"What modeling taught me at a young age was how to say "no," which is something girls - we're not always good at saying "no." We want to be nice, and then we forget to look out for ourselves. There have been moments when I was on a modeling job, and it was the most fantastic thing in the world. And there have been moments where I've realized, "Okay, I'm ten years old, and I've spent the past six hours outside in the rain." It taught me how to be specific about what kinds of projects I wanted to do, and what kind of work I wanted to do."

-- Yara Shahidi

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