Anna K
Certified Coach, Model & Mentor
Hi there, I am Anna K! I have worked a successful career as a model and am now an ACC/ CPCC certified coach. I coach and mentor models and creatives like us. I have walked in your shoes- wherever you are in your career.
I had just got offered a place at uni for architecture, when I won a modelling competition that summer, to go to Paris. It was the start of a 30 year career as a model and a challenging, rewarding journey of many ups and downs. I wish I had had a mentor and coach throughout my life, to avoid the pit falls of a challenging career but also to help me achieve my best, professionally as well as personally. It is an intense and competitive profession, where you start young, have little education, information nor much understanding of just how important your mind set is. As a model, you are effectively your own CEO.
I had an incredible career but know now, just how much more potential I had, if I had spent just a little time on my ‘internal world’. It was never the most beautiful looking, that succeeded. It was those with a healthy mind. And few, naturally come with that. With ‘success’, I mean personal, as well as professional. Mentoring/ coaching speeds that process exponentially.
How did you hear about Mentoring Young Creatives?
I am an “Expert” for the Be Well Collective so am excited to be part of this valuable mentoring programme for models.
Why do you want to be a Mentor on the Mentoring Young Creatives programme?
I want to facilitate models, like me, to achieve their full potential, in a challenging but truly exciting career.
What past experiences do you have which you believe will help you to mentor a young person in the creative industries?
I have had 30 years in the business as a model and still model now. I am a certified coach.
What do you hope to achieve from the Mentoring Young Creatives programme?
I love watching people grow. It’s a beautiful journey, enabling people to expand beyond their imagination, to facilitate their success. I am just a part of a bigger whole. To give back and share my experience, is the biggest pleasure and honor.
What are you most excited about in starting the Mentoring Young Creatives programme?
To watch the change. To see the caterpillar become a butterfly.
“I have tried and tested more diets and exercise plans, than I care to mention, just to realise the only one that truly works, is self love”
How do you think your career and health would have been affected had you had the opportunity to be mentored early in your career?
I struggled with ‘being seen’, all of my career. As a model, the irony, is not lost on me. It consumed a lot of energy, to ‘stay hidden’ (Imposter Syndrome). This caused low self esteem, apart from behind the camera or on the catwalk. There, I could almost always, just be me. I held my power. I have tried and tested more diets and exercise plans than I care to mention, just to realise the only one that truly works, is self love. I have been rejected, shamed, felt like a fraud, ‘not enough’, harassed, had too much success, too little success, been too thin, too big, too short too tall. It’s a lot to cope with for a young mind and a lot to ‘hold’. It would have been a release, to share all of that with someone, who did not judge and who accepted me, as I was. To help me learn and understand how to take all that ‘holding’ energy wasted and pour it into my life.
What is the best piece of advice that you have been given by a mentor/colleague/friend?
Learn to love yourself, only then, will you conquer the world. In all aspects, whatever profession you choose.
Read more about Anna K in her Vogue featured article or head to her instagram account here.