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.

Brooks Betts

I spent 15+ years working in the Marketing + Media industry, at big publishing brands like Real Simple, Health, Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine as well as on the agency and brand side. It was a career I was proud of and had success with, I learned so much and met so many amazing people. Read more>>

Chris Hill II

I was just finishing up with my masters program. I had no idea what the next step would be. I applied to many jobs and received a few call backs for interviews. I still wasn’t sold on going to work in the field with my degree. Read more>>

Sophia Stone

I was at the APA (American Philosophical Association) and before I presented my paper, I walked in on a panel session led by Dr. Thomas Jackson (Dr. J as everyone calls him) talking about and modeling a method for teaching philosophy to children. Read more>>

Dee Dee Gorman

When I first began my schooling as a Holistic Wellness Practitioner, I thought for sure I would go into the tangible, science-y side of this field and become an herbalist. I took a variety of courses ranging from herbalism, aromatherapy, and nutrition. Everything changed when I was able to get into a psychic development course. Read more>>

Althea Lucrezia Avanzo

I had a very serious health scare in 2018 which made me change the way I viewed life. I ended up in hospital with a very severe case of Kidney stone, I had to have 2 major operations in the span of 1 month. Before that I was not really taking care of my health I used to abuse alcohol and substances which brought me to have the excess build up of calcified cells that then caused the kidney stone. Read more>>

Marsha Ashby

The defining moment in my professional career was “Lockdown.” For 17 years of my life I worked a corporate job supporting other people to make their work lives easier in any way I could. I loved my job and felt I was part of the team. During lockdown, I came to realize that I wasn’t as much a part of the team as I thought. I felt forced to take a hard look at the truth of my situation. Read more>>

Jamar Rogers

The funny thing about criticism is how contagious it is. If you internalize it, one person’s judgement of you can become your reality. So when people told me I was an abomination, I believed it. Read more>>

Liesl Drought

A defining moment of my life was being let go two weeks before my wedding. I had been journaling about wanting “a job offer I couldn’t refuse.” Man, did I get that! I was burnout and hated my job but I was still totally devastated when I heard the news. Read more>>

Renee K. Smith

So I share that my work with plant intelligence is the fifth iteration of a career. I began my career as an artist, a performing artist then moved to being an educator beginning first in the arts and then taking on general education, shifting to administration and arts administration to working with arts and cultural non profits as a strategist and an executive leader. Read more>>

Ashley Dudas

A little over a decade ago I got an inner ping that was telling me to learn about herbs. I had no idea why, as I knew nothing about them, or anyone who worked with herbs. For several months herbs kept popping into my head, so I figured I should see what this was all about. Read more>>

Sari Rose Barron, LMFT, EMDR-Certified

I really had two defining moments that led to where I am today: I grew up wanting to be an actress on Broadway. I trained for that, went to NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and lived in New York for 7 years performing. I fell into teaching theatre arts as a side gig to help pay my bills and little did I know that would impact my career trajectory. Read more>>

Morgan Levy

Something that I try to live by in my life and in my practice is the concept of being “good enough” and not perfect. As a busy professional, sometimes it can feel really easy to get caught up in the pressure to perform and to constantly be chasing the next milestone. Read more>>

Zonram Liao

When I decided to start Wellnergy Pets, it was really just a way to help the people and pets of my community during the COVID 19 pandemic in 2020 when veterinary visits were backed up for weeks. People and their pets couldn’t get into the veterinary clinic, and I just wanted to help people give their pets relief while waiting for their veterinary visits, or even avoid a veterinary visit altogether if possible. Read more>>

Kyra Rosa

I would say the defining moment in my professional career was before it even started in college. As I sat in the academic advisors office waiting to be seen, I noticed a pamphlet for massage therapy on the table. Read more>>

Casey Muze

Breaking the barrier of miss labels/categorizations/assumptions. The mot widely misplaced label in regard to my business AvenueSpeak is that i am hosting drum circles for the masses. Dismantling this assumption has been and sometime continue to be defining moments. Read more>>

Janet McConnell

As a young person transitioning into middle age, I was always strong and healthy. Until I wasn’t. Frequent business travel had taken a toll on my health so gradually that I wasn’t even paying attention. All the restaurant food, sleep deprivation, wine receptions, and airline travel was racking up excess bodyweight and the damage. Read more>>

LAUREN YATES

My first career right out of college was as an elementary school teacher. At that time in my life, I didn’t have any self care skills or ways to manage my stress and anxiety. For six years, I worked myself into the ground. I was in constant pain, couldn’t sleep, ate way too much sugar, rarely exercised, and stress ran rampant through my body. Read more>>

Skylar Sustin

The defining moment of my career occurred before I even started my business or had any thought about it. The years 2020-2021 brought me immense heartache, emotional pain, fear, and loss. I was in a deep state of avoidance and denial in 2020, as a result of COVID, which led me to begin my own healing journey. Read more>>

Robert Moore III

A defining moment in my professional career was when I reached the point in my career, as an IT Infrastructure Manager, where I had the financial security and all the things that this world showcased to be the pinnacle of happiness and fulfillment, yet I felt empty inside. Read more>>

Nadia Ali

The turning point in my life occurred when I made the decision to resign from a healthcare system that was not adequately meeting the needs of my patients. As a physician, my ultimate goal was to serve as an advocate for my patients during their healing process. Read more>>

Tirsa Baker

I have been a pediatric physical therapist in Arizona for 16 years. I love working with infants and children in their home setting and working alongside parents to provide the best care for their children. I worked in the Arizona early intervention system prior to 2020 and then the pandemic hit. Read more>>

Nayyirah Muhammad

The moment that changed the trajectory of my career is when I added Retreats to my program. The back story is I was focused on my professional speaking career and online life coaching. Then one day my business coach suggested that I take her Retreat Leader Program and become certified in leading retreats. Read more>>

Jenn Maroney

After working in the mental health field for over 12 years, I took a mis-step in my career that landed me a 39 month sentence in FEDERAL PRISON for Obstruction of Justice. I lost everything in my life that I had built, my career, my home, my marriage – and I was left with nothing but a determination to not allow this to be my end story. Read more>>

Cat Donofrio

In my 30s, I became paralyzed in my left shoulder and spent months bouncing around specialists who couldn’t figure out why. It was during that period I discovered two things: 1) medical doctors/specialists don’t always have the answers and we have to advocate for our own health and 2) there’s a world of holistic practices out there that are very effective, even though some western practice doctors still shun them. Read more>>

Jon Freeman

I had been pastoring in a church in Amsterdam for a couple of years. It was a church of about 500 people. I was in the zone flourishing doing what I loved. I was a big fish in a small pond. My wife and I made the move back to the US, to Chicago so my she could finish up her physical therapy studies. I joined a mega church, about 20,000 people in Chicago and began serving there working with the twenty something community. Read more>>

David Sweeney

I’ve always been interested in food, and specifically, healing foods. I’d dreamt of having my own “health food” restaurant for years. I wanted to help people cure, heal, and do this with food. Prior to my career as a chef, I worked in luxury retail. Read more>>