Every once in a while, something happens that really matters. Something that will define at least the next chapter of your journey – perhaps it’s a conversation with a client, a meeting with a visionary or a major event in your personal life. Below, you’ll find some very insightful folks sharing defining moments from their journeys.

Brittany Kohnke

2020 and the effects COVID completely decimated some small businesses, especially those in the fitness industry. For me it did just the opposite. During the shutdowns and lockdowns I realized how much of an impact I could be making to those around me. While working as full-time teacher, I continued to build my coaching business and expand my reach to those online and within my community. By the start of 2021, I made the decision to go “all in” and pursue coaching full-time Read more>>

Chau Nguyen

I have been lucky to have had two professional paths and purposes: one in journalism and the other in public service. My first calling as a news reporter was rooted in my lifelong interest and curiosity of people. I love hearing stories about peoples’ lives, their triumphs and tragedies, and I equally relished in sharing their stories. There is a real human connection when someone entrusts their personal lives with you. I have interviewed everyone from presidents, to celebrities, to influential leaders. But it was the everyday heroes who most impressed me. Read more>>

Larissa Rzemienski

I was working full time as a high school guidance counselor, and I really loved the career but also found it to be quite stressful at times. The school was poorly understaffed, and there were always so many things going on that needed urgent attention on a daily basis. While I loved the students and colleagues, I knew that I could not stay working in such a stressful job. While working as a school counselor, my husband suddenly passed away from a brain cyst, and this life changing event caused me to take a career trajectory. Read more>>

Ashley Schiefer

I lost my Dad suddenly in April of 2021 to a widow maker heart attack. After his passing our family got extremely ill and we were introduced to an angel of a nurse who shared more about her career shift. At the time I was working as a full time labor and delivery nurse and started working for an IV company called Revitalize, part time. After a few months went by my heart was leading me towards departing my hospital career due to the trauma I had experienced losing my dad and the repetitive trauma I was experiencing at the hospital. Two weeks before my wedding I left the hospital and went full time as a mobile IV RN. It was the best decision not only for me but my family that I am building as well. Read more>>

Shanta Jackson

Throughout grad school I was taught by tons of professors who ultimately taught that as therapist, we are to be “blank slates” for our client, we don’t want to display any emotions, and we want to make sure that we strictly focused on the client. We needed to leave any type of individuality outside of the therapy office. So because I am thinking, these are the experts, I entered into my first 1.5 years of therapy as that “blank slate therapist”. Read more>>

Alicia Sirkin

Filled with defining moments, moving from career to career I learned life-altering lessons, with ah-ha moments and surprises that allowed me to take a step back and see the value in each transition, honoring the challenges along the way as lessons learned and new strengths gained. Each defining moment of my professional career was as pivotal as another, resulting in five successful careers and a handful of unexpected career incarnations that would span five and a half decades: Read more>>

Judy Weaver

I met a man in early 2007 that had just been diagnosed with ALS, which you may know as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He wanted to learn yoga to keep his healthy mind connected to his physical body. He fought this terrible disease with humor and discipline, showing up on the mat day after day without concern for the outcome. He learned yoga quickly – how to breathe, modify life, focus and meditate while ALS destroyed his physical body. Read more>>

Deb Davies

Her first daughter, Mia Belle, was stillborn at term from an umbilical cord accident in March of 2001. She had an uncomplicated low risk pregnancy that ended in a sad loss. Her second daughter, Lauryn, was born a year later. Both girls instill Deb’s work with an unparalleled degree of inspiration and passion that enable her to compassionately support other women through the childbirth process. Read more>>

Tawny Platis

When I was 28 years old, I found my husband dead on our kitchen floor. Not exactly how most comedy shows start but that’s my opening line. I go on to explain in my 30-minute set titled “So Sorry For My Loss” that I didn’t want to be alive anymore after the paramedics told me my husband was gone. My idea was to take my life while I was holding his body but I noticed said paramedics were going to throw a wrench in my plan when they started wheeling in a stretcher with a bodybag on top of it. Read more>>

Howard Falco

Yes, there is a defining moment. I was always very curious as a child and a seeker of life’s deeper meaning and understandings. As I got into my late teens and twenties these questions grew stronger and more intense. In my mid thirties I seemingly had it all. I had a finance degree, working in financial industry, was married and in love with two kids and we just moved into our second home. Yet these bigger questions about life still persisted an nagged at me everyday.. One day, exhausted by my lack of inner peace regardless of what. already had achieved, I threw my hands up and said, “I want to know!” “I am ready!”. Read more>>

Paola Ranova

I had pursued an academic career since I was 18 years old. Everything seemed very aligned for me, I became a bachelor and got a Master’s degree in Political Theory and Moral Philosophy, then got a PhD in Comparative Studies and Social Sciences and became a permanent member of the Political Science Institute at the University of Brasilia as a Professor at age 31. Though I had always dedicated half my time to my professional career and half my time to my private spiritual studies and self-development, I never imagined I would someday become a professional in the field of energy healing. Read more>>

K.T. Truong

I started out in a basic non standard salon not realizing that there was more to nails and toes. It wasn’t until I attended my first nail show that I realized there was soo much more to the industry aside from making them pretty. There was a whole nother side to the nail world and it was health and wellness. The possibilities of correcting an invuluted toe nail, being able to relive pain or creating a toenail for a none existent toenail was all a possibility as long as I furthered my career through education. After taking alot of different types of classes, I am now even certified to teach a variety of different topics, from nailnart to nail care. Read more>>

Jesika La Rusch

Where do I start? My first year as a Licensed Massage Therapist I worked at a slow pace Day Spa. Ideally I wanted to work with clients experiencing new or old injuries from sports or accidents but I figured I would get my feet wet first. In the meantime I educated myself by taking continuing education classes and did research for that perfect job. It was an ordinary day at the spa and I had a ordinary set of clients that day. So I thought. Read more>>

Carolina Alay

I think defining moments are usually presented as obstacles. In my case, that moment presented it self in 2019. At that time I was pregnant with my youngest, I had recently lost my grandfather and my business was going through a lot of changes, both structural and financial and felt stocked. I remember feeling like I had reached a point where there was nothing else at the other side and that made go into a state of depression and despair. Read more>>

Katie Leikam

Years ago, a great friend took me to a meetup group of transgender women that she organized. I was at a place that I didn’t have a lot of friends in town because I lived in Athens and all my friends had moved on after college. It was a fun night and I met a great group of women. Many of these women went on to become my friends as well. But, as I sat at dinner, I started hearing a theme to some of the conversations. These women were having to undergo months of therapy to do things like start hormones or have gender affirming surgeries. Read more>>

Jamie Cantrell

Backstory: I am a Division 1, Scholarship Collegiate Athlete. Played soccer at SMU. Team Captain, four-year starter and played in the NCAA Final Four. Went on to coach both club and Varsity high school soccer. Served as Head Varsity coach for Ursuline Academy of Dallas for 9 years— winning 9 Consecutive State Titles. And earning Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) Coach of the Year. Read more>>

Breanna Waldrup

In the fall of 2011 I began to realize that I needed to make a job change. My first three and a half years of practicing as a speech-language pathologist had been providing services to children ages birth to three through an Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) program. ECI programs are mandated by IDEA, the special education law, and thus receive some government funding. The Texas legislature had met that summer and decided to make some significant cuts to ECI funding. Read more>>

Kay Smith

As a pilates instructor I believed as long as I stayed active, I’d be free of pain always. By 2018, I had developed severe osteoarthritis in both shoulders. It got so bad, I could no longer drive the stick shift of my Mini Cooper. That began my quest in how to heal myself. I took a year long course of Eden Energy Medicine to learn energy techniques. I learned a lot, and improved certain aspects of my health, but not the arthritis. I also tried chakra clearing, Reiki and the Emotion Code. Nothing helped. Read more>>

Anthony Zolezzi

There where many defining moments in my career but this one was especially important as a base line “virtue” for the rest of my career. It was early in my career, I was on a 10 year training program to become a CEO of one of the many subsidiaries of the St Louis based Ralston Purina Company. This training included working in each of the subsidiaries for a 6 month period. The company and subsidiaries in Poultry, Pork, Global Animal Feed, Pet Food, Vegetables and Vegetable Protiens as well as Cereal. I would get many unique and different assignments. Read more>>

Pedro Molina

After graduating SDSU, I was working as a personal trainer at a private studio La Jolla, CA. I further honed in my skills and did really well with a full load of clientele. The money was great and I was enjoying myself. A few years later, after a series of bad personal and business decisions, the owner of the studio’s troubles were many. Consequently, he started treating me unfairly. My relationship with him suffered. I was no longer enjoying myself and I was faced with the stress that I NEEDED the job, so I was stuck because I now had a family and a mortgage. Read more>>

Jenna Minecci

The biggest defining moment in my career has been failure. I have dreamed of being a Physical Therapist since I was 14 years old after sustaining my first ACL injury and surgery. I instantly became fascinated with the human body’s ability to adapt and overcome, and developed a huge passion in my heart for other injured athletes. I worked hard through high school and college, with more internships than most of my peers and learning more on my own just for fun. I challenged myself by entering all fields related to athletes including Strength and Conditioning, Physical Therapy and Athletic Training. Read more>>