Is there ever a “right” time to start a creative career? Our goal has always been help people pursuing their passion. Helping those people often means helping them think through important decisions such as when to start, when to take the leap. Below, you’ll find our conversations with successful creatives reflecting back on when they had to decide whether to start or wait.

Mandy Corrente

I actually started my creative career really young—I recorded my first song when I was 5 years old! So I don’t think I could have started any sooner, and I wouldn’t want to start later either. I feel like everything has happened at the perfect time for me. Read more>>

Emily Murphy

I loved making art as a child. My mom signed me up for community art classes that my 3rd grade teacher taught and I won an art contest where they used my painting of a cat for the local symphony concert programming. When I was in middle school my art teachers praised me for my talent and I loved creating and learning about art. When it came to high school, I ended up focusing on music and wasn’t able to do any art classes. Fast forward to senior year and I start to really enjoy photography after my mom’s friend gifted me an old DSLR. I started college as a photography and English education major. I loved my drawing and design classes my first year, but decided to focus on English education and replaced photography with politics. Read more>>

Cassandra Laureano

Around the time I started tattooing, I was about 2 years into my painting business and becoming a tattoo artist hadn’t crossed my mind once. I wish that within those 2 years I had someone, like I do now, who introduced me to the world of tattooing because I would’ve been about 5 years in the game already. I have learned an exceptional amount in these 2 years that I’ve been tattooing but I know if I was 5 years in my craft would’ve been perfected! I don’t mind still learning new techniques as I go but I could just imagine what pieces I could’ve been doing now if I had that experience from before. Read more>>

Monica Sierra

I have been creating my entire life, but it wasn’t until 2022 that I started to release music and seek professional opportunities as a musician. I was working a corporate tech job out of college that had no creative elements to it. I felt miserable, but that I was doing the “responsible” and “acceptable” thing. There is a misconception that you must be extremely technically skilled, the best of the best, have a huge following or all the right connections in front of you to really pursue the arts. Now I know that for any passion, you don’t need to wait for everything to be perfect and if you are, what you’re really doing is waiting for permission to be who you want to be. You can and should, just start. If I had known, I would have started sooner. Perfection is not the requirement, authentic expression is. Read more>>

Ashton Ryan

It’s hard to say when my “creative career” really started. I’ve been scribbling stories on paper scraps since I was a kid and taking photos and videos of everyone I love for as long as I can remember. Maybe it wasn’t a career then—but it was all practice. It was instinct, ritual and a way of seeing the world that never really stopped. Read more>>

Kaitlyn Krieg

I moved to NYC in 2008 with a dream to be on Broadway. With no support and only relying on myself, I gave up after only 5 auditions. I didn’t fight for it because it was easier to accept that I was not good enough at 20 years old. Family was more set on the idea of getting a full time job with health insurance. And I did. I have been doing that for the past 10 years, but I’m not a desk person. I did improv for a few years, but that fear from my 20 year old self came back full force and I quit. It took until my mid-30’s to realize that if I want to have the career I want, I have to take charge. I made a small web series in 2018 called “Kait & Nic” and learned that I love being on sets in any capacity. Read more>>

Cait Cortelyou

I’m actually very glad that I spent so many years as an actor before getting into directing. “Twelfth Night” – this spring’s Shakespeare in the Park production with Contemporary Classics Theatre – marks my directorial debut, but I’ve been acting for nearly three decades. Read more>>

Charles Anderson

Looking back I wish I would have started 2years ago when I was released from prison. I started putting myself out there on reels about a year ago. I was really dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety. At the time I was working at Natural State Recovery in Oak Grove Arkansas. I think if I would have started earlier it would have been more of a healing process for me. My experience with it right now is great I’m still new so it’s still exciting. Read more>>

Victoria Barnes

This is an interesting question because I’ve thought about this quite a bit. I think I started my creative career at exactly the right time. As much as photography fills my soul, I believe that had I started 20 or even 10 years ago, I would have fallen into the wedding or portrait photographer world, and probablywould have burnt out. I have been taking photographs all my life, and was always doing something involving a level of creativity. Seven years ago, I found out I had a brain tumor. After the surgery, I started having severe anxiety. Not wanting to treat it with medication, I would take long walks and take photos along the way. Read more>>

Antonia Lara Sanchez

To be honest, no. I believe in divine timing and synchronicities, even though my fears often challenge this belief. I truly believe that all experiences I’ve had in life- both personally and professionally- have prepared me to step into the work I am currently doing. Read more>>

Toni Morales

If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change the moment I started my creative career—it laid the foundation for who I am today. What I would change, however, is the level of access to serious, experienced professionals behind me. My mother has always been my biggest supporter and truly believed in my dreams. Unfortunately, despite having family members with access to greater resources and opportunities, they never extended a helping hand. Read more>>

Denise Loutas

I started to take creating content more seriously in 2022. I was at a point in my life where I stopped caring what others thought, my kids were grown and I wanted to showcase my love for hello kitty. I always loved taking pictures and videos and creating cute edits. Anytime a new creative app showed up in the App Store, I would download it and try it out. I fell in love with vine and would watch YouTube videos on how the best vines were created. Then in 2015, I joined musical.ly and I was obsessed. I would create videos but only a handful made it live as I was too embarrassed to post them all. Then when my account transferred to tik tok, I started to create more but again didn’t really start actively posting until a few years ago, where I introduced the world to the love I have always had for hello kitty! Now I post at least a few times per week and I am a tik tok shop affiliate! Read more>>