We asked some of the city’s most brilliant and creative minds to tell us about the most difficult decision they’ve had to make.

Gianluca Piovani | Creative Director & Producer

Probably moving from Italy to LA. I knew I wanted be a filmmaker since I was 16—I would spend all my free time after school renting DVDs from my local library and making videos with my friends using an old camera my parents gave me. Read more>>

Paige Welch | Entrepreneur & Artist

The most difficult decision I have ever had to make was ironically not too long ago. I decided earlier this year to close down our warehouse operation and go a different direction with my business. My name is Paige, and I own a vegan, gluten free, and raw cake company called Empowered Plant Cakes located in Virginia Beach, VA. As a single mom with not much money to invest in my start up, I began my business in 2018 out of my home kitchen. The goal of the company was to provide vegan and gluten free, frozen desserts to restaurants and local businesses.  Read more>>

Egor Karpovtsev | Hockey Player

One of the most difficult decisions I”ve made was moving to USA from Russia because of the War. It was hard to get used to time difference and language but now I’m used to it. It was also uncomfortable for me to leave other family members like grandpa or grandma because I love them a lot. Read more>>

Phung Tran | Associate VFX Artist @ ArenaNet

One of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make was whether or not to go back to school. During the time that covid hit, I was already struggling to find a creative job and ending up laid off because of Covid. It was then that I was speaking with the school counselor at Gnomon and had to make the decision on whether or not I wanted to make the full commitment to taking out student loans again and applying for Gnomon. I had just paid off my student loans from before and didnt want to go through that again, and didnt have the money to afford school, so this was definitely a turning point in my life where this one decision would change everything. I was either to find a more secure, but dead end job elsewhere and remain debt free, or risk everything and go back to school. Read more>>

Naani Rose | Actor

The most difficult decision I ever had to make, was leaving my hometown and moving 700+ miles away, to be in Atlanta and give my acting career a real chance to thrive! It’s hard to be so far away from my family and everything I know. Read more>>