Digital Social Hour - Becoming a Cover Model, Traveling the World & Best Filipino Food I Desiree Schlotz DSH #439

Episode Date: April 27, 2024

Desiree Schlotz comes to the show to talk about her journey to becoming a cover model, traveling the world & best Phillipino food APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/D2cLkWfJx46pDK1MA BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During that time, my social media wasn't... I had like maybe 30,000 followers. I was just kind of posting all the stuff that I was getting gifted. Trying to get like recognized by these Instagram brands. I actually got offered this brand deal from Ignite. I'm like, how can I say no to this? I have to say yes. Like six months after I was working with them, they offered me to go travel with them and kind of be like the face of the brand wherever you guys are watching this

show I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe it helps a lot with the algorithm it helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team truly means a lot thank you guys for supporting and here's the episode alright guys we're here with Desi Schlotz here today. Second podcast ever. Yes second one ever. Thanks for coming on it's an honor. Yes thanks for having me. I'm honored. What? Absolutely. First thing I noticed about you was your smile. Oh thank you so much. Whitest teeth I've ever seen I think. Yeah they're veneers so they're they're fake. Still counts. Yeah I got them done in Dubai. That was like the first thing that I wanted to do cosmetic wise when I started making money.

I was like, I need to get my teeth done. My teeth weren't that bad, but I was like, I wanted that Hollywood smile. I feel that. I had some cavities growing up, man. Me too. Yeah. There's that oil pulling thing that's not going. You do that?

Have you noticed like a difference? Oh yeah. My first five episodes, my teeth were yellow as f*** away. They're still decently yellow, but like definitely way better. Wow. I'm like, I don't know if I can do it with veneers. Cause I have composite veneers. So they're not, or sorry, ceramic. They're not porcelain. Oh, so they're not your real teeth?

Yeah. So I still have all my real teeth underneath. Yeah. They're not like shark teeth. Oh, so they didn't shave it. Thank God. I was like, I did not want that. And I didn't even know there was other options for like veneers. So that was the route that I decided to take. So if I have a tooth pop out, I still have my teeth underneath. Wait, I didn't know that. Cause I just assumed they shave it, but I didn't know there was other options. Yeah. They shaved like the first layer of my teeth. Um, when I went to get like moldings of them and then the second week i went back and then it took like an hour to get

done damn so quick cost me like four thousand dollars too that's not bad here in la it's like 50 grand for porcelain veneers which is insane like mine look better than a lot of the porcelain ones out there i think yadi paid 80 100k oh my god that's crazy yeah that's a lot on teeth what was the next procedure after that one oh um definitely filler i was getting a lot of botox and filler and yeah that's it nothing really else nothing crazy people been going hard on the botox lately i noticed yeah start while you're young honestly yeah yeah like truly like if you start when you're like 20 it's so preventative for wrinkles um because when wrinkles start forming you can't really get rid of the wrinkles that have already formed so the like earlier the earlier you

start the better because it just prevents wrinkles from happening wow and it also helps migraines like if you suffer from migraines, it freezes your nerves in there. So you don't have as bad migraines. Interesting. Yeah. What? Yeah. I never knew that. Yeah. Actually, somebody told me that when I was working at Bank of America, this lady came in, she was like, I just got my Botox today. I was like, oh, great. She was like this 65 year old lady. And I was like, that's amazing. And she was like, yeah, I suffer from migraines. It's not for like cosmetics. I was like, right. That is interesting. Working at Bank of America, that sounds like a whole different life than what you're living now. Oh my gosh. That was just like a different Desiree. Like that was just crazy. I started working at Bank of America when I was,

I think 19. Um, I had just graduated high school. No, sorry. This was my second year being out of high school. And I was going to community college. All my friends were going to universities. I literally had, like, the worst grades. So I couldn't get into any, like, university. Like, I could only get into community college.

And, like, school wasn't really my vibe. Like, I was more of a creative, I would say. Um, but yeah, so my parents ended up moving away. So I was living alone in Minnesota like when I was like 19 and I needed to find a full-time job, um, to pay for my bills. So that's where I got a job at. And I worked there for three years as a bank teller and I decided to quit all of that and drop out of school and move to LA to pursue modeling which just a very big decision and a decision my family was not that supportive of but here we are yeah I mean from their point of view they probably thought it was risky. Modeling is tough industry, right? You got to be at the top or pretty much no money in it.

Exactly. And coming to LA, I was like, okay, you know, I have experience in modeling. I started when I was 15. I had been with a few agencies and I was like, okay, I got this. You know, like I think I'm pretty well connected over there. Like I'd been traveling back and forth and just shooting with photographers, meeting people, getting connected. And then I moved over here and I was like, oh, this is a very rude awakening. I was like, this is not, not what I expected. It was very hard to make money. I even tried to apply to some bank jobs here in LA, but they would not take me even with the experience that I had. They were like, you need a bachelor's degree. To be a bank tell here in LA, but they would not take me even with the experience that I had.

They were like, you need a bachelor's degree. To be a bank teller? Yeah, to even be a bank teller. And maybe just because I was applying to some of like really big corporate bank places, but. It's still weird because you're just counting money and not doing anything crazy. Oh my God, I know. I had to do six months of training before they even put me on the floor. Wow. Yeah. And funny because like, I'm not, I wasn't really the best in school. Like my family all went to college. My brother is a personal math tutor. So he teaches math from grades like one all the way up to college. And I'm like, how am I the bank teller? I'm dealing with the money, but I can count.

So getting that first modeling gig, how long did that take when you moved to LA oh it took a while um so I moved to LA when I was like 20 turning 21 and then um like I was like freelancing for a while and then eventually after that I was like, okay, I need to actually make money and like get some sort of consistent income. So I put the whole modeling thing on holds for a little bit and then I got a job at Sephora. And I was working at Sephora as a freelance makeup artist. Sorry, just as a makeup artist. And then I did freelancing after that. And that's kind of how I got connected in the whole industry. I was meeting a lot of

people who walked through there. And then during that time, my social media wasn't, I had like maybe 30,000 followers. Um, and then I was just kind of posting all the stuff that I was getting gifted to just try and get like recognized by these Instagram brands like Fashion Nova, Tiger Mist, O'Polly. And from there, I actually got offered this brand deal from Ignite for, I think it was $3,000 a month to post like four times a month. And I was like, this is the most amount of money I have ever made. Like, this is crazy. I'm like, how could I say no to this? I have to say yes. This is, this will pay my rent and then some. Um, and yeah, so I did that for about six months. I was working on contract with Ignite and they, it was great.

Then they offered me travel like six months after I was working with them, they offered me to go travel with them and kind of be the face of the brand. Wow. Yeah. Shout out to Dan Bazarian. Shout out to Dan. Hooked it up. Shout out to Dan Dan.

How legendary were those Ignite parties? They were crazy. They were highlight of my young 20s. You finally got that experience because all your friends went to college, but you didn't get that experience. I was like, now I get to go and experience traveling the world but like with a billionaire so it was quite the experience there was a lot of drama like a lot of drama all the girls fighting for him yeah just fighting for him fighting for his attention and like who's gonna be the chosen

one who's getting voted off the island this week is kind of what it was like love island but in love island but with like dan yeah and he probably just doesn't even get it honestly no i mean he does but not so much about the girls i mean he does but not like you would think he's like this is my life you know you can come and hang out and have fun i don't need the drama if you cause drama you're out yeah or if or if you're ugly you're out that's what he would say he's done a total 180 he's like living in vegas now pretty much alone i think he's dating even yeah which is crazy which is weird yeah which is so weird i never thought he would be settling down never

yeah i mean he was known for just being damn Bizarre. Yeah. But you know, we all get older and we all get fed up at some point. What were your favorite spots to travel? I saw your Instagram. You've been to some beautiful spots. Oh yeah. I've traveled a lot. And thanks to Ignite, honestly, because that's really what ignited my traveling. I went to Iceland with Ignay. We went to Italy. Iceland was probably my favorite place. We also went to India. We went to Mumbai. That sounds insane.

That was crazy. Yeah, that was quite the experience. And when you're traveling with him, it's not like your normal traveling. There's paparazzi, people following, taking photos of you. Wow, even in other countries? And especially in India, it was crazy. So random. Yeah, we had to have like 20 security guards with us

at all times when we were in India. It's just the people there love him. Dude, I never would have guessed that with him. Yeah. Like I feel like his audience is all like white dudes, but shout out to India. Shout out to India. That's crazy. I actually want to go there. How was the food there? That's what I want to know. Okay. So, you know, I got really sick when I ate the food. I got sick immediately within

the first five days and we were staying at like one of the nicest hotels. Um, I'm not really a fan of Indian food in general, but maybe i just haven't had the right indian food i mean i went to india so i don't know i don't know maybe i'm just trying to give it dang that's disappointing to hear because i love indian where do you go for indian i live in vegas okay there's a couple spots there but i love all types of cuisines honestly yeah like food is in my top three because like the indian food we had is like the real authentic indian food compared to like london where they have really good indian food but it's i don't know if it's like real i mean it probably is but like chicken tikka masala that's what i get yeah yeah

that's number one favorite yeah that's what i heard about the chinese food out here it's like super americanized yeah i mean you would know right i've been to china yeah i was like 10 but't know. Food for me when I'm traveling, that's like the most important thing, honestly. Me too. I base my vacations off food. But I eat pretty gnarly. Cause I'm not Filipino. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, I'm like, but Indian food, I don't know. I'm not a fan of curry in general. So maybe that's why. That's like 80% of. Yeah. But I haven't really tried much else of their cuisine. So. What are some crazy things you've eaten? Oh, so I was just in the Philippines recently this last September or this past September.

And I brought my friend Jess with me and she doesn't really eat. She has a good palate, but she doesn't really go beyond her palate right um every morning my family would make us dried squid and dried fish and there was this dish called bagung i don't know if i'm pronouncing it right i think it's called bagung and it's sour mango with a shrimp paste they're like they're like pink little shrimps and it's like in a paste and you dip the mango in it. And I was eating that like every morning. It was so good. It's a very salty, savory kind of a hint of sweet because there's brown sugar in it. I would devour that. I love dried squid. You do? Oh my God. I don't think I've ever met anybody who likes dried squid. I tried to get

my boyfriend to try it once and he was just repulsed. No, it's fire. I go to the Asian markets and buy that shit in the bags. I literally was just eating it right before we came here. So good. I mean, I like all types of squid. Squid's one of my favorite actually, just in general. Me too.

Oh, look at that. Yeah, but Filipino food, I don't know if I've dabbled much with it, to be honest. I got to get more into it. Yeah, there's actually a Michelin star Filipino restaurant here in LA. I don't know the name. I have to search it up, but it has a Michelin star and I heard it's really, really good. So that's on my list of places to go. Interesting. Yeah. Your whole family's from there, right? Philippines? No, my dad's actually from Missouri. Oh, Missouri. He's white. He is mostly like German irish so i actually have some irish i need to yeah and my mom moved to the philippines when she or moved to america from the philippines when she was

20 and they met when she was like 22 so immediately after she moved here then my parents like got together what a mix yeah and then my brother's korean wait what so my dad just obviously had a thing for asians oh it's a stepbrother okay my half brother yeah yeah he was married previously before my mom so got it so my mom pretty much raised my brother though because uh his mom was out of the picture when he was like two so oh so he's pretty much your real brother yeah exactly yeah i got two hot brothers they're actually half filipino no way yeah oh and you've never had filipino food i think i don't remember if you name some dishes maybe a chicken adobo no i've heard of it but no that's like the classic wait is jollibee yes that's filipino okay i've had japeno i don't know if that counts but

that counts it's like fast food yeah i've had the lumpia rolls yes and the rice i think or something yeah yeah i'll dabble with it more i like trying new cuisines do you like soup or stews i love pho i love hot pot yeah then you'll like sinigang which is either a pork, fish, or beef-based stew. And it just has a lot of vegetables in it. And it has this sour kind of taste to it. It's really good. This is so funny. I didn't think we'd be talking about food on this.

I didn't either. But you seem like a foodie. I'm a huge foodie. Huge. Yeah. Do you have the app On The House? Yes. Dude, I love that app.

I love that app too. Saves me so much money. Fox Hall Steakhouse. Have you been there yet? No. Oh my God. I gotta try that out. It's really good. Yeah. That app has just elevated my life. That app is crazy. Like that's kind of where we're going. Yeah. With everything. 5k a week.

Are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest? We'll click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below. And here's the episode guys. I didn't use my balance for like four weeks in a row or I don't even know. Oh, it stacks. Yeah. I somehow like had a hundred thousand dollar balance when I opened it up once and I was like, is this real life? I didn't know it was stacked. Shortly after that, like the app like glitched or something and I got kicked off of it. And I was like, oh, well, I don't know if I did something wrong.

It was just like a glitch, but then it came back. And then my balance went back to just 4,000. So it's still good. I used to, before that app, I had my assistant just literally DM or email places and make two reservations a week for me. Amazing. And the cool part about having a following is they comp the meal. Yeah. So it literally saved me. I did the math, saved me 80 G's. Would you have to like post? Yeah. Just a story though, which I do

anyways. Exactly. Cause I'm a foodie. So it's like a win-win. That's what me and my, like when I was traveling this past summer, we actually got a lot of collaborations with hotels. I got a collaboration with this hotel in Switzerland, this hotel in Tuscany, and also in Greece. Wow. Yeah, which was really cool. And they comped all of our food, which was amazing. But we're going to create content anyways. Yeah, literally. So you might as well maximize your connections while you can.

Yeah, I learned that from Kinsey because she travels the world for free. I love Kinsey. Exactly. And she has her assistant email 50 spots the week before or whatever and three to five of them respond and then you just pick yeah it's pretty incredible i mean travel is expensive especially like five four-star hotels that's what i'm doing right now actually i'm working on a blog because i actually do some photography and I'm trying to like expand that a little bit more and do travel photography. So literally like yesterday I sent about 25 emails to different hotels just kind of with my proposal and media kit. Um, and I'm just manifesting that I hit like at least five of them. Oh, you will. Yeah. I'm like, Oh, I'm really, really manifesting

that. Cause I did, I was able to get three last summer, which was really cool. Yeah. It's just a numbers game. Yeah. And for them, it's a win. Cause especially if you're going during off season, yeah, those rooms aren't filled. Exactly. So they're just going to give you a room, which didn't cost them anything to begin with. But a lot of times I've noticed is they don't even really care about your following at times unless you're like creating good content is what I've kind of noticed. You know, a lot of the creators that I see that are creating content for these resorts have like 50,000 followers and they're getting paid like thousands of dollars. Yeah. I'm like, how is that? Give me the sauce. Like, tell me what

you're doing yeah some of them do favor the scenic really high quality like camera shots rather than iphone which is what i do yeah i mean i do i try to do both i'm trying to do the whole photography thing but it's hard yeah respect to my photographers i feel that that's cool to see you expanding though because i know you're big in the modeling space. You were on the cover of Glamour and Elle Officiale, right? Which was so cool. It was one of my goals in life was to be on the cover of any magazine ever since I was a young girl.

So to be on two really big ones, you know, talking about Celestial Swim was just out of this world. My mom was so proud of me. This was when they were actually like proud of me. You know, they started to support me when they were actually like proud of me you know they started to support me once they were like took some time took some time and it took some convincing took a magazine cover yeah took took like eight magazine covers yeah i'm an eight

time cover girl wow so they played hard to get for a bit yeah they did but they're very supportive now so yeah similar with my mom yeah she was because i dropped out of college and you did yeah you know how it is with asian parents so like my mom was pissed of course we have to rebel like of course they want us to go to college but of course we're not gonna it's a different era right it is it's a different era now when i have kids and they want to drop out i won't even care honestly yeah i i think with technology and everything and the way that we're evolving like if you're utilizing your resources correctly like you don't necessarily need to go to college I think school and education like the framework of it is something we can implement into

our everyday lives which is really useful but as far as knowledge like we have the knowledge in our hands at our phones at all times. It's right there. It's literally right there. We don't need books anymore. And like, that's how I learned how to do photography. I'm like watched a bunch of videos, even starting a business. Googled.

The first thing I Googled, Google search was how to start a brand. Yeah. And Celestial Swim's crushing it now, right? Yeah, it is. It's been a crazy ride. I did not realize how much work it was going to be. I mean, I did, but it's a lot of work running a business. And I don't have any employees at the moment.

So it's just me, just me self-funding it and running everything on my own. I'm in the middle of like looking for a marketing agency to bring on, but yeah, those are tough. Those are tough because the incentives aren't aligned. Yeah. So they want to charge you monthly plus percentage of ad spend. So it's crazy. I was currently like looking for somebody to do our email and text marketing. And literally what I did was I spent a whole day and I just sat on YouTube and watched how to, you know, do how to implement Klaviyo into your Shopify. And I'm really good with Canva because I like to design stuff as it is. And I just did it myself. I was like, we have the tools and resources to learn literally anything and if you don't have the budget to

like spend on you know a marketing agency that is thousands of dollars which i did not realize until i started a month especially when you're you're not even profitable yeah you're not even making money you're like they don't care they don't give a they're like and pay up so it's really i was just literally reflecting on this the other day of just how grateful I am that we have YouTube and that we have TikTok to learn things like this. Like, this is crazy. YouTube university, baby. I mean, that was better than college.

Sign me up. Let me be a professor. I mean, there's so many podcasts and YouTube videos. I watched that. I'm learning more than I did in a day than like 10 years of school. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. I'm even trying to learn more about film photography, like film, how to use film photos. I'm so interested in that. We shoot a lot of our campaigns for Celestial on film. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't. So I hire somebody, but I do model for my brand. So,

which is really fun and it's fun to be the creative director for it. Absolutely. I just saw you in the LA Times also. That's a big deal, right? That was so nerve-wracking. How come? Was it a live interview? It was.

They came to my house and I knew this was like my biggest publication that I was going to get. And it was the number one thing talked about at Christmas dinner. And I had to explain to everybody what I did for a living. Oh, they didn't know. Like some of them did, but then a lot of them were like, so how are you a millionaire? Like, oh, well, this is how I am a millionaire. Wow. But it was great.

I loved the interviewee person who did my interview. And the guy who came over and took my shots was amazing and made me feel so comfortable. And they just took photos of my house. It was really cool. It was so surreal. I never would have imagined that I would be in LA Times. That's nuts. Yeah.

Like CoverGirl, definitely. Huge goal of mine. LA Times, whoa, that is like a bonus that triumphs the cover oh my god yeah damn because you know everybody's reading the la times there's only a specific targeted audience i feel like that watch or that reads magazines yeah not everybody does but la times is you know that's news all of la there's like what three four is, you know, that's news. All of LA, there's like, what, three, four million people here? Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. What was that moment like becoming a millionaire? Do you remember it? Hitting my first million was

so surreal. I was in shock because I was like, where'd all the money go? Taxes out here in LA. I'm a millionaire, but where's my million dollars? It's not in my bank account, which is, I wish somebody would have told me and taught me, you know, how to manage money when you start making it. That was a rude awakening for me. It was, you know, really learning how to invest my money correctly and what to do with it. And, you know, starting a business was a start. That's the first step was doing something, you know, useful with my money. Um, but I'm still learning on a day-to-day basis. You know, it's, it's tough and it's a very male dominated industry and it's very intimidating. Yeah. All the guys are the ones running shit behind the scenes, right?

Yeah. And you just never know who's going to take advantage of you because you start making money. And, you know, being a woman, I'm pretty and I'm cute. So I definitely have the advantage of that. But, wow, it is just being an entrepreneur, being, you know, self-made is a lot of work. I actually heard this quote from, from the artist Pitbull. And he said, spiritual or no, he said, if you live in a world of instant gratification, entrepreneurship is not for you. It's not for you. And he also goes on to say that hustling and entrepreneurship is a slow but for show. Because what comes quick is going to leave quicker.

Yep. Too many people chasing fast money out here because of social media. It's so true. We are, you know, constantly getting this instant gratification through social media as well. And I think a lot of people, when they get into entrepreneurship, kind of expect that. Me being one of them too, like me having a following, I was like, okay, I kind of have leverage starting this business because I have followers. I'm like, this could definitely help and, you know, make sales. That only goes so far. There's no shortcuts around being, you know, having a successful business. It's really just time and consistent effort and consistency and work, hard work that you

put in, you'll get back out. Absolutely. It's actually crazy with the followers thing. People just assume you have money. Oh my God. It's nuts. We actually live in a world where you could have 10 million followers and have no money. No money.

No money. I actually know quite a few people that are like that. So actually people with followers, most of them don't have money. I know. Like 80%. That just shows though how much we're not getting paid for content creation. Well, I think they just see the followers and they assume like you could just sell stuff to them. Yeah. But not everyone has that connection with their audience.

You know what I mean? True. And with TikTok too, it's like the algorithm, they want you to like, you know, keep posting and posting and posting. And then you have a the way it works is what I heard is that your next few videos won't go as viral so that you're like addicted to just keep posting and posting until you get that high again. Yeah. Until that one, that next video goes viral and it's just this constant cycle until you like, if you're trying to build your following, if you already have a following, it's a little bit different, but. Yeah, no, they incentivize the consistent posting and then you could get lost in the sauce and then what they're doing with tiktok shop i just scroll past every video that's like eligible for commission i'm like but i guess they're pushing those videos

out i don't know some people are crushing it with tiktok shop actually really yeah you should get your swim stuff on there i know we should i just need a team for that to help yeah no you need a whole team because then you got to send it out to hundreds of influencers it's definitely a whole process but yeah i know some people doing six figures a day off tiktok shop wow yeah that's amazing pretty nuts because they're pushing it so hard right now and they're eating a lot of loss yeah oh yeah and they're giving discounts too yeah so they'll give 40 off and they'll actually pay the business the difference wow when they get an order. Oh damn, maybe I should get on there.

Yeah, look into that. Well, it's been fun. What's next for you and where can people find you? You can find me at Desiree Schlotz on Instagram and TikTok. And if you want to get a little freaky, you can find me on OnlyFans at Desiree Schlotz too. What's next for me what i would say is i'm really focusing on my travel blog i've been really putting a lot of time and effort into that i really want to travel more and create travel content and yeah awesome well we'll link all that in the video guys thanks for watching thanks for coming on thank you see you tomorrow bye