We recently connected with Michaela Vybohova and have shared our conversation below.

Michaela , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you as a business owner?

I always say that I was partially raised by Fashion industry, working as a model for years and still going strong thought me so many lessons, I’ll share some of my most important takeaways:

1. Don’t take it personal:
When I’m working as a model I catch criticism all the time and it’s directed directly towards me, my movement or body language you name it, I learned that in this scenario I’m just a salesperson selling a product and it’s not personal.
Building a business will require a piece of your heart, mind and sanity. From the jump it’s a free labor that never stops with hopes of catching a break, it requires a dreamer and partially insane person to sign up for that. Then when it’s finally out in a world and you catch criticism it can be soul crushing, but as the kids say “it’s not that deep” haha and you need it to take it surface level and don’t let it get to you.

2. Experience different cultures and learn to relate:
When I’m traveling for modeling gigs I’m very observant of every new place, local culture, small business and stores. There is a lot there to learn, no matter where you go. When you ask a local what are they lacking in town, what would make the city better and how is their day to day life, it will give you idea for a business on the spot or what to improve in your current offering, this is incredibly valuable.

3. Creativity skyrockets from collaboration:
Whenever you have a campaign idea, marketing idea and so forth always run it by a group of people and see their response, you don’t have to take their advice but different point of view is tremendously helpful, I’ve learned this from photoshoot set where at times for a single campaign photo there are 15 people involved in order to make the magic happen.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Slovakian born and raised and I immigrated to US when I was 18, I was already working as a model but my dream was to live in California, although that’s not where my work took me and I ended up in New York, I couldn’t have been more grateful. Since I was a little girl I loved fashion and looked up to designers like they were Marvel heroes, I faced my heroes when they hired me, I learned a lot from them about day to day brand operation and I started my own footwear venture and oh my it’s a wild ride but I do love it, we’ve had our ups and downs up until we plato-ed and survived pandemic, we’ve had slower times but we are still going.
Throughout uncertain times with my first business venture I invested into Wellness, I decided to takeover a failed granola start up, rebrand it, take it out debt and launch a brand new company, that’s how Model Munch protein bars were born.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Something I had to unlearn is having the need to always control everything and planning every single detail rather than being laser focused on the big picture. Controlling every little detail works against you, there’s an incredible quote by someone (don’t remember who) that stuck in my head: “Be stubborn on your vision but be very flexible on the details”. The reality is that there is many ways to get to 100.
There’s no exciting backstory but rather getting burned out several times by stressing over the smallest things when outcome was exactly the same.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Oh absolutely, I read a lot and audiobooks have changed the game for me, I have a puppy and one of my favorite things is listening to a book on a hike or a long walk and rewinding and recording my favorite parts. other than that having a candle lit bath after a busy day and reading my favorite book. Ok, so enough about my joy of books and here are some of my favorite recommendations:

48 Laws of Power by Robert Green – this is an absolute classic and a must reed the title is self explanatory
Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki – I love his writing, he takes a complex subject and makes it very simple and puts it in a story for an easy understanding, I finished this book in 3 days
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight – if you are into biographies, this was my personal favorite that I’ve ever read, Phil Knight is a founder of Nike and he has fascinating story, you can definitely find valuable takeaways in these pages
And the best for last is “The Winner stands alone” by Paolo Coelho – This is a fiction and I’m not an avid fiction reader unless it’s Paolo Ceolho, his writing is impeccable, thought provoking and it makes you think, one of my all time favorite quotes come from him. I read this book twice and might a third time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.michaelav.com www.modelmunch.com
• Instagram: @michaelav
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaela-vybohova-74b70b71