Living Your Truth, Day by Day

By Jackelyn Gill
“Live your truth” sounds simple.

Until you try to do it.

Because it’s not one decision. It’s a series of them. Small moments where you choose what matters, what you believe, and how you show up, even when it’s uncomfortable.

When we asked our Top 100 winners what living their truth looks like in practice, their answers weren’t abstract.

They were grounded. Personal. Sometimes hard-earned.

Here’s what they shared.

Purpose Isn’t a Statement. It’s a Practice.

By DESIRÉE BOMBENON
For ten years, I ran my company with a focus on something that, at the time, wasn’t always easy to define. I wanted the business to be a force for doing good. Not just in what we produced or delivered, but in how people experienced the work itself.

Be Bold: Finding My Voice Around the Table

BY KRISTI PESHAL HONEY
The first time I sat at a boardroom table, I did not say a word.

The conversation moved quickly. Seasoned executives traded acronyms like currency, referencing strategies and frameworks I only half understood. I nodded when others nodded. I had worked hard to earn that seat, but in that moment, I felt small. I told myself I was learning. In truth, I was hiding.

What I did not know then was that boldness is not always loud. Sometimes it begins in silence. In the gathering of courage. In the pause before the leap. Be Bold is not a single act. It is a practice you return to, especially when it would be easier not to.

A few years later, I found myself at another table. Again, I was the only woman. The only public sector voice. The youngest person in the room. The discussion centered on a major project that had started to drift. The slides were polished. The numbers looked reassuring. But something did not sit right.

No one was asking the hard questions.
Where was the risk register?
What were the mitigation plans?
Why was the burn rate not being discussed?

I hesitated. That familiar voice crept in. Do not push too hard. You are the only one asking.

But this time, boldness spoke louder.

I leaned forward and asked anyway.

Build the Table, Then Rise
What Rising Boldly Really Looks Like in Healthcare

BY DR. NARDINE NAKHLA
In healthcare, bold ideas are not the problem.

We talk constantly about innovation, access, scope of practice, and transformation. The science is there. The training is there. The urgency is obvious. And yet, progress often stalls somewhere between policy and practice.

Rising boldly in healthcare isn’t about vision alone. It’s about execution. About building the systems that allow good intentions to actually show up in patient care.

Over the past eighteen years, my work has lived in that gap. Here’s what I’ve learned about what bold leadership really requires when lives, trust, and outcomes are on the line.

The $100,000 Painting Starts With Believing You’re Worth It

BY JACKELYN GILL
It takes only a second to lose yourself when you walk into Patricia Gagic’s studio.

One work calls to you. Something abstract, contemporary. You’re drawn to the collision of color, shape, and texture. Light and dark. You stand there just long enough to tease out layers of meaning before you notice the piece beside it. And the one beside that. On and on until you’ve lost track of time and your place in the room.

This is the work of a Gold Medal winner at the Salon National des Beaux-Arts at the Carrousel du Louvre. Of a Dame of the Order of St. George. An artist whose own master has named her “Maestro.”

“And if I didn’t have my husband’s income, I’d be penniless,” she says.