The small town Port Macquarie girl was trying to find her niche in the city by designing and selling her jewellery when Fashion Week 2004 opened the golden door of opportunity.

It was to be the first of several significant "crossroad" moments for Samantha whose self-made empire is the result of hard work, risks and big decisions that have defined her creative life.

Drew Barrymore, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Pink were among celebrities that fell for the sparkle of the Samantha Wills brand.

When her jewellery was featured in Sex and the City, the young designer packed her bags and left for New York with an $80,000 debt and a mission to make her mark internationally.

By 26, Samantha had turned over her first $1 million.

Fifteen years later, she is now exploring who she is beyond the brand, closing the business and releasing her memoir Of Gold and Dust.

Samantha returned to her hometown on March 8 as a special guest of the Hastings Business Women's Network International Women's Day breakfast.

She said the process of writing her book forced her to return to those moments when she felt most vulnerable and unsure about her future, questioning whether she was the "real deal".

"It explores some of the greatest times in my life, but also some of the darkest," Samantha said.

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Throughout her journey, "home" has always been her safe place. She graduated from Port Macquarie High in 1999.

"Port Macquarie is in my DNA. It's a big part of my brand's story," she said.

"I used to think it was an obstacle for me when I was growing up, we felt like we were so far away. But from a branding sense, coming from a small town taught me the power of community.

"It's something I'm so truly proud of. Port Macquarie is in all our stories and has a very special place in my heart."

Samantha said she hopes she has broken down the unrealistic concept of "overnight success". It was 12 years before she felt like she had "made it".

"At 21 when I was starting out, my hands were bleeding, it was 4am in the morning, you're hand making jewellery at your dining room table and you look out into the street and you are the only light on.

"I was $80,000 in debt. I knew how to build a brand, but at 24, didn't know how to run a business.

"It was so damaging for me to sit there and read about other people's overnight success because that didn't reflect back to me what my reality was.

"I really took that overnight success narrative and thought, we need to bust this."

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Samantha said the crossroad for the business came when she realised Samantha Wills the person had more to explore and achieve beyond the brand.

And with that, the book closed on the jewellery empire and she picked up a pen instead.

"Having the opportunity to write the book allowed me the hindsight to go back and revisit this journey of two decades and see those pinpoint moments where the stars did align," she said.

"My idea of success for a lot of the time were these pinpoints ... I missed what was being presented around me because I was so focused on where we were going.

"I had this singular view of success and anything that fell outside of that for me was either a pass or fail.

"The whole purpose of this book is to show (life) is not a straight line. It's this crazy path that winds back around and you get to where you're going, but it's not a straight line."

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