Katharina Mazepa on Overcoming Industry Barriers, Building a Global Social Media Presence, and Chasing Relentless Ambition

At times it feels like wellness or elevating one’s well-being, is diametrically opposed to high achievement and high performance in one’s career. The stress, mental energy, long hours, lack of restful sleep and preoccupation that result from a high-achievement life seem to directly inhibit wellness. And yet, in order to sustain the creativity, flexibility, mental acuity and resilience that are necessary for high performance, wellness and wellbeing of the mind, body and soul are also mandatory. So how do we achieve both? This is the question I’m hoping to answer through conversations with high-achieving leaders and influencers who are practicing their own philosophies about how to maintain their wellbeing.

As a part of our series about “Social Media Influencers Share Their Top Self Care, Wellness, and Beauty Tips, I had the pleasure of interviewing Katharina Mazepa.

Katharina Mazepa is an Austrian Influencer, Fashion Model, Actress and Miss Vienna. On Instagram, she has an impressive following of over 1.6 million followers. Over the course of her career, she has appeared in campaigns for Guess, La Perla, Vera Wang, Beach Bunny and Forever 21. She has also appeared in publications including Elle, Harpers Bazaar and Maxim.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory of how you came upon this career path and to where you are today?

I started modeling when I was 16 — I was in high school back then and since I have always had a passion for art, fashion and traveling, I pursued modeling after school to gain some financial independence and see the world. 2 years into modeling, I was crowned Miss Vienna and, while in university at that point, started to pursue modeling on a larger and more international scale. I started living in different places for a few months at a time working for modeling agencies, such as Milan, Singapore, South Africa, Munich, Barcelona; some of my favorite clients to work with besides Guess have been Vera Wang, Forever 21, La Perla, and Kérastase; however, my biggest aspiration has always been to eventually make it to the United States to pursue acting and modeling here.
A year and a half ago I immigrated to the United States of America, currently calling Miami home, but traveling to LA and NYC for work constantly. Leaving your family, all your friends and what you have built behind to start from 0 in a new place can be scary and at times was tough and lonely, but what I feared far more was the thought of one day regretting not giving 100% when I could in order to stay in my comfort zone.

I started to step up my presence on social media as the pandemic hit. No runway jobs, photoshoots or commercials during the lockdown had me going from being booked out entirely to not knowing where my next paycheck will come from pretty much overnight. Deciding to put a bigger focus on social media during that time, I began dedicatedly posting and connecting with my followers every day and soon it started to really take off; before the pandemic, I was at around 40k followers total and now, a year and a half later, my presence has grown to 2M followers throughout all my social media channels, with the majority of my following being on Instagram. With my follower count rising, I managed to make money and get brand deals through my Instagram. Now that traditional modeling is back it has been a huge help to book some of the most high-level jobs in the industry in a country that is new to me, eventually leading me to be on billboards worldwide as a Guess Girl, strutting the runway for Forever 21, booking my first big gig as an actress on American television for ‘The Hills: New Beginnings’ and being featured in Elle Magazine, Harpers Bazaar and Maxim Magazine.

Aside from taking my career to the next level, having a big social media following has given me the platform to bring awareness to topics that matter greatly to me. Before social media, I would volunteer for various animal rights and environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, 4 Paws International or Peta; now I love supporting these organizations on social media as well, partnering up with them.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

When I first started modeling, I did not really believe my chances for a proper modeling career were too high; because neither did I grow up wealthy nor did I have any connections in the industry when I started and my family was against me modeling for the first few years, hoping I would be pursuing a more stable and safe career path. It was not the most advantageous starting point to set foot in this industry, however, a person who believed in me from the start was my grandmother. Knowing that she will be proud of me no matter what career path I opted for and how it will turn out made me feel empowered and supported.

Apart from that, a friend of mine inspired me deeply when I watched him pursue his dreams so very relentlessly and with intentions so pure; this was right around the time I was questioning whether it would be realistic to commit to modeling full-time. His ambitions were in music and his talent clearly undeniable; he started his career from an even less beneficial point than me, given the circumstances he grew up around, but he would keep going no matter how many “NO’s” he heard. His art became his escape in the most stressful of times and his voice in moments worthy of celebration. I once asked him how he managed to pursue his dreams so relentlessly even when all odds seemed against him and he told me “if you are lucky enough to have a dream, a passion that makes you feel alive and real in this world, you have to go and chase that dream without apology.” His words and his persistence in what he believed in moved me deeply. We never know how much time we have left in life, so the time to live your truth is now — it is something you will never ever regret.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

I learned early on that not all clients have the same sense of humor and that there is always a cultural and language barrier. To give a little context, it is a cliché that models will starve themselves to fit clothes and, in rare cases, it is rumored that some models will eat nothing but cotton balls soaked in orange juice to feel full while staying skinny.
So I was on set in Milan shooting for a fashion catalog; the high heels provided were a few numbers too big and therefore filled with cotton balls to make them fit my feet. Upon changing, a cotton ball fell out and I made a joke along the lines of “ah, finally we are getting to have some lunch”; the client apparently did not realize I was joking and gave my agency a very concerned phone call after the shoot. I was eating Pizza when my agency filled me in on the misunderstanding later that evening.

As an influencer, you have been blessed with great success in a career path that many have attempted, but eventually gave up on. In fact perhaps most people who tried to follow a career path like yours did not succeed. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path but know that their dreams might be dashed?

Be prepared for many ‘No’s”, but never take them for an answer. Decide what you want and why you want it; visualize success often, hold on to your dream and when you are exhausted remind yourself why you started and how far you have come already. Also, find out for yourself how far you are willing to go and where to draw the line. Stick to it and stay true to your core values — compromising them or trying to take shortcuts won’t lead to sustainable success.

Can you share with our readers some of your strategies you’ve used to build an engaged, loyal, and large online community?

I truly believe consistency is key. Analyzing which kind of content your audience loves and why and connecting with them through your content is what will make the biggest difference over time. Listen to your audience and try to truly understand them; post things that are true to you and relevant to them at the same time; and always keep learning and reinventing yourself.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview. In my work, I focus on how one can thrive and care for oneself in three areas: body, mind, and heart. You are a busy person with a demanding schedule, can you share with our readers two self care routines, practices or treatments that help your body thrive? (Kindly share a story or an example for each.)

With your body, mind and soul — strive to be better than how you were yesterday, every single day. That being said, the only person you should be comparing yourself to is the past you. This is especially relevant in today’s highly filtered online world. Don’t fall into the trap of comparing your ‘real’ to someone else’s reel on social media.

Our body and soul are always connected, so to achieve true health and happiness, it is imperative to balance taking care of those 2. For instance, I love pushing myself to my physical limits when I work out, but right afterward I will do breathwork and meditate to recharge.

Can you share with us two routines that you use to help your mind or heart to thrive? (Kindly share a story or example for each.)

I believe in the universe and the law of attraction — for many, many years I never go to sleep without thanking the universe for at least 3 beautiful things that happened that day. Even on the worst of my days, I can always think of at least a few things I am grateful for and I like to end my day focussing on that feeling of gratitude.

Apart from that, I love guided meditations and have a few quick and easy breathing exercises and visualization methods that I try to practice on a daily basis.

Can you share five ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)

• Pausing for a moment, taking a deep breath and counting your blessings.
• Reminding yourself of how much you mean to others. For sure there are many times when you improved someone's day and made them smile. Even the simplest of gestures like a smile or genuinely listening to a person can literally make their entire day — and thinking about making someone else feel that way is what will make you feel genuinely beautiful.
• Giving someone a hug. A real hug.
• Personally, I feel sexiest when wearing a nice set of lingerie, regardless of if someone gets to see it. I have always had a passion for beautifully designed lingerie. In my opinion, the female body is the purest form of art and wearing sexy, fine lingerie is how to do honor it.
• Empowering each other. A genuine compliment or doing something that helps someone without expecting anything in return or even just consciously refraining from gossiping will make you feel strong and empowered — and all the positivity kindness will come back your way, too.

Is there a particular resource, a practitioner, expert, book, or podcast that made a significant impact on you and helped you to thrive? Can you share a story about that with us?

The gratitude exercises that I practice every night, I have learned from my grandmother; I look up to her a lot, she taught me so many things, including finding joy in simplicity and reminding myself of how blessed we already are.

A person/coach that has changed the game for me when it comes to healing, visualization and breath work is my meditation coach Stephi Wald, who is based in Miami but will jump on a Skype call at any time in a heartbeat. Her breathwork sessions are one of the most effective, pure and deep forms of healing I have ever experienced. Breath is such a powerful component when it comes to finding your inner balance, letting go of past trauma and setting goals for the future.

Do you have a story about the strangest, most bizarre or funniest wellness treatment that you’ve ever experienced?

With the global ‘wellness’ market making more than $1.5 trillion, there is without a doubt a lot of excessive and bizarre treatments out there. While I strongly believe in self-care and things that make you feel good on the inside and add to your health, I have always refrained from doing any invasive treatments and have always stayed 100% natural. Not everything needs a “quick fix” and I am proud to be advocating for women with all-natural physical traits. It’s about time we celebrate our ‘flaws’ instead of all striving to look the same.

As an influencer, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

If I was able to make one change to how people live their lives, it would be bringing awareness to the fact that every little effort we do, counts. When it comes to change, I think many of us become overwhelmed and intimidated by the idea of too much change at once. The reason most New Year’s resolutions fail is that it is too much change at once and not sustainable or realistic to integrate into their lifestyles. Even though I live mainly plant-based, I don’t think everyone needs to go strictly vegan overnight while also working out 8 times a week, meditating on the daily and switching coffee for matcha. If every person focusing on one little habit they will change in their lives — it can be as small as choosing cage-free eggs when grocery shopping or as big as volunteering for a charity organization on the regular or even just trying to say one intentional, nice thing to a person every day — the world will change drastically. Our strengths are so diverse and we can each do good in our own ways; if everyone reading this thinks of how they can realistically and sustainably make a change in their own world, we can make a big difference, together. Just do the best you can do, whenever you can do it.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you’d like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. :-)

Probably any “Bond girl” ever — to me these actresses and the roles they are playing in the James Bond movies are the epitome of sensuality. I love seeing strong, powerful women on the silver screens that are unapologetically beautiful; Monica Bellucci and Eva Green are some of my very favorites.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

I am very active on my Instagram @katharinamazepa — I post on there on a daily basis. https://www.instagram.com/katharinamazepa/?hl=en

The best way to truly connect with me and chat is through my OF website — I launched it in order to talk to my followers and share my very best content including workouts and behind the scenes from my shoots. I would love for you to sign up for free and say hello (: https://onlyfans.com/katharinamazepa

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!