Throughout 2025, I found myself sitting across from several inspiring individuals.
I consider it a privilege to have met them and to have been trusted to tell their stories.
Here are four people whose stories inspired me in 2025. I hope they did — or will — inspire you, too.
Caroline Klein
In May, I sat with Caroline Klein, the chief communication officer for Smith Entertainment Group, in the kitchen nook of her Salt Lake City home.
There, Klein opened up about living with Stage 4 proximal-type epithelioid sarcoma. I had reached out to Klein five months prior to tell her story but she wasn’t yet ready to share it. But in May, she was finally ready.
Klein knew her life would be cut short due to her terminal cancer.
As a result, she was determined to live the remainder of whatever time she had left to the fullest, adopting the questions “Why not?” and “Why wait?” as her personal mottos.
Read Klein’s inspiring story here.
In August, following news of her death, I revisited Klein’s story and reflected on the impact she had on me and countless others.
When I left her home after our interview, I experienced what Ashley Smith, co-owner of the Utah Jazz and Utah Mammoth, would later tell me about Klein.
“Caroline has really made an effort to care about me and showcase things about me,” Smith said. “She really is great at showcasing whoever is surrounding her.”
I felt so uplifted and seen after just an hour of speaking with Caroline. I felt like she really cared about me, someone she barely knew.
Read my reflections on Klein here.
Roman Ruiz
Roman Ruiz was a heptathlete at Utah State University with Olympic aspirations. But a voluntary workout in March 2020 turned his life upside down when he went into cardiac arrest.
Ruiz was technically “dead” while a Good Samaritan and paramedics attempted to revive him for 35 minutes.
Over the last five and a half years, Ruiz and his family have labored tirelessly to rebuild his life. Through it all, Ruiz has leaned on his faith as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“If there’s anything I’d want people to know it’s that God has a plan,” Ruiz told me in his family’s Pasco, Washington, home in August. “Whatever happens in your life, that’s God’s plan for your life.”
Ashley Hatch
Ashley Hatch is an elite soccer player who knows what it’s like to be overlooked. She won an ESPY Award for being her league’s best player, but wasn’t even invited to the award show. She seemed destined to make the U.S. World Cup roster but was left off — an experience that left her “gutted.” She was benched midseason by the Spirit the following year. The devoutly religious Hatch has dreamed of being a mom but feared it would end her playing career.
Hatch, however, has persevered and built a prolific career by remaining true to herself. She re-cemented her role as a starter for the Washington Spirit, put herself back in national team contention and is finally fulfilling her dream of starting a family.
“It’s just kind of a cycle of life,” she said after practice in Leesburg, Virginia. “You go through something hard, you get through it, and then usually there’s another challenge around the corner. But usually it’s those challenges that make you a better person, teach you lessons, even if you don’t want to be taught.”
Alex Loera
When Alex Loera was traded to Utah Royals FC in December 2024, she was rehabbing an ACL injury, which she had suffered four games into the 2024 season.
Eight days after returning to the pitch from that devastating injury, Loera tore her ACL a second time — in the same knee — during training with the Royals.
Through it all, Loera has leaned on her Christian faith.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get answers for why this happens on this side of the Earth, but I don’t need them because I know that he knows all and I just lean into that,” Loera said in November at Zions Bank Training Center in Herriman, Utah.