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.

Mariah Bess

I became a coach after experiencing the transformative, life-altering power of coaching firsthand. I was in my mid-twenties and my world was rocked by a mystery illness that seemed to sap all of the fun, energy, and glitter out of what’s meant to be one of the most exciting periods of life. At first I thought what I was experiencing was a character defect – that I didn’t have what it took to succeed as an adult in this world, that my fear was too big, that something in me was broken. I was taking multiple naps a day, struggling to complete sentences, and finding myself knocked out for days after physical exertion. After much doubt, I began to question if my suffering was physical, rather than mental. I spent years digging and received various diagnoses that just didn’t feel accurate…something was missing, and the root of my chronic fatigue was being overlooked. Read more>>

Melissa D. Barry

The defining moment in my professional career was hitting rock bottom after failing the bar exam for the third time, which triggered a major burnout, and enhanced the high-functioning depression, anxiety, and constant sense of overwhelm that were already there. It made me realize my true passion did not lie in law, despite 8 years of study and a few working in the field. Losing my job, housing, and sense of identity, all at the same time, forced me to completely rethink and rebuild my life and career. While healing, I started offering branding and web design services, something I used to do for fun during my spare time. But I quickly learned the lesson that not all hobbies should become jobs. Doing creative work for clients felt restrictive and drained the joy from the creative process. Read more>>

Pierce Mackey

My defining moment was more of a period of time. It seems that as you get older, a moment can be comprised of a page in the story of life. In one of my pages, it was 3 years. In the start of November 2019, my life as I had know it, came to a screeching halt. I was severely injured do to fending of an attacker on my mother. This left me with ten herniated discs in my back and sever nerve damage on the left side of my body. At the same time, Covid had just started hitting hard and the restaurant I was running, was shut down. The properties I was helping manage were moved to a management company, all while my parents decided to get separated. So as you can imagine , being injured, loosing all forms of work, my daughter being taken out of school and put in lousy online classes, the unknowns of society, the world weighing on my shoulders, and all savings swiftly vanishing, can put a lot of things into perspective. And though it may sound as a woe is me moment, I look back and bless every passing as a deep teaching and insight, for the meaning and direction I decided to take. Read more>>