We are celebrating amazing women – this month and every month! Roaring is a thing of the past. Women are working smarter and faster to get the dream jobs they want. And if they don't exist, they create their dream role in their very own creative small business. Here are just a few of those ladies.

Laylee Emadi Smith

A natural teacher, Laylee began her career educating high school students. When she wasn't in the classroom, she was was coaching the dance team. It will come as no surprise to you, that her next move was into Senior Photography. Laylee always has more to share. The things she is learning through her own business, she wants to ensure other small business owners are learning too.

In 2019, she started her own podcast, So, Here's The Thing. Just having celebrated her 100th episode, Laylee has added “accomplished podcaster” to her long list of achievements. Most people would have stopped there. Laylee, however, made another pivot to educate the creative business owner. Not just through her podcast, but also through coaching intensives and a large amount of online course work she has created through her “Creative Educator Academy“. While you most likely will not hear her roar, you will see her work, inspire, motivate, and take you along with her. In Laylee's eyes, all the world is a classroom, and we all get to be students!

Vanessa Hicks

The military can be great long-term career of service, for many people. For Vanessa Hicks, it was a path to her dream career. Enlisting at a young age gave Vanessa the opportunity to see more than her hometown. It also gave her eyes to see what she wanted to do: capture people's memorable moments. And she has done it well! Vanessa was voted #1 Wedding Photographer in Hawaii by Hawaii Magazine in 2018 and 2019. She created the viral #flagbaby image and Military Tea Time Sessions. The military is where Vanessa started having success, however, it has impacted every part of her life. Even helped her to be another amazing trail blazing woman in a creative small business.

While having viral images is great, all small business owners need a more concrete force to propel them forward. For Vanessa, her desire to capture moments is due in part to the timelessness of that memory. After her dad passed, Vanessa realized she had very few photos of him. Through her photography, she has helped thousands of people preserve legacies of those they love. The impact of Vanessa's work has not only benefitted her clients, but inspired so many other photographers to do the same. Visually, you can see the re-imagined photos of her viral posts. But ask anyone that has seen her keynotes and they can testify to the large impact Vanessa Hicks has had on their lives and businesses.

Krista Jones

There aren't a whole bunch of people these days that are actually working in the field they went to school for. In fact, in one study it showed only 27% of college graduates work in the field they studied. Krista Jones is one of those 27%. But she isn't doing it in a classic desk job kinda way! When the 9-5 didn't seem to fit, she tried her own way as a woman in a creative small business! No. Not tried. Started. Worked hard. and is having success in places she didn't even anticipate.

By creating a new pathway for herself that allows her to run a business and a family, Krista has paved the way for many others. Through her contributions to the Rising Tide Society, Creative at Heart, and even our own conferences and podcasts, countless creatives have been able to imagine a different life for themselves. Thanks to Krista's example and desire to share her behind-the-scenes knowledge, many others will not have to choose between career and family. What a gift of creative freedom that truly is!

What's next?

These three women have blazed their own paths with hard work and determination. They aren't the first, and will definitely not be the last. So where do you come in? Are you cutting your own pathway to success? Are there young women and girls in your life who need a positive role model of what can happen when you dream big and work hard? Maybe you are the next one we feature on The Creative Series? Perhaps we have already quoted you on Instagram? Whatever you feel driven to, you can accomplish it. We will be cheering you on the whole way!