#378: IFBB Pro Blessing Awodibu on Discovering Your Passion, The Power of Gratitude and How To Stop Giving A F*ck What People Think About You!

Today on the podcast:

Blessing Awodibu is an Irish Nigerian IFBB Pro Bodybuilder and 2X Arnold Champion.

His Instagram page has over 1.8 million followers.

Interestingly enough, a good portion of his more than 1.8 million followers have become fans of his without knowing about his bodybuilding endeavors.

Instead, he has gotten a following from his hilarious gym sketches and great sense of humor.

Blessing hopes to change some of the stigma around bodybuilders being too serious and aggressive. And as someone who has known him for years, I can definitely say that he’s doing that video by video and post by post.

An incredibly motivational and inspiring conversation with a wonderful person who I’ve known for years. Enjoy.

CCTV video

Episode Outline

08:15 His incredible backstory of being smuggled from Nigeria to Ireland at 9 years old
13:11 Finding his passion in bodybuilding and his advice for dealing with those who don’t believe in your dream
16:23 How gratitude is a belief system, not just something we do
20:06 The crazy virality of his video content online and growing to over 1 million followers in six months!
26:02 Staying relatable as an influencer no matter how large your following gets
27:52 What Blessing loves about bodybuilding and training and diet mistakes he had to overcome
30:25 Where “The Boogeyman” nickname came from
32:57 Why you can’t fake passion
35:15 His Pro Bodybuilding debut that leads to a short bout of depression and how it’s become his favorite failure “no losing, only learning”
42:12 What Blessing is most excited about right now
44:08 Blessing’s message to his younger self
48:41 The one Instagram post Blessing would want the entire world to see

Key Points

If you want to achieve success anywhere in life, you need to stop caring about what other people say to you or about you. Facing backlash and criticism is normal when fighting for any goal—and the bigger the goal, the more scathing the criticism.
Finding success in bodybuilding requires you to bring out the best in every regard: you must be disciplined, you must be focused, you must have strong goals, and you must believe in yourself. It gets boring after a while going into the gym day in, day out, doing more or less the same routines, and eating the same meals. Without drive and work ethic, you waste your time at the gym.
You can’t fake passion, at least not for long, because it shows in your results. Likewise, and for that same reason, you can’t fake hard work. Always look forward, keeping the end in mind, to help you endure the grind that you will need to go through in order to achieve your wildest dreams.

Powerful Quotes by Blessing

It doesn’t matter your background. It doesn’t matter where you’re from. As long as you have a dream, you have a goal, fucking go after it. People will say shit, but as long as you believe in yourself, you can actually turn your dreams into reality.
Be you; be real; be yourself.
You can’t fake passion because it shows in your results.
Don’t let naysayers deter you from your goals and dreams.