Meet Gabriel Lajoie

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gabriel Lajoie. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gabriel below.

Gabriel, thank you so much for making time for us. We’ve always admired your ability to take risks and so maybe we can kick things off with a discussion around how you developed your ability to take and bear risk?

I realized when I was 14 years old that my dreams were so far away from me that if I wanted to achieve them, I had to take substantial measures in order to even have a chance, a possibility of achieving those things I would call my dreams. I started pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone, Consciously and unconsciously as I was making these decisions, they were very painful, but a lot of good would come out on the other side after making the sacrifice of feeling good to potentially, possibly living my dream. I knew that there was no other way for me but to do this, I knew that if I did not take these risks, the only certainty was that my dreams would vanish, and my purpose, which in this case is to inspire the world to live out their own dreams would vanish with it so I pushed through and every time I would make a sacrifice, I would think to myself “I’m doing it for me. I’m doing it for my dream and I’m doing it for my purpose.”

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Everything basically started when I was 14 years old. I was very shy, very insecure and have many friends. I was not particularly you know good looking things were very hard for me and at some point I realized that as I was watching a movie that I wanted to become an actor and wanted to be an actor so bad but I thought I’m too shy I wouldn’t speak, but I didn’t speak English at all at the time so I was like I can’t. I don’t speak English. I’m not that good looking I’m skinny. I’m shy and never did acting in my life. I feel very impossible But then I thought there’s only one way to fucking know if it is a possibility or not so I said let’s start with something not too hard. Let’s start with working out something I think is doable so I started working out and I start again stop start again stop and I kept starting again because I knew that if I didn’t start again, the only certain thing was that I was never gonna be checked and I was never gonna get to that level and being jacked for me was because I wanted to be a superhero in movies and I started getting jacked. Eventually I started getting more confidence and as I gain more confidence, I started doing acting classes I went to drama classes and I was extremely shocked at how good I was and I didn’t even realize I was good so I started getting a lot of Praise at my high school like a lot of praise and so that pushed me to keep going with acting classes at some point someone told me Gabriel you’ll never be able to be an actor that was an agent because they told me it’s impossible. I’m sorry you’re too old things don’t break this way but I just left thinking there must be away so I kept searching, and eventually, I found a way and I kept pushing and got myself an agent. I started acting a bit, but nothing was moving then Covid happen. Got a bunch of acne and I started being really insecure and depressed again so I said let’s practice my acting. I applied for a bunch of acting schools without even thinking I would get a response back and then I got accepted into all of these schools. I decided to go to Vancouver from school so at two days after I turned 18 and moved the loan in on the other side of Canada in a language I was very mail that you know not that good to prepare myself for that the year before going every day for 45 minutes I would do tongue twisters do a lot of research on words and practice my English once I got there it was very hard for me so young living alone a big city with no friends no one I know I pushed did that year and acting school and then I got big big shows fucking proud of and then things went south a little bit. Got very depressed and moved back to Montreal temporarily and now I’ve been here for a little while and then Got it was very tough for me because he got very intense for me so had to take a little break for acting and I’ve just started again a month ago officially and it feels so great. I’m back on set. I’m back on all these things and I must say when I was in Vancouver I’ve been now working out for eight years and a half never stopped working out and everyone started telling me Gabriel you need to be a coach like I want you to coach me that kind of stuff so I became a coach. The youngest coach at my gym was 19 years old. That was a personal trainer certified personal trainer in the gym while I was doing acting And I then started my own company at 19 years old and then for two years I pushed push push. Things were really hard was making about 500 bucks a month on average in this company and until I met some new mentors of mine and then now revenue went up and We’re starting to expand and I’m doing social media as well so I post a lot in there and just pushing to grow and make my dreams a possibility is a never-ending game yeah you need to keep pushing and that’s where I’m at right now I have mentors I have a team. I have some people that work for me for my fitness business so it’s all about consistency and I’m back in the acting game so I’m in the best position I’ve ever been in my life and most proud of this.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Three things pushed me I would say the first one would be my dad he’s doing Iron Man. He was pushing himself extremely hard, balancing him being a pilot an airline pilot and doing Iron Man and just really pushing himself that was very inspiring to me at a young age, and I thought I need to do something huge I need to be as productive as this as disciplined and as Inspiring as my father so that was one thing that was mostly something I would see externally the quality of the scale of just not wasting time being extremely productive and making the most out of your life and not finding excuses like watching TV doing XYZ know he was going to bed early, waking up early going to work coming back working out and then sometimes you wake up at 4 AM to go work out before going to work and you come back home you work out again he’d eat he goes to bed you extremely disciplined that’s one thing Another thing that was very, very, very impactful to me is understanding and realizing that life is a game like any other before I was playing video games all the time I remember thinking what if all this energy was putting into building a crazy life that life is like a big video game there’s so many it’s a complicated video and there’s so many different things about it but if you really push put a lot of energy into it can really make big things happen and there’s literally no limits like everyone is The same innocent. We’re all human were the same and that just depends on the output on the action that you take, and that will dictate the future you’ll have and something else that was extremely impactful in my journey as an actor as an individual as a person I would say is the skill of connections building connections, talking to people You know and that’s yeah I met some friends in mind, and some people helped me in my life a lot with connections and this has been a game changer. This is what rules everything above above anything else I think I have a very large array of connections and that definitely definitely definitely helps a lot a game changer like I said so just have that skill of that kind of building connections know how to approach people differently the most people approach them and how to get together with someone you admire someone that you can get value from and learning how to go about this so this would be the

Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?

Most impactful thing my parents did for me is cutting that string you know letting me loose and not keeping me from doing anything like just letting me do whatever the fuck I want to do at all times and just letting me loose in the wild and also, I’m not feeding me with money so great examples that is when I was young. I wanted to do activities. I want to explain I wanted to do things I want to go for adventure and they would let me do whatever I wanted to do of course there were limitations restrictions times at which I had to come back home for and stuff but these stories these things they build me and also I’m so happy that I have the storage in my head and in my life that I’ve left The fact that they’re letting me do whatever I want for my career you know you have my fitness business you know it’s a very risky thing, but let me you know. They didn’t say don’t do this. Don’t do that. They will let me do it. Also, when it comes to acting same thing, they let me do it in the beginning, seem like something impossible to do you know coming from who I was and they just encourage me and pushed me because they saw how important it was for me to do that And so just that freedom that they gave me is the first part of it with the second part of it is cutting me loosen into the wild and that means when I was 18 years old, even from the age of 16 I had to start paying all my stuff and when I turned 18 and I moved to Vancouver, I had to live on my own I had to paint my own stuff And try to be organized. I was in the adult life so they were you know me anything and if I was in trouble, they would lend me a bit of money, but I had to give it back to them afterwards, so my parents are pretty decently wealthy, but they all they pushed me really learn to thrive on my own and because of that I have earned Independency, as well as maturity, a very, very, very young age, and that really sets me apart from my competition and really helps me destroy my competition because I see things and I see the world in a very different way compared to most of my peers

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabriel.lajoie/