Sophia Woodland

I would say it's what my dad and I would call a fire in the belly type of thing, almost like a grit determination factor. I always sort of felt that fire in the belly, and anytime I don't feel like I have the fire in the belly, I'm probably in the wrong spot. Having that mentality throughout growing up, in college, and then also in work too, it goes back to feeling very passionate about what I'm doing, but also feeling like I want to make an impact, slash can make an impact. I definitely think that that attitude has helped me just a lot in life in general. It's about having that passion that deep, that physical inspiration to get somewhere, and explore it and achieve it.

I honestly haven't received a lot of great career advice from others, but I have learned in my brief stint that you should just do what you want to do. I feel like a lot of times coming out of these bigger schools, sometimes it feels like there's only one right path, and at least for me, I always felt in the back of my brain that I was meant to be doing something else other than accounting, or just sitting in a corporate office. I honestly think that you should just go with your gut, and if there's something that you want to do, especially in your early 20s, there's no reason why you can't try and make a path to do it. The best advice that I've either heard online or started to embody myself is if you have an itch to do something, or even go somewhere, there's probably a good reason why it's on your mind, and why you have that itch. So, in my personal opinion, it's in your best interest to try and scratch that itch in any way that you can. If you have a calling to go somewhere or work in some field, if you have a desire to do something, it's probably on your heart or your mind for a reason, and you owe it to yourself to do it.

I would say just be ruthless about what you want and go after it. If there's something that's on your mind that you want to do, that you know in the back of your head you're meant to be doing that thing, just keep going after it, and keep going after it, and show up, and put in the work to build the skills. I truly think if you just show up in any capacity, no matter what, and you continue to build the muscle to get to where you need to go, you will get there, or you'll land somewhere better.

I would definitely say that with a startup or any sort of business in 2026, you have to be using social media to your advantage in order to build a business publicly. It's free advertising, it's free marketing, and especially because our target audience for ratings and getting people to use the platform is students and athletes who are either in high school, or in college, or kind of right out of college. I definitely think being able to build in public and have a social media presence that is able to connect to an audience is probably a challenge for a lot of businesses nowadays to adapt to the current media environment. I don't really think a lot of people are taking in media like they used to. We've had a blog for 10 years now, that's fantastic, but I know a lot of people my age aren't reading blogs. They're scrolling on TikTok and on Instagram for videos. As a consumer, I've seen so many businesses flourish being able to use social media properly and either advertise their products, or their company, or their storefront, and it really does make an impactful difference. That's definitely a huge thing that we're currently navigating right now.

In work, I would probably say doing something that you feel is impactful and you're passionate about is super important to me, because I've kind of seen both sides of the coin where I didn't feel passionate about what I was doing, and I wasn't really seeing the impact, slash feel like I was really helping anyone other than other corporations. I didn't know going out of college that was going to mean a lot to me. But now being in a role where I feel very connected to on a personal level, and feel like it's extremely impactful for other athletes who are young adults who are in the same position that I was not too long ago, to me, that matters so much because I feel like it is impactful work. So I would say feeling passionate about what I'm doing and feeling like there's a purpose and a meaning behind it.