627 Let Passion Lead with Steve Cook

LOOK FOR SOMETHING TO BE GRATEFUL FOR EVERY DAY. Finding what makes you passionate is something a lot of people struggle with. We all want to find that thing in life that we are excited to do -- the drive that makes us want to wake up early because we can’t wait to get started. When you find the energy that your passion creates, it’s your duty to share it with everyone around you. That’s when you’ll make a real impact and people will remember you. Take care of them, and they’ll end up taking care of you one day. To go more in depth about the importance of living your passion, I wanted to bring back an episode with Steve Cook for this week’s 5 Minute Friday. Steve is one of the most recognizable faces in fitness today. He’s an IFBB Pro Men’s Physique Competitor, and spokesmodel for Optimum Nutrition and Bodybuilding. Learn how you can make an impact and inspire the world (and yourself) on Episode 627. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  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 recognizable faces in the fitness industry today. He is best noted for being an IFBB Pro Men's Physique Competitor, Optimum Nutrition and Bodybuilding.com Spokes Model, an international fitness personality, as well as the founder of Swoleger Nation. That's right, let's get swole. 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.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  If your message is really something that you believe in and you have passion, when 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 that whenever, you know, when I was excited to step on stage, the audience, the crowd, people, that's a contagious thing. It's like it's tangible when it's there and you'll naturally attract other people that are passionate for that.

• 1:19Speaker 00

  Or who want that.

• 1:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  An early mentor of mine said that the world makes room for passionate people.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  100%.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  It's so true. When you are passionate, show up that way, people want to be around you. They're attracted like a magnet, you know what I mean?

• 1:31Speaker 01

  So, and when you're passionate, you don't notice the hours. You don't notice that, you know, all of a sudden, you've been doing it for four years. Time's gone by, like.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  12 hours a day.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  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. It's, you know, for me, it was scary. Instead of going and doing chiropractic stuff, I took a job.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  The secure way.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I took a job as a waiter still, because I wanted to travel around the world with Optimum, because I saw an opportunity there. They weren't paying me much. $500 a month, that's not enough to live on, but I. I had my college degree and instead of trying to go to corporate world or going back to school. I said, I think I, this is what I'm passionate about. I'm going to invest my time and, and they're not gonna, I'm not gonna get paid for it. Right. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna shake every person's hand in line at an expo. I'm gonna give each person a hug. I'm gonna introduce myself. I'm gonna 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 again, it's tangible when you're there at an expo and you can sit down and look somebody in the eyes

• 2:43Speaker 01

  and truly care about them, 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 that I haven't had passion for it. And I feel like that's when I, I have to come back and am I giving away too much of my time? Are you burnt out? But definitely when you have that passion for something, you can't do an expo for eight to 10 hours a day on your feet and not truly love people. You've gotta love people. You do, like you can't fake that. And again, you're, you're gonna be exhausted after it and you know, there's sacrifices that you have to be made. But again, at the end of the day, you feel like you're doing what you wanna do. You feel like you're giving value to people around you and that, that's a huge like, for me, I'm like, ah, this feels good. So I was doing it, you know, for myself as well. Be happy today.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  So the thing in our, 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. So you know, and again, there's a difference between being content, like, you know, I'm not gonna just sit back, kick my feet up and all of a sudden think, you know, I've made it. Like that's, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about enjoying that daily struggle. If you, 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, is the first and foremost. Every time I check, every time I feel myself starting to think, you know, I, I start thinking crappy. And in LA, you know, this happens because there's always somebody who's better, better looking, you know, more money or has a better, you know, this or that. Yeah.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  There's, there's, there's that, it's just, and that, so it's human nature and it's the world that we live in today to teach you, you know, you, 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 and 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.