Below you’ll find the stories and lessons of some of the best and brightest entrepreneurs, artists and creatives in the community and how they found their purpose.
Phil D Parlapiano
I feel lucky that I discovered that my vocation was similar to my purpose. I remember being crazy about music before I could speak. When I was four had a pivotal moment sitting in church behind the organist on the Hammond C2.As I gazed at her I knew I wanted to do nothing but play that beas. Read more>>
Vivian Luu
Purpose is definitely shaped over time with our experience and coincidentally, Alyx & I both had a similar goal and purpose that we wanted to accomplish as kids and still to this day as adults. Which was to open our own boba shop. Read more>>
Robyn Greene Arrington
The Sunday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2016, I woke up with my left leg three times the size of my right one. I didn’t know what a deep vein thrombus was until that day, and I also didn’t know that that day was the day the final component of my purpose was activated. Read more>>
Loretta Duggan
Imagine it’s Thanksgiving evening, many family members are visiting from out of town, everyone is stuffed with food, and I’ve had a chance to play with cousins ALL DAY I only see a few times a year. It was a typical holiday like most split between my parents house and grandmother’s house, who we called Ma in rural Georgia and were neighbors! Read more>>
Debi Carlin Boyle
I love fitness so I had a side hustle of teaching spin and fitness classes, as well as personal training while I was working my main career as a Commercial Television Producer. I found myself answering lots of questions from crew members and clients about diet and exercise. Read more>>
Danielle Mendoza
When I was four months pregnant with my youngest child, I received the life-altering news that I had basal cell skin cancer. It was a shock, and treating this curable cancer became a real struggle, culminating in the removal of a third of my top lip in 2016. Read more>>
RJ LoPresti
I feel incredibly blessed to have found my passion in life without even having to search for it. Training Martial arts was always a natural part of life for me. As a young child, I was enamored with the Power Rangers and begged my parents to enroll me in classes as soon as I was old enough. Little did I know that those early years of training would ignite a fire within me that would burn bright for a lifetime. Read more>>
Stephanie Small
When I was in elementary school and someone asked me “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I used to answer: “An actress-feminist-psychiatrist-writer-international animal rights lawyer-eco terrorist.” (yep. I’m not making that up.) Read more>>
Marisa Whitman
First, I am so honored and grateful to be a part of BoldJourney! Being the first child, and the only daughter, I had a natural tendency toward caregiving. I come from a family of “helpers” with different professions like school psychologist, nurse, teacher. Read more>>
Therese Deutschlander
My first job, at 14 years old, was at a family owned drycleaners and there I learned how important it was to see people, truly see, them, and show them that they matter in sometimes very simple ways. Read more>>
Dominique Alex
My mother and father both have their Ph.D. in Theology and do ministry at the Matt Talbot Center in Seattle, Washington. They are chemical dependency professionals who provide hope, healing, and restoration to our community. They meet people where they are at and provide love and resources that support them on their healing journey and help them succeed and thrive. Read more>>
Raquel Smith
I found my purpose through sketching as a hobby. My sketches led to a pursuit of a formal education in design fast forward to a fashion internship in New York and ultimately to Celebrity Stylist status for one of the world’s most renown icons in the music entertainment industry – Beyoncé. Now, as a CEO, I am focused on branding my luxury eyewear in the fashion industry. Read more>>
From Birth To Death Devin John and Brandon lee
We are two individuals that were fortunate enough to find our purpose early on in life. We were both heavily influenced and inspired by music, and knew that this was what we wanted from a very young age. Read more>>
Paul Corman-Roberts
All my life I’ve had people important to me, people I’ve held close for good reason, tell me that I was born to be a poet and a teacher. These aren’t exactly the things a person who wants to be a rock star or very popular want to hear, From what I could tell, teacher’s worked very hard for very little money, and poets did even more impratical tasks for even less money. Read more>>
Toni Reynolds
I would say I always felt what my purpose was just not how to execute it. I think the difficulty I found was how I was going to connect it to a career. I have always been interested in fashion; my grandmother taught me how to sew when I was 8 and I have been stuck ever since. Read more>>
Shaiday Dancy
When I first began asking “what is my purpose?” I found that I was actually beginning to question and discover who I truly was and what gifts or skills I had to offer the world. In hindsight it was during one of my lowest mental states that led me to discover the root of my purpose which is healing through movement and uplifting the collective’s mental health. Read more>>
Kristina Hellmann
I always had a feeling I was supposed to do something big. Maybe not big to the world, but big-feeling to me. I grew up in a divorced household. My mom worked and took care of my two sisters and me. We saw my dad (who lived 1,000 miles away), every other holiday and for 42 days during the summer. Read more>>
Jesse Reich
I found my purpose by having to work through challenging parts of my life, feeling like I was inadequate as an “artist” because I didn’t have formal art training. I felt inadequate because of people around me who had more developed skills, but working hard and continuing to work on my passion as an artist has been a real drive for me. Read more>>
Diana Lopez
I recently stumbled upon a quote by Mark Twain that resonated with me: “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” Discovering my ‘why’ hasn’t been a simple or easiest of journeys. Read more>>
Ben Lee
I’m not sure I’ve found it prese. You’d hear people speak to chasing your passion, making your passion a career, etc. But as your question implies you might be already aware, that’s the wrong way to think about it. To build a sustainable and fulfilling career, it’s chasing the purpose. Read more>>
Cady Driver
I discovered my artistic purpose by realizing that we are all gifted with talents and abilities for a specific and God given reason. My reason happened to be my love of children, both my own and children who didn’t have a mother to love them. Read more>>
Zahili Zamora
This is a lovely question. For many years, I played music because I simply loved it. I developed a sense of commitment to it from a very early age, but I never paused to reflect upon the huge impact I could have in my audience. Musicians (artists in general) have this magic power of changing moods (making you happy, supporting you in times of hardships), starting revolutions, advocating, etc. Read more>>
Rachel Redmond
I found my purpose through profound adversity and loss. In the summer of 2016, my husband and I embarked on what we hoped would be a new and fulfilling chapter in our lives. However, our dreams were shattered when we discovered that the baby I was carrying was not healthy. Making the heartbreaking decision to terminate the pregnancy at 21 weeks gestation plunged me into a deep and isolating grief. Read more>>
D’Lanor Harris
As a child, I’ve always loved dance. When I was on the stage, and under the lights, I got to be any character in a story book I wanted. I was able to escape the realities of life and enjoy a moment of fantasy. As a result of this, I was able to make it through some very difficult years. I believe this has staged my purpose, because now I have an opportunity to create a safe place for other children to escape from their environments. Read more>>
Alex Hill
I grew up volunteering as a Girl Scout and have always loved helping people and mentoring, especially underserved groups. In high school, I knew I wanted to get into healthcare but didn’t land on physical therapy until my junior year at Kent State University. I ended up staying an extra semester to complete the pre-requisite courses because this felt like the correct career path for me. Read more>>
Jan Gephardt
I believe that each of us is born with an innate set of proclivities and gifts. There are activities, studies, and people we feel naturally drawn to, as a result of our learning styles, environmental experiences, and physical traits. Read more>>
AVM Hawkins
I found my purpose in Spain. I just finished my 1L year in law school and I travelled abroad to study international law for six weeks in Madrid, Spain. During my first year in law school, I began painting extensively. It was then when I realized I was an artist. Read more>>
Krystal .Guidry
How did I find my purpose was through all the pain, heartache, brokenness, disappointment. I knew everything I went through wasn’t for me but was to help someone who feels like they have no one or they along. Read more>>
Nicole Dobson
I found my purpose when my life felt like it hit rock bottom . There was a time in my life where I literally hit rock bottom . I was drowning in debt , my business was the only source of income for my family of 5 , I was what felt like betrayed and used by some of the people I considered friends or people I have helped and I had nothing else to give . Read more>>
Joy Veluz
My sense of purpose began to crystallize when I was just seven years old, navigating a homework assignment. It was during a “Family History” project that I embarked on a journey to uncover the stories and legacies of my family members. Read more>>
Jay Castillo
Simply put, that process is still ongoing as I venture out into the world everyday; the world is filled with many troubles that need solutions. But purpose all starts back at home and the foundation that was laid out for me. That foundation was my family. From the traditions, values, and norms we had in our household, everything that was done had its place. Read more>>
Betsy Gall
I found my purpose as an author after my husband, Dr. Matthew Taylor Gall took his own life on Thanksgiving Day 2019. My husband was a 49 year-old oncologist and had dedicated his entire life to saving lives. So the fact that he took his own life was unreal. Read more>>
Jeff Flathau
I started out planning on becoming a lawyer. I was in Jr High when this became a prominent thought and goal in my life, although other careers came ti mind as well. While I was in college, I worked many jobs and waiting tables was one of them. Read more>>
Gabriela Torres Flores
Migration is an art and a process that leads to enormous challenges, cultural adaptation, creating new friendships that become your family, learning the language and knowing that you left a little of your essence when you left your land, in almost ten years that I have been in this wonderful nation, Read more>>
Tara Nash
From a young age I was asking the big questions, like what is the point of life? Where do I go when I die? What am I doing here? My father died suddenly of a heart attack when I was 9 years old, which set the seeker inside of me. I grew up in an arm-chair Christian home, went to a christian school, but I was never quite satisfied with this explanation of life. Read more>>
