Today we’d like to introduce you to Dani Dominguez.
Hi Dani, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My career has never followed a perfectly straight line, although for a long time I thought it was supposed to.
I remember being 17 and constantly being asked what I wanted to do with my life. I always thought that was such a huge question to ask someone who had barely experienced life yet. Apparently, I was onto something because I started college as a music education major and somehow ended up becoming a registered dietitian nutritionist.
I eventually earned my bachelor’s degree in nutritional sciences with a minor in biochemistry and my master’s degree in nutritional sciences. Even while I was in school, though, I was never doing just one thing.
I spent more than a decade working in a gym environment and, during part of that time, was also a Zumba instructor. I also became involved in sleep research, studying how sleep deprivation affects areas like eating behavior, metabolism, energy balance, and brain function. That work led to two peer-reviewed publications and opportunities to present research professionally.
Later, I became a university professor and taught at two universities. I loved taking something complicated and watching it finally click for a student. Looking back, teaching was probably an early clue that simply knowing the science was not enough for me. I wanted to help other people understand it.
Then my career took a turn that probably made very little sense on paper. I went into animal welfare.
I worked in animal shelters, including leadership roles focused on lifesaving efforts and helping decrease unnecessary euthanasia. That work changed me as a person. I sat across from people making incredibly painful decisions about animals they loved, sometimes because they had run out of resources or options. It taught me that you cannot judge someone based only on the last five minutes of their life without understanding everything that brought them to that moment.
Working in the shelter also started connecting nutrition and animal health in my mind. I would see animals come in with skin issues, digestive problems, weight concerns, poor coat quality, and other health challenges where I wondered how much better nutrition could potentially help. But in a shelter environment with limited time and resources, individualized nutrition was not always realistic.
I kept thinking about what happened after those animals went to their forever home.
Once they were adopted and living with families who wanted to give them the best life possible, could nutrition become another way to support their health?
Those thoughts stayed in the back of my mind for years, but I did not act on them until one life event changed the trajectory of my career.
Then Foxy, the dog, came into my life.
I met her through one of the shelters I was helping and initially brought her home as a foster after she had a complicated medical journey. That plan did not last very long. I learned she was my soul dog, and adopted her.
She was also my first pet as an adult who was completely my responsibility. I remember walking into a pet food store, staring at aisle after aisle of options, and feeling completely lost. I had a master’s degree in nutrition and still thought, “What am I supposed to feed this dog?”
That experience stayed with me. After becoming a dietitian, I pursued additional education in pet nutrition and later completed holistic pet health training under a veterinarian. It finally gave me a way to start connecting my nutrition background with the animal health world I had already spent years working in.
My career in the veterinary industry added another layer. I worked for a veterinary diagnostic laboratory company, where I worked with veterinary practices and learned much more about the diagnostic side of animal health, along with the relationship between veterinary teams, pet owners, and the companies supporting them.
At the end of 2024, I joined the Private Practice Fellowship through All Access Dietitians, where I deepened my skills in behavior change, motivation, and helping people turn nutrition knowledge into sustainable habits.
Then, at the end of 2025, I opened SunBright Wellness, my private practice.
Initially, my business focused primarily on human nutrition, but I started making room for pet nutrition too. Instead of continually asking myself which one I was supposed to choose, I started allowing those different parts of my background to coexist.
Media became another extension of something I had already loved for years: teaching.
Whether I was standing in front of a classroom or sitting across from a client, one of my favorite things had always been taking complicated science and making it understandable. Media gave me another classroom, just on a much bigger scale.
I began contributing expert commentary to journalists and reporters, appearing on podcasts and television, speaking at events, and working with brands. My expertise has now been featured in outlets including Oprah Daily, Forbes, Real Simple, Health, Martha Stewart, Better Homes & Gardens, Newsweek, and others, with a combined media reach of more than one billion.
Today, my work spans human nutrition, pet nutrition, media, speaking, education, and brand partnerships.
For a long time, I looked at my career and thought all of these different chapters meant I was scattered.
Now I see it differently.
Research taught me to respect evidence. Teaching taught me how to explain it. Fitness taught me that knowing what to do does not mean someone will actually do it. Animal welfare taught me empathy. The veterinary industry gave me another perspective on animal health and business. Coaching taught me how to help people turn knowledge into action. Media gave me a way to bring that education to a much larger audience. And entrepreneurship has taught me that I do not necessarily have to choose between all of those parts of myself.
I used to think I needed to find the one box I belonged in.
Now I am much more interested in building something big enough to hold all of them.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not.
I think one of the hardest parts of entrepreneurship for me has been accepting how little certainty there is. I would love to make a decision, have someone hand me a gold star, and say, “Yes, Dani. This is absolutely the correct business model. Proceed.”
I have had incredible mentors, coaches, and people help guide me along the way, and I am incredibly grateful for that. But I have also learned that even with great support, no one else can make every decision for you. At some point, you have to trust yourself enough to move.
I have created services and changed them. I have invested money into ideas without knowing exactly how they would turn out. I have watched other entrepreneurs build their businesses completely differently and wondered whether I should be doing what they were doing instead.
I have also had to confront my own perfectionism. I like to research. I like to understand my options. I like to feel confident before I move forward.
Entrepreneurship has taught me that sometimes done really is better than perfect.
I also remind myself often that you cannot steer a ship if it is not moving. Sometimes you have to make the best decision you can, get the ship moving, and then adjust your direction as you learn more.
In addition, I am learning that growth cannot always mean adding more. More clients, more offers, more content, more projects, more hours, more things on my calendar. I want to grow a successful business, but I also want to enjoy the life I am building alongside it.
Probably one of my biggest lessons has been realizing that changing direction does not mean the original direction was a failure. Something can be completely right for one season and not belong in the next.
I am getting much more comfortable with learning, adjusting, and moving forward without needing every decision to be permanent.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
SunBright Wellness is my private practice, and today my work spans human nutrition, pet nutrition, media, speaking, and brand partnerships.
On the human side, I work directly with clients as a registered dietitian nutritionist using medical nutrition therapy, but I am also very interested in the whole person behind the nutrition concerns.
I can talk with someone about protein, fiber, blood sugar, or whatever nutrition goal we are working toward, but I also want to know what is happening in the rest of their life. What is their relationship with food like? How are they sleeping? What is their stress level like? What is happening in their environment that may influence food choices? What habits are actually realistic for their life? Are they trying to change ten things at once? Do they need more nutrition information, or do they need help figuring out how to consistently use what they already know?
My pet nutrition work focuses on helping pet parents answer one of the questions I struggled with myself: “What should I actually feed my pet?”
Depending on what each pet and family needs, I can evaluate what they are currently feeding and help them navigate the many food options available, whether that is kibble, canned, fresh, gently cooked, freeze-dried, air-dried, raw, or a combination. I can also help determine appropriate calories and treats, discuss supplements, and guide families who are interested in home-cooked nutrition. I also incorporate digestive health and other pieces of the pet’s overall wellness rather than looking only at the food label.
I additionally offer a holistic approach that incorporates Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine principles and food energetics for pet parents interested in looking at their animal through that lens. This includes looking beyond an individual symptom and considering other potential contributors to their overall wellness.
The common thread is helping pet parents feel less overwhelmed and more confident about what they are putting in their pet’s bowl. There is so much conflicting information in pet nutrition, and much of it is delivered through fear. I would rather help someone understand why a particular option may or may not work for their individual pet.
Media and speaking allow me to take that educational piece beyond one-on-one work. I love translating science into something people can understand and actually use, whether that happens during a consultation, in an article, on television, through a podcast, or in front of an audience.
I also love working with brands. I help brands communicate nutrition and wellness information in a way that is both credible and understandable to consumers. Depending on the partnership, that can include helping refine messaging, serving as an expert or spokesperson as a registered dietitian nutritionist and pet nutritionist, creating educational or on-camera content, contributing to media opportunities, speaking, webinars, or other deliverables that help bring the brand’s message to life.
I think what sets me apart is the combination of experiences I bring to all of that work. I have been the researcher, professor, fitness professional, animal welfare professional, veterinary industry professional, clinician, pet parent, and person standing in a pet food store completely confused by the very topic I would later specialize in.
What I am most proud of is that SunBright Wellness has been allowed to grow with me.
I do not know exactly what every part of the business will look like five years from now, and I am becoming more comfortable with that. I want to keep building a private practice that has room for the work I love now and enough flexibility to make space for the things I may love next.
How do you define success?
Since becoming an entrepreneur, my definition of success has changed a lot.
I used to think success was somewhere in the future.
You hit a certain income. You earn another credential. You build the business. You land the opportunity you have been waiting for. You reach the next milestone.
And then, theoretically, you arrive.
I do not really believe in arriving anymore.
I want to look back every year and know that I learned something. I want to continue getting better at my craft, developing new skills, exploring different perspectives, and staying curious about what else there is for me to learn.
And then I want to do it again the following year.
I also want the business I am building to support a life I genuinely enjoy. Of course, I want SunBright Wellness to be successful and financially sustainable, but I do not want success to be measured only by how much I can produce or how full I can make my calendar.
For me, part of success is having the freedom to work hard at something I care about and still have a life outside of it.
I want afternoons where I can take Foxy for a walk or spend entirely too long playing fetch with her. I want time to read a book because I am interested in it, not because it has anything to do with work. I want to pull out my drawing or painting supplies, start some random craft project, travel, and hopefully find my way back to Ireland again.
I want work to be an important part of my life without requiring it to become my entire life.
I also think success has to be allowed to look different in different seasons. There may be a season when I am building like crazy and another when I need to slow down, reassess, or learn something completely new. One does not necessarily mean I am more successful than the other.
More than anything, though, I want love to remain the foundation.
Love for people. Love for animals. Love for learning. Love for the work I get to do. Love for the people I get to serve. And love for the life I am building outside of my career.
Five or ten years from now, my business may look completely different than it does today. I actually hope parts of it do, because that will probably mean I kept growing.
If I am still learning, still becoming better at what I do, and still making decisions from a foundation of love, I think I am doing it right.
To me, success is not arriving. It is continuing to become.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sunbrightwellness.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sunbright.wellness/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SunBright.Wellness/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominguez-danielle/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@sunbright.wellness
