We asked some brilliant entrepreneurs, artists and creatives to reflect on lessons they’ve learned at prior jobs. We’ve shared highlights below.

Cheyenne Mosham

Honestly, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my career is how important it is to just be present for your team. It took me a while to figure that out. When I first stepped into leadership, I was so focused on deadlines, emails, and all the admin tasks that come with the job. Read More>>

Katie Reinman

In my previous career I was a founding member of Stasher, the endlessly reusable silicone ziptop bag. We had major success and after years of development to get the technology of our seal to function properly, we filed our patent and went to market as fast as we could. Read More>>

Urmi Hossain

The most important lesson I have learned in my previous job is that no job is ever 100% guaranteed. The world is constantly changing and evolving, with new technologies and innovations emerging everywhere. There are times when it’s cheaper for companies to hire labor from elsewhere or even replace human work with machines. Read More>>

Joe Sebastiandong

I started my job as the model pretty long time ago. There’s a lot of things that I learned throughout my journey. Being a model is not that difficult like you thought it would be, but being a successful model is really such a “thing”. Read More>>

LaKesa McGraw

The most important lesson I’ve learned came from my years in Human Resources, people are the foundation of every successful business. Early in my HR career, I worked with a company experiencing high turnover and low engagement. Read More>>

Jarrell Green

The most important lesson I learned came from years of putting all my eggs in someone else’s basket. I’d give my best to an organization, then leadership would change, priorities would swing, and the basket would drop. Promises shifted, timelines became unrealistic, and the work I cared about stalled. Read More>>

Andie Otto

Like many people, I took my first job out of college in a field I hadn’t exactly pictured for myself—sales at a large luxury car dealership. What could have been a stereotypical car dealer environment turned out to be the opposite. The leadership was compassionate, service-oriented, and genuinely invested not only in the client experience but also in the growth and development of its employees. Read More>>

Gabrielle Crumley

Before I started my businesses, I was still in school pursuing my MBA and took a job selling AFLAC insurance. It was flexible, and honestly, there weren’t many other options—so I took it. During my time with AFLAC, the most important lesson I learned was how to sell. Really sell. Read More>>

David Weiss

I had the chance to work in the world best amusement park in German for 10 years, Europa park, a family owned business, I started in a restaurant as a line cook and worked myself up to become a manager, by the end of my career there I was in charge to manage two small snacks in the park. Read More>>