job at the Pittsburgh airport. After just a few weeks, I was going crazy from being stuck inside with nothing to do. I started playing around with making my own candles. As I played around with it, I started doing more and more research and quickly realized how horrible some candles are for our health. I found out that so many so called “luxury” candle companies used toxic waxes, chemical filled fragrance oils and lead infused wicks; all of which can cause serious health problems. I then set out to develop a candle that was luxurious inside and out; a company that made their candles look luxurious while using luxurious, clean, and healthy materials. Read more>>

Erin Wing

I was born into a history of generational poverty, with one side of my family being based in the affordable housing complexes of Manhattan, NY and the other side being first-generation immigrants from Peru. I grew up living in unsafe environments and witnessing and experiencing violence toward vulnerable individuals incapable of defending themselves, like myself at the time, as I was subjected to abuse at the hands of my father throughout my life. After my mother and father separated, I was raised primarily by my mother in low-income areas in different states across the country and while I frequently found myself also fantasizing about a life of peace and happiness, and what that would look like., when I looked all around me, my reality didn’t reflect that. Instead I saw hardship and lack of access to basic necessities. Read more>>

Jordan Howard

My creative journey started at a young age when curiosity and the desire to express my point of view led me to love photography. While my primary professional interest has always been architecture, I have found that my interest in photography emerged in many different avenues throughout my life. Those opportunities have included photography classes where I learned to love film and the dark room, capturing high school sports, grad photos, clothing brand shoots, selling prints through Society6, and now working for my graduate school to capture events. The beauty of photography is that it is accessible, and that creative side reinvigorates my point of view and inspires my architectural designs. I hope to continue weaving together photography and architecture in order to capture existing fabrics and conceive better futures. Read more>>

anne breedlove

I was born and raised in the Hudson River Valley of upstate New York, where I received my first ten-speed bike. I arrived in San Francisco in 1972 and decided to stay. First met my husband Jim in the Mission District in ’73, we’ve been together since ’74. One of the things we bonded over was cycling. A happenstance event in 1997 opened our eyes to the possibility of bicycling not just for fun and recreation but using the bike as a means of travel. In 2008 we decided to retire young (I was 54, Jim 61) to travel as much of the world on our bikes as could handle. In two decades we biked twenty-one countries, approximately 40,000 loaded miles, to date, including crossing two continents – North America and Australia. Read more>>

Ivonne Tejada Cruel

My journey began long before I knew where it would lead me, back when I was a child, carefully gluing organized cutouts to shoe boxes, storing away stones and letters from family and friends. But for the sake of the story, I’ll start where I truly began to find myself—during my first solo travels as an exchange student in the beautiful country of Norway. There, I was fully immersed in nature, surrounded by a new culture and language. I was taking diverse classes in arts, photography, and culinary arts, and meeting new people daily. This experience opened my eyes and ignited a deep energy within me, pushing me to become more than what I had known growing up. It was the beginning of a journey where I started to see the world and nature as endless sources of inspiration, even though I didn’t yet know how I would channel that inspiration into something tangible. Read more>>

David Hanono

My Journey to Becoming a Personal Trainer and Coach Fitness and athletics have always been integral parts of my life, inspired by my father and uncles. My father played basketball professionally in Europe, and my uncles were both into martial arts and bodybuilding. Following in their footsteps, I started my athletic career with soccer and then gravitated towards basketball. I played at a high level growing up, but made the personal decision not to continue once I reached college—a decision I still regret. College was a challenging time for me. Academics and I didn’t get along well, and I still had a lot of growing up to do. While my peers were on clear paths to becoming lawyers, doctors, and CPAs, I was enjoying life and focusing on working out. Maintaining my physical appearance was always important to me, and I had a clear vision of how I wanted my physique to look. Read more>>

Amy Bouvier of Ormond Gifts

When I began my senior year of college at the University of Kentucky, I was wrapping up my Bachelors degree in Public Health and minor in Psychology while trying to determine where I was headed next. Public Health was a major I stumbled into after I got weeded out of Pre-Pharmacy, which had been my backup plan after I became too queasy for Pre-Med. I was feeling directionless and unsure of what Masters program or career path I should pursue next. One day early into the fall semester, my Food Systems professor asked our class what an inelastic cost was. No one in the room could answer, including myself. This seemed to be a basic question and it dawned on me that through all of my academic pursuits in science, I had failed to learn anything about money. This thought shocked me enough that I began to consider how I could pursue an education in business and went to an MBA open house. Read more>>

Brittany Bradley

I grew up in Groveland CA a very small town near Yosemite national park. My journey into photography began during my childhood visits to Yosemite, where I became obsessed with capturing the natural beauty around me. My father played a significant role in nurturing this passion. He often let me use his 35-millimeter Yashica FX-D film camera, and I learned to develop film images in a darkroom when I was just eight years old. I have vivid memories of him shouting directions at me through a closet door as I struggled to load film onto the reel in pitch black. Despite the initial frustration, seeing the photos emerge from the wash felt like magic to me. Read more>>

Chrissy Canitano

I got started in my photography career about a year and a half ago. I worked a corporate job in the healthcare field, and when the company I had been with for 8 years closed their doors in January 2023, I decided to pursue my passion and love of photographing people with the ones they love most. My son was about a year old at that time and I wanted a career that allowed me to pursue my passion while also providing the care for him that I wanted to be available to give. I wanted to do something that he could be proud of his mom for doing one day when he’s old enough to understand this road I chose. Read more>>

Viviane Ford

So I was born on tax day in Northampton, Massachusetts to…just kidding. I won’t start at the very beginning. I’ll start when I moved to San Francisco, 2 weeks after graduating from college. It was 2015, San Francisco was a mysterious city and a dream in tech wasn’t cringey (yet). I ended up moving into a house called the Crypto Castle because the housing search was very messy. When I first moved into the Crypto Castle, I was the only girl amongst 14 boys and the only one not into crypto. I was quickly immersed into the boys’ life and mindsets. They didn’t think death was inevitable, they saw love as a scam, no “rule” of society seemed to apply to them, and bitcoin was the future. Read more>>

Diane Wyzga of Quarter Moon Story Arts

Who Am I & Where Did I Come From: The arc of my professional career stretches from serving as US Navy nurse, corporate businesswoman, speaker, educator, lawyer, litigation consultant, podcaster, and storyteller. For 30 years, I’ve helped professionals take their story from a message only they could hear to the publishing world, the courtroom, hospitals, board meetings, the airwaves, and more. Stories that swayed juries. Built markets. Spread ideas. Changed things. Today, as the principal guide and story consultant at Quarter Moon Story Arts I coach women to become successful Origin Story creators (how they got from There to Here) so they connect with, engage and influence their communities to action. This work helps women clarify their ideas and amplify their voices. Our voice is our power – our story is the expression of our power. Read more>>