Defining moments aren’t just exciting – they are thought-provoking and fertile ground for learning. These inflection points often are the result of an illuminating moment where some truth of the universe presents itself in an easier to recognize form. Below, you’ll find talented and successful entrepreneurs and artists sharing the stories of defining moments in their lives.

Mar Rivero

I was working as a recently graduated Nutrition Specialist MD in México, and a patient comes in with Chronic fatigue and chronic GI problems; she had been struggling with this for years and had consulted multiple specialist following their recommendations but not finding any improvement. She started her story with the frase; I lost hope and my good friend recommended I see you for your functional and wholistic point of view. Read more>>

 Dr. Judd Johns

By the time I finished playing football in my senior year at the University of Colorado, I had endured four shoulder surgeries and suffered a severe quadriceps injury and continued playing despite being torn in half. The injury was so significant that doctors decided to wait until the season ended, allowing the torn muscle ends to scar over sufficiently for a strong reattachment. Read more>>

Dr. Kerri-ann Coombs

A defining moment in my professional career was witnessing my father, Bernard De’Cordova Coombs, lose his vision due to severe eye complications. That experience didn’t just spark my interest in optometry—it instilled in me a deep sense of purpose. I saw firsthand how vision loss impacts every aspect of a person’s life, and I knew I wanted to make a difference by helping others preserve their sight. Read more>>

Faren James

Absolutely. My journey into this work wasn’t just a career choice. It was a personal calling, born from my own pain. After years of struggling with prolonged grief, I reached a turning point. I realized God wasn’t going to answer my prayer to take me with my Daddy and boy, and I am thankful He didn’t. Read more>>

Hannah Logan

Honestly, I don’t think of life in terms of singular “defining moments.” Maybe because my memory is a bit challenged regarding such things. I’m like, “Wait, did I date him, or did we play a married couple in something?” I could have easily been defined as an actor, done nothing else.  Read more>>

Gullala Rasulova

One of the most defining moments in my career was realizing the urgent need for better protection against chemical exposure in industrial environments. While working as a medical nurse in Turkmenistan’s oil and gas sector, I encountered numerous cases of occupational skin conditions and respiratory diseases caused by prolonged exposure to hazardous chemicals. Recognizing that existing protective measures were inadequate, I dedicated myself to developing a decontaminating cream specifically designed for workers in high-risk industries. Read more>>

Sharon Blue, Ms

I worked for 7 years as a Professional School Counselor working with students in a challenging district in North County, St. Louis. I loved my job & helping my students. I felt like I was truly giving back to the world by helping them change their trajectories & start believing in their dreams. My husband & I wanted to expand our family, though so I left my career to be a stay at home mom to our oldest two. I never planned on owning a business. I had been reading tarot off & on personally & for friends since high school. After our second was born and I was in the grips of loneliness & depression as a stay at home mom I decided to pull my cards out for some clarity. To find my purpose once more. They pulled me out of my darkness & helped me find myself again. Not just a mom. Not a former school counselor. Read more>>

Sheena Joseph

In early 2023, I woke up one morning unable to move my shoulder. Simple tasks—like changing the radio station—became impossible, and an MRI soon revealed the reason: five significant tears, one of which was so rare that even my surgeon was uncertain how best to proceed. Facing a complex and uncertain recovery, I had to make one of the most difficult decisions of my life: closing the doors to my physical practice. Read more>>

Benzii Diaz

A defining moment in my career? It wasn’t a single moment but a series of choices I made in the face of adversity. At 17, I escaped sex trafficking—a reality I never imagined I would have to fight my way out of. I had no roadmap, no safety net, just a deep knowing that I had to rebuild my life on my own terms. That meant rediscovering my autonomy, my strength, and my purpose. Read more>>

Jonthan Hawkins

My life has had a myriad of defining moments. On the topic of health, I personally underwent a health transformation while witnessing the impacts of our current state of health within the Black American (FBA) community. From seeing various life members pass due to health complications to discovering the various dietary lifestyles, I learned more about what health concepts our community expresses and needs. Read more>>

Simone Eddie

A defining moment that changed the trajectory of my career to become a trichologist began when I started noticing many of my clients struggling with scalp issues and hair loss. As a hairstylist, I felt a deep desire to help them find lasting solutions, but I realized there was a gap in the industry for specialized scalp care. Then, it happened to me – I began experiencing scalp issues myself. This personal struggle intensified my desire to understand the link between scalp health and hair growth. Motivated by both my clients’ needs and my own experiences, I decided to pursue formal training in trichology. This led me to transition from hairstylist to trichologist, where I could offer tailored solutions for healthier scalps and hair, helping others overcome the same challenges I once faced. Read more>>

Key Tori

I’ve been in the beauty industry for 8yrs, I started off as a Lash Artist but I wanted more but didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do but I knew college wasn’t my thing. I decided to get my license as an esthetician because I was interested in doing facials. During school I realized I did not care for facials at all! It was so repetitive, we did the same exact steps for every single facial guest that we saw. So I did not want to do another facial when I finished. Read more>>

Rose Yang

A defining moment in my career was when I was working with a client for therapy in a community mental health clinic in a rural area of Arkansas. I was completing my internship in clinical psychology and was just getting acquainted with the culture of Arkansas. This client was a man in his mid twenties who was feeling incredibly lonely in his family and career. He felt like an outcast and spoke about never feeling understood or accepted in his life. In our sessions, he noted the pervasive feeling of shame that he was not and never would be good enough. Although he was a quiet man and was hesitant to speak, we developed a good rapport as our sessions continued. In about our fifth session, I mentioned a song about loneliness and a desire for belonging that reminded me of him. We listened to it together and he became very tearful. When we talked about his experience, he noted how he felt seen by this song and that I was holding him in mind, which was such a novel experience for him. This moment was a defining moment of my career because it taught me the profound value of human compassion, even if it is not within the typical space of talk therapy. Read more>>

Galina Denzel

It was the fall of 2018. I had just returned from teaching an Emotions and Food Retreat in Europe—one of the first retreats where I applied my somatic skills to support women struggling in their relationship with food. Read more>>

Renee Anorue

When I launched my solo mental health practice in 2022, I was still working full-time at a mental health agency, while seeing clients for my own practice in the evenings. I maintained this schedule for nearly two years. There came a time when I ultimately needed to resign from my full-time job, which led me to think about whether I could run my business on a full-time basis. During this time, I experienced a lot of anxiety and self-doubt—fear of the unknown weighed on me as my two college degrees were in mental health, not in business ownership. Read more>>