Rising RUNWAY star AKON CHANGKOU on just HOW FAR seeing the BEAUTY IN YOURSELF can take you

I'm one of eight. I have six sisters and one brother, and I thought I was the ugly one in my family for so long. 

- JAMIE WILSON

My siblings have a Miss Universe-type beauty, and I'm more unconventional. I'm quite small, about five foot seven, but we run with five foot nine for work. Now that I'm doing well, I'm exposing my height, but at the time I didn't see myself succeeding.

I studied psychology at Adelaide University [in Australia], but I dropped out after two years. I didn't know how to stick to something. I wasn't keen on being at uni for six years and then getting a job. I felt like my success was somewhere else. I just didn't know where. During my restaurant jobs, I would get asked if I wanted to model. I assumed I was too small, but once I got the opportunity where someone said, "Oh, don't worry about your height, we'll figure it out" and just believed in me, everything happened pretty fast.