Five Entrepreneurial Lessons I Learned from Binging America’s Next Top Model

And no, getting off the couch wasn’t one of them

Did you know there are 24 seasons of America’s Next Top Model?! I watched seven of them for free before Amazon cut me off and was like, “You need to get on with your life. We’re going to start charging you for the more recent seasons.” Technically, I could have watched from Cycle 1 through Cycle 14 for free, but I couldn’t take another fourteen episodes of anything shot before 2008. Okay, let me back up.

I got hooked on the show again through the two seasons currently available on Netflix, Cycles 19 and 20. A year into the pandemic and I am at that level where I desperately need more drama, beauty, and fierceness in my life, plus I’d already watched down My List (which included Virgin River, Tiny Pretty Things, and DeafU. No, I didn’t watch Bridgerton.) I’m two months in to starting my own business and already tired. Of course, I’m also a middle-school teacher fatigued from Zoom, and a social media manager for a lean, yet international, company in my hometown. Oh yeah, I decided to write a book this year too and try out Medium. Soooo…yeah, the couch was calling. Tyra was too.

America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) was on cable when I was in high school, and the host of the show, Tyra Banks, has had an intensity that has always been appealing to me. She is beautiful, odd, and knows how to *work it*, guurrl!! Her smize (smiling with your eyes) lured me back in this year, right when I needed someone to encourage me. I felt her hazel eyes burning into my own bloodshot brown ones, rooting for me to keep working towards my calling on the daily.

Once I finished Cycles 19 and 20, I was so ready for more. I was also totally clueless as to how many seasons there were as well as the fairly profound lessons I’d learn from watching as many seasons as I did. When I found them all on Amazon, I thought it would be fun to jump all the way back to Cycle 1 and see how things started. Ohhh, lawd, I’m so glad I did. But, it was painful. Let me tell you about it so you don’t have to watch it.

ANTM Entrepreneurial Lesson 1: Even Tyra Banks started small

A funky hotel room. Lumpy blue velvet curtains. Drop cloths bunching up in the corners. This is what Cycle 1’s “grand panel” elimination room looked like. In later seasons, they meet on a crisp and clean set, glowing with spotlights, a sky-high ceiling, 20-foot runway, and a screen the size of the wall that projects the high-def photos of each contestant for judging. But in Cycle 1? Oof. A wobbly 36-inch flat screen on a jankity table drowning in drapery. Drek-a-tude to the max.

Yet as I cringed with the girls through each elimination round of that first season (though for much different reasons than theirs), I couldn’t help but think: wow, even Tyra had to start somewhere. She had the vision for this show, and look how it began: in some cramped and poorly lit corner of a hotel room with a handful of people who agreed to pioneer this journey with her. Sure, she probably envisioned a majestically luxurious set like what appeared in later seasons, but with what she had in 2002–2003, she made it work.

Here I am, upstairs with my desktop and not much else. This my beginning. I don’t have horrible curtains (thankfully), but I have a non-aesthetic space heater at my feet and piles of papers on my desk. At some point in her journey, even Tyra started with what I have, maybe even less. It might be drab hotel rooms for the first season (so to speak)…

…but keeping my eye on the vision, investing and adjusting as I go, helps me get to the brilliant and ever-growing end game.

ANTM Entrepreneurial Lesson 2: Know your why

In Cycle 12, the 10-second clip that I watched once and then skipped through the rest of the time to get to the judging started off by saying, “Once there lived a supermodel, who wanted to guide future girls. So she broke out the rules to owning your inner fierceness…” Even though it’s corny, it’s a completely transparent why for the show. Tyra, supermodel extraordinaire, wants to give other young women a chance at greatness by coaching them and offering a foot in the back door of what is otherwise a tightly sealed industry.

As an entrepreneur, if you don’t know your why, it’s going to be nearly impossible. I’m just starting out on my own solopreneur journey and aside from reading this piece of advice in nearly every “how to start your business” morsel of content I’ve consumed, I am learning exactly how important knowing your why is. It’s what gives me the extra 20 minutes to get things done when I’m tired, or the boost of courage to reach out to someone I should really connect with. You don’t have to be a supermodel like Tyra to share your why, but she does do a super job modeling how to be transparent about her mission, and living up to it.

ANTM Entrepreneurial Lesson 3: Work the light

In every season I’ve watched, there are aspiring models who still do not find the light, despite Tyra publicly broadcasting the lesson to millions of viewers in every cycles. At the critiques, there’s at least one comment about how the models are either working with or working against the light, and how when they find it, it’s magic.

In our entrepreneurial application of this lesson, finding the light might not actually mean turning towards a physical light bulb, but rather pivoting to what “lights” us up. And sometimes, following that passion can be uncomfortable. Nevertheless, as an entrepreneur, finding the light — what makes you shine — is your north star. When you stick yourself out there to do what you do best, people notice. When you do you, it gives other people permission for them to do them. And when everybody’s doing the things that harness and exemplify their own talents, it makes the world glitter with possibility.

And when you don’t find your light, you are left forgotten among the shadows. (I channeled Tyra for that one.)

ANTM Entrepreneurial Lesson 4: Own your body, and find your angles

Like learning how to find your light, knowing what your body does in it is equally important. For models, it’s all about mastering the muscles in their faces (as Tyra painstakingly explains time and time again. Seriously, they shouldn’t allow people into the second round of auditions if they don’t have some of the basic Tyra teachings down, but I’m just a quarantine-crazed commentator, not a casting director.); it’s about mastering the angles of elbows and kneecaps and finding the balance between awkwardness and grace.

For me, I think the lesson here is less about how my right calf looks when I pose in my bedroom mirror, modeling my new “business pants,” and more about the way I carry myself and seek opportunities. Finding my angle might mean making an awesome contact through Instagram who will champion my mission and expose me to new clients, or maybe it means clarifying my company’s content pillars and translating them clearly into everything I create.

Owning my being and finding what angles work for me as an entrepreneur means saying yes to opportunities that will get me closer to where I want to be, and no to things that won’t.

ANTM Entrepreneurial Lesson 5: Commit and don’t be afraid to look silly

Like owning your own angles and knowing what works for you, a confidence comes from committing to your actions. Probably the most painful scene I watched in all of the nearly 100 episodes that I binged was from Cycle 19, when Laura and Kristen have to dance in Jamaica. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Laura is a tall blonde and was a fairly confident model throughout the competition. She had been doing well in the challenges leading up to this one but had been on thin ice before too, so she really had to give it her all to stay in the competition that week. She was partnered with Kristen, a pretty but mean ponytailed girl who was afraid of looking foolish. They had to choreograph their own dance to some street beats and impress local judges on their ability to move and master the brief cultural lesson they were taught ahead of time.

I think you can see where this is going. Despite the effort from Laura who shook her bony booty like the competition depended on it (it did), Kristen merely shrugged stiffly from side to side, stopping before the music did and laughing when she was finished. Have you ever seen someone great who didn’t commit to what they were doing? NO!

Professionals give it their all, every time. It’s what makes them rise above amateurs. It’s what makes them win competitions. No one wows people with mediocrity.

Plus, some things you just can’t do halfway. Can you balance on your fingers and toes just by shrugging? Go ahead and try. It has to be a full bodied commitment to greatness. Tyra knows that when she smiles with every muscle of her face. You and I know that when we hustle, plan, and grind our way forward.

There are a few more bonus lessons I learned from the show that also apply to our lives as entrepreneurs too, like fake it till you make it, speak up when you’re meeting people and selling yourself, and creating your dream life is all about making consistent choices that align with your vision. But the biggest one I took away from watching seven seasons was this:

BONUS: You won’t do it alone

Tyra is quick to credit her mom and dad for supporting her early career. This show, even from its raggity-glam beginnings with gauche blue curtains and scuffed up drop cloths, had a host of people sitting at Tyra’s side, not to mention the crew behind the camera. Nigel Barker, noted fashion photographer; Miss J, runway coach extraordinaire; and Mr. Jay, creative director, stood by the show for 17 seasons. Those types of people, the creative compassionates, are the kind you want with you. You won’t get as far without them.

To be honest, I’m a little bit afraid of this step, but I’ll get there. I’ll share this vision with a team one day, but right now, I’m still in the lobby, walking up the fire escape stairs towards the funky penthouse I can only hope to decorate with cheap curtains.

So, while I work out how to game the streaming systems to watch seasons 15–18, I’ll rest for a moment with what Tyra’s taught me so far: Get good people on your team. Start your big dream small, know your why, and own every second.

These five entrepreneurial lessons from America’s Next Top Model will help us rise in a world of clambering startups, to truly be on top.