Aaron Marcus, a modeling coach and author, drove over an hour to mentor a 15-year-old launching her own TV channel. He argues that entertainment professionals should deliberately help newcomers despite the industry's self-focused culture, and that sharing knowledge benefits everyone.
Hi, my name is Aaron Marcus, America's premier acting and commercial modeling career coach, the founder of HowToModel.com. I'm the author of How to Become a Successful Commercial Model, and I've been making my living as an actor and a commercial model for over 27 years. The acting and modeling industry is a very much me-oriented kind of job. I mean, it is about you. You're the person that's being photographed. You're the person that's on camera. You're the person that's doing the radio commercials. And sometimes it's very easy to only think about ourselves. And that's why I think it's really important sometimes to just kind of step back and just try to think about other people sometimes. And I ran into that situation very recently where there was a woman who was one of the producers of an independent film that I was involved with years and years and years and years ago. And she called me and she said, look, she's trying to help Kids break into the business. And one of the kids that she's working with is really interested in being on television as perhaps a newscaster, having a talk show. And so she's really— she's helping this 15-year-old girl set up an independent TV channel for her to get some experience and some exposure. And she said, look, would you please come out and let her interview you? And I thought, you know, that's a great— what a wonderful thing. Now, the only thing that was a little bit difficult is she's far. She's far from me. It took me about an hour and 20 minutes to drive out to her place. And— but, you know, I just thought, I think it would be really nice to Help this person out. So went out there and we did the interview, and it felt, it felt good too. I mean, this young girl was very appreciative, and it was nice to be able to give back and help others, you know, who are trying to break into the business. Because sometimes it is easy just to be so entrenched with what we are doing that, you know, sometimes When you do step back a little bit, you can see that for other people who are just trying to break into the industry, it's hard. You know, there are a lot of questions. People need experience. People want help. So anyhow, I spent, you know, a good part of the day between traveling back and forth, doing the interview, talking with her, giving her some ideas, and it was really nice. So if you, if you do get a chance, please, you know, try to help other people, even if you have a limited amount of experience in the industry. There's still a lot of information that you can share. So anyhow, I just wanted to share that with you, and please share other information on my Facebook page, facebook.com/howtomodel. And if there are any things that you want to help explain to others, things that you have questions about that you would like to have answered, I'm always really good at checking out the page and trying to respond to people. And I'm building up a really nice community of people who are helping each other in the business. So anyhow, just go to facebook.com/howtomodel. And if you do have any other questions, you can always get to me at my website, howtomodel.com. So I'm Aaron Marcus, and I look forward to talking with you soon. Bye. Thank you, Aaron.
