Heroes in Business - Jake Steinfeld Body by Jake, creator, founder FiTV 24-hour fitness channel, 2012 Official Torch Bearer London Olympics

Episode Date: January 26, 2021

Don't Quit! It's all a matter of hard work and time. Fitness Guru and legend who created Body by Jake and FiTV 24hr fitness channel Jake Steinfeld is interviewed by David Cogan founder of Eliances and host of the Eliances Heroes show broadcast on am and fm network channels, internet radio, and online syndication.  

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. All right, so welcome back. And again, we do so much on this show to help others and how? By the heroes that I have the lifetime opportunity to interview and share their secrets with you. That's what it's all about. And thank you for the past feedback that we had when I had on the co-founder of Alexa and also the founder of E-Entertainment. So make sure you go to alliances.com, the only place where entrepreneurs align.

Now more than ever, if there's one thing you're going to take care of that you have to, it's your health. And we have on the expert on that. Are you ready? I'm so excited. Jake Steinfeld, Body by Jake. He's the founder of Fit TV 24-hour fitness channel. He was an official torchbearer of the 2012 Olympics in London, England. He can be reached at don'tquit.com.

And, of course, on Instagram, officialbodybyjake. Jake, Body by Jake. I mean, I remember a ton of your infomercials and everything. I was like glued to the TV. Like, who is this guy? So this is surreal for me to be here now many years later and see you live and have the lifetime opportunity to interview you. So welcome to the show. David, you are very pumped up, man. You are very pumped up. I love it. How's everything in Arizona, brother? Fantastic. The weather really couldn't be better and stuff. And it's just, it's amazing. So let's go right into it. First of all is, you know, you really revolutionized the whole infomercials in regards to health. What sparked that to say,

I need to get on TV. This is the media for me at that time. Well, first of all, it's great to be here. I'll take you back a little bit. I was an overweight kid. I had a bad stutter as a kid growing up. I was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Baldwin, Long Island. Not a lot of confidence, didn't have a lot of self-esteem. My dad bought me a set of weights when I was 13 years old. And I'm a big believer in life is about moments, David. And I know you talk about that with a lot of folks that you have on your shows. And look, moments in all of our lives, some are great, some are not so great. This was a moment that my dad introduced me to weight training, really changed my life, man. And not only did the weights build

my body, but built my confidence and self-esteem. And I immediately said, I want to go to California to become Mr. America. I was the first one in my family to go to college. I went to college upstate New York, Cornell University. Sure do. Yeah, sure. I went to Cortland down the street. And where it's not too conducive, by the way, upstate New York to where your gold lamé posing trunks and 18 inches of snow. But I always visualized myself as becoming Mr. America. My parents weren't very excited about me leaving college. I made the trek across the country by myself at 18 years old. I read all the muscle magazines, man.

I mean, and I showed up in L.A., in Santa Monica, in Venice Beach, the mecca of bodybuilding. Summer 1977, man, when I said the dinosaurs still roam the earth, like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno and all the big surge, new break. All the bodybuilders came to life from the magazines. And here I was right in the middle of it. And I read all the magazines. They always said, eat 18 eggs and 24 chickens a day. You too could become Mr. America. Well, I clucked a lot, but Mr. America never happened, man, because what they didn't say in the magazine

is that you had to take steroids. And here I was at 18 years old, didn't know anything about it, and, you know, we have four kids now, myself and my great wife Tracy. Actually, our anniversary tomorrow, 32 years. Tracy Seinfeld is an Arizona girl by trade,

and her sisters, Marilyn and Steph, still live in Arizona in Scottsdale area. Hi, guys. And when we talked to our kids as they were growing up, we always talked about decision-making. And the one thing we all learn about decision making is that if you have to think about something too long, probably something you shouldn't be doing. And it was that moment in my life right there that I had this moment where I wanted to be Mr. America so bad, David, but in order to compete at a professional level,

because I had entered the Mr. Southern California contest in 1978, came in second place, the guy that beat me was on steroids, I had to make that decision. And the bottom line was, is I was afraid to put a needle in my own bautissimo. And it was that moment that really changed my life, and thank goodness for it. Because look, I left New York. My mom and dad were pretty cool about the fact that, look, get it out of your system. When you're done with it, you come back home, go back to school. And my friends were different. They were like, you're never going to make it. I had a girlfriend that said, you're never going

to make it. And think about life. We all have dreams. We all have dreams. And sometimes when we share our dreams with people that we love or people that are our friends, sometimes it's the people closest to us that seem to be the most negative. And what I mean by that is simply this, like my parents, they weren't being negative. They just didn't want to see me get hurt. But your friends feel like in ways, and I'm sure a lot of your guests speak of the same thing, success breeds success. When you hang around with successful people, man, you feel better. Everyone's excited. You're pushing for each other. But sometimes people feel that, well, wait a second. If David is successful, there might not be enough success to go around, which we find is very false. And i decided that i wasn't going back to new york

in my opinion a loser right because i lost that con that contest i love working out i love what it did for me so i stayed i didn't know what was going to happen but right place right time very quickly um 1979 top of 1980 i'm living in studio City, California. An actress comes up to me at the pool that I was catching rays at, which is what every good musclehead does every day. Right, right. She said she had to get ready to do a Club Med commercial, and she had to wear a bikini. She had six weeks to get in shape.

I like you, Jake, but I don't want to look like you. Could you help me and i said okay great she goes uh how much is it going to cost if you came to my boyfriend's house to do the workout i go i don't know give me gas money for my 1977 white camaro with jake 77 on the license plate cool always kept a very low profile dav David. Got to keep the low pro. And so I came up with a 30 minute workout. I love working out, but I was never one to hang out in the gym too long. I like to get my workout in and get out of the gym. And here, this is, remember, late seventies, beginning of 1980. And women who understand this knew that they were very intimidated by using

weights because they thought they were going to get big muscles. So what I did was, is I improvised with a broomstick, a towel for resistance training, right? Tricep extensions over the head, bicep curls, and two cans of mama's tomato paste. Super simple. 30 minutes, went to her boyfriend's house who was staying at some other guy's house who I didn't know, right? If you weren't on the cover of Musclehead Digest, I don't know who you were. I ring the doorbell. Guy answers the door. Turns out to be Francis Ford Coppola.

And it was one of those moments where, wow, this is pretty amazing. I don't know who he was, but they obviously were very connected in Hollywood. They started going to parties. People started saying, what are you doing? This guy, Jake, comes to my house. He's got a broomstick, a towel, two cans of Mama's tomato paste. He's pretty funny. And well, he eats too much because they had a great fridge, David. And I didn't have a lot of dough. And after the workout was over, I parked myself right at the table there. But the one thing that was great was, is that people started saying, what a great idea.

What's his phone number? Now, there was no cell phones back then. Remember, 1980. And when you moved from one place to another, you had to list your phone number in the phone book. I never did it. The best thing that I never did, because in Hollywood,

if people want to get ahold of you and they can't, they seem to want you more. And it became this mystique of who is this guy? You got to get him. And I'm getting phone calls in my little answering machine back in the day in my apartment, my one room apartment in Studio City from Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, Priscilla Presley, Bette Midler, Warren Beatty, Barbara Streisand, Cher, people like this. And I learned the greatest lesson of my life at 19 years old. And what was that? They're just like us. The only difference is they had a dream and they never quit on their dream. And they never took no for an answer. And you know what, David, that gave me all the incentive in the world to say to myself, wait a second, I might never direct ET2, but I'm going to have my own success in life. And I was able to parlay that famous by association into videos, books, and television shows.

Ted Turner gave me my start on Cable News Network back in 1981 doing 60-second vignettes that I used. Steven Spielberg's house, Broad Beach, and I was training Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion. I had 12 playmates at the beach in Malibu and doing my exercises with a broomstick, a towel, and a chair. And they were called Fitness Break by Jake that I came up with, and they ran around the world. And that's really what put me on the map, David. And ever since then, because of the people that I came in contact with, the ability to dream, to visualize, to take shots. And as you know, as an entrepreneur and the people you talk to, as an entrepreneur, you have to be willing to fail because failure isn't death. Death is death. You know, when the director yells cut,

the show's over. Well, the show's over. But in business and when you take chance, that's what life is about, man. Get your heart racing. Take that shot. Man, you're like, I mean, this is incredible. I love what you're doing. I love the words of wisdom that you're like, I mean, this is incredible. I love what you're doing. I love the words of wisdom that you're sharing with our audience. I want to make sure we've got enough time, too, to go talk about Don't Quit. And you can reach Jake Steinfeld, Body by Jake. Go to don'tquit.com or, of course, on Instagram, officialbodybyjake on Instagram. Talk to us about the shakes and the things we're going to find.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. And of course, too, where we can locate it, which is I know a lot of grocery stores and stuff, but talk to us about the shakes because some listeners may not have heard of it. Yeah, no, look, it's brand new. It's brand new. So, you know, I've been very blessed in my life to do lots of different things on the fitness side and obviously, you know, nutrition, especially right now, David, is so important. And, you know, I've done op-eds about, you know, fitness is the vaccine. And we need to keep ourselves strong and healthy. And when you look at, especially, look, I'm 62 years old now.

In the adult nutrition section of the supermarket, there are two brands. There's Boost and Ensure. If you look at the ingredient panels on those two products, they're not that great for you. And we decided a number of years back, I wanted to create, I love nutrition shakes. I love protein shakes. I'm not a vitamin taker. So I've always tried to eat well, but I love my protein shakes and protein shakes that are really good for you. Don't taste so great. I wanted to change that. So I partnered up with Keurig Dr. Pepper, LA Libations, and we created this product called Don't Quit. And I'm going to put it right here. Think about this, David, you open the fridge in

the morning and there are those two words, don't quit. And you tell me how that doesn't inspire you. It's the first clean label nutrition shake. And I'll say it again, clean label, which means no soy, no corn, no wheat, no artificial flavors or sweeteners, gluten-free, they're kosher, four delicious, I'm saying it again, delicious flavors, chocolate, vanilla, chai tea, orangeicle, 26 vitamins and minerals, 10 grams of protein. Now the sugar that we have in our original formula is pure cane sugar. So a lot of people, you know, need that, need those calories. Don't quit is the way to go. Now, just so you know, too, we have a max version of Don't Quit, which is 30 grams of protein. There it is. And one gram of sugar, chocolate and vanilla. You go to don'tquit.com to check it out. We're at Walmart now.

As a matter of fact, we're at Fry's, which you can go to, Kroger, King Sooper, Ralph's, places like that. But the great thing about it is people now are sending us really fun recipes for how they're using their Don't Quit. Vanilla Don't Quit pancakes. I mean, they're making great shakes. And the one thing about is so important, when you have your health and you have hope, you have everything, David. I love it. You know what? I could talk to you forever because you have such incredible advice for everybody. So make sure where you're going to go next, you're going to make sure you pick up.

Go to don'tquit.com. Put in the zip code where you're at so you can pick up the shakes and stuff. Again, we've got, and I'm so happy to have had, Jake Steinfeld, Body by Jake, Thunder Fit TV 24-hour fitness channel. You can reach him at OfficialBodyByJake on Instagram. Jake, you've created methods for people to get fit and stay fit. You got me pumped up and continue to explore.

That's a hero. And make sure you go to don'tquit.com. This has been David Kovac with the Alliance Hero Show. Yeah.