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

Kristy Green

I worked at a high-end resort on Lido Key in Sarasota for a while at the front desk, and that position was extremely difficult and taxing on me mentally, but I learned so many valuable lessons within the chaos. I can officially say that I know how to handle any and every type of person and situation after holding that job. It taught me how to speak clearly, listen carefully, pause before responding, and how to hold eye contact with someone without feeling uncomfortable. Read more>>

Katie Leary sebastian

Running a small creative business is technically my third career. I guess you can say I came late to the game of being an entrepreneur but what that meant was that I came with a lot of different experiences, all of which inform my work at ixöq. I started working right out of college in the budgeting & accounting department of a small software company. That work was pretty dry & boring but it taught me to pay attention to details, and how to use a spreadsheet! Read more>>

Gretchen Moore

The most important lesson I learned on the job was to give myself room to make mistakes. Anxiety on the job comes from not allowing room for errors and overworking yourself. There is a balance between being a hard worker and taking time to breathe. It’s essential to view your job from the perspective of a sports team dynamic instead of a family. Sports teams are evaluated and know they can be cut. This perspective provides you with balance and boundaries. You understand to give yourself permission to take a break and not over-commit. Read more>>

Bronsonn Taylor

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to treat everyone with the same dignity and respect you would expect to be treated with regardless of their social economic status or appearance. When I was a young Soldier I was very unruly. I had gotten into a number of altercations and finally my commander had enough. It was at that moment my soon to be mentor steps in. He said he was that unruly kid once and that all I needed was someone to show me that they truly cared. He was right. Read more>>

Lacey Wiley

I was working in the accounting department of a locally owned manufacturing business. I was driven through my direct boss, the CFO, to handle and process the accounts payable on a weekly basis. This was entering, reconciling and then getting them approved by the owner. Outside of the direct responsibilities came other tasks, that pushed me completely outside of my comfort zone. Things I hadn’t done before, or didn’t quite know how to complete, or so I thought. At the time frustrated thinking new tasks were not inside my job scope I put up extreme resistance hating every second of the assigned task. Read more>>

Courtney Paige

Sometimes, learning what NOT to do, teaches you much more about what to do successfully. I worked in corporate America for a little over 3 years before leaving my old industry and pursuing food blogging. As a number in a large company, I often felt like there was little appreciation and even kindness coming from management above. There were unrealistic work expectations, without the communication to support it. It often left everyone scrambled and toxic work environment. Read more>>

INESA PANE

I work as a Television News Journalist. By this profession, I learn a lot about life (until today). This job teach me to understand other’s perspective, adapt with many situation and learn a lot of things. I also experience many thing. See variety of cultures, language and custom. That’s what I want to do in my whole life Read more>>

George Halkias

Every job I ever had had a terrible boss who hated their life and took it out on others. They had a boss who took it out on them and so on and so forth. This is how our society’s built and it sucks, so being able to pay bills from art is the greatest feeling in the world. I feel absolutely stoned when I sell art to be quite honest. As an artist the money isn’t steady from month to month but that stress is better than being a cog in a machine that helps some old guy get richer. Read more>>

April Curci

Before working in brokerage as an agent, I assisted commerical agents in several different capacities – as a junior agent, as an administrative assistant, and as on office manager. I got to see and experience the process from most all of the different roles associated with the job. This perspective was invaluable to the shaping the person I am today. I saw what it was like to work with kind, appreciative agents and to work with agents where maybe those feelings of gratitude didn’t come through as strongly. Read more>>

Carissa Glanton

Previous to opening The Selfie Showroom I was doing photography for 13 years. I specialize in birthday glamour portraits and loved creating sets and scenes for my clients photo shoots. My studio could only host a couple sets at a time so I did have to consistently break down my beautiful scenes to create new ones. Read more>>

Chavis Anderson

Consistency and a Good routine helps build character. You don’t need a huge team to get things done. My last job was in retail. I’ve always had a job in cooking or dealing with food so it was a challenge transitioning over to the retail side. I never had a job where it was less than 10 employees. We were still able to perform our daily task without any issues. Being an artist means I have to treat my Music as if it was a product to be consumed and find the best Audience to deliver it to. Retail is basically the same thing. The stuff that I’ve learned from my jobs I try to apply it to my everyday life. Whether it’s how to cook steak or sale Read more>>

Dr Cee Nicole

While working at Kaiser in Atlanta, I had a 15 year old female scheduled for knee pain. When I walked into the room, I noticed that the young lady was crying. Her mom shared that her tears came from shock because she weighed 454 pounds. This young lady had stopped weighing herself a couple years ago and she said she knew that she had put on a few pounds but never imagined that she gained over 200 pounds. Read more>>

Viviana Andrade.

One impactful lesson I had during my professional career was when I worked for an organization that provided world class service to their clients. Working as a customer service agent I once had a client that was devastated after the phone call we had. I knew she was devasted because her husband called in complaining about the call his wife had with me. The concern was that her cell phone wasn’t working and since the tower that serviced her area was down, there was nothing I could do but notify her we had to wait. Read more>>

Ebony Joyner, MS, MMSc, PA-C

After completing my Physician Assistant training, I accepted a position in a rural town in South Carolina. As a new graduate, I was so excited to be offered my first job in my career that I immediately accepted the position….without negotiating my contract. The benefits were good and the salary seemed great because of course it was more than I had ever received at the time. As time went on, I became increasingly overwhelmed, overworked, no social life in the small town, and didn’t have nearly enough PTO to support my mental health. Read more>>

Tyler Riley

In January of 2020, just before we realized how severe Covid-19 was, I was working at a boutique advertising agency. The creative ideas were incredible, the staff was diverse, and the network we had access to was extraordinary. Unfortunately, folks were so overworked and underpaid that they regularly had interdepartmental conflict. I mean, you could FEEL the tension and burnout in every meeting. It only got worse after the work from home mandate came through later in March. Read more>>

Anthony Garcia.

In 2001 I moved to NYC to pursue a career in music and to seek my fame and fortune and live out the rest of my days in a high rise overlooking Central Park. When I arrived I realized I needed a job. I perused some want ads for various jobs and came across a “Music Therapist” position. The pay wasn’t great, the commute was going to be a relatively arduous one and a half hour trip each way from my Brooklyn apartment to Hewlett, NY in Long Island’s Nassau County. Read more>>

Gina Ballard

While I was building my subtle energy practice, I was also a flight attendant for Virgin America. I flew for half of each month, and did readings, Feng Shui Consultations, and built my website during my free time. I enjoyed flying, but over time it began to take a toll; my back started to hurt, my shoulder was injured, and people just seemed to become ruder with every take-off and landing. I had a deep desire to help more people through healing arts, and in my heart, I trusted I was meant to be doing that full-time. I wasn’t busy enough to support myself doing so, however. Read more>>

Natalina Romano

I have always been driven to make the most of my time. My biggest challenges are spontaneity and relaxing. Perhaps this mentality comes from having been raised by my parents who emigrated to Canada from Italy in the 1950s. They were poor and both worked hard to provide a better life for their three daughters. I am deeply grateful for their perseverance. I studied business at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Read more>>

Brittany O’Neal

Wow. I have a few answers to this question, lol; but I’ll share one. The most important lesson I learned from a job that has helped me as a business owner was, “Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing. Do YOUR job.” That stuck with me because it made me realize that, I can’t always do what someone else is doing. Further more, I don’t always know what’s going on behind the scenes in order for them to do what they’re doing. Read more>>

DeAndre’ James

Consistency and quality is important when completing a task. However one of the biggest take always I have learned while working for someone is if you ever feel like your the smartest person in the room, leave that room and find a room where you can learn and grow with like minded people who want to achieve similar goals as you. This has influenced me to convert my company into a full time entrepreneurship business. Read more>>