Having dreamed of following in her grandfather’s footsteps, Stephanie decided to study chemistry in pursuit of a career in optometry. Although she realized that it wasn’t the path for her, she knew that she still wanted to help people. A desire to uplift her community by providing jobs, resources and increasing access to opportunities followed her, where she ended up working for a large company — McKinsey. She then took these lessons into her next job where she worked at an organization geared towards helping mothers of color become entrepreneurs. The common thread that ran throughout all of their stories was that of their child’s education — many of the mothers’ entrepreneurial aspirations were created in the hopes of being able to afford better schooling for their children. Which got Stephanie thinking: How could she use her business knowledge to better the education system? This revelation prompted her to work for two nationally-based education nonprofits, aimed at providing...

Being an entrepreneur is not easy. Every day brings new challenges and it’s up to us to learn how to navigate them as smoothly as possible. Take my guest this week, Sara Happ, who’s the CEO and Founder of her own brand, Sara Happ. Through her experience owning and operating a beauty brand, Sara shared a valuable piece of advice given to her by her brother. This is what he said on the subject of overcoming challenges, "It doesn’t get easier, you just get better at rolling with the things." Wise words! In Sara’s experience, this has shown itself through the hurdles she currently faces in her work, which she says aren’t dissimilar to the ones she's faced at earlier stages of her brand. We’re all dealing with the same problems at different magnitudes — as explained by Sara, "kitchen problems versus Nordstrom problems." It’s all about figuring out ways to manage that stress — to prepare yourself for whatever challenge lay ahead. Right from the jump, Sara was met with her fair share of...

All you need is a willingness to succeed, the knowledge to back it up, and a unique concept to build dreams into a reality — all lessons I learned from my time with Christine Chang and Sarah Lee, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Glow Recipe! Where did their journeys begin? Christine first wanted to become a visual artist, spending most of her time painting, which helped in her transition from Louisiana to Korea. Once she moved, she struggled to adapt to the language differences and academic standards. However, as you’ll see as a common theme throughout both of their stories, Christine didn’t let this defeat her. On the contrary, she ended up attending business school at Washington University in St. Louis where she developed a love for entrepreneurship, and eventually worked as an intern at L’Oreal. Sarah’s story follows a similar cadence — from age 5, Sarah dreamed of becoming a pianist until she moved to Hong Kong, where she learned that she’d have to relearn the entire curriculum....

Evelyn Subramaniam, Founder of Bija Essence, discovered her knack for entrepreneurship at an early age. She describes having “played shop” with her toys, arranging them as if they were on a store front. I’d like to think that she was a visionary at this age, paving the way for her future self! However, Evelyn first decided to explore the world of modeling and reporting during her teenage and young adult years after winning a modeling contest in New York City. She worked as a model and reporter for Univision for a while before eventually deciding to run her own business — Bija Essence. Flash to present — all of her career-related dreams came true! It was the skills that she learned from her time in these industries that prepared her for her role at Bija Essence. Her resilience — which I was in awe of when I first met her — helped tremendously in the pursuit of her own brand. No matter what was thrown at her, Evelyn didn’t let it define her. After all, every no is a step closer...