Katy Osborn remembers the day she left her job. She was working at a pepper spray company in Chicago, leading the marketing efforts for a college safety program, when a tense conversation made her realized she and her boss had been “really clashing a lot.” “When I would make decisions, I’d always get some pushback […]

As a kid, Joseph Fjelstad would stand in his schoolyard and look up at the sky every day. “I watched the X-15, which holds the record for the fastest plane, fly by,” Fjelstad recalls. “I was a pesky kid bugging my dad about how it worked. Engineering ran in the blood.” His father, an aerospace […]

It’s not that Nicola Black was itching to strike out on her own. The work she was getting was interesting enough, from doing production for a major newspaper to creating posters and DVD box art for a film and entertainment company. “I would see some of my work in Blockbuster—when it was still around,” says […]

Growing up in Hawaii, Brandy Pham remembers her Vietnamese parents telling her to “work hard for what I wanted.” And what she was longing for was a career in fashion design. She went on to found her eponymous jewelry line. And along the way she picked up an impressive list of high-profile vendors: Cynthia Rowley, […]

Atilio Cerban donated his time, finances, and services to a variety of charities over the years, but he never felt fulfilled. He didn’t feel like he was making enough of an impact. “Maybe there’s lots of people like me who don’t feel like they’re helping or making a difference,” thought Cerban, who became motivated “to […]

Jose Galindo had money on his mind even as a young boy. Since he wasn’t getting an allowance, he started his own origami business. The 9-year-old quickly found a market among his peers on the playground. Fascinated, they dug out their lunch money to buy paper stars. “When the kids at school saw them, they […]

All Achmed Sadat wanted was something sweet and cold on a sunny day. He walked to the nearest ice cream truck to pick up cones for his friends, but by the time he returned to the park, “they totally melted.” The WeWork Metropool member thought to himself, “If only there was a way to get […]

Growing up in a rural part of Chico, California, Courtney Leeds was surrounded by fertilizer and gardening tools. Her father grew walnuts and almonds, but she never thought she’d follow in his footsteps. “I kind of rebelled from it and wanted to be in the city,” says Leeds, co-founder of Schoolyard Farms. “But once I […]

Erika Ettin’s job is motivating people. So where does she look to for a little inspiration of her own? “I have a tattoo on my foot that says, ‘Be good to yourself.’” Not the answer you might expect, but the dating coach says that the tattoo helps her put her frenzy of daily activity— making […]

Lakes bring peace, comfort, and a sense of home to Mary Skerrett Koff, an environmentalist and solopreneur. That’s why the Idaho native went on an ambitious quest to find just the right map of her favorite lake in her hometown of Coeur d’Alene. “The lake has always been home,” says Koff of Lake Coeur d’Alene. […]

When Brian Kelly was just 13, he booked his entire family on a free trip to the Cayman Islands. How did he accomplish this as a teenager? It turns out that his father, a travel consultant, racked up lots of frequent flyer miles. When the statements arrived in the mail, he had no idea what […]

When James Pearson was 16, he dropped out of high school and started working as a real estate agent in London. His mother gave him one piece of advice for his first job: “Get caught cleaning the windows.” She meant that he would make a positive impression on his boss if he went the extra […]

From the age of 10, Cathy Wood was winning national diving competitions. “Sports were very much a part of my life,” says Wood, a natural-born athlete who went on to represent Great Britain at the Ironman Triathlon. She even made a living from her passion, spending a decade covering sports and other topics for London’s Daily […]