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.

Zein Clayton

At 15, during the hot quarantine days, I had a bright idea to open my own snoball business, The Meltdown Snoballs. It was a huge risk—juggling school, navigating permits, and investing my savings—but I believed in the vision. Despite the challenges, once I turned 16 in November I started working harder and harder each day to be open by March 20th 2021 the business quickly became a local favorite, I won Battle of the Best Snoballs my first 3months in the business. Taking that risk wasn’t just about starting a business, it was about betting on myself, and it’s paid off beyond my wildest dreams of being a boss at a young age Read more>>

Beverly Nault

I’d wanted to be a writer since I was little and I explored many avenues to make that happen. I trained as a technical writer and worked in the corporate world. Good training, but kinda dry and boring. But good for discipline! I also took several of those correspondence courses, as they were called back in the day. You know, the kind where they send you an assignment by snail mail, and you send it back, and a few weeks later, you get the red-penned teacher’s notes. Read more>>

Traci Eliszewski

I spent 7 years in the acute care medicine field before taking a risk and leaving everything I knew behind. I had family members who were being medicated for chronic health care conditions, including cancer. I had friends who could not get pregnant despite all the advances in traditional medicine. While I absolutely loved my time in Neurology and Internal Medicine (Hospitalist department), I just always felt like there needed to be more to to the health care I knew and wanted for my family. Read more>>

Brandon Surtain

Growing up in New Orleans, I didn’t come from an environment that necessarily fostered painting talents. Art wasn’t something people around me saw as a viable path, and as an artist, I knew it would be hard to get people to care about my work at first. But I realized early on that I couldn’t wait for someone else’s permission to pursue my passion—I had to give myself permission. There were times when I would book a venue to show my work without having the other logistics figured out, just to push myself to make it happen. It was a risk, and I knew it. Read more>>

Pamela Lowell

During the late summer of 2022, having just moved to a new area on the south coast of Massachusetts (in search of community after Covid) my husband and I went kayaking one afternoon on the Westport River. Unbeknownst to us, this river holds one of the densest populations of Osprey on the entire East Coast. I’ve always been a nature enthusiast (as a balm for my work as a psychotherapist specializing in treating trauma) but that August, I sat on my kayak in awe. We happened upon this area during fledging season, when that year’s population begins to learn how to fly, and there were dozens upon dozens of Osprey circling overhead. Read more>>

Nicole Swope

This whole career was a giant risk! I was 21 years old when I opened my dance studio on North Atherton Street in State College. That area is now a bank, with Wegman’s, Target, Applebees, etc. behind it which was all trees and woods back in 1991 when the studio was there. It was such a risk that I don’t think I would take at my age of 55 now. Back then, I had just graduated from Penn State and had just gotten married. I was like, “Hey, why not?’ Read more>>

Leanne Ross

I quit my high paying job and bought a one way solo ticket to another country. I switched my 2 bedroom house to live in a 20 bed dormitory in a hostel with people I did not know. I switched my Kurt Geiger heels to Havana flip flops and my designer handbags were exchanged for a backpack. I dramatically altered everything in my life. I knew all of what I was giving up but had no idea what I was looking to gain as a result. Read more>>

Kate Gregory Richey

I graduated from college in 2000 without a real goal or plan in place. I loved the college experience, but in all honesty, I wasn’t prepared for the real world. Now, this is not really my school’s fault, I didn’t take advantage of any of the resources around me. I truly didn’t know how to take advantage of the resources. I didn’t know how to ask for help. I didn’t really understand that I was allowed to ask for help. I assumed I was already supposed to know how to be a person, have it all figured out at twenty. There were so many things I didn’t understand at that point. I was not a person yet. TV had practically raised me and I had no idea how to be. Read more>>

Ana Pestana

A leap of faith. Before getting into the healing and wellness industry, I worked at the airport in Lisbon, Portugal. I lived there for 10 years and Covid hit. I was out of a job, with no insights on what my next move was going to be. My family had came back to the United States about a year before. Surrendering to the unknown I left Portugal and hit the restart button on my personal and professional life. When I came back, I started out by going to college thinking I was going to get my associates in business management. After a year and a half I realized I had a different calling. I wanted to become a yoga instructor. Read more>>

Ashley Carter

One of the biggest risks I have taken was leaving my job of 10 years to pursue my nonprofit, EatWwell Exchange, full time. To be honest, I didn’t leave because of EatWell. I wanted to stay there for some time. However,when you know that your time somewhere is coming to an end you have to listen. This was a risk because at that time, Eatwell did not have that many paid events. We hadn’t received that much grant funding and we didn’t have a lot of consistent bookings. Read more>>

Theresa Steward

Despite what I often heard when I was younger, I’ve learned through experience that most of the time, life paths are not linear. And it is perfectly fine to change your mind and take a different route; you may even change your mind more than once to find what really fulfills you. Those changes, those risks, should be encouraged and not feared. Sometimes, it seems strange how I’ve found myself where I am today, but as I look back, I remember the risks and leaps of faith I took to get here. Read more>>

Ted Gibson

RISK is important for me!!!! I was never a person that played it safe. I wanted to have the best feel the best and be known as the best. That takes a lot of risk and guts I am a sensitive introverted person who appears to be extroverted. With the idea of how crazy that sounds I honor and welcome Risk. It almost sounds like a person when stated that way. Read more>>

Silvia Passiflora

I had a successful boutique catering company that was once my dream but I was burnt out. Meanwhile I was starting to take off as a songwriter and performer. I couldn’t stop writing songs if I tried! I decided to move to Nashville, Music City USA. But that wasn’t the riskiest thing I decided to do. I decided to buy a campervan. Read more>>

Mason Lee

The biggest risk I’ve taken has been creating my company, Mason Lee Dance Theater. When starting the company, I had no experience on how to manage a company. I only went by the limited resources I used including interviews, YouTube clips, and past experiences. Luckily, I had a mother who ran her own organization so there was some idea of what to do; however she runs a corporate company rather than a dance company.  Read more>>

Iv Urbex

With my type of hobby/aspiring profession, there are a lot of variables that come into play when attempting to document a location. Just like with anything, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. So with that being said, I document the decay of vacant/abandoned buildings. I personally love documenting buildings that you can piece the history together with, whether it be old items left behind, old documents, etc. You can tell a story with your findings and it really adds another element to something being “abandoned & forgotten.” Read more>>

Dakota Woodworth

Well, lets set the scene. I was building pontoon boats for Manitou in Lansing. Third shift factory work, I believe I was making $21/hr + overtime, and was about to be promoted to fabricating their line of specialty boats. Honestly, a lot of my time was spent just standing around with a broom and waiting for the next boat we actually had the parts for to come down the line. So very easy work 75% of the time for pretty solid pay! I just simply felt like a dead man walking the entire time, because there was no passion for what I was doing, just the next boat, and more broom time. Read more>>