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.

Sheryl McAfee

Paula’s Hope opened our doors June 1st of 2020, in the midst of Covid when many others were closing their doors. We saw the importance of taking care of your mental and spiritual health and providing a safe and non judgemental place for people to share their hurts and concerns… for FREE. Read more >>>

Patricia A. Hawkenson

Taking a Risk For many years I was like many artists. I got excited about every new art technique I saw and wanted to try them all and prove to myself that I could do it. Watercolor, acrylic, textiles, you name it, I jumped into it with both feet and in the process filled up an entire room in my home with various art supplies. Read more >>>

Shane Capps

My wife likes to say I’d jump off a cliff if I thought there was a good story waiting at the bottom. She’s the steady one—measured, thoughtful, risk-averse. I’m the one who believes that growth lives on the other side of uncertainty. And thankfully, she keeps me from doing anything too reckless. Read more >>>

Kassandra Wislon

One of the biggest risks I’ve ever taken was leaving a stable nursing job with a great med spa to start my own medical spa, Alchemy Aesthetics. I had a good job, consistent income, and met some wonderful people while working— but I also wanted to have a job a little closer to home. Read more >>>

Jarran Fountain

Following my preschool graduation, my grandmother asked me, “Jarran, why didn’t you pick artist as your dream job?” At four years old, I had already internalized the idea that being an artist wasn’t a “real” career. That moment stuck with me. I poured myself into creative outlets – art camps, private lessons, sketchbooks, and eventually, digital design. Read more >>>

Lindsay Dreyer

In 2016, I was living what most people would consider the dream. I owned a thriving real estate brokerage in Washington, D.C.—a company I had built from scratch, with a loyal team and a steady stream of clients. On paper, everything looked perfect. But inside, I was running on fumes. Read more >>>

Krista Boling

One of the biggest risks I’ve ever taken was launching my first barbershop. I was in my early twenties, going through a divorce, raising a young daughter, and working at a shop where I felt undervalued. I knew I wanted more — not just for myself, but for the people around me. Read more >>>

Jenny Klossner

I have always been a risk taker. One big risk I took, was to change my career. when I was well established. As a former elementary school teacher with a master’s degree in education, I thought I would be a teacher forever. As a teacher I turned to yoga to remedy stress, back pain, and personal challenges. Read more >>>

Jessi May Stevenson

When I chose to open our 2025 Season at the Santa Paula Theater Center with POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, I knew it was a bold choice. It’s sharp, irreverent, and unapologetically fearless—a far cry from the safer fare that often launches a season. Read more >>>

Michael O.

The biggest risk I’ve ever taken was betting on myself—twice. Once as an artist, and again as a technologist. I grew up between worlds—African and American, traditional and modern—and my heart was always split between two passions: music and technology. After college, I faced a pivotal choice. Read more >>>

Tamice Spencer-Helms

One risk I took was starting Subculture Incorporated. After two decades of ministry work on college campuses, I realized that the way ministry was being done no longer aligned with my convictions. I believed it could be done differently — with a pedagogy and praxis that honored the lived experiences and cultural contexts of the students we served. Read more >>>

Chris Smith

After serving in the U.S. Navy, I began working various jobs in Amarillo, TX to support my family from airplane mechanic to truck driver to hazardous waste disposal. I was laid off from hazardous waste disposal about 20 years ago, and I began spending time in a tattoo shop in Amarillo. Read more >>>

Asia Coffee

I received my degree from Purdue in Interior Design in 2009 and was grateful to be hired full-time from an internship I had at the time. I was working as a Designer for two years when I got the idea to make a nice birthday cake for my son’s upcoming birthday. Read more >>>

Jawanza Small

In 2020 during the covid pandemic, I dared to dream and introduced ‘Ital Kitchen Bim’ to the island of Barbados. At that point it was the biggest thing I had ever done in my life. I invested everything I had and built a business – bought food containers, got branding, purchased ingredients, branded apparel.. I did it all. Read more >>>

Nyanda LaShay

The first risk I took was deciding not to be a Jehovah’s Witness anymore. This was a massive risk because when you decide to leave that religion, you’re also deciding to lose all the ‘friends’ and family you had that stay. You’re considered ‘bad association’ and are thus excommunicated. That was one of the most painful experiences of my life. Read more >>>

Lela Dishman

After four years of running my photography business, I felt a deep desire to have my own studio space. I had started my journey as an outdoor, natural light photographer, mainly working with families. Many clients would ask me to photograph their newborns—a task that was both exciting and intimidating. Read more >>>

Dr. Brandon Hardin

Taking the risk of opening my first practice in Mississippi, a state I had never been to, was a life-changing decision for me. I remember the uncertainty and excitement I felt in 2014 when I took that leap of faith. Read more >>>

Maranda Beckham

I was born and raised in a small southeastern Oklahoma farming town, where you were told at a young age to set aside your creativity and develop a good blue-collar skill that you were skilled enough at to earn a living for your family—or to marry well. Read more >>>

Rachel Manila

In 2018 I hit a bit of a crossroad. I was working 3 jobs just to make ends meet, and life just wasn’t fulfilling. I was questioning all of life’s decisions at that point. I found myself vibrating low and falling into a state of depression, riddled with anxiety. The gym was my happy place. Read more >>>

Darrell Dawsey, DVM

Are you hiding in the spiritual closet? At a young age, I knew I was different. My thoughts always veered towards the unknown and what was behind the veil of reality. What else exists beyond the structured southern life I’m told to live. Get up, go to school, do your homework, get good grades, PTL, rinse, wash, and repeat. Read more >>>

Sheila Sornsin

I’ve always considered myself fairly risk-averse — which sounds funny coming from someone who now runs her own business and spins fire for fun. Yet on many levels, I used to choose safety and security over the riskier endeavor. For twenty years, I thrived in the corporate world. But around year fifteen, I felt the spark fading. Read more >>>

Leslie Brace

The whole idea of entrepreneurship is risk, believing in yourself enough, your vision and putting it into motion. I started doing hair when I was 21 years old, but my fire to be an entrepreneur started way before as a child even with wanting to create a product that could be marketed and sold. Read more >>>

Fatimah Behagg

After 15 years of working full-time as a Marketing Leader in the corporate world, I decided to take the leap and follow my passion. I had always wanted to launch a global fitness coaching business with the mission to help people live fitter, happier, and healthier lives. Read more >>>

Julie Bausivoir

My biggest risk was giving myself fully to my passion: acting. All my life, I had been following a “regular path” : dedicated to my studies while always feeling a pull toward something creative. After high school, I decided to attend law school or pursue geopolitical studies. I wanted something “secure” that I still enjoyed, in case I didn’t make it as an artist. Read more >>>

Lisa Dunn

After many years in the medical field, I found myself feeling the burnout that so many experience in that profession and I had young kids at home that I needed to spend time with. I loved helping people, but I knew deep down that something was missing — I wanted to wake up each day excited about what I was doing. Read more >>>

Jodi Medell

The biggest risk I ever took was leaving my thriving physical therapy practice in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to move to Crested Butte, Colorado, during Covid. My son was only ten at the time, and online schooling was draining the life out of him. Read more >>>

TJ Lewis

I think a lot of people share a similar story – ending up in a career they never planned for. To me, that says something about the kind of people who don’t let self-doubt or pride get in their way. In high school, I was of the mind that my future was in the tech industry. Read more >>>

Yali Romagoza

The biggest risk I’ve ever taken was leaving behind the version of myself that the world found acceptable. I grew up in Havana, Cuba, where life was defined by scarcity and silence — both material and emotional. When I left my country in 2010, I thought the risk was migration itself: starting over in a new language, with no safety net. Read more >>>

Meech Molina

As a coffee professional, the glass ceiling is pretty low. You get trained, you learn a bunch about coffee, and then you’re just the certified ‘super star barista’. Read more >>>

Allison Horseman

When we planted our first 50 lavender plants in 2013, we had no business plan—just a dream. A dream rooted in our love for the land and the generations before us who made their living from it. As women in agriculture, we weren’t exactly the expected faces of farming in rural Kentucky. But that didn’t stop us. Read more >>>

Kelsey Baker

When I think about risk, the biggest one I ever took was the day I decided to start my business. At the time, I was a single mother with no savings and no clear financial safety net. Read more >>>

Kim Locke

There is risk in everything we do. When we stay in our comfort zone, we risk not growing or feeling fulfilled in some way. When we step outside of our comfort zone, we risk falling, failing, judgement, and ultimately being vulnerable and unprotected. The question with any of it is, what is the risk verses the reward? Read more >>>

Máté Orr

When I was about eighteen, in an interview with the Hungarian-Canadian psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar, I came across the idea that courage is not the absence of fear, but doing what you want despite being afraid. That fundamentally shaped my relationship to risk-taking. Choosing to live as a freelance artist is considered risky by most standards. Read more >>>