No new clothes.

For the last six months, I’ve been on a sustainability mission to cycle my wardrobe by buying solely secondhand.

As a television news anchor and reporter, you can imagine the volume of clothes I have in my possession at any given time- you’d be shocked at how good viewers’ memories are if you repeat outfits too often.

So while it’s only now a major part of my daily life, buying secondhand has always been part of my story. What I never considered is that sourcing the scores that I find myself bragging about- whether it be an outfit or furniture- is a skill so valuable it can become a full-fledged business.

That wasn’t the intent when Janelle and Jonathan Schwartz sold their first set of mid-century furniture.

In fact, they didn’t actually know what they were selling.

There’s a version of you who has already done it.

Show up as ‘that girl’ until you become her.

Approach each day through the lens of your highest and best self.

These are some of the mantras I’ve repeated to myself almost daily since the start of the year. It turns out mindset- and manifestation- are the true difference makers when it comes to changing your life.

Still, sometimes after all the planning and preparation for a big shift, the panic can set in. What if it doesn’t work out? What if I fail? Who do I think I am to even try this?

Those are the types of questions Adrianna Sekula asked herself the day she launched her business, Solidarity Partners. She's sharing her story in this latest episode of Beyond The A Block.

Though Orlando wasn’t the first stop for Michael Nguyen’s parents after they immigrated from Vietnam, it’s where he considers home base; and Mills 50 is woven into the first-generation American’s history.

“I remember vividly it being like Little Saigon, it has so much meaning to me and my family, that’s where we go grocery shopping, a lot of my parents’ friends are owners of a lot of the small businesses on the strips, the little Oriental Market, some of the small restaurants, it’s a very close knit community,” Nguyen said. “So being able to be this new generation of business owners, redeveloping the area, is really cool and exciting.”

As the pandemic prompted many to trade in their business casual attire for simply casual work from home sweatsuits and athleisure, our shopping habits changed, too. Fewer in-person shopping trips meant fewer chances for the latest trends to entice you into a new section of the store or a new item into your cart. And now, as much of the world has gone back to pre-COVID standards of work and dress, shoppers are trying, like me, to find their own sense of style and remember how to dress themselves… and they’re often turning to TikTok or Pinterest for fashion tips. And what’s taking over TikTok in the last year?

Color Analysis.

This has been a big opportunity for app developers and small business owners alike. For Ashley Hedden, what would eventually become her full-time source of income, started as a quest not so different from my own; a yearning to find her own sense of style as a young mom. Before she would ever become a consultant for one of the largest color analysis brands in the world, she was a customer.

The kids that grew up begging to have their own landline phones in their rooms and can still remember the days before internet were also fully immersed in it by the time we entered the workforce. As a young journalist, I remember creating my first Facebook page and then after about 6 months on the job, after being basically forced to by our web manager, creating my Twitter account on the eve of the 2008 election.

Something else happened in 2008 that shaped the millennial experience as much as the internet; a nationwide recession. Almost as soon as we entered the workforce, it was flipped on its head as companies carried out mass layoffs, people lost their homes, and markets crashed.

For fellow elder millennial Lindsey Pesch, it was the start of what would become more than 15 years of straight hustle to try to prove her worth—and it all revolved around an online space that grew up with her.

Beyond our own expectations, there are the expectations that are placed on us by others. Those societal expectations weigh even heavier in certain cultures, and going against the grain can mean more than just a side-eye from a stranger.

For Cassindy Chao, being a second-generation Asian American whose parents moved to the states from Taiwan came with a lot of unspoken expectations.

“I was born in Queens, and my parents were very much about education; go to good schools, study hard, you know, be in the sciences or whatever,” Chao said. “And it didn't gel with me. I flunked out of my calculus class. I flunked out of chemistry. Clearly, that wasn't the path.”

Despite the failing grade in calculus, Chao found herself studying numbers; double majoring in Chinese studies and economics. The combination led to huge success in the banking industry- working on Wall Street and then Hong Kong at big-name institutions like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

“Everyone thought I was really good at numbers. The reality was, I'm really not very good at numbers,” Chao joked. “I'm okay, not great. I always just didn't feel like I shined there. I'd be in meetings and it's very hardcore… I’d sit there in meetings, having worked all night, but just being so bored. So bored.”

She worked in finance for ten years, but said she never loved it.

“It didn’t resonate with me,” Chao said. “I was having much more fun just thinking about who and who would be great dates, and who would match better.”

Every day of my life, at least once a day, I’ve thought about being smaller. I truly cannot remember a time- throughout my childhood to now age 36- where this wasn’t part of my subconscious. It’s something even algorithms can sniff out, which means my TikTok FYP is often filled with the latest trends to lose weight; 12/3/30, 30/30/30, high protein, low carb, etc. etc. So it was refreshing when I saw a familiar face a few months ago while scrolling, sharing research about the true impact of weight on health and the weight discrimination so many people face in their daily lives. I’ve known Joey Coppedge for nearly a decade, after meeting his husband 18 years ago (which is insane to write) during a summer spent working at American Eagle as I interned at a news station in Phoenix (this was back when internships didn’t pay). When we first met, Joey was a staple in the New York City fitness scene, as one of the most-sought coaches at SoulCycle during its peak of popularity. Take a listen to how he's flipped his focus from fitness to true food enlightenment in this latest episode.

Forced entrepreneurship. Though she had started to dip her toe in the small business waters just before COVID would close down and eliminate her dream job at Disney, Kristin Wyza always wanted her mobile spray tanning side gig to stay just that- a side hustle. When the first lockdown happened in March of 2020, her entire department was first furloughed. She used the time to launch a mobile tanning business; something she thought would be just for fun—something she could do on the side once the world reopened. A week later, she got the call that her longtime, dream position, wasn’t coming back.