While it’s inspiring to read high level summaries of success stories, we think it’s just as important to learn about what drove the success and made it possible. We’ve asked some of the brightest folks we know to open up about what they believe was the most important factor behind their success.

Tanner Bortnem, JD, CFP® | Owner & Senior Financial Planner at Harmoney Wealth, PLLC

Dependability. There are a lot of other factors that I believe sets Harmoney Wealth apart from most firms in the financial industry, but everything that goes into our expertise, planning, ideas, meetings, and research do not carry much weight if the follow-through isn’t there. A lot of times financial planners enjoy the thrill of the chase, but after the chase is over and the work starts the sense of fun is lost and the follow through drops significantly. It’s at these moments when we push through and deliver the quality of work that clients expect and deserve. We regularly get feedback from clients expressing their appreciation for our dependability, and they refer their friends and family members because of it. As of this writing, Harmoney Wealth is extremely proud to have retained 100% of the clients that have started a relationship with us. I sincerely believe that Harmoney Wealth’s success is rooted in our steadfast dependability. Read more>>

Alyssa Leon | Leading a Team of Labor and Postpartum Doulas in The Greater Phoenix Area

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ― Maya Angelou My team of labor and postpartum doulas educate, empower, and love birthing people through what I dare to say, is the most monumental transition of their lives. Moving from maiden to mother carries so much emotion and sometimes trauma too. For those of us that had complicated childhoods and strained relationships with our own mothers, we bring all of this into our own journeys into motherhood and that is not even talking about the actual birth and postpartum experience itself. Our only goal is for birthing people to feel heard, educated, advocated for, loved, and valued during their pregnancy, birth, and postpartum transition….to minimize the incidents of birth trauma, perinatal/postpartum anxiety, and depression. A lot of times mother’s share that they have never experienced this kind of support before. Read more>>

Joyce Laszloffy | Creator and Founder of The I Kicked Sugar Course

The biggest factor that has allowed my business to grow so fastand allow me to have the success I have in the short time I’ve been in business is that I finally learned to let go of perfection. This is actually a principal I teach in my Course. To just start and learn along the way. To allow myself the space to grow into my business and learn from my customers what they truly want and need. In 9 months I have had over 7,000 women purchase the I Kicked Sugar Course to reclaim their health and happiness. With past business I was that person who had to have every detail figured out before I even got started. I spent all kinds of money on website domains, business cards and t-shirts for ideas that never even got off the ground. I finally had to accept that the key to starting a business… is well starting it. At some point you have to just JUMP IN and start and be O.K. with not having it all together or looking perfect in the public eye. This principal allowed me to break through barriers and actually grow into the business that I am today and it’s this same principal that will propel me to the next level. Read more>>

Kevin Coles | Owner & Father

The Most important factor of the success of our brand is identity. Raising Tactical Daughters isn’t about trying to sell items that you may or may not need. With our logo and name, we want everyone to remember what it is exactly we stand for and why. Educating, and training daughters and women everywhere to not feel alone, to not feel unsafe while going out. We want everyone to have the confidence they deserve as well as the fortitude to understand every situation and stay safe. We started our company because there was a gap in training, typically if you were tactically educated or trained you were a man, women especially young girls didn’t get any of that. Statistically women are more likely to encounter a situation where they would benefit from training, and unfortunately some of those situations end up deadly. With the birth of our daughter we didn’t want that to ever happen as any parent wouldn’t. Read more>>

Nik Ridley | Artist & Instructor

I think the most important factor behind my (Brand) success is that I care about what people want. My job is to create and I honor the balance between what I like and what others are attracted to. I see art as an ancient medium for connection – a reason to dance, sing, and familiarize ourselves with one another. The Carnival. Parade. Family Cookout. And, at its core, each element must be pleasing to the participant, customer, and client. The success of my Brand is “customer-caring” centered. Read more>>

Maria Gorbunova | Voice Actress & Singer

When you become a creative with many supporters looking forward to more releases of your art, it can be very easy to fall hostage to your own perfectionism. Every time before investing my resources into a new project, I ask myself: “Is this something people would enjoy?”, “Does this work suit my brand?”, “What do my fans expect to see next?”, etc. It is hard, because if you actually value and respect your followers, you never want to disappoint them. You want to deliver the kind of content that sparks delight in people’s hearts. But the truth is, it is also impossible to predict which pieces of yours will ‘explode’, and which will ‘fail’. My most successful video (that arguably brought me the majority of my brand exposure) I recorded as a joke to share with some friends when I was 13 years old; I only spend a total of 2 hours on the lyrics, the audio, and the visual. Now, people use fragments of that video to make their own TikToks to, even though the video itself has been made private on my channel many years ago. Read more>>

Josh Montag | Drummer of Scattered Melodies

The most important factor behind my success is collaboration. The foundation of Scattered Melodies is built on the fundamentals of collaboration, being that we are a rhythm section who features a wide variety of artists on our songs. During the past 9 years of us being a band, we’ve had the pleasure of featuring over forty different musicians from across the Valley. We tend to go about our collaborations a couple of different ways, sometimes we have a song put together with parts and ideas already in place and present it to a particular singer who we think would fit the vibe. Other times we get together with different musicians and create something from scratch, letting the song become it’s own in that moment. Regardless though, everything we put out is a group effort, whether it may be a song or music video, working with other artists enhances both the outcome of the product and the experience of making it. Read more>>