March 2018 - The Brick Magazine

Youth Entrepreneurship

Sarah Whitsett2018-03-27T19:40:00+00:00March 8th, 2018|Ann Arbor Interest, Career|

by Debra Power Becoming an entrepreneur can be a challenge at any stage of life, but two local young women can serve as an inspiration to anyone who has thought about striking out on their own.Naja Prince and Abi Middaugh are dynamic 14-year-olds who have their own businesses and recently signed on to mentor other young entrepreneurs for the Running Start program. Running Start offers workshops for middle and high school-aged youth to get the skills they need to become entrepreneurs. During the workshops, Abi and Naja will share their experiences and challenges to help their peers. I sat down with both of these young women to hear more about [...]

Work Life Sustainability

Sarah Whitsett2018-03-27T19:40:09+00:00March 8th, 2018|Ann Arbor Interest, Career, Inspirational|

It has to work for you before it can work for anyone else with Marie Klopf of the Ann Arbor Arts Center by Kristen Domingue When we interviewed Marie Klopf of the Ann Arbor Art Center, we were pleasantly surprised to find a woman who solved the “work-life balance” dilemma. Her solution? Forget balance; think sustainability. Read on to find out how she built both a sustainable life and a sustainable nonprofit, the trial-and-error process of navigating ambition, motherhood, marriage, and the lessons she learned along the way. ___ When I started at the Ann Arbor Art Center, I was humbled by how much I didn’t know and how much I [...]

Letter from the Publisher, March 2018

Sarah Whitsett2018-03-27T19:40:29+00:00March 8th, 2018|Inspirational|

I love interviewing people. One of the personal reasons I started this magazine is that I started to feel disillusioned by “how I created my success” stories. Often we hear stories of break-out success, but when we look to see what happened, how that person created their win, the substance is missing. Instead, we get an airbrushed, overly-polished veneer of a story. And these are just the “good” ones, the ones that aren’t laced with marketing. That’s not what I wanted for the interviews at The Brick. Instead, when I’m interviewing people for you, I have three questions in mind: What is the truth? What makes her tick? What are the [...]

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage, Then Comes Baby…

Sarah Whitsett2018-03-27T19:40:38+00:00March 8th, 2018|Parenting, Relationships|

by Randi Rubenstein Seventeen years ago I turned to my husband and declared, “We are either hiring a marriage counselor or taking a parenting class.” My sweet husband of four years looked at me like I was crazy at the time. Now I think even he would admit that it was one of the defining moments of our life together. To back up a sec: you see, our lives had been on autopilot, and I’m not really an autopilot sort of gal. We dated for two years, and then he popped the big question. Typically, the next traditional step would have been engagement and then a joyous wedding a year [...]

Focus on Rising, Not Perfection

Sarah Whitsett2018-03-27T19:40:47+00:00March 6th, 2018|Ann Arbor Interest, Career, Inspirational|

by Millie Chu I was an immigrant child who arrived in America with interested eyes and a candid heart. I am the daughter of a seamstress who worked in a sweatshop and a father who was a taxicab driver. He held a second job as a cook where he offered to work for free to gain experience while he was attending culinary art school. My parents and I immigrated to the United States from China when I was four years old. They did not have much more than the clothes on their backs, a few dollars in their pockets, and with three small children living in the slums of New York City. We moved to Michigan when I was eight years old, and by the time I was eleven, my mother and father had worked so [...]