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.

Mo Nikole

I grew up in a two parent middle class household in a family where emoting and transparency were not normalized. Often times, the motion of a thing, the aesthetic of what it looked like far outweighed its trueness. Me, a hyper creative, imaginative kid by nature came out of the womb dreaming about what felt impossible to attain in an environment where “realistic” superseded “exploration”. I yearned for arts and creativity, but my family and environment demanded polished, 6 figure income paths, and less noise in my character. Read more>>

Mimi Hayes

In 2017 I quit my job as a high school history teacher to move to New York City to become a standup comedian. This sentence alone gave both of my parents a heart attack (figuratively). For context, becoming a teacher almost killed me (literally). 5 days into my first job I had a brain hemorrhage. They say teaching isn’t for the “weak of heart” but they never said anything about brains! While I survived brain surgery and worked hard to regain my motor skills, I picked up something new in recovery as well: a really dark sense of humor. Nobody else thought it was funny that my head exploded, but I did. Read more>>

Back Patio Event Design

When the pandemic hit, Kayla and I took that initial time to really focus on what we were building. Was the business enough? Were our clients truly getting what they deserved? Were we offering the experience that we really wanted to provide? These types of questions helped us shape our new look and updated packages. Day of coordination and even month of coordination wasn’t fulfilling our goals while trying to be successful and driven in this business. Yes, our clients were happy and the wedding weekends were memorable. But something was missing. While taking a step back to reevaluate our business goals, personal goals and the reviews from our previous clients, we were able to rebuild and take a risk to market ourselves differently. Read more>>

Abby Germer

In 2009, my husband invited me on a mission trip to India. Our youngest daughter was almost 4 years old and I was very uncertain that it was the right thing to do and leave her at such a young age for 2 weeks. But something deep inside of me knew this was the right decision for that moment in time. Growing up, my parents instilled the love of travel for me and we had the chance to go many different places, but nothing like India. Read more>>

Gabriel Amaya

Biggest risk i have taken is quitting my regular 9-5 job take my entire 401K out and start my own Restaurant without knowing if it was going to make it through or end up closing it down few months later. Read more>>

Stefon Eustache

As a musician who also has a full time 9-5 Job, I’m constantly pushed to take risks between writing and recording my real life experiences to share to the world and balancing my everyday life. No one tells you when you decide to chase after your dreams which for me happen to be an expression of art (my music) how many times people would doubt you or downplay the amount of work you put into the thing you love. I’ve had to remove my personal feelings from a lot of situations because it can hinder the process you’re currently in and ruin the journey that you’re following. Read more>>

Loren Howard

I would say the biggest risk I have ever taken was starting my own company and becoming an entrepreneur. It wasn’t an easy thing to do and despite all the bumps in the road along the way, I have paved my own way to success. Before business, I wanted to play in the NFL and had to completely change the goal for my future after I was injured. I was always a driven and hard-working person so creating something on my own was fascinating. Read more>>

Missy Bell

Missy- Churches have been a source of community support for centuries. While certainly there are plenty of news articles that share otherwise, there are many that are committed to loving their neighbor. I have the privilege of mobilizing churches to care for at-risk and vulnerable youth through my job at Olive Crest and have seen churches step up in miraculous ways to care for foster youth. This past summer, the County of San Diego came to us at Olive Crest and asked if churches would want to help support the families that are in their care. Read more>>

Stephen Solomon

I moved to New York, by myself, a month after I graduated from Point Park University with a degree in Theatre Arts. I had signed with a modeling agency here and knew that New York was where I needed to be to pursue the career I am passionate about. It definitely was difficult leaving my twin brother and his girlfriend juliette. Those two are my best friends and I have never been this far away from them ever. I also had just gotten into a serious relationship which he and I both decided that we were going to do long distance. Read more>>

Renee Dominguez

From the outside looking in – I was a success. I went to the right schools, had the right degrees, the right jobs, the right job titles, and the salary, but what people didn’t know was that I was a hot mess inside. I was a strong female in a man’s world. I was the only woman in the room for most of my career. I was either continued made to feel small, insignificant or had my seat taken away from the table. It all finally came to a head when my CFO (who I reported to) called me into his office and brought up a list of things he thinks “I did wrong”. I had it by then and quit on the spot. Read more>>

Cary Reichbach

Leaving the military and transitioning into the civilian world is a difficult process in the best of circumstances. Adding in the factor of years spent accumulating such health detriments as experimental vaccinations like Anthrax, exposure to lead, explosives, and a multitude of other toxins, plus sleep disruption, Traumatic Brain Injury, and possible PTSD, you have a recipe for mental dysfunction. Read more>>

Angela Atkinson

My career in nonprofit leadership was a safe choice for me. With an MBA from a top business school, I had a career that was mainstream, culturally acceptable and successful by societal standards. However, when I turned 50, I grew increasingly unhappy and restless in my work. I knew my current path was not right for me, but I didn’t have that “calling” that others seem to have. Read more>>

Jameela Hill

May 1 2018, me and my child arrived to Tucson after a 30 hour cross country drive from Detroit. We had never been here before, had no steady place to live, and no car. I just had to get out of Detroit so I took the chance of starting a new life here – simply bc there was nice weather. I was told that I shouldn’t be moving anywhere I don’t have family/friends, that it’s not safe for me and my daughter to be alone. The part is– I felt alone at home so that risk was one that I was willing to take. In less than 20 days from today, we will have been here for 4 full years. Read more>>

Bobby Titolo & David Williams

August 2020- we’d been stuck inside since March, but Bobby and I (David) had decided to jam a few times at his house. Bobby had a great range of recording gear, so we decided to record some of the things we’d played. We even threw around the idea of starting a new band project with a singer we knew. I personally was involved in three bands at the time, so I wasn’t super “stoked” on the idea of starting a new group from scratch. Read more>>

Michelle Cyr

Building a new business from scratch isn’t easy… but I am on my third one. I AM a risk taker. The first business, I got to use my creative skills when I started a sign and printing company in North Texas. A small business with nine employees. I sold it and left the state to start over from scratch… again. I picked up everything and moved to Northern Wisconsin and started a painting business. Why painting?? I don’t really know, it just sounded like fun. I love getting dirty and working with my hands. Read more>>

Patricia Guzmán

Over the years I have taught watercolor classes to many students, not only from Mexico but from many places in the world. It is common that many of them dream of the possibility of dedicating themselves fully to painting, however, there are all kinds of barriers to doing so. One of the most important barriers is the mental one, someone important in their lives let them know not to do it, and no matter how much pain this caused them, they listened and took their occupations to other lands. Read more>>

Kristin Butterfield

I started my healing career over 26 years ago working inside the western medical paradigm as a Physical Therapist. Time and experience showed me how limited and uni-dimensional this approach was. It worked, but only a little and only for some people. More and more I began to realize that addressing the Whole Person, mind-body-soul, was the missing piece necessary to achieve profound and lasting healing for my clients. This kind of thinking wasn’t the norm at the time and didn’t fit into the western clinical model I’d been trained to work within. Read more>>

Jessi Dall

I studied elementary education in college and spent the first three years of my career as a classroom teacher. I wanted to be able to continue to “move up” in my career, so I decided to leave the classroom (this was way before leaving the classroom was associated with the great resignation). At the time, I had a few students I was tutoring and zero business experience. However, I took a risk and worked my tail off. That was in 2009 and since then, my entrepreneurial journey has been filled with risks. Read more>>

Kelly Condy

The biggest risk I’ve taken to date is deciding to seriously pursue All There Is. Back in December 2020, the band had made the decision to really try this project and I made the executive decision for myself to take a gap semester from college. Granted, this was in the midst of COVID, so college was anything from a normal experience, so taking a break wasn’t a radical decision. Nonetheless, it was a scary jump. All my friends were on campus and were being normal college students and I was in my parents house pursuing a band that has been a mere dream since 7th grade. Read more>>

Shatora Everage

Hi! I’m Shatora Everage. I personally think that being a risk taker is a huge part of one’s success story. I remember the time (5 years ago) when I decided to take a risk starting my own business. This was something new to me, I had become comfortable with working my corporate job and that’s all I knew at the time. I knew beforehand that my time was coming to an end, but I was afraid and didn’t know what the outcome would be like. Read more>>

Marlene Maseda

I was accustomed to working a 9 to 5 job, following company rules and having financial stability. But when you have a dream, sometimes you have to take a risk and just lead wity your gut and your heart. I feel I was born a leader, I like to do my own thing, enjoy time by myself and consider myself extremely organized and a person of my word. I think those qualities are essential in starting your own business. Read more>>

Ryan T. Johnson

Taking risks of any manner is difficult, especially if it involves your time, sweat, and money. In fact, the biggest risk I’ve taken last/this year was creating a feature film, ‘Shadow Creek”. At first this project started as an idea that I couldn’t get out of my head. So, I wrote it down and shelved it for the time being as the tasks I had at hand during the time were to pressing. However, as days grew, the ideas continued to flourish and I couldn’t help myself to continually write them down. Now this may sound like I’m saying writing is easy, but it’s not. Each idea that was written down didn’t always work. But it was good to know what did and didn’t as the outlining commenced. Read more>>

Oscar Juarez

If you look around and pay attention, you’ll see people settling for okay relationships, okay jobs, okay salaries, safe and secure environments. It’s what we naturally do, go and settle where we feel comfortable, nobody wants to feel uncomfortable, but this is where character is built, this is where championship mentality is born, it’s where ideas that might just be on paper, become reality. Growing up I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I didn’t know where I would end up going, but as I grew, opportunities were presented to me and I took full advantage of them, Read more>>

Kami Kinnison

In 2015, I moved to Wimington, North Carolina. I took a huge risk of moving to a city that I didn’t know anyone. It had always been a dream of mine to live close to the ocean. That year, my great aunt passed away and left me some money. I felt like that was my chance to start over and create a new life somewhere I loved. I remember when I first moved there, I was so scared. I needed to make friends, and even though I usually make new friends very easily, I felt so alone and vulnerable. I didn’t know who to trust, and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Read more>>

Kertrina Dauway

I have always been one to challenge situations that did not agree with my beliefs even in corporate America. LOL Even as a child I challenged my parents ALOT. Trust me my parents were very tough and strict. My siblings and I were very sheltered, however I was the risk taker in the family. Example as a child in Catholic school, my father told me that I couldn’t go on a field trip and I snuck and went anyway. I had my heart set on it and I was determined to go. Read more>>

Joe Savage

Instead of spending $10k on a marketing campaign with a reputable company, I have taken the risk of going to Spain and walking the Camino De Santiago in order to promote my new music. The promotion part of the music business is the hardest and it requires the most attention to detail – maybe even more than the creation and production of the music. Either way, with a marketing company or not, the risk was there. In the face of needing to give personal attention to each potential listener, Read more>>

Nicole Swanson

Taking chances is not on many people’s “to do” lists. Oftentimes, Risky conduct is often perceived as reckless or harmful, but for some people, it can signify freedom, and that’s exactly what taking risk means to me: the opportunity to start over or try something new. I wasn’t always The risk taker, but life has taught me the most important lessons about taking risks. One thing is for certain, without risk, there is truly no reward. Read more>>

Will Eskridge

While my wife had gone back to school to become an educator, I was working a graphic design 9-5 job. It was a fairly secure job with benefits, but I was unhappy. Graphic design was something I fell into years before though it was not my passion nor my calling. Painting is my calling. For years I had worked various 9-5 jobs while painting in the evenings and on the weekends. I had longed to become a full-time artist but did not know what that really meant or how to do it. I had sold work over the years, had the occasional art show, but something was missing. Read more>>

Germaine Shames

Some decades ago, in what seems another lifetime, I served as a junior executive to Hilton International Hotels. Ill-suited to the conformity exacted by corporate life, exhausted from the stresses of global business assignments, I awoke one morning in white light and heard an inner voice assert, “There’s nothing that this company can give you that means anything anymore.” Trusting the voice, I composed a letter of resignation, tendered it that same day, and have never looked back. Read more>>

Elaina Kay

I have always been a risk taker, in a responsible way, if that even makes sense. I think some people are naturally comfortable in stable situations, and the thought of the roller coaster ride of an artist, seems insane. I truly feel like the long term pay off is so much greater if you take risks, maybe just doesn’t seem like it at first. I hate the thought of working for someone, and being under their thumb. The thought of someone telling me when/where to be and for how long, makes me ill. Read more>>

Brae Wyckoff

Risk is spelled FAITH! It’s not blind faith but a deep knowing inside of you that you are called for something more in life than you punch in and punch out routine many of us face to pay the bills. It took years to finally step out of the comfort of a weekly paycheck and into the call God placed upon me. My wife and I are called to the creatives and are considered Pastors for the Creatives in many circles. We encourage, empower, and equip people all around the world in their divine destiny. Read more>>

Aria Leighty

We took a major risk in March of 2021. After dreaming for years of creating our own platform for our members- we took the leap to do it. The vision of MOBsocial was to create a space that was our own- not owned by social media giants. A space where we got to 100% curate the experience, the culture, and the energy of the group. The culture and community of The MOB Nation is a very unique one that we fiercely protect. Read more>>

Josie Rodriguez

I think that I have always been a risk taker. Not in the dangerous way but more as situations present themselves, or opportunity knocks, I will say to myself, “why not? or “go for it.” And for sure my heart pounds and my stomach flutters but something in me says just do it. In many ways being an artist is risk-taking. As artists we put ourselves out there in the world for all to see the creations we have made. Exhibiting at galleries, submitting to calls for art, teaching our craft to others, demonstrating and lecturing about what we know all takes courage. I think taking risks and being courageous are interwoven. Read more>>