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.

Jenny Jolley

Hi, I’m Jenny! Thank you so much for taking time to read this article. I’ve been photographing weddings since 2018 and it was an insta-love! Now I’m a full-time wedding photographer running my own business and truly living a dream come true. I serve the Kansas City area but I am the proud owner of a passport, international driver’s license, and certification of ordination (feel free to call me Rev. Jolley)! I’ll go where you go! I’ve already been to Italy, Aspen, Chicago, New York City, and St. Louis, with Switzerland and another trip to Italy on the docket! Read More>>

Camila Tortolero

When I started nursing school, I thought I had a little head start. I had already been working as an RCIS in the cath lab. High acuity. Fast pace. Critical situations. I knew my way around a sterile field and I could anticipate complications before they happened. So I walked into clinical like, okay I got this. And then nursing humbled me real quick. Read More>>

Mo Smyth

My university experience was a bit unconventional but incredibly rewarding. I went to college later in life, after raising my two children on a secretary’s salary. At that point, I was technically a grown-up, but I still didn’t have a clear answer to the question, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ Read More>>

Hanif Brown

My camera! About 2 years ago I was really wanting to upgrade from an old Nikon I was using previously. Eventually I just took that leap and spent a whole check on it. Best investment of my life and I will stand on that til it’s my time. It’s been key in helping bring the ideas I have to life and I would never put it down. Not for anyone or anything. Read More>>

Ariana Wolf

The best investment I’ve made as a business owner has been in community. Not in the abstract sense, but in building real, meaningful relationships with clients, collaborators, and fellow business owners. It’s easy to treat networking as a checklist or a way to fill your pipeline, but for me, community has always been centered around mutual care, trust, and showing up for one another over the long haul. Read More>>

Jessica Holt

One piece of advice that I stand by personally and professionally is to ‘Embrace age at every stage’. When we accept aging as a natural and inevitable part of life, we navigate it with more clarity, confidence and peace of mind. The struggle often isn’t aging itself, its resisting the transitions that come along with it. Read More>>

Lizi Oceransky

As a coach and facilitator, I’m always looking for ways to grow and expand my professional toolkit. In 2014, I enrolled in the Daring Way certification program based on Dr. Brené Brown’s research. I was drawn to the work because it felt deeply human, and I saw it as a meaningful step in my professional development. Read More>>

Janeen McCormick

One of our longtime clients has been coming to btone twice a week for almost a year, and her story captures what this workout is all about. btone focuses on building strength, balance, and truly functional movement by targeting the small stabilizer muscles that support the joints and keep the body moving well in everyday life. Read More>>

Matthew Penick

The first indicator I had that I might be able to make a career in art and design came from me wearing a costume I had made for myself. My friends and I always dressed up in costumes to go to the Carolina Renaissance Festival, and this particular year, I had gone all out and made myself a suit of leather armor. Read More>>

Neal Hamilton

My first professional dollar made was a project I got commissioned by Hall of Fame inductee Paul Warfield of the Cleveland Browns. I was crazy about the NFL in those days, and my mentor at that time Mr. Gary Thomas was a professional sports Illustrator, so I was always around football and sports. Read More>>

Teresa Undurraga

Over 12 years ago I had just completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training and got added to the sub list at a large gym. That morning, I received a call asking if I could cover for an instructor who was out sick. My instinct was to decline since I hadn’t taught an in-person public class since graduating. Read More>>

Kelly Simmons

One of the most important lessons I learned in school, especially in college, was how to receive criticism without interpreting it as a personal attack. I had been exposed to critiques in high school, but college fine art classes truly required me to grow in this area. Any art student knows that creative fields leave a lot of room for interpretation and opinion. Read More>>

Livia Piomelli

One of the most important lessons I learned came from my years in high school in Italy, in a setting that, on the surface, felt rigid and prescriptive about how a “good student” — and really, a “good person” — was supposed to behave. I attended an international school with strict social norms and a fairly narrow idea of what was acceptable. Read More>>

Megan Lentz

Interning and shadowing was one of the best thing I could have done for myself and my business. Learning from the pros not only opens your mind to new avenues of creativity and possibiltles, but shows you that there’s more than one way to do everything. Read More>>

Caitlin Plourde

One of my favorite examples of showing appreciation happened right before school started last year. I hosted a bead bar event at a local coffee shop in the heart of Indialantic, Florida, and a few teachers stopped by to create something small for their classrooms. We ended up talking about their upcoming year and how much they pour into their students every single day. Read More>>

Gay Gaddis

As legendary football coach Darrell K. Royal would often say, “Dance with the one who brung you.” This is a saying that I have adopted through the years, especially when it comes to customer appreciation. I tried to stay true to my supporters, the ones who stood by us early on, as my company started to catapult to national prominence. Read More>>