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

Maria Emelianova

One of the most transformative experiences in my career came not from a major success, but from what initially seemed like a potential disaster. Early in my producing career, I was working on a commercial shoot in remote Karelia for a Finnish oil company. The project required multiple driving scenes with stunt elements, and we had secured a brand new car model that was central to every shot in our story. On the first day of production, our stunt driver miscalculated the speed and crashed the car into a tree. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the vehicle was severely damaged. Being in a remote location with a tight schedule and budget, replacing the car was impossible – this specific model was nearly impossible to find in Karelia. Read more>>

Cynthia Mattiza

Back in 2008, I was working in a kitchen and bath showroom as an assistant to a showroom consultant. My role was to make sure orders were properly placed, create design guides ( now known as mood boards), handle procurement and all assistant type related roles.. I recall one day my boss asking me about a specific task being completed, and I responded, I assume so? Her immediate response, was never assume… You can probably tell what comes after that.. Regardless, it was a lesson that I take to this day still. Another lesson learned, was I recall taking a class about providing customer service, and how Nordstrom has paved the way with their policies. In my business, one of the key traits that sets other realtor professionals apart is their service and it’s directly correlated to my success over the past 15 years. Read more>>

Rene Garcia

I chose this topic to write about because often times as we are going from job to job from our high school years to our adult years, we ask ourselves, “what am I doing here?” I know I asked myself that question when I worked at a movie theater, at Abercrombie & Fitch, as a Resident Assistant in college, at a night club, as an Investigator, and then as an Intelligence Analyst in Counterterrorism. At the time, I had no idea how everything would connect other than I needed money, so I needed that job; and because reputation is very important to me, I wanted to be the best in what I was doing. Read more>>

Alyssia Graves

When I came out of college, I wanted to be a sports anchor. It had been my dream since I was a little girl. Quickly I learned that this industry wasn’t as glamorous as it looks. Most people move to a very small town to cover local news and make $30,ooo/year trying to survive and I wasn’t willing to settle. I decided I wouldn’t go the traditional route and would try to get my foot in the door other ways to hopefully reach my end goal. While I had friends getting reps and building their reels, me opting out of that put me in other positions like part-time retail work and behind-the-scenes production internships. I questioned my decision and wondered if I had sucked it up and tried a small market for a few years would it have been a better decision. Luckily, staying true to myself and patience allowed everything to work out the way it was supposed to in due time. When I became a host for both Athletes Unlimited and the PLL, it was the first time in my career I felt like I didn’t have to compromise to fit a mold. They were open to my ideas, embraced my non-traditional reporting style, and allowed me to truly be myself. I think if I had done what everyone else had done, I would’ve compromised my feelings and who I was to fit a standard to try to make it in the industry. Staying patient and doing what I knew was best for me allowed the right opportunities to meet me at the right time and allowed me to do what I love without compromising. To this day I never settle and always trust my gut to take the road less traveled and stay true to who I am and my vision. This will always lead the right people and opportunities to you. Read more>>

Darius Scott

Everyone start somewhere you have to go through things in life to get stronger and better Read more>>

Jude Gomes

-While working in a warehouse job -Met someone who has goals of ‘making 40-50k per month’ -This opened my eyes up and changed my mindset -I decided to get into real estate and purchase my first property while still working this job at 19
-It helped shift my mindset to having a goal of ‘100k per year’ to literally dreaming of things that are completely out of my reach and this initiated myself to dream bigger Read more>>

Aloe Michelson

One of my yearlong internships while studying in graduate school was to be a junior level virtual therapist at a wonderful practice in the Tampa Bay of Florida. I studied dialectical behavior therapy, a highly structured comprehensive talk therapy that includes one-on-one clinical sessions, group skills classes, and the ability for clients to speak to their provider in between appointments when necessary. DBT is highly effective for individuals that struggle with effective behavior in their lives due to intense emotionality and difficulty managing interpersonal relationships, mindfulness, distress tolerance and emotional management. Throughout my time learning from the licensed supervisors and other clinicians, a phrase I heard almost daily was “you gotta feel it to heal it.” Although I certainly use this phrase constantly with my own clients, these words remind me to label my emotions, process my feelings and do both without judgement of myself, the environment and of others. Read more>>

Julie Zaruba Fountaine

In my previous role, I learned an invaluable lesson about the importance of workplace culture and the impact of flexibility and trust. My first day on the job as a Well-being Specialist in Duluth was memorable—snow had slowed down everyone’s commute, and my supervisor texted to let me know we’d be starting two hours later. This small gesture set the tone. It showed flexibility and empathy, acknowledging that life sometimes requires adjustments. However, for months, I doubted the sincerity of this supportive culture, carrying a “when will the rug be pulled out?” mentality from a previous role that had left me feeling drained and, frankly, a bit traumatized. I’d worked for years in a setting that was intense and rigid, where a colleague had even warned me, “This place will suck the life out of you if you let it.” That prediction came true as I eventually felt betrayed by an organization that I had once loved. Read more>>

Eli Schwab

It’s so funny that one of the least creative jobs I’ve ever had would prepare me for the most. I worked at my parents warehouse packing boxes and picking orders when I was in high school. Although it started as a punishment, hahaha, it taught me the most endearing lessons in work flow, hard work, and even how to pack and ship boxes, the thing I do the most as an independent publisher. Getting to know the discipline of hard work early in life can help you stay focused and determined when your creative, love-driven work can sometimes get you down. You may not always see the final customer reaction but you can pack it with enough love that you are confident in the final reaction. Read more>>

Ke Jyun Wu

“If you want to be creative, you can’t be certain.” This is the most important lesson I’ve learned over the past few years. As human beings, it’s quite common to experience unstable emotions when we encounter an unpredictable future or circumstances. On the dark side, we might lose something, but on the bright side, we can always learn from the process or the outcome, no matter whether we fail or succeed. Being an artist, or anyone who works in the creative industry, we’re all like pioneers. We’re always working on something we haven’t done before, or that no one has done before. Even with similar projects, different contexts, timing, and clients can change everything. What we can do is embrace all of the uncertainty and earnestly seek valuable experiences within it. Read more>>

Deena Versanszki

I used to get anxiety when I was in stressful situations, reading negative reviews, having contentious interactions with staff or guests. It got to the point where I would lay awake all night thinking of what I should have said or done, or imagining different reactions, planning out responses. Then one day I thought to myself, several weeks after one said incident, “now I can laugh about it”. I began to try to train my brain into calculating the appropriate level of stress based on how long it would take me to be able to laugh at a past situation. If it would have no effect on my life in 5 minutes, 5 days, or 5 years, then I would stress accordingly, obviously it is not a fail safe, but it has come in handy in keeping myself from overreacting to things. Read more>>

Yev Z

The most important lesson that I’ve learned from my last job before I opened my business is self value. I was a late bloomer, end up going to college in my late 20s. Once I graduated I was promised the job that was associated with my field of study. After 30 days I was promised a raise. When it came down to talk about raise, the owners of the company took over a week to present raise and the way it was presented it was clear – I was not valued as employee. They made it seem like it was huge raise, which was $.50 and made it seem like this was never done before. I know i worked hard, I prove my value, I showed up every single day, went above and beyond yet I was once again showed I am nothing but a number. Read more>>