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.

Tracy Eason

Risk taking has never been a fearful thing to me. I have always been somewhat spontaneous. In my teens and twenties some would say I was downright wreckless with my decisions. I think with my emotions and choose to see through what some would call “rose colored glasses”. Read more>>

Corbin Jenkins

The biggest leap of faith I took for myself was an art exhibit on January 27th, 2024. This process started late 2021 after Covid-19 hit the world hard and we were going into our second year of the pandemic. Read more>>

Jason Strutz

A choice I’ve made that feels risky has been to focus on the completion of my first written and drawn graphic novel, Returned, a medieval horror family drama. Read more>>

Kris Radzanowski

After 20+ years in a solid financially secure career, I lost my corporate job during the economic downturn in 2009. After pulling my kids out of daycare and telling my husband we have to sell a car, stop eating out and switch to the cheap wine, I knew I needed to do something for the budget. Read more>>

Felton Sparks

I went to school for acting and dance and was able to work as an actor and choreographer in Boston for two years after I graduated. Then the pandemic hit, and I was forced to sit with myself for the first time in a long time. Read more>>

Ieisha & Thomas Rice

Two years ago, I took one of the biggest risks in my life. I no longer wanted to do things that didn’t bring me joy and wanted to spend more quality time with my loved ones. Read more>>

Kelsey Williams

I have been a public high school ceramic teacher for the last 7 years. I’ve always loved my job. I think the kids are funny, I get to manage my own room, and I get the summers off. Read more>>

Jennifer Zoll

Several years back I started to see the turn in Healthcare. It seemed as though I was not able to treat my patient’s the way they deserved to be treated. Our focus with big companies is productivity, see as many as you can at one time, and maximize profit. Read more>>

Felicia Olin

I have never been a terribly confident person. I didn’t talk until I was 5 and hid behind my hair in  high school. If there was one thing I kinda had confidence in though, that was art. Read more>>

Michael James Scavio

I wanted to make good money to pursue my music career. To make this happen, I signed up for and attended underwater commercial diving school in Florida. Read more>>

Anupama Mirle

As Asian immigrants, we are expected to study and create a life that is ‘successful’. Success means economic independence, respect in society, and a family. Arts, though esteemed, does not fall in any of these buckets. Read more>>

Tierashia Adair

It was year 14 in the four walls of a public school, elementary classroom; when there was an ever-growing frustration on the inside of me that I was supposed to be doing something different beyond that space. Read more>>

Michelle Lvovich

Before I opened my business, I was in college studying business and working as a process server here in NYC. The work was steady, I chose my own schedule and hours, the pay was great and I had control being an independent contractor. Read more>>

Fabio Santos

In 2013 I was in college studying Computer Graphics and Multimedia Engineering, which was then sold to us as a creative field, but it was nothing more than a paintbrushed IT degree with mostly programming. Read more>>

Anaymous Touch

As a first generation Haitian American from my family- taking the average route is all I ever had at my disposal. My mother who migrated to this country in 1991 wanted me to become either a nurse or a doctor. Read more>>

David Marchant

Being an artist in the entertainment industry is probably one of the biggest risks anyone can take professionally. My whole life has consisted of taking risks either personally or professionally and truly wouldn’t have it any other way! Read more>>

Stacy Parker

I have taken risks many times throughout my life in order to pursue my creative passions. I have left full-time, stable employment on more than one occasion in order to devote all of my time and energy to creating art. Read more>>

Megan Morris

When I was just a freshman in high school, upper classmen were asking me to do their makeup for prom because they liked the way I did my own. I was taken back, but took on the challenge! Read more>>

Rahul Gupta

A significant risk I took was choosing a career in visual effects over becoming a doctor, despite securing a position at a prestigious medical college. Read more>>

Scharlene Gaudet

During the pandemic I was employed at a small University outside of Dallas. the University like everything else in Dallas was closed which meant we were unable to provide Healthcare to people or to educate students to be able to provide care. Read more>>

Jill McMahon

I self published a trail guide to Southern Maine. My first edition included 35 local trails, which I had printed at a local shop. It was spiral bound and not the most professional. Read more>>

Kelly Jean Clair

I guess you could say I was born in “risk.” As the 5th of 5 children, my mom was considered too “old” to have a baby back in the day. To think about it now, she was just shy of 40 when she had me, but her pregnancy was not without “risk.” Read more>>

Zack Weaver

Life as a creative is one gigantic risk comprised of an infinite number of small risks. Personally, you risk your health. You risk your safety. You put at risk the relationships you have with people that love you. Read more>>

Dara Thomas

At the start of the pandemic I was laid off from a job I’d hated but needed at the time. I had already been thinking of how to pivot into tech, and exploring the various careers that a tech move could offer. Read more>>

Andrew Yuen

The biggest risk I’ve ever taken as a creative was telling my parents that I wanted to go to film school. My family is Asian-American and my parents come from a very STEM-orientated background, so up until my Junior year of high school, I had always assumed that I was going to go into college for a major like Computer Science or Engineering. Read more>>

Wei Ta Chen

My journey towards embracing an artistic path was not straightforward. Initially, my academic pursuits were deeply rooted in the realm of Electrical Engineering at National Taiwan University, where my entire focus was dedicated to mastering the complexities of the engineering field. Read more>>

Hank Dollaz

I feel like with everything in life, a risk is needed for growth. Being comfortable in the uncomfortable situations is what makes someone go from good to great. Read more>>

Miao Chen

Becoming a storytelling artist is a risk itself, the first risk I took early in my life. What I am elaborating here is a different one, the second biggest risk I am planning to take: being an artist making films and theatre, and meanwhile, continuing my pursuit of higher education on the track of becoming a scholar. Read more>>

Mary Laymon

Tikkun Farm, the non-profit I founded in 2015, exists because of a series of accumulated risks. It began in 2010 when my fiancé called me to say he’d seen a listing for an abandoned dairy farm. “Should we buy it?” Read more>>

Danielle Linneweber

I took a huge risk in starting a pilates studio at the height of the pandemic. I eased my way into it. First, I decided in June 2020 not to go back to the major gym chain that I had worked at for six years. Read more>>

Miranda Hitchcock

Founding Every Dog was a big risk. I was burnt out from my time working in animal shelters, and didn’t know if I was really capable of making this new nonprofit work. Read more>>

Barbara El Rassi

Unlike most professional fighters, I didn’t come from a poor uneducated family, or living in a turbulent neighborhood with drugs and alcohol at every door. Fighting was not my way out of all this but rather a choice that put me at big risk. Read more>>

Bailey Van Cleave

One risk that I took was moving to Austin to pursue my Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. To be candid, school was never my strong suit. I often held the self-critical belief that I wasn’t “smart enough” or “capable enough”, especially when it came to academics. Read more>>

Singa B

When you choose to express your experiences, thoughts, and emotions through the art of music, it conveys and communicates a global unspoken understanding. Read more>>

Caitlin Greenstein

The biggest risk I’ve ever taken? Starting a healthcare business during a pandemic. But before I share the how, what, and why of my story, I want to go back a few years. Read more>>

Elrico Tunstall

As an Entrepreneur and independent Filmmaker/Producer, Being immersed in this industry means your chips are pushed to the middle of the table. When you win, your whole team wins and eats, but when you lose and struggle to put gas in your vehicle, you’re alone on an island solo. Read more>>

Rebecca Toner

I’ve been known to take major risks that felt like they could yield major reward. The first was getting trained in EMDR, which absolutely changed the way I see and understand the world. Read more>>

 

Becca Joy Allen

Taking a chance to do something you haven’t done before or doing something in a different way is one of the greatest influencers of success. Most of the time success doesn’t just happen. Read more>>