The chapters in our stories are often marked by wins and losses. Getting a new job, getting fired. Getting a life-threatening medical diagnosis, beating it and getting a clean bill of health. Too often, due to a societal expectation of modesty and humility we are discouraged from talking about the risks we’ve taken that led to those ups and downs – because often those risks draw attention to how we are responsible for the outcomes – positive or negative. But those risks matter. Those stories matter. We asked some brilliant entrepreneurs, artists, creatives, and leaders to tell us those stories – the stories of the risks they’ve taken, and we’ve shared them with you below.

Marisela Gonzalez

In March 2022, I took a risk of leaving my full-time assistant position at a big Interior Designing firm, to put all of my time and energy in my business and making sure that I was taking care of my own business growth. It was the scariest thing I have ever done, I only had about 10 weddings booked for 2022, I myself was getting married in August and we were planning to purchase a home! Read more>>

krista shirley

I’ve always been a bit of a risk taker. My dad died when I was eight and it taught me at a very early age that life is precious and you never know if tomorrow will come, so be sure to make the most of every single moment. I feel that I’ve taken many different types of risks over the last 30 years, but the biggest one of all was on myself. In 2019 my suprascapular nerve was severed in my left shoulder. Read more>>

Toni Alire

My biggest risk so far with the bakery has been going to strictly weddings. Weddings have always been a huge love of mine as long as I can remember, and I absolutely LOVE designing/executing wedding cakes. Prior to this year I did all sorts of events, and I just wasn’t happy. This year I decided that I was only going to do what I love, and what I love, is in fact love, and in turn weddings. I love being able to be apart of the happiest day of peoples lives. Read more>>

Shanley Suganda

I moved to the U.S. alone from Indonesia when I was 19 as a student at the Academy of Art University, in San Francisco. As I was finishing my first semester, the Asian financial crisis happened in 1997. My parents couldn’t send me any money anymore. They told me I had 2 choices: to come home to Indonesia or stay in San Francisco independently without their financial help. Read more>>

Vincent Frimpong

Growing up in a family of five, our livelihood in an Ashanti household in Ghana was framed by hard work and struggle. The way we are taught is to work hard in trades, and that will enable our lives to move forward. My father gave me a motivational push that helped me realize the importance of schooling and earning income. He allowed me to see that my vision was to help people in the community to find resources, Read more>>

Mina Mendoza

Taking a Risk When I think of the field I am in now, I think about taking a risk. I did something that was completely out of my comfort zone. I never spoke on a microphone and yet to people on LIVE and on CAMERA……..yikes! Read more>>

Becca Grabinski

As a little girl, I always felt what I wanted was possible. I am all about, when we feel called to jump even though we don’t know if it will work. I created an incredible business sharing my love and knowledge for holistic ways to support our health. I was good at it. I helped thousands of people. I set the vision that this was my path. My spirit had other plans. Read more>>

Jamie Ambrose

Taking risks in life is something I know all too well. I believe that taking a chance and getting out of my comfort zone is one of the best ways to grow and progress in life.I had been attending college and was on the path to a degree in nursing, but when the opportunity to start a business presented itself, I decided to drop out and take the risk. My first business failed, so I tried again with a different venture, only to have failed again. Read more>>

Marcus J. Moore

In 2017, I was a senior editor at Bandcamp Daily covering underground jazz, alternative soul and rap. The job was great: I had to move to Brooklyn, New York for it, and things were moving along. By the end of the year, I started feeling the urge to write a book — but not just any book, the first-ever biography of rap superstar Kendrick Lamar. To do the book justice, I knew I’d have to leave a job I adore for the promise of greatness. Read more>>

Romaine Brown

After working in the Banking Industry in Kingston, Jamaica for almost 13 years, I decided to leave that profession to pursue my real passion of Music & Entertainment. Most persons may refrain from doing such a thing because your basically leaving what we refer to as ‘sure for unsure’. Take the covid-19 pandemic that affected the entire world for perfect example; it greatly affected the Entertainment Industry negatively. Read more>>

Sherdarria Mckissic

The risk I took after becoming a nurse was starting my own scrub line! Of course as a nurse we HAVE to wear them. I’m passionate about caring for others and I have to wear scrubs! *inserts giggles” Ive created and started selling scrubs to all health care professionals! “Passionate Wear “ Scrubs are available for all professional needs valued at an affordable price! Read more>>

Unique Johnson

If it’s one thing I know how to do well is take a risk! When I first decided to open my own salon space, salon suites were fairly new ( not really but most people I knew were in a traditional salon) but I always knew that I wanted my own since deciding to pursue hairstyling. I was working at a very high-end salon straight out of hair school, I spent 3 years there, learning, studying, and taking classes to perfect my craft. Read more>>

Amit Patel

Three parts to this story: Gharana Foods was started as the result of a necessity versus a desire. In an immigrant household, stay at home parents tend to find work in creative ways to help make ends meet. My mom started making our flagship product, Chakri, and selling it to local grocery stores. At 50, my dad suddenly lost his job when his company was sold and had trouble finding new work. Read more>>

Jamaya Mickles

I encourage woman every day to live in their power. I teach them how to listen to their bodies and intuition to determine what is needed to be healthy. There came a day when I had to take my own advice. With my first pregnancy in 2013 and my second pregnancy in 2017, my goal was a healthy baby. That’s it! Sounds simple enough, right? Naw. Read more>>

Kathy Lajvardi

Honestly I feel like I take risks daily. I am always taking a risk with my series, breaking traditional rules, wondering how people may respond. Taking a risk with a gallery wondering if it’s the right fit, or even taking a risk with a social post, or throwing a ticketed event experience like we did called SOMMX. SOMMX was an event where we paired wine with food, music and art back in 2018. It was an experimental event, a risk we took and won. Read more>>

Kaitlin Mazzei

The title “Personal Trainer” was always something I deemed cool and luxurious. In my mind these were individuals who radiated confidence and figured out a great alternative to working a 9-5 in a cubicle. Never did I anticipate that I would someday step into this title and then proceed to grow from it to an even bigger title. Coach. One of the biggest risks I took has led me to a life I didn’t know I wanted or needed. Read more>>

Claire Thompson

Back in 2015, I was working a job and was ready for a career change. I was young, had little responsibility, and had the healthy naiveté that comes with being a 22 year old. As I looked for the next career shift, I started spending more time enjoying my hobby — painting. Art and painting specifically had been an outlet my whole life, yet something that I had ruled out as a future job. I had heard from many close and distant sources about the dangers of tainting your hobby by monetizing it, and did not want to muddle my joy for art. For about 6 months, Read more>>

Ekiuwa Aire

As a parent, I had a deep desire to teach my children about their cultural heritage and history. I searched high and low for children’s books that focused on African history, but to my surprise, I found none. I couldn’t believe it. Was there really no market for such books? Was it that people weren’t interested in the topic? I didn’t know, but I knew that I wanted to fill that void. Read more>>

Suzanne Wagner

Story: Take the Risk At this stage in my life, when I should be thinking about my retirement. I am jumping into two new projects that keep me pretty busy along with my part time job as a school nurse. Read more>>

LaToya Wilson

In 2017, I left a comfortable, 20-year career to pursue purpose (full-time). I’d always thought of cooking as a passion, so for the last 10 years of my corporate career, I catered events and cooked for clients on weekends (and while taking vacation days from my job). When I first starting cooking for pay, it was a fun means of making extra money. However, around 2015, I began to dread going to work each day, turned into that person I usually avoided… the complainer. Read more>>

Jerame Thornton

It all starts with an idea. An idea to become something greater. Most can’t see it and fewer will believe in it. But all it takes is one. One person. You. This was what I told myself when I started my journey. From performing at open mic nights in front of a handful of people to sharing the stage with Grammy Award winning legends. You gotta take that risk. Even when no one says you can do it, prove them wrong. Read more>>

Chima Lubin

After leaving my job as a clinical director at a Juvenile Detention Center, I took a major leap of faith in starting my own private practice as a mental health therapist. At first, it was a dream and honestly I thought it was just going to be a dream and not a reality. It was pretty nerve wrecking and scary because I was so use to the security of a 9-5 job. In my case it was often 10- 11 hour days depending on the crisis level of the day. Read more>>

Cynthia Adame

On February 4, 2022 I took a leap of faith and started my private studio salon now called Cyn Creates. 2 years before I took that leap of faith I had worked at 2 different hair salons; which I personally didn’t feel the most comfortable working at. I remember having a friend who was opening a salon noticed my stress and offered me to rent a chair at her salon and because I was so desperate to leave the environment I was currently at, I didn’t think much of it and just said YES. Read more>>

Zhiwen (Esther) Tang

I’ve had a fascination for art ever since I was a child. Yet, I never dreamed that my passion for art might become my profession. My father was a pediatrician, therefore I was advised to become a physician and educated extensively in chemistry and biology. During my preparation for the college entrance exam, I discovered the world of illustration and was moved and inspired by children’s book illustrator Jimmy Liao. Read more>>

Deva Arani

Taking risks is an inevitable part of change and change is inevitable — a fundamental rule of being human. The biggest risk I ever took was leaving an 18 year marriage when I was in my early 40s to literally start over in my life. I had changed and my spouse and I had grown apart but there was a level of comfort and familiarity plus a deep love that could have kept me there feeling stuck and as if I was living somebody else’s life. Read more>>

Lisseth Nava

I started modeling in 2012, but many family was not supportive including my dad. I stopped pursuing my passion in modeling because of others opinions. Fast forward the ending of 2019 I ended up going through something personal that really shook me to my core. The same thing that broke me gave me the courage to pursue my passions and my dreams, by beginning of 2020 I was back in the industry as a model and an actress. Read more>>

Ben Luke

My biggest risk I could’ve taken was on myself. During Covid I think we all faced a point in time where we had to re-evaluate how we all wanted our life to be. For me that was opening up my own studio. Prior to that I was laid off from my job due to the health concerns so I really had to commit to what I knew to build something sustainable. In opening my own studio I was able to work alongside incredible engineers, producers, and artists as well. Read more>>

Amanda Cil & Mercy Arias

We believe that from the moment you are deciding to open a business you are taking a risk. No matter what your business is, you are taking a risk. And that is exactly what happened to us. We knew we wanted to start offering customizable items but we weren’t sure if they were going to sell or if people were going to accept it. We like to say that we took a leap of faith. It doesn’t get easier, ever. Read more>>

Travis Richardson

It’s hard putting your work out there for others to be critical of. I originally just took pictures just for my own enjoyment and maybe to share amongst friends and family, and with many of them telling me to share them or even make my hobby a job. It seems like a small thing but for something you find your peace in to become something you share with the public any criticism can feel extremely personal, however every bit of admiration feels just as lovely. Read more>>

Jonathan Orpin

As a company founder/owner and longtime entrepreneur, I take risks every day. Years ago, a management book was circulating called The E Myth by Michael E. Gerber, whose premise was that entrepreneurs don’t actually take risks. My guess is that Mr. Gerber was not actually an entrepreneur himself. Read more>>