Success is Subjective: Real People. Raw Stories. Embracing a Non-Linear Life!

Don’t give up. Don’t give up on yourself. If you choose to not give up on yourself and you continue new things, you are dramatically increasing the chances that things will get better in whatever circumstance you are in. There’s no guarantee that things will always work out but if you give up, you’re dramatically increasing the odds that things might not improve. There’s a balance that can be foun...

Gone are the days where someone has to get a job immediately after college and work that career for 30+ years. Many young people hold onto this idea that they need to stay in college because it’s what they are told they need to do. Success and failure are temporary, so just go do the thing. Andrew Taylor, Founder and Executive Director of Pure Life Adventure, once found himself back and forth betw...

The idea of taking a gap year can already be intimidating. Now, add in COVID to the mix and the idea of taking a gap year can seem even more scary. Beatrice Naujalyt, creator of Bliss Bean, had the plan to travel during her entire gap year but COVID had other plans. Once the pandemic hit, she had to find alternative ways to fill her time including social media, blogging, vlogging, etc! Even though...

Many go through life with a set idea on how things will go, hoping that everything will go as planned but sometimes life has other plans that are unavoidable.  Johnnie Alexander, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Therapist, Life Coach, and Therapeutic Mentor for Elevated Genius Solutions, LLC, experienced a huge life interruption his sophomore year of college. At first he thought he’d have the norm...

Just because the idea of success seems ‘perfect’, the road there might not be, and that’s okay! Jared Stewart, Program Director for Provo, Utah’s Scenic View Academy and adjunct professor at Utah Valley University, had his fair share of crashes on his way to success but that didn’t stop him. From navigating a learning disability that he was unaware of through college and navigating college alone a...

Whether it’s a career field that seems like it will never work out or the dream that seems too big after getting a diagnosis. When things don’t go as planned, what if instead of seeing it as something gone wrong, you take it as a sign that there is just more personal growth needed? Maybe it’s not that you’re not good enough for it, but instead not quite ready for it yet. Maria Heilner, a registere...

Maybe college worked out in the beginning and then turned out to be something that isn’t for you right now. What if instead of trying to force something that isn’t working anymore, you decided to embrace what is? Pete Kadushin, Mental Performance Coach, found himself planning on going to college to get a PhD because it worked out for his dad. By the end of his college experience, he was left feeli...

Imagine having trouble with your memory, flexible thinking, self-control, and with simply just executing tasks through to completion. These skills are used every day to learn, work, and manage daily life. Without these essential mental skills, it can be very difficult to handle emotions, focus, follow directions, achieve goals and even set them, and the list goes on and on. Life wouldn’t be very e...

“I’m doing everything right. Being a hard working student, a good daughter/son, a helpful friend...Yet I still feel like I’m falling apart.” For many the biggest thing left behind or put aside is what’s going on internally and can oftentimes be the missing puzzle to bring everything back together. Ken Gilbert, Lead Therapist at Evoke Therapy Intensives, found that things didn’t fall into place unt...

A young adult barely knows what to do on a Friday night so how do we expect them to know what to do with the rest of their life by the time they set foot on a college campus? College should be a safe place to learn from experience, good and bad, but that’s not the message that students are getting.  Jeff Ederer, co-founder of College Route Map, started his journey in higher education by being the...

Instead of success being something looked at as an end goal or an end all be all, what if you looked at it as something that grows and ages like a fine wine or cheese? Something that you are always working on within yourself. Lily Wilkinson, member of the business development team for Legacy Treatment Center, grew up thinking that in order to be successful she would need to reach a certain perfect...

Being a student athlete can easily become one’s identity. From working to get good grades mainly for sports, to working day in and day out with a team for years that become like a family. When that gets taken away, it can be devastating learning how to live life outside of being a student athlete. Conor Baucum grew up playing lacrosse and continued to play all throughout college. Not only was the...

The path to making your goals reality won’t always be pretty. It might involve working at Kentucky Fried Chicken or maybe even working two minimum wage jobs while being in school full time. Are you willing to do whatever it takes to make your desire a reality? Lisa Sutton, founder and CEO of Sutton Enterprises, took every chance she got to work to make college work. Even though she had to manage m...

What if instead of looking at a challenge as just another thing to deal with, you looked at it as an opportunity to reveal the next step. Whether it be a challenge with a college major or a business, many times what comes out of a challenging situation may shed clarity on the next move to make and whether or not the original situation was even meant to be. Darrie Burrage, leader, educator, facilit...

College can put this heavy pressure on young adults to have everything figured out right away in their 20’s. The truth is, that things take time to come together for most people. Being 100% sure about your passions and what makes you happy at a young age isn’t necessary, since it will most likely continue to change. Experiences allow everything to come together in a way that you wouldn’t expect, s...

Even in suffering, in pain, in hardships, in grief...everything is made beautiful in this time. Just because something may seem rough and imperfect, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have something amazing to bring you, whether that be growth, experience, a lesson, or a powerful story. Judith Sadora, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, didn’t have academics come easily to her and had to work hard to cha...

So many try to fit in. Fit in with their peers, fit into expectations, into society’s standards. When most of these things were never meant for you to fit into in the first place. You can’t expect the letter A to fit into the letter B spot on an alphabetic puzzle mat, so how do you expect yourself to fit into someone else’s path?  Sean Tomkinson, owner of Passages Alaska Wilderness Therapy, realiz...

It can be easy to put blame on what life you came from. Maybe from alcoholic parents or a blue collar family who didn’t go to college. But, what if you were the one who went against all odds and changed the narrative? Gail Curran, an Educational and Therapeutic Placement Consultant, came from a family of 8 with little money for college. In fact, Gail was the first of her siblings to make it to col...

COVID has taught us that plans can be completely ripped from our hands at any moment. What you thought you’d be doing for the rest of your life could completely change and plans might need to be shifted.  Aaron, Director at Spruce Mountain, went into college with a completely different idea than where he now finds himself. At first he thought he would pursue music but after working with people in...

Sometimes things don’t always work out. Whether that’s being vulnerable with someone or taking the risk on a career path. Though, what if you didn’t let that one situation that went sideways dictate your life from then on? And instead continued to take risks, using each outcome as a learning experience.  Joshua New, Executive Director for an addiction treatment center, could have stopped trying ma...

Maybe you’ve relapsed after getting sober, maybe even managed to relapse more than once or maybe even 7 times. Just because your journey might include some or many bumps in the road, that doesn’t disqualify you from the life you think isn’t in the cards for you anymore.  Ryan Silberberg, Director of Admissions at Jaywalker Lodge, had to go to inpatient treatment 7 times before he was able to truly...

Your path is yours for a reason. It’s yours to do as you please with and make the most out of. Maybe add some flowers on part of your path or take a rest at a bench somewhere down a little ways. Maybe even abandon your original path and start a new one! It doesn’t have to be the prettiest path, it just needs to work for you. Cynthia, an elementary school social worker, had to take a handful of det...

“You have to have your career figured out as soon as you start high school and be perfectly on your way there by high school graduation. You have to go through college straight through.” You might have heard these things from others or even from yourself. But what if you didn’t have to be what everyone else says you need to be or wants you to be? What if you didn’t even have to come close to what...

Mental health and college don’t always mix well. You might find some people get through it even while struggling but at the end they usually crumble big time. You aren’t meant to push through that pain just to graduate. College can wait, but help should never have to.  Jeremiah Reiner, cyclist and Mental Health Recovery Coach at CooperRiis Healing Community and founder of Ride Above Depression, we...

Whether it’s mental health, drugs, alcohol, negative people, a toxic environment...Through perseverance, it is possible to get past what’s holding you back and create the life you desire. Things get better when you choose to persevere through the blockers.  Victoria Olson, founder of Expand Mentoring, LLC, found herself on the ‘right’ career path in college but lacked the drive buried inside due t...