Written by Team MD
10 July 2017

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MD Training Camp - Jay Cutler #4

 

Advice for Bodybuilders: Take Charge of Your Career

Given where you are today and after all your accomplishments, with your experience in the sport and lifestyle, what advice would you give up-and-coming bodybuilders that you wish you had when you were getting started?

This might sound weird, but there’s nothing I wish I knew back then that I don’t know now. By that, I don’t mean that I knew everything— far, far from it. I made mistakes, I learned as much as I could, and I did it on my own.

 

When I first started at age 18, I only had two goals in mind. The first was just to become a bodybuilder, which meant training hard and eating well on a consistent basis. Beyond that, I knew I wanted to compete fairly soon and see how I did. By 19, I was the Teenage National Heavyweight Champion, but from there I knew it would be a big step to succeeding in the men’s open ranks.

 

I struggled financially for a few years in my early to mid-20s, and that’s what motivated me to start promoting myself with things like T-shirts and autographed 8 x 10s. Since this was still a few years before the Internet took off, I marketed those by sending out flyers advertising my merchandise any time I answered fan mail. With the ease of websites and email today, it’s hard to believe how many envelopes I used to stuff and seal and how much money I paid for postage, when you can do it all so much faster and cheaper now. That’s how my mail-order business started, which eventually grew to include my DVDs and my clothing line. Once the Internet was in place and more and more people got online, I took advantage of that as a marketing tool with my own website, and later with the social networking sites as well.

 

People marvel at my success as a businessman, but to me there was never a question that I had to be. If you want to compete and attain star status in this sport, you need to be able to finance yourself. You can be like most, and dream that a sponsor or sponsors will do all that for you, but good luck with that. I’d rather take it into my own hands instead of leaving it up to others.

 

And once you start winning shows and making some money, you can’t stop capitalizing on opportunities. When I was doing so well winning shows around 2002-2004, I invested in real estate. So looking back, I’m actually glad I didn’t have many people showing me the way or giving me advice. There’s a certain satisfaction that comes from knowing you did it on your own.

 

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