Amy Bess Cook

Growing up in small-town Oregon, Alison Sokol Blosser didn’t know quite what she wanted to be when she grew up. She was clear, though, that she never wanted to work in the wine world.

As the crow flies, the distance between the Oakland suburb where Justin Michael Williams spent his childhood and his more recent Los Angeles home is not vast—but his journey has been epic.

Long before the outbreak of coronavirus, tens of millions of people worldwide suffered from sleep problems—ranging from insomnia to sleep apnea to night terrors—to the point that The Center for Disease Control officially declared sleep disorders an epidemic.

Transformation can be painful—but its rewards, immense. Just ask retired firefighter paramedic, executive coach, and iRest trainee John Christy.

As a military veteran, sexual assault survivor, cancer survivor, and mother of three who has completed more than 50 marathons and triathlons, Renee Champagne Davis is an undeniable force. It was reckoning with vulnerability, however, that sparked her awakening and now compels her to guide others toward their own awareness.

Growing up in the foster care system in inner-city Detroit, Antwinae fought severe depression and survived multiple suicide attempts. She struggled to get the help she needed. “In the Black community,” she says, “depression is considered an attitude problem.”

As many continue living under a shelter-in-place mandate, the risk of depression and anxiety runs high--particularly for folks in solo quarantine. One solution is journaling, which helps refocus the mind and radically enhance health and wellbeing.

Meditation works, even in small bursts. Weaving regular meditation into your life in digestible bites enables you to experience its transformative power.

In a world where health risks lie hidden, we are all vulnerable. While there is no cure for the coronavirus, immunity offers some protection and the opportunity to move through each day with greater confidence.

All of us are touched by pain. What is far less commonly understood is that pain actually changes. We each have the innate ability to work with pain so that it dramatically shifts—and according to science, yoga and meditation can help.

“Is there a Harvey Weinstein of wine?” When Karen MacNeil, the president of Karen MacNeil & Company in St. Helena, California, and the author of The Wine Bible, first posed this question on Twitter nearly two years ago, I expected more than a few nominations.

Some folks weren’t meant to fit into boxes—they were meant to break out of them. Over her 10-year career, Los Angeles-based cocktail pro Hope Ewing has quietly moved between roles, cultivating a broad multidisciplinary perspective that’s not only deepened her own work but let her elevate the work of colleagues.

I write daily offers for SommSelect, a daily curated list of wines from master sommelier Ian Cauble.

What does it take to make a new business successful? This question burns in any entrepreneur’s mind as she maps out a business plan and powers forth.

For a trade publication, I interviewed a cross-section of the wine industry's most influential female leaders.