You’re working hard, things are going well, piece by piece you’ve built a life you are proud of, you’ve overcome obstacles and challenges, beat the odds and then you find yourself at the center of an unexpected dilemma – do you risk it all to keep growing? What if growing means leaving the job you worked so hard to get or the industry you worked so hard to break into? How we approach risk often has a huge bearing on our journey and so we’ve asked some of the brightest folks we know to share stories of risks they’ve taken.

Nick Kvistad

Sink or Swim: You are Your Own Life-preserver My start was in multimedia back in 2008. I took classes, experimented, and kept learning throughout high school. I went to college for Engineering, but it was not the right fit. I moved back to Santa Barbara and shifted my focus. I built my skills to a higher level, moving from the technical side into marketing. Read more>>

Lulu Essey

Tell us the story of a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big, life changing risk or a small risk. Either way, paint the picture for us, tell us the backstory and all the relevant details so we can fully understand the context and circumstances around when and why you took the risk and tell us how it turned out. Read more>>

Kelli Radnothy

A few years ago, I took the risk of leaving a stable paralegal job to start my own freelance business. On paper, that job was secure, but I was burning out and knew I needed something different. Read more>>

Vivian Divierte

I think the willingness to try something new and experiment is an important aspect of being a creative! A lot of my projects come with risks. Spending time, spending money, and spending your efforts on a project in itself is a risk, and I have done this several times throughout my career as an animator/creative. Read more>>

Brandon Taylor

Brandon Taylor took a risk during a time when politics and emotions were at an all-time high, and the world felt shut down. Many of us were stuck at home, uncertain about what the future held, and I was no exception. Read more>>

Dr. Jennifer Trigg

Choosing to follow your heart often feels like one of those non-negotiable risks. There’s a quiet, steady pull inside—a calling to share, create, and become the person you sense you were born to be. And yet the path forward is rarely smooth. Read more>>

Deborah Baum

Leaving Germany to chase my dream of acting on a global stage must have been the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. I had a safe, familiar life back home, but I knew that to grow as an actor, I needed to step into the unknown — into the world’s top training programs and creative hubs. Read more>>

Lindy Welch

I’ve always wanted to be a music therapist, but right out of high school the idea of moving far from home to pursue that dream felt too risky. Instead, I stayed closer to home and built a 25-year career as a music educator. At the age of 48, I made the bold decision to retire from teaching and pursue a Master’s Degree in Music Therapy. Read more>>

Chef Erika Nicole

For almost 11 years, I worked in corporate America as a compliance analyst. It was safe, steady, and it helped me build a life for myself, my partner, and my three kids. But in 2023, I was part of a mass layoff, and everything stopped. Read more>>

Isaiah Grass

Taking risks seems to be my specialty. As a kid, I was severely bullied, and I often felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere. I had a very hard time making friends, and I never really felt like I belonged. To reflect on where I am today, seems surreal knowing how much I’ve had to learn and overcome in life. Read more>>

Olivia Maday

Risk-taking has always been central to my artistic journey. For me, it means trusting my curiosity, intuition, and work itself enough to step into uncertainty. One of the most transformative risks I’ve taken was studying abroad in Hamburg, Germany. Read more>>

Rocio

Water is the greatest teacher of this living experience, so it makes sense I begin with what she taught me. They say the first risk we take is birth, nine months cradled in my mother’s waters before I was ushered into air. I’ve always felt kin to metamorphosis: the butterfly leaving land for sky, the body leaving its familiar element. Read more>>

Alyssa Lauren Stone

I left my six-figure sales career with no plans for what was next. Although tech sales paychecks were nice, I was utterly miserable by the end. I was burned out to the point where I was balding, experiencing panic attacks, and insomnia due to work stress. So I took a risk and left what was once my dream career. Read more>>

Shari Davidson

During the pandemic, I took the risk and started my own lipgloss and lip care company titled: Glossdate. Slogan, a date with lipgloss! I was bored at home during the pandemic and stumbled across a video on how to make lipgloss and from there that’s when my business started. Read more>>

Sara Ngan

I don’t think I have ever been much of a risk taker in my life. I am a creature of comfort., especially with my personal life. I’ve worked at two large architecture firms in my life, before moving to the real estate development/client side. At the time, I didn’t realize how much this transition would change my own trajectory. Read more>>

Tess Mervenne

I attended the Savannah College of Art and Design, where I studied Performing Arts, Casting, & Business. (This was not the risk, just setting the scene. Going to SCAD was the easiest decision I ever made, and I have no regrets.) In my third year at SCAD, I was just beginning to find my voice as a creative. Read more>>

Cristian Sandoval

One of the biggest risks I’ve taken in my life was moving to the United States to pursue my Master’s degree at SCAD. Before coming here, I had a stable life in Bogotá – I was close to my family, I had a steady job, and I had already built a path as a designer and art director. Read more>>

Debora Andrade

Me and my best friend and Business Partner (Yanett Ortiz) met while working at in the bakery department at the Disneyland Resort, after working together for 2 and a half years she decided to find a different job where she could do more of what she like, decorating cakes, this is when she found this small bakery located in La Habra called Simply Irresistible. Read more>>

Joan Fernandez

At the end of 2017 I decided to leave a 30-year workaholic corporate career in marketing. Built across decades in male-dominated industries—and as a single parent through a third of that time—a decade before, I’d finally arrived. Named a coveted general partner of the firm. Read more>>

Jill Yoder

One of the biggest risks I took was deciding to return to school at the age of 50. I worried about the financial risks at that age, knowing that since I was debt-free at the time, I’d be accruing a substantial debt. Read more>