We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Anastasia Popp a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Anastasia , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
In life you’ll face many risks, for myself personally, I’d say I’ve taken quite a few. I believe the 3 that really made me who I am today, would be starting at a young age when I decided to step away from Soccer and focus on my Cheerleading career. Although to many Cheerleading is just a silly sport, but to me it was my everything for twenty years. I played soccer for 12 years while also competing competitivity in cheerleading, it was very time consuming and strenuous on my body, but I loved it and my parents always supported me. When I decided to step away from it, I was heartbroken but I fell out of love with the sport and knew I wanted to focus on cheer because I wanted to be like my dad and become a coach. Because of this decision, it led me to winning one of the biggest championships at 12 years old, then leading to me to be a 2x World Champion at 19 & 20 years old. I also was able to become a coach from the age of 15 till I was 22. Those memories I will hold on for a lifetime.
Another risk that was for sure life changing was telling my parents I wanted to drop out of college and attend beauty school, yes, I was a beauty school drop out! From a young age I always struggled with school, but the one thing I always knew I loved was make up. I always watch YouTube and dreamed of being like all those beauty gurus. When I was 15 I started doing friends and clients make up for cheer competitions and dances. This was really got me locked in. After doing this for a few years, I was attending SDSU so I could become a cheerleading, I knew it being Covid, it was mentally going to be tough, so I took it upon myself to look into beauty schools. I was lucky enough to find one in Downtown San Diego. I got all details together and presented this information to my parents, and thankful they allowed me to pursue my passion. Because of this, I was able to open a small studio inside my dad’s gym and run a small business.
My final risk that shaped me into who I am would be moving to LA at 22 years old. If you would of told me I’d be living in LA, I’d probably laugh in your face, let alone at 22 with a boy, I’d say your absolutely insane! Growing up I was very very shy. I never liked to talk in front of crowds, I couldn’t even order my own food or Starbucks. I was what they’d call an “ugly duckling” during elementary and middle school. I really just liked to keep to myself and be at the cheer gym with my mom and dad. As I grew up I became more confident and began making new friends and growing in cheerleading as well. Overall, I never had big dreams such moving away or anything besides being a cheerleader and or coach. But things, change and now I live in LA, I’m currently a stylist but coming in January of 2025 I will be back in the beauty industry as I came going to revamp my small beauty studio here. I am very excited but as always risks are scary. But what’s a good life without a little bit of fear and fun.
Anastasia , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Beauty was always something I loved. I grew up a tomboy, who just loved to be outside with the boys and play with action figures. But at the age of 12, I had a change of heart. I found out about beauty videos on social media. This moment really changed my life. After school, I’d come home and get ready for cheer but while doing so I was constantly watching get ready with me videos on YouTube. I found make up so fascinating and I wanted to learn so bad. With learning the beauty ways, I got my unibrow waxed for the first time, with my mom. This was the moment I knew eyebrows were my thing. I loved doing my own, doing others, and this passion led me to becoming a certified brow tech at 19 years old. Aside of eyebrows, I grew into learning make up by doing my own any chance I could, but I never wore it out because I was so shy. So cheerleading was my outlet for my creativity. I began doing this beautiful eye looks, and that led me into doing my friends, and also gaining clients, which was truly amazing. I even made a beauty page on Instagram where I showcased my work, it’s even active to this day. From all this I attended cosmetology school, which led me to take extra courses for lash lifts and brow laminations. This was really what got me focused. I was able to convince my dad to let me open a small studio salon in his cheer gym, and work on clients from there, instead of traveling, because gas is expensive in California. This studio was my pride and joy, I had it for about a year but as any 19 year old, I wasn’t mature enough to keep it going and lost it. But here I am 23, I live in LA now and this coming January of 2025, I will revamping my brand and setting big goals for myself. Some of the services I will be doing are lash lifts, brow laminations. lash and brow tints, lash extensions, and so much more. I’m really excited and I hope I made 12 year old Anastasia proud!
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
I truly believe the most effective strategy for growing your clientele would be to post on all social media platforms strategically. This was probably one of the hardest things for me to learn, I mean I’m still learning how to do it to this day. In a generation, like today, majority of people you know use social media. I first started using social as my main networking source when I was 19. I made a Instagram page for all my beauty inquires. I started posting my own make up looks, videos of me doing make up on others, and eventually used as my way of booking clients. Instagram wasn’t my only source, I also used Tik Tok and Facebook … yes, I said Facebook. I figured, the more I shared with my followers the more people would possibly want me to do a service for them/on them. The key is to stay consistent, which was something I lacked as I got older, so my advice, which I am going to be using coming up here as well, is to stay consistent with your content As ,most do, when I was starting to post frequently I started to notice I was losing followers and I felt like I was annoying people with how much content I was producing. But in reality, it’s a form of business, so when you do start don’t feel like your aburdance to your followers or seem selfish, you are creating a foundation for yourself.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
Life is a lesson itself, but a lesson I recently encountered that I had to unlearn was that not everyone is going to support you, let alone stay with you through your journey. I know this seems kind of dark and harsh, but it’s reality. I say this because this was one of the hardest pills I had to swallow while finding my passion for beauty, modeling, and moving to LA in a whole. Let’s backtrack, when I was younger I knew I wanted to do “cool things” I always told my friends and some were nice and supportive, but the heavy majority of others, said it’d never happen or someone like me could never. It could of been something simple such as, “I’m going to set a goal to have this new tumbling pass next week”, after telling. I’d get the “yeah, I’m sure” or “that’s just nothing realistic for you”. The words hurt, of course, but I used it as motivation. Another story would be when I’d tell people I wanted to model. A bathing suit brand from LA had reached out to me, so I was excited and drove to LA. I did a few shoots with them and later showed my friends and got comments back as “why would they pick someone like you” yeah … that one definitely hurt more than others. But it’s okay because now 7 years later I live in LA and just created a real modeling portfolio. Now to end his sob story, here’s the one that really shaped me to who I am now. My boyfriend has lived in LA for almost two years now, 6 months ago we talked about me moving in with him, just to pursue careers and have a fresh start for my 20’s. When I told friends and some family, I was laughed. It was like I just told them I was running for President. I got the “you can’t move, you’ve never done anything but work for your dad” or “you know, moving to try and model isn’t a real job”. The main part of this is to NEVER let anyone rain on your parade. I learned that if I just kept doing as I pleased all things would work out for the best.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: stas_popp and getglamed_bystas
Image Credits
instagram: @anniedenten_