Steve Cook

Lewis Howes:              This is 5-Minute Friday!!

Now just recently I met this guy, Steve Cook, and let me tell you something, Steve is an incredible human being. Steve is one of the most recognisable faces in the fitness industry today. He’s best noted for being an IFBB Pro Men’s Physique competitor, Optimum Nutrition and Bodybuilding.com spokesmodel, and international fitness personality, as well as the founder of Swoldier Nation. That’s right, let’s get Swol!!

He is also the third person ever to obtain his Men’s Physique Pro Card, first ever Men’s Physique competitor to qualify for the Mr. Olympia, and so much more.

Steve Cook:                  If your message is really something that you believe in and you have passion and you have that excitement for something that you’re doing, whatever it is that you’re doing. If you’re ridiculously excited about it, like, willing to wake up super freaking early, that’s contagious. And that’s one thing that I’ve learned whenever I was excited, to step on stage, the audience, the crowd, people, that’s a contagious thing. It’s tangible when it’s there and you’ll naturally attract other people that are passionate for that.

Lewis Howes:               Or who want that.

Steve Cook:                  Right!

Lewis Howes:               An early mentor of mine said that the world makes room for passionate people. And it’s so true. When you are passionate and show up that way, people want to be around it, they’re attracted, it’s like a magnet, you know what I mean?

Steve Cook:                  And when you’re passionate you don’t notice the hours. You don’t notice that all of a sudden you’ve been doing it for four years, time’s gone by.

Lewis Howes:               Twelve hours a day, or whatever.

Steve Cook:                  Yeah, time’s gone by and you’re just like, “I’m here because I love it, even if I didn’t get paid or even if I wasn’t, you know, I can’t imagine doing anything else.” I think that’s a big time [thing]. For me, it was scary, instead of going doing chiropractic stuff, I took a job…

Lewis Howes:               The secure way.

Steve Cook:                  Yeah! I took a job as a waiter, still, because I wanted to travel around the world with Optimum [Nutrition], because I saw an opportunity there. They weren’t paying much, $500 a month.

That’s not enough to live on, but I said, and I had my college degree, but instead of trying to go into the corporate world, or going back to school, I said, “I think, this is what I’m passionate about, I’m going to invest my time and I’m not going to get paid for it, but what I’m going to do, is I’m going to do is, I’m going to shake every person’s hand in line at an expo.

I’m going to give each person a hug, I’m going to introduce myself, I’m going to make that person remember me, by the way I treated them.”

And that passion then grew and I think that people felt that energy, it’s tangible when you’re there at an expo and you can sit down and look somebody in the eyes and truly care about them and what they’re doing. And you can’t fake that. You either have that or you don’t.

And there’s been times in my life when I haven’t had passion for it and I feel like that’s when I had to come back and, “Am I giving way too much of my time? Am I burnt out?” But definitely, when you have that passion for something, you can’t do an expo for eight to ten hours a day, on your feet and not truly love people.

Leiws Howes:               You’ve got to love people.

Steve Cook:                  You do, like, you can’t fake that, and, again, you’re going to be exhausted after it and, you know, there’s sacrifices that have to be made, but again, at the end of the day you feel like you’re doing what you want to do. You feel like you’re giving value to people around you and that’s a huge, for me, I’m like, “Oh, this feels good!” So I was just doing it for myself as well.

Be happy today. So the thing is, in our society, I’ll be happy when I make a million dollars, I’ll be happy when I have a million Instagram followers, I’ll be happy when… when… when… when… If you’re not happy now, you’ll never be happy. And, again, there’s a difference between being content, like, you know, I’m not just going to sit back with my feet up and all of a sudden think, you know, like, “I’ve made it!” That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about enjoying that daily struggle.

If you don’t find things in your life to be positive about today, then you will never find those things. And that, to me, is the first and foremost. Every time I check, or every time I feel myself starting to think crappy. You know, in L.A. this happens, because there’s always somebody who’s better. Better looking, more money, or has a better this or that.

Lewis Howes:               A bigger following or whatever.

Steve Cook:                  Yeah, there’s that, so it’s human nature and it’s the world we live in today, to teach you, you don’t have enough. And not having enough starts making people feel like they’re not good enough and then not being good enough starts creating the sense of unhappiness.

So I think it’s about finding something every day to be grateful for, to be happy for and then all of a sudden you’re already living that, you’ve already made it, but you want to give that, you want to continue that, so you keep on pushing.

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