J.C. Wannemacher poses for the lens. *Photo by Obi*

By Tom Victoria

J.C. Wannemacher knows his stocks, can strike a pose and helps others improve their lives. He is a model, trader and life coach.

One may find it easier to list what J.C., who attends college in Seattle, doesn’t do.

“Some of the things that matter the most to me are things that I want to keep really close,” he said. “With life coaching, I feel like that part of me is the mentality. It's what grounds me. The school is obviously what's going to help me financially and also what's going to challenge me academically. Modeling is a sort of personal brand in my eyes or a way to develop a personal brand.”

J.C., 20, a California native, explained how all of his activities coalesce.

“I have a vision of what I want to be,” he said. “I want it to be consistent. I want it to be visible. I want to be clear. I see all of these things as pieces of the puzzle that when put together, it creates the full picture. I don't want to have half a picture. I want my message to be communicated exactly how I want, how I see it. So for that reason, those steps are, in my eyes, necessary. I'll do anything that is part of my vision. If it's not part of the vision, I'm not doing it.”

J.C. participated in New York Fashion Week earlier this year.

“Some of my favorite parts about Fashion Week would be the people that I get to meet,” he said. “I've met a whole bunch of people, a bunch of designers. I met people from Austria today and people from Cuba today. All in one day. I speak Spanish, too. I'm able to open up and be comfortable with more demographics.”

J.C. described what he enjoys about being a model.

“Some of my favorite parts about modeling, besides meeting people, would be the way of self-expression,” he said. “Having clothes that you're comfortable in and clothes that bring out you, it feels like putting yourself on a microphone. When people sing, they put their voice on a microphone and then it's amplified. Modeling does that, but just for your overall human nature, for your essence. I see it as something that can help show the world who you really are.”

J.C. said some emotions are easier to show for the lens.

“Some of the easier emotions to convey would probably be the stare,” he said. “If I can just lock in. How I do it is you have a feeling and then you try to embody that feeling with a given face. A big part of my life right now is the dedication, the motivation and the consistency. With that, it's easy to make a more serious face, because on the inside and out, that's how I'm feeling. But maybe if I'm more relaxed, it may be easier to make a more uplifting, smiley face.”

J.C. prefers the former rather than latter emotional state.

“I've done both in the past, but one of the most interesting parts about runway modeling is that they come at it from a very serious approach,” he said. “I like that feel to modeling. It's representative of what I'm going through right now.”

J.C. savors the more stylish end of modeling.

“The type of modeling that I'm doing right now, being runway modeling, I try to stay more high fashion,” he said. “I like that aspect of having multiple types of clothing that designers are coming up with new collections for and in turn, coming up with new trends. I have all these clothes, and especially when it's clothing that you can feel yourself in is really cool. Fur is one of my favorites. I have fur and then jean jacket, actually two of my favorites.”

J.C. wants to wear clothing from one of the most famous labels in the world.

“One of my dreams would be to model for Calvin Klein with denim, so I'm working towards that,” he said. “My agent sent my application in and I didn't get it this year, but I plan on coming back next year to New York Fashion Week and securing that and hopefully getting more clothes brands.”

J.C. also models for other types of brands.

“I do also enjoy commercial modeling as well,” he said. “One of my most recent jobs was for a romance novel. This woman was a photographer who has a network of art authors for these books that need covers. So I did a couple shots with her in her studio and that would be more commercial modeling for businesses and for brands. We got athletic brands. You got more lifestyle. There's so much diversity within commercial modeling that I want to be known as the model that can do both.”

J.C. doesn’t feel pressured to stay fit for modeling.

“I've always been a healthy person, someone who goes to the gym and run,” he said. “Between the sports that I play and with my lifestyle, it's always very active, very moving. I played soccer almost my whole life, so that was my main sport. Track and cross-country are my close second. And then in the last five, six years, I realized my high school team had a surf team. I've picked up surfing over the last six years. In terms of going to the gym, I'm also pretty regular about that as well. So I don't feel the pressure. Obviously, keeping yourself well-maintained is good.”

J.C. doesn’t have a stringent diet.

“Not really,” he said. “I don't have a strict diet, but I also pick and choose what I eat. I don't do any caffeine, not really alcohol. I try to stay away from everything obvious that's bad. The occasional chip bag is cool. If I'm flying and I'm in the airport and I see something, I'm like, oh, I'll get that quick. But other than that, I'm a fan of packing my own food. I drink a lot of water.”

J.C.’s modeling doesn’t preclude him from such personal choices as piercings.

“I have piercings,” he said. “It's the whole idea of people accept you for you, and if they don't want to accept you for you, they're not meant for you.”

J.C. said both types of modeling have their advantages.

“Commercial modeling is something that's decent for exposure, and it's known to be one that pays well,” he said. “For someone who's starting a career, commercial modeling is a really good place. But also for someone starting their career, high fashion is a good place because although it doesn't pay as well — granted it does depend on the designer that you're walking for — it's most known for its exposure. I would say high fashion has a lot of good exposure because a lot of the high fashion is happening in L.A. Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week, Miami Swim Week and some of those places.”

Other assignments for J.C. can be anywhere.

“Commercial modeling can be anywhere in the U.S. and it may not partake in one of the bigger states for modeling,” he said. “You go to enough castings and people start to recognize you. Being on a runway in the eyes of someone who is looking for a commercial model sees that as a sort of prestige. And then they'll be more interested. But that doesn't mean you can't have all the athletic shots, the more rugged shots. You still have to have that in your portfolio.”

J.C. said versatility is crucial for a model.

“Not only having this runway experience is really good, but also having the portfolio to back it up when someone like Calvin Klein comes along, someone like Dior or even Netflix or maybe a car company,” he said. “I get opportunities from my agency for certain jobs. Fifty percent of the jobs are them sending me the opportunity, but the other 50 is me putting the work in. And that's physical and financial, investing in good photographers, getting good photo shoots, making sure I have editors that are professional and being involved in the industry to know what's new.”

J.C. said networking is key to a modeling career.

“Having your ear in the ground is super important,” he said. “That's why it's important to network and have those connections in the industry, because we all want to make it. We all want to make it somewhere, so it's important to have that team as well. That's what I really love about the industry. It's creative. When people see eye to eye, people want to help you out.”

Another role for J.C. led to modeling.

“When I was a freshman in college, I was in a real estate office,” he said. “I was shadowing one of my friends so that I could work there. I ended up meeting some of the other brokers there, one of which had a connection to a designer in New York fashion. She invited me out, not guaranteeing that I would get this show, only saying she had a relationship with this designer and that I might get this show. I had zero idea what New York Fashion Week was. It's a week. I knew that, and it's in New York. I didn't know what was going on, though.”

J.C. did take the leap, though.

“I did go to New York,” he said. “I did the casting, and I got the casting, which means I auditioned and it went well. They selected me, and I went to the fitting where I try on the clothes. Turned out there was another casting happening during the fit. That friend that invited me out literally pushed me into that casting room and was like, yo, just go in there. There were 30 models in there. They ended up selecting four. I ended up being one of those models.”

J.C. explained why it’s important to him to help others as a life coach.

“This is what grounds me,” he said. “Life coaching is a skill. I always tell people it's not advice giving. Advice giving is therapy. This is a new branch of psychology where coaching is actually something that people will do, not just if they have problems. They could be doing well. They don't necessarily have to be hurting. Sometimes, I'm coaching people that are drowning. Other times, I'm coaching people that are treading water. There may be one or two things that they want to talk about, and I would happily coach them as well.”

Even people doing really well seek the coaching J.C. provides.

“Then there's also people that are doing really well, and they just want an extra boost on whatever they're doing,” he said. “They're not treading water. They're above water. People who own businesses. They perceive themselves as doing all right. But there's always a couple things that they need a boost on in order to get past, maybe a client or an employee that's not acting accordingly.”

Among J.C.’s travels was visiting Australia. *Photo submitted*

J.C. helps his clients find answers.

“The real answer is not what I think, it's what you think,” he said. “My only job as a life coach is to ask deeper questions than you're asking me to uncover your own truth. That's really the power of coaching is because it doesn't matter what age you are, it doesn't matter how much life experience you had. One thing that we can all connect to is our inner self. Everyone has a different relationship with themselves. My goal as a life coach is to help people tap into their relationship with themselves so that they can figure out the answers to their questions by themselves.”

J.C. teaches people to not just react to issues in their lives.

“By asking them intuitive questions, I, in turn, show them the path to how they can continue building the relationship with themselves to start being more proactive about their problems,” he said. “And not just their problems about the things that they're stuck on. We all have certain feelings that we want to keep in our life forever. My goal is to be the person that's accountable for the person that they want to be.”

Life coaching runs in J.C.’s family.

“My mom is a life coach,” he said. “My mom is one of my biggest inspirations. She started coaching 10 years ago, and I've taken it up the last three years. Going through the program, I've more further realized its importance not within my life, but also in other people's. Figuring that out more and more through the program is really inspiring because once you realize that what you're learning, it's not calculus, it's not something you're going to use once. It's something you're going to use again and again and again professionally and in your everyday life.”

J.C. said life coaching is all-encompassing.

“The very essence of what we're learning is behavioral science, thought patterns, mentality, recognition, awareness,” he said. “These are all things that I use in my everyday life. I see a lot of things in society that don't follow that same wavelength or that same mode of thinking. I see so much value in it, having gone through the program. Being able to spread some of that energy in my essence, how I carry myself, how I talk to people, who I'm talking to, what we're talking about, whether it's professionally, in a coaching session or unprofessionally, I want to bring that energy for people and help people that way.”

J.C. is refining what his coaching will be.

“Coaching is something that, if done correctly or if projected on the media correctly, because social media is also a microphone for all things alike, I think it could have a really big impact, especially on my generation,” he said. “It's so important that before going forward with coaching, I figure out the right model, that I can bring that energy and bring that mindset and bring that thinking to the table in a way where people are accepting of coaching.”

J.C. wants to reach the younger generation.

“A lot of people, not until they're in their later 20s and 30s realize coaching is a good thing,” he said. “Therapy is a good thing. But people are in denial so much upfront, which in turn affects them when they're older. Being someone that's always been open to it, mostly because of my mom, that's how I'm going to bring inspiration is finding that right angle to bring it to people in my generation and being able to spread that energy in a positive way.”

Real estate also runs in J.C.’s family.

“My dad, he is into real estate,” he said. “He's always had rental properties. One of the things I put on my application was helping facilitate the buildout of a multi-story unit in downtown Long Beach. I remember working with architects, with city people, figure out what was possible and what wasn't possible, figure out designs.”

J.C. already made his first realty purchase.

“I actually made my first real estate investment in our family business,” he said. “I went in on a property, so I've officially made my first real estate investment at 20 years old.”

J.C. finds inspiration in both parents.

“Where my mom was inspiring me from a psychology and spiritual perspective, my dad was inspiring me on a financial and realty perspective, which is why I've gone ahead and on track to getting my real estate license,” he said. “I've taken the national portion and then have passed that. I plan on getting into real estate more after I take a couple of internships and jobs within my major at school, which is Information Systems, minoring in Spanish.”

J.C. also has experience trading stocks.

“Investments are something that is so crucial nowadays,” he said. “If you want to beat inflation, you have to be making a percent return that's going to be matching, if not more. Having that mentality is good because if your investments are matching the rate of inflation, the cost of living, in my perspective, you are basically breaking even. Then it doesn't matter what you do for work.”

J.C. recognizes both sides of the coin in weighing what to do as a career.

“I want to have a job so that it can eventually sustain the passion,” he said. “Have a job until the passion can sustain itself is really what it is. When I think of investing, I think of education, I think of economics. I think of it really as something that is challenging in terms of pattern recognition, data analysis, all things that are related to the major that I'm doing in school. It's all information systems, data science, computer science.”

J.C. said all of his paths converge.

“Trading is something that brings community together,” he said. “Everywhere I go, whether it's real estate or life coaching or modeling, all of these have communities. It's really important to me to have those sort of communities. At school, I have a Discord where we discuss multiple companies and the overall state of what's going on in our economy at the moment. I have friends from Italy, friends from California, all over the U.S. and it's cool.”

J.C. said his Discord enables everyone to compare notes.

“A lot of us have our specialty,” he said. “Some of us trade gold. Some of us are involved when the Forex (foreign exchange) market is doing. Some of us are involved in deep company analysis. That diversity is cool because it teaches you at a young age to have an overall picture of what the world is doing financially because finance is the language of business.”

J.C. all of his interests are components.

“All the pieces of the puzzle I hope one day it can all fit into place to create the overall picture,” he said. “With each passion, each job, each hobby, I hope all of these will eventually form the overall picture and vision for who I want to become. Because at the end of the day, we do it all for us.”

J.C. also is working on a music project.

“I actually have a collaboration on a song coming out within the next six to eight months,” he said. “One group chat that I'm in, it's Seattle Runway Models. Not just models, creatives. We have singers, songwriters, painters, video editors, photographers, DJs, all things that are artistic in some way, shape or form. And one of the people on there said, yo, I'm a singer. I am putting a song together. I want to make a music video. I need someone for a music video. I was like, I can do that. We started talking together.”

J.C. already had an interest in music.

“I've been singing and songwriting for a large part of my life,” he said. “She has an opportunity where she's like, if you're also interested in singing, songwriting, let's get together, let's meet up, and we can potentially have a collaboration here. So I've been talking with her. We are ideating what our future song could be and looks like.”

J.C. has a philosophical approach to life.

“When it comes to your beliefs and what you stand for and the message, everyone has their own message,” he said. “My message, searching for source, is the central message that I carry. It helps people uncover, reveal, realize that there's something below, what's beyond the surface of the person, which could be looks. It helps show what's underneath that if you do have a central theme or vision or compass for your life.”

J.C. described what source is.

“To put it very simply, my personal brand is searching for source, which is this idea of aligning with your own values and using them as a compass to guide yourself into the spots in life where you think you belong, where you need to be and make progress and evolve.” he said. “That would be the bigger circle, the smaller circle within that — I'm thinking like Russian dolls here — searching for source is the brand, the one inside. That is me being the client to my own philosophy, my own brand.”

J.C. explained how helping others aided his own growth as a person.

“Through my life coaching, I've had these thought processes where if the things that I'm learning are useful for helping other people, that I can use them in order to coach myself and take on life from a blueprinted perspective,” he said. “A term that I would use is life engineering, where you almost create a blueprint, which is the personal brand that embodies the philosophy of who you are, become a client to your own philosophy and continue snowballing that.”

J.C. said each endeavor he pursues reaps benefits.

“What I've created is a series of buckets,” he said. “In my life, health is a bucket, school is a bucket, business is a bucket, each for a specific purpose. School develops professionalism. Business develops my passions, my creativity. And within each of these buckets, creativity includes the modeling, includes the singing.”

J.C. compared his life to a wooden craft more than 100 years old.

“How I see my personal brand is like Russian dolls,” he said. “You have searching for source on the outside, me being a client to my own philosophy on the inside. And then even more inside than that are the life engineering, the buckets that create who you are. My buckets are these things in particular: business school, personal creativity and health. All those buckets that together makes the personal brand.”

J.C. can be viewed as a modern-day Renaissance man.

“When I talk about buckets, I really am talking about mastering all that there is to offer,” he said. “Life has so much to offer. Mastering all that has to offer is stretching your hands as far as you can. Let's see how far we can reach. Let's see how far we can get. I truly believe we're put on earth for evolution and for growth. This is the way I can maximize it the most and do my best to basically take what I was given in this lifetime and run with it.”

J.C. seeks opportunties for mutually beneficial collaboration.

“One of my buckets is creativity,” he said. “I could bring in a songwriter and then I could talk to a songwriter about: what are the things that make a good song? How are songs developed in a way that really attracts people and showcases maximum creativity? And that would be something to increase my creativity bucket, but at the same time it could be a way for them to promote what they're doing.”

J.C. also wants to start his own media program.

“One way I could be communicating is through media like a podcast,” he said. “Something I plan on doing is actually bringing value to people through interviewing. Interviewing has been something that I've been working on in my current job and with other ways as well. I've been networking with 200 professors at the business school and what I've been requesting is a 15-minute interview with each of them. I have a big list of insights that I've gained from them.”

J.C. plans to share what he learns.

“My plan is to essentially take these insights and then be able to share them with other people so that they can learn more and replicate this process for my other buckets as well, my creativity buckets, my personal buckets, my health buckets,” he said. “This is something that goes with school and is a perfect example of how I want to both grow myself through the interviews that I'm doing and also promote other people as well.”

Even when J.C. doesn’t do what he’s planned, he still makes good use of his time.

“I've created these categories where I've particularly not only mentioned the buckets, but I've also listed steps for each of these things mentally that I can revisit whenever I need to and making sure that things always get done,” he said. “For my creativity bucket, within that bucket is singing lessons. I have these singing lessons that I've been doing every week. Let's say I miss a singing lesson. That equals one leg day in the gym, which is associated with my health bucket. So by deviating from the plan, I'm still actually following the plan, just on the physical side instead of the creative side.”

J.C. said such steps ensure there is no stagnation.

“I basically engineered my life in a way where I can never deviate from progress I've made,” he said. “I've life-engineered the complete progress.”

J.C. has been busy seizing other business opportunities, including a market research position at a cleantech startup.

“I've also started working at an AI company called Beambell AI as a software engineer working to create their AI receptionist that can answer calls at a very quick time,” he said. “I'm working on the voice isolation time, the voice isolation aspect so when you're on the phone with customer support, it feels like you're talking to a real person. I'm the one that's connecting the APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and the LLMs (Large Language Models) and using agentic AI in order to create a good experience that we can essentially sell to other businesses so that they can use this product as well.”

J.C. stressed people don’t have to pursue every possible avenue in life.

“One thing that I don't want people to get caught up in is that you have to say yes to everything,” he said. “You say yes to everything to the extent of when you figure out what your buckets are. When you figure out what your buckets are, you know exactly what you need. But in order to figure out what it is you need or what your buckets are, you have to say yes to enough things to realize what you actually need. You can't really see the other side of that mountain without climbing it. For a lot of people, they go between: do I just do one thing and become really good at it or do I just do everything and become good at nothing? The real answer is figuring out yourself and then let that do the answering because you'll figure out where you are on that spectrum.”

J.C. stays motivated to strike while the iron is hot when opportunities present themselves.

“When it comes to managing myself, it's all about being very aware of what's in front of me now,” he said. “The best thing I could do is be here now and be present with what I have now. These modeling opportunities are happening. I'm getting opportunities for internships. I have this blessing that my parents are able to help me afford school and I go to a prestigious business school. I'm thankful every single day. I want to make sure I put 100 percent of myself or as much of a hundred percent I can into that while also pursuing my passion for modeling and one day, career in it as well.”

J.C. dispensed advice to aspiring models.

“First, ask yourself why you want to get into modeling,” he said. “Once you know why, then that really filters a lot of answers down. The majority of the models that I meet, they all have a reason one way or another. Some people are very creative people, musicians, singers, songwriters. It comes more naturally as in makes sense for them. I would fall into this next category. I'm a business guy. Entrepreneurship is in my future and I think that there is real merit to having visual representation via social media.”

J.C. also advised people to not solely model for income.

“Make sure you have some sort of financial support,” he said. “Something that's grounding you in a way because it's very easy to lose yourself in this industry.”

J.C. offered advice to those knowing they need to change how they’re handling their lives.

“The first step that anyone really has to go through in any day, whatever's happening, good or bad, it's be here now,” he said. “It's about being aware of what's in front of you now and understanding that as time goes by, it's not going to be there. Whatever it is it that you're going through, know that being present is the first step towards combating it or enjoying it. It doesn't matter what you're going through. Being present in any situation is how you're going to get through it. And most importantly learn from it.”

J.C. said people need to be searching for source.

“That's my message,” he said. “Source being the light and the searching, meaning, the compass. We all have a compass that's guiding us towards a light. This is the vision, the message that I want to bring to people. So at its heart, searching for source, it conveys my deeply personal philosophy. That merges self-discovery, spiritual alignment and fulfillment. To me, source is sort of higher power and energy, and it resonates at my core. It's guided me toward a life of meaning and purpose ever since realizing that. That's what I mean by having that relationship with yourself. Does it feel like you're making decisions from the core of your being?”

J.C. views the search as ongoing.

“I see the process not as a task to complete, but as a sort of lifelong quest,” he said. “It's enriched by moments of alignment. It's my values. It's that quiet joy of feeling being connected to something that's infinite. Whatever it is that you believe that's infinite, whether it be a God, whether it be an energy or some sort of power, I believe that there is something infinite and being connected to that is searching for source.”

J.C. said people need to realize they’re on a transformative journey.

“Making decisions and building yourself up based on your values,” he said. “The courage to explore. Being curious, but also resilient. Uncovering the deeper truths that shape your own existence.”

J.C.’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ccolio_w/

Student is model and life coach

Singer juggles tunes and objects