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On this week's Creator Stories, Interact Digital Marketing Manager Jessmyn Solana shares her insights on the importance of taking meaningful breaks and disconnecting. Although it can seem counterintuitive, taking the time to unplug and reset can have extraordinary effects on our well-being and even improve our productivity in the long run. 

Kelly Trach was your classic over achiever. She got straight A’s, won scholarships, and got into the college of her dreams after high school, UBC Sauder School of Business in Vancouver, Canada.After receiving multiple job offers out of college, Kelly reluctantly accepted one. Something inside her knew that she was destined for more than just a 9-5, so 4 months before her start date, she quit. Kelly wanted to start a business of her own, but it was no easy feat. After her first three business failed, she hit rock bottom and decided to dump everything society had taught her to build a lifestyle business helping others discover what they were destined to do. This is her story.

Four years ago, Nadalie Bardo quit her 9-5 job without a plan in place and serious negative dollars in the bank. Nadalie had spent most of her 20’s in University and earned her Master’s in International Development Studies—but when she landed a job in PR, she found herself incredibly underwhelmed and unhappy with the day-to-day work.Nadalie didn’t want to be trapped spending her days speaking in other people’s voices, so she took action. She bet on herself and created a career that not only maximizes her potential, but helps others do the same. Pursuing life with confidence and slaying goals—in business, and life. 

Martina Abraham Ilunga’s story begins in 2016. She had recently moved from the East Coast and was living in the Bay Area at the time. Martina was working in sales and marketing at tech giants like Google and Square—but being in the Silicon Valley gave her an itch to start something of her own.Martina and her now husband were taking a stroll around Lake Merritt in Oakland, CA when she began asking about his life growing up in South Africa. With her phone set on record, Martina soon knew exactly what she wanted to bring to life with her own business. 

Kayla Hollatz is a copywriter and website strategist for entrepreneurs—and also one of Interact's very first strategic partners.Kayla comes from a long line of farmers and agriculture workers and is a first generation entrepreneur. Working tediously for hours on end was something that was engraved in her from a young age, but today, Kayla share her story of how she learned to shift her mindset to grow her business sustainably and avoid entrepreneurial burnout.

Ashley Beaudin grew up shy, soft-spoken, and unsure of herself and the world around her. Surrounded by an environment in turmoil, she experienced painful trauma and difficulty in her life, which led to self-sabotaging behaviors down the line.But through the years, Ashley never gave up. She began to create her own recovery program and threw herself into a journey to re-write her story. Today, Ashley shares her story boldly to empower others to show up for themselves, imperfections and all.

Ashley Beaudin grew up shy, soft-spoken, and unsure of herself and the world around her. Surrounded by an environment in turmoil, she experienced painful trauma and difficulty in her life, which led to self-sabotaging behaviors down the line.But through the years, Ashley never gave up. She began to create her own recovery program and threw herself into a journey to re-write her story. Today, Ashley shares her story boldly to empower others to show up for themselves, imperfections and all.

From a young age, Bree Weber enjoyed all things reading and writing, and her passion for storytelling carried her through the years to land a job she loved for a book publisher. Although she loved her job, Bree made the decision to move and embark on a new journey with her boyfriend in 2015. So, she pitched the company she worked for to become their first remote employee. They approved the remote work as an independent contractor, and that's when Bree's business was born. After many years of trial and error, she's finally found the path that provides her with purpose, passion, and profit.

Jessica Pereira graduated from college in 2018 with nothing but a Public Relations internship and online courses from Hubspot as experience under her belt. In 2019, Jessica hopped on a plane and left for Thailand to teach English for 6 months. This is where her freelance writing business was born.In between teaching classes, Jessica found herself with lots of extra down time. She spent this time thinking about how she could turn her love for writing and digital marketing into a career. So one day, she decided to try it out as a side-hustle—while she was still in Thailand. But when she came home, she hit the ground running and turned her passion into a full-time job. 

Matt Clark was a studious computer science student at UCLA when he met classmate Josh Haynam, CEO of Interact. Matt was a coder, and Josh was an aspiring entrepreneur with a knack for all things business. They became friends when they entered a 48 hour startup competition together, which ended up as a complete disaster. In those 48 hours, the two spent their time coming up with random, weird ideas and fun things to build rather than actually trying to do what the weekend was for. Little did they know, after countless nights of eating Top Ramen, the two college buddies would be on their way to building one of the most successful quiz building platforms on the market. 

Kyshira Moffett, MBA was born and raised in Chicago and was at the very beginning of her journey through corporate America when she moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a job. While she was working full time, she began helping friends with their resumes, cover letters, and much more—helping others land six figure jobs.Little did she know, her infectious drive with this small side-hustle would propel her into entrepreneurship to becoming a founder of her own six figure company.

On this week's special episode of Creator Stories we sit down with Interact's very own Partner Program Manager, Jessmyn Solana. Jessmyn joined our team when she was just 23 years old—a recent college grad at the early start of her career. After being part of our team for many years, she shares the obstacles she experienced before she joined Interact and what led her to make a risky move in her career to join an early start up company and the self-care practices she uses to handle the stress of adapting to changes. 

From an early age Andrea Jones was convinced that she wanted to pursue a traditional career path and climb the corporate ladder. Coming from a family of business owners, Andrea had direct insight into the struggles and hardships that came with entrepreneurship and she was certain that it wasn't for her. But over 6 years ago, Andrea quit her job in Atlanta, Georgia, and moved to Toronto, Canada with her husband. Little did she know, this move was the catalyst that led her to discover her true passion and embark on her own journey to starting a business. 

Growing up, Michelle Tu had a creative spirit and curious eye for all things business—but she was born to immigrant parents in the 80's who really wanted her to focus on having a stable career profession. She decided to focus on her education and school work, and fell in love with math and science. Michelle then went on to study biomedical engineering in college and completed her Ph.D. in cell biology. Soon after, she realized how much she had been pushing her creative spirit aside, so she took the leap. She's learned, she's failed, and she's flourished. And it's all brought her to where she is today.

Natalia Gomez grew up and lived in Mexico City with her family where she earned a degree in Marketing. She joined the Corporate world and finally began earning a steady income, until one day, she had to leave it all behind when her and her husband decided to move to the U.S.Natalia gave up all of her professional pursuits back in Mexico and came to place where she couldn’t legally work. But as a creative marketing strategist, she wasn’t the type to sit at home idly. She was determined to find a way…and she did. This is her story.

Jerried Williams was in and out of the corporate world for nearly ten years. He worked in diverse industries and even spent a fair share of time working at start-ups. He was constantly on the move, but having grown up in a Military family, he had become accustomed to his ever-changing surroundings.The one thing that was constant, was his feelings of confinement and constraint that arose from working in very bureaucratic, corporate environments. But this past December, everything changed. Starting from a blank slate, Jerried began exploring all the avenues that he simply couldn't ever do in the past, leading him to where he is today.

Paul Fishman lived an incredibly fast-paced life as a personal trainer, nutrition coach, spin instructor, and pilates instructor. He taught dozens of high-energy spin classes a day, pouring his energy into each and every person around him...leaving him utterly drained. One day, as he looked in the mirror, he realized that he didn't recognize the person starring back at him; all he saw in his reflection was a people pleaser. He was living his life for others, and it had to stop. Over the course of nearly 10 years, Paul has been on his own self love journey. And now he's on a mission to empower and inspire others to do the same.

Throughout her career, Latasha James worked for many tech startups, nonprofit organizations, multiple Fortune 500 companies, you name it. But one day, this shy introvert decided to ditch the corporate grind. It all started with a blog and a few freelance gigs, when she soon discovered her passion for helping others. Now, this introverted entrepreneur is a business owner doing meaningful work helping others pursue their dreams.

Eman Zabi was a young graduate living with her parents in the sandy deserts of Qatar. She was unemployed and unsure of her career path, like many of us in our early 20's. But she was steadfast on discovering her passion. When Eman started her own business in 2016, she was young and inexperienced. She quickly realized that she had to grow into the shoes that she had already built for her business. But with a competitive background in Martial Arts, if there's one thing Eman knew how to do, it was to commit to the punch.

Vivian Chan's career began as so many of ours do - climbing the corporate ladder. She was great with people management, untangling problems, and was absorbing all the ins and outs of business at a senior level. In the eyes of everyone around her, she was ‘successful’.But Vivian didn't feel successful. She was spending her energy building a kingdom for someone else...and it didn't feel fulfilling. She quickly realized that sitting at a desk from 9-5 wasn't something she wholeheartedly believed in.She wanted to help people grow, and help them leverage the talent they didn't realize existed. But first, Vivian had to discover what her own talent was, what would make her truly feel successful. This his her story.