Check Out Aj Tolentino’s Story
Today we’d like to introduce you to Aj Tolentino.
Aj, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m AJ – I was born in the Philippines and moved to South Jersey when I was a kid. Growing up, I was already into arts and aside from drawing – I took on dancing and rapping as a teenager watching youtube videos. At the time I had a camera and I like photographing myself doing cool freezes! When I got to college I started making music videos and creating rap songs. This is totally so far out from what I do now but I still keep it as part of my “art” and hobbies. In college, I went on to pursue Photography and took on internship in the Advertising, Fashion & Wedding space where I evolved even further into my craft. Now, I shoot campaign for brands, shoot fashion and shows and alot of couple engagement photography. I’m still trying to dive deeper into my other art form but for now the main focus is to scale my content creation business and personal brand.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has not been an easy journey getting to where I am today – It took alot of risks and detours in my life to get to this point. The biggest challenge really is to actually become the person that can get over hurdles and be the person that can take actions. It wasn’t easy shedding my old self to form a new one to be able to overcome all the obstacles I had in my way. One of the struggles in the beginning, were really the financials – investing on things, not enough work and I went through the “starving artist” phase but from there thats when I really took on the challenge of NOT BEING ONE. The rest were more of mental game and consistency in the game and i’m glad I stuck it through.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
You can catch me being a boss, content creator, pilates instructor different days of the week. lol. At the moment, I am focus on building my creative agency + proposal planning business and working on my personal brand. Aside from that, I teach pilates on the side to help create some sort of routine in my life since I have alot of flexibility – and running a small business requires consistency so in order for me not to burn out, I opened myself to more opportunities that can help me grow as a person and balancing that with my business.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Few of the books that changed my life: The Power Of Now, Untethered Soul, Atomic Habits and The Alchemist As for podcasts/youtube – I listen to Alex Hormozi, Gary Vaynerchuk and Chris Do as my current “online” mentor and many more but these 3 are my main ones. I also have books psychology like “never split the difference” , “investing 101” and branding books like “Story Brand”
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ajtolentino.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/ajtolentinonyc
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/airronjohntolentino.com
