Stories are incredibly powerful – their ability to teach, inspire, and create understanding is why we are so in love with storytelling. Most stories have a defining moment and so we’ve asked some of the most talented, insightful folks across a broad range of industries and markets to tell us about a defining moment in their story.

Shundrika Jones

There has been a few moments in my career that has reassured me that I was living in my purpose. However, one of the defining moments in my professional career came after working serving in as the adolescent clinical program director at a hospital where I was able to facilitate groups. Seeing the children progress weekly and receiving direct feedback from each of them and the families are moments I live for. Read more>>

Amber Barnes

A defining moment in my professional career that changed my career trajectory came from a personal health experience. In 2019, I was always fatigued, had no appetite, and was losing weight and I was eventually diagnosed with thyroid nodules. My lab showed my thyroid levels were normal and no medication was needed, but I still felt all the symptoms ( fatigue, no appetite, weight loss) of my thyroid not functioning properly. My mom paid for me to see a naturopathic doctor that helped me to treat my symptoms through supplements and diet changes. Read more>>

Katie Kilby

One night more than 14 years ago, I found myself with a coworker on a street corner in the Lower East Side of Manhattan holding a soggy envelope containing dinner money and instructions to share a meal with someone who needed one… without spending more than the $6 provided. By the time we’d mapped out the area, it was raining outside and we were unprepared. having been told to leave anything other than our Subway passes behind. Read more>>

Michelle M.

In 2018 I was struggling with self-worth. I made the decision to change my mindset. I found help listening to and reading books. When I made that change, I believe I attracted the “right people, at the right time!” While working for a doctor, I met 2 very important people. I honestly love people and often connect with them, especially during the treatment process. One client actually tipped me $1,000. Not too long after that, another client made an “offer I couldn’t refuse”! She put me in a very good position to start my own business. I used the tip money as a deposit on my one-room windowless suite. Read more>>

Monique Kirksey.

Yes, there have been a few defining moments especially along my entrepreneurship journey. But without consistent and intentional practice of Self-Care, Self-Awareness, Self-Love and Self-Mastery, success became stagnant in my life. 10 years ago, I had a lifechanging surgery that became the motivating factor behind my passion and purpose in life. At the young age of 30, I had to have a partial hysterectomy. This became the seed to a hidden purpose and lifestyle of herbalism and womb healing. Read more>>

K. Cheyn Gunnerson.

15 years ago I was personally diagnosed with sleep apnea. At the time little was being done through ironic devices to open the airway and the medical field was stuck in prescribing sleep drugs and placing patients on CPAP machines. I personally experienced the struggle of tolerating wearing a mask connected to tubes and having air forced into me, along with being placed on medications which made my heart face during the day, my mind numb at night and still feeling like I wasn’t getting quality sleep. Read more>>

Tamica Lloyd

A defining moment that caused me to change my health happened 14 years ago. I was a young wife and mother that weighed over 220 pounds (at 5’4″ that wasn’t a good weight to be.) I tried every fast fad diet there was and at first, they worked but slowly the weight, cravings, and disappointment would come back with a vengeance. I went in for my yearly check-up and was told I had Type 2 Diabetes. When asked if there was a way I could reverse it without medications I was told, “No you cannot reverse it. Read more>>

Jessica Valant

I became a physical therapist and Pilates Teacher in the year 2000. For the most part, I personally had experienced a healthy and active life. A few years into my career I started experiencing severe pain and various other symptoms. It took a year of testing and hospital stays until I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis. I was told this was not a curable condition and I would have to learn to manage it for the rest of my life. This was a turning point both for how I viewed movement and also how I spoke to my patients and clients. Read more>>

Meghan Hatalla.

I’ve always had a strong work ethic, and have always understood that to move forward in anything–whether it’s classwork, career, yoga practice–you have to work for it. If I wanted to get noticed and in line for a promotion, I had to push myself and take ownership of projects that made me nervous. If I wanted to feel confident teaching inversions, I had to learn to do them myself. Read more>>

Dawn Tyus, PhD, LPC, MAC, NCC.

One of the most defining moments of my professional career was when I realized that I not only had the acquired knowledge and skills to impact others. but when I discovered that helping others was truly my purpose in life. This was discovered through the powerful speeches that I have delivered, lives I have walked through change in therapy and the testamonies of happiness, healing and hope that I have been blessed to assist. Read more>>

Andy Bishop.

Meeting my teacher T. Koei Kuwahara Sensei in the summer of 2018 during a seminar intensive that he taught in Austin that summer was a defining moment of my career up to that point. Meeting him and starting the path of learning “Meridian Therapy” Japanese acupuncture meant honing and sharpening my clinical approach in a new way. Read more>>

Sasha Zerin

The defining moment in my career was definitely deciding to go out on my own and create my own brand. In the beginning of 2020 I was teaching 4-5 fitness classes a day and a lot of times fully depleted at the end of the day. I started SashaFIT in June 2020 which is a virtual small group training platform. It allows me to coach my clients all at once no matter where they are and allows them to either take the workout live virtually or do the workout on their own time via a recording. Read more>>

Amber King

My defining moment in my professional career would be getting certified as a personal trainer through International Sports Science Association. I believe that made the first impact of my professional fitness career. As becoming a certified personal trainer, I started my own fitness business Integrity Fit LLC and took on supplement sponsorships for FNX Fit, EPN Supplements and 2022 1stPhorm Athlete Search. Getting sponsored was absolutely amazing to me, to represent someone’s brand, making commission sales, making a leadership impact on the fitness community and as well doing what I love the most. Read more>>

Atiya Moore, LCSW-C

One defining moments in my life happened when I was in school, taking a research class. At the time I was completing my masters and focusing on becoming a school social worker. don’t ask me what. All I know is I wanted to help people and I loved the idea of having off on weekends and summers. Lol. I hadn’t even considered that owning my own business was an option available to me. Read more>>

La’Toya Chambers

My Professional career for the past two decades have been an Insurance Agent. I have been working at a few different agencies but one particular location gave me the revelation of my purpose. I went from seeing how helping others protect their assets also helped me see how I could also be of service to others in other positive ways. On a daily basis I would encounter different situations with different people that was struggling to make a better life for themselves. People from different cultures and backgrounds were struggling and they needed to know that they mattered. Read more>>

Jonvoana Evans

At this point in my life, I had done what most of us was taught to do. Graduated high school, went to college and finally finishing my degree (with plenty of life happening between this 10-year process; marriage, 3 children, bought a house, divorce, lost that house), I had finally gotten my dream career with one of the US’s top Information Technology & Networking conglomerates. I was traveling all over as a Cybersecurity Systems Engineer and was finally making that 6-figure salary that I just knew would change me and my daughters’ lives for the better. Read more>>

Maria Vargas

6/26/2016 I found myself in the hospital in ICU and just days before I was on vacation having a great time with my family. My left lung was full of fluid and there was no explanation for it. Ten days in ICU, in and out of the hospital for 6 months and in the process had two surgeries to my left lung and the fluid kept coming back. The surgeon told me the only option left was to cut off my left lung and a few more surgeries in the process. Read more>>

Lacita Moody

A defining moment happened when I was early in my career. Actually, I was still in graduate school. I received my first practicum client which was scary enough. Little did I know what would happen next. This client during her first session sat down in my office and stated that she was not wanting to live. At this time I was a complete novice or what I like to call a “baby therapist” and this was my first client ever. I felt scared honestly. Read more>>

Lorenzo Robertson

There was a defining moment that changed or altered my life’s trajectory. I had been working in various aspects of the non-profit realm and thought that this is not the arena for me. I wanted to be in a position to make more money. Not because money was that important to me, but because I knew that if I had more I could do more, for myself and others. In my mid-thirties I became deathly ill. I did not know what was wrong with me and my doctors were at a loss. Read more>>

Jamil Rivers

My defining moment was a series of moments that crossed from my personal life into a new professional life. At age 39, I was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer that had spread to my lungs, liver, and other places in my body. As a working mother, I had to not just survive but continue with my life as best I could during treatment. Read more>>