We asked some of the city’s rising stars to reflect on what made a difference in their journey. We asked them to tell us about what they think the most important factor has been behind their success.

Shonagh Home | Teacher, Guide, Author & Poet

I would have to say its uniqueness and my consistency of care with each client. I began nine years ago hosting individual clients in my home for 5-day retreats that offer an intimate, safe and deeply nourishing experience that is catered to the needs of each man or woman who attends. I do deep psycho-spiritual work with clients where we address shadow material, patterns, and all the contributing factors that are continuing the issue at hand. One of my clients calls this, “multi-dimensional nourishment,” as there is the opportunity to journey deeply inward in addition to the “delving” we do with regard to exploring root causes through talk-therapy, the use of cards as a way to cull from the deep psyche (as opposed to divination), astrology, and other unique ways of looking deeply into the soul. While retreat centers and clinics are cropping up everywhere my work is modeled after the traditional medicine woman who had a household where she tended her patients with her healing knowledge. I also do Zoom sessions and often work with a client for a number of sessions before they attend an actual retreat. I have quite a few people who have been coming annually for years who see this as their personal “reset” where they can address what needs attention and set goals moving forward. This is a calling and truly has been my heart’s work. Read more>>

Elizabeth Nelson | Wedding Photographer

I think this has taken 8 years of being a small business owner to fully grasp but the most important factor behind the success of my business is having complete trust in myself to figure it out. As simple as that sounds, it’s very much not. Read more>>

Chris Osuch | Vocalist of Seagrave

1. Is the hard work. All the guys play an important role in the band and handle different aspects of the machine. Ali (bass) and Chris (vocals) handle visuals, content, marketing plans, release schedules and booking. Stiv (guitar) handles all of our production from backing tracks and building our live set, to writing and tracking new ideas or songs. Doug (drums) is one of the best I’ve met. This man could play anything, and he assists in writing, and making tracks with Stiv. All of us bust *ss for this. All of us realize, you need to put in the work. It’s cliche, but you really can’t stop grinding, if you want to get to the goals you want. Read more>>

Melissa Williams | Artist & Mystic

Without question, intuition. And let me preface the rest of my response with this: I’m an artist to my core. I enjoy thinking of life as if it’s an art project and I’ve experimented with this concept as a lifestyle. Thinking of reality this way keeps me curious and in love with my life. And in my mind, intuition is the driving force behind the creative process and living my life as if it’s an art project. In 2019, I committed to living by this premise and conducted my first experiments based on intuition. I pretty obsessively wanted to know how to access my intuition as a tool to create what I want. I started by focusing on something I wanted and skeptically made short contracts with myself, proposing things like “for the next hour, I’ll follow any intuitive nudges I get and if I like what happens, I’ll run a follow-up experiment”. Without disappointment or exception, listening to my intuition created beneficial outcomes (and I had the added benefit of feeling like a cheeky little wizard finding secret spell ingredients). After collecting enough evidence that listening to my intuition improved my everyday life, I embraced that my intuition could lead me to the career opportunities I wanted. These more involved experiments resulted in tangible results like: two transformative artist assistant positions, connecting with my first clients in a spiritual Discord community, Co-Producing a Psychic Faire, amazing jobs in art museums, starting my business, podcast interviews, and all of my art shows post college. Four years later, I still make all of my creative and business decisions intuitively. Read more>>

Jennifer Hart | Country Recording Artist & Songwriter

God & Family. Nothing comes before God and my family, and they are the reasons I get up in the mornings and do what I do. God gave me this talent as a gift in the first place, and I always want to use it to honor Him. He has blessed with such a loving and supportive husband and family who constantly encourage me to keep going, even when it’s tough (which is honestly most of the time!) They remind me to enjoy the journey and the process, and trust the path that God has me on. Read more>>

Neal Bookspan | Equity Partner at Jaburg Wilk

I view the most important factor behind my success as continually being willing to try new business development and marketing ideas to build my practice and my brand/ This includes continuing with and improving on ideas that are working and abandoning ideas that are not working. I always am trying to come up with new ideas or tweaks for ideas that are working, some of which I have been working and improving for years. I also believe that once you give an idea sufficient time and opportunity to be successful and it isn’t, you need to move on. It’s not time lost. Instead, it was a learning opportunity. Read more>>

Daniela Olotu-Gottfried | Baker, Reiki Practitioner, Family Constellation Facilitator & Manager

I very much love what I do. I started baking as a child and always showed interest and patience with it – well, at least most of the time 🙂 I am a perfectionist at heart and did not rest till my baked good was perfect to look at and equally tasty. Read more>>

Taja Lawrence | Chef Bella Sweets

Believing in myself, never giving up and consistency. Read more>>

Shannon Guzman | Private Chef and Caterer

I would say the most important factor behind my success is the relationships that I have built with my clients and being able to maintain that. Also providing quality food and service has helped me gain new clientele along the way. My drive to want to be better after each event that I do. Seeing where I could have done better and understanding what my shortcomings are and improving time and time again. Read more>>