How Shari Hughson Is Helping Communities Heal
- Pathfinders For Good
- Apr 25
- 3 min read
A Nursing Student's Life-Changing Revelation
Shari Hughson stood in the hospital hallway, watching another patient receive treatment for a condition that could have been prevented. "I knew nursing wasn't going to be my career path," she recalls, "even though I'd just graduated." The healthcare system's focus on illness rather than prevention felt backward to her. She wanted to understand what true well-being meant—not just the absence of disease but something much deeper.
What happened next changed everything.
The Pattern Behind Personal Transformation
Growing up with severely mentally ill parents, Shari had made a conscious decision at 18: fear would not control her life the way it controlled theirs. "I am going to be well," she declared. "I do not want to end up thinking about the world the way they do." This wasn't just wishful thinking—she developed a systematic approach to growth that most people never discover.
Every January 1st, she set goals with a unique twist. Instead of just imagining success, she asked herself: "What do I have to sacrifice to get there? What hard work must I do?" At 25, this approach led to wild entrepreneurial success. Then spectacular failure. Then bankruptcy. Twice.
But each time, Shari discovered something remarkable: "The worst thing I had ever thought of happened, and I'm still okay."
Seven Years That Rewrote Everything
The breakthrough came during seven years living near a remote Indigenous community in northern Canada. Shari and her husband wanted to experience how their ancestors lived—starting as hunter-gatherers, then adding farming, then slowly incorporating modern innovations like solar power and internet.
"We realized every innovation was created for a very good reason," Shari explains. "The fertilizer industry emerged because of massive famines in the late 1800s. They solved that problem spectacularly." But each solution created unintended consequences—soil degradation, watershed issues, health problems.
The revelation hit her: "We don't need an environmental movement or a mental health movement. We need an innovation movement."
From Individual Success to Community Transformation
This insight transformed how Shari approached community wellbeing. Working with the Indigenous community, she helped create micro-enterprises that solved local social issues using entrepreneurial models. Families gained economic stability while serving their community's needs in circular, sustainable ways.
"We created people's ability to problem solve for themselves," she says. "Together, we can solve just about anything." The community's wellbeing improved not through outside intervention, but through their own innovative solutions.
This experience shaped Shari's current work amplifying social entrepreneurs and organizations doing meaningful work. Her approach remains the same: help people see they can figure it out, then provide the connections and knowledge to make it happen.
Your Innovation Pathway
For changemakers reading this, Shari's story offers both mirror and map. Her definition of wellbeing—"knowing I'm okay and that this too shall pass"—provides the foundation for sustainable impact. When you're grounded in that certainty, you can take the action that creates change.
Her advice echoes through decades of lived experience: "Take action. Take some action and it's amazing what next step comes. You sort of get sucked along with the next step and all of a sudden you're there."
Consider these reflection questions as you chart your own innovation pathway:
What fear is currently limiting your impact? Shari turned towards her fears rather than away from them, asking what she needed to sacrifice to achieve her goals.
How might your current challenges become innovation opportunities? Every systemic problem represents hundreds of potential solutions waiting for entrepreneurs to discover them.
What would change if you truly believed "together, we can solve just about anything"? The shift from individual struggle to community problem-solving often unlocks possibilities that seemed impossible alone.
Ready to explore more of Shari's insights?
The full conversation reveals her practical frameworks for goal-setting, her surprising discoveries about innovation from living off-grid, and specific strategies for turning wellbeing into sustainable community change.
Explore the full episode or audio summary using the links provided below.
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