We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aaren Margolis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Aaren, appreciate you joining us today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

Weirdly enough, the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me is reject me. I know, it sounds crazy!

I was about 43 at the time and had been going through a rough patch. My partner of 8 years had left me for a member of a Blink-182 cover band and my brilliant book series idea about a young boy who goes to school to become a wizard had been stolen by a miserable British woman. I really hit rock bottom.

Rent was due and I decided that it was time to either join the circus or start stealing catalytic converters again. Thankfully Cirque du Soleil was holding open auditions that week. I made it past 3 rounds of interviews before I got to meet with the ringleader and he immediately clocked that my heart was just not in it. I was half way through my act when he stopped me, looked me dead in the eye and said, “Not you.”

I was heartbroken, but he assured me and told me that no matter how good of a performer I was; if I didn’t care about what I was doing, the audience would be able to tell.

After consoling me, he asked me about what I was passionate about and I told him that I really liked eating weird things and inspiring people to make financially risky decisions. With a smile he patted me on the back and told me that I already knew my true calling.

He inspired me to chase my true passion to become a food influencer, and now corporations send me tons of money to review products that sometimes taste like shoe polish. Hey, it’s a living!

Aaren, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

First and foremost I’m a food influencer. There’s nothing I love more than trying new foods or being sent questionable food by a major corporation to wave in front of a camera. It’s a total blast and it pays super well.

When I’m not a food influencer, I’m a life coach. I’ve helped a lot of my friends build their brands by creating content and generating value that they can then use to monetize across social channels.

I’d say I’m mostly proud of the work that I did popularizing gelato in the US. I was a part of a program of about 50 food influencers who worked with a few large food conglomerates to replace failing ice cream and frozen yogurt businesses with gelato shops that also doubled as a red flag for neighborhood gentrification. I was one of 50, but the work we did impacted hundreds of communities.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

About a year into making food influencer content, I got in a massive fight with a rival account who would do oatmeal mukbangs. I had lightly cyberbullied him for a few years and I guess everything boiled over. He ended up cornering me at a Marathon gas station and he and I got into a physical altercation that ended with him on the ground and me gloating over him.

Thankfully I was mid-filming a review of Pepsico’s new Mtn Dew Infinite Swirl, which happens to be at local convenience stores across the continental United States; so I got it all on camera and uploaded the raw video to Youtube.

From then on I was known in the food influencer community as someone who would review any food and fight any person. It really helped my brand.

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

Oh man, yeah. I think the most influential book I ever read was William Golding’s 1954 classic, Lord of the Flies.

I read it for the first time on my second Senior year in High School and it made a profound impact on me. Deep down, it’s a story about friendship and valuing the few summers in your life that you spend as a kid. I think the relationships that the kids build with each other across the book and the fun adventures they go on like hunting the beast and wearing those goofy masks stick with me every day. In a way, the real “Lord of the Flies” were the friends they all made on that island.

Contact Info:

• Twitter: @Aaron_Margolin
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/SMOSH