Magnus Lygdback is a personal trainer, nutritionist, entrepreneur, and life coach originally from Sweden, who continues to grow his already successful business in the US, and internationally, coaching some of the biggest stars in Hollywood. We are also very fortunate to have Magnus as one of our phenomenal Advisory Board Members of Mentor Foundation USA. For this interview, we spoke with Magnus about maintaining a healthy lifestyle, achieving your goals, mentoring, why he values discipline and accountability over motivation, and much more. Read all about it below!
Magnus, we are so glad that you are one of Mentor USA’s Advisory Board Members and continue to support our important work via the organization. Could you start off by telling our supporters and friends a bit more about why you said yes to this commitment, and why you think the mission of Mentor is important?
Anything where you can help young people to move forward in life and improve – I’m in.
If there is anything I have learned during the years, and that I can share to help someone, even if it’s one person, I would love to do so.
As a highly successful personal trainer and nutritionist, we would love to hear if you’ve got any tips and tricks for choosing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, especially during adolescence?
Yeah, I’ve got a few. We talk a lot about being motivated to make a change in life, and I say motivated is overrated. Don’t wait for motivation and don’t depend on motivation. Discipline and accountability are the things that’s going to change your life. That means whether you want to or not, you will have to show up every day. That might be hard, but it starts with one step, and I think that everyone should look at their life and try to think, not necessarily who they are, but who they want to be, because who you want to be dictates what you should do in a day. That means that if you need to get up early to eat a better breakfast and to move for 30-60 minutes that is what you have to do.
If you are in this spot where you don’t feel great, then you need to make a change, and training and nutrition are two things that you can make a change within on your own, you don’t need anyone else.
- Magnus Lygdback
Speaking about movement: would you say moving every day is something that you as a health and fitness professional would encourage young people to do?
You should move every day! We know now that movement makes you stronger physically and mentally, and it even works better than medication many times. I mean, there are scientific research that are supporting and proving that physical activity improves your mental health, same thing with nutrition. So, if you are in this spot where you don’t feel great, then you need to make a change, and training and nutrition are two things that you can make a change within on your own, you don’t need anyone else.
Could you share your favorite breakfast with us to maybe give us some inspiration on how to start the day in a great way?
That would be something protein based and sugar free!
Is there any challenge you have overcome in your life and career, and lessons from that, that you would like to share?
Coming from a small town in Sweden, with immigrant parents, and just moving around and always feeling different, I smile at this question because I’ve had so many setbacks and there’s been so many lessons learned. I think what I have learned is to never give up, to constantly keep moving forward. I think it is extremely important to understand that failure is a part of success. You can get what you want in life, I’m telling you, and I’m a living proof of that, but I’ve failed more times than I have succeeded. Every time you make a mistake – you learn. It’s not a failure because you make a mistake or you don’t succeed, it will teach you something and then you move forward. I would even go as far as putting it like this: the most successful people in life have lost and failed more times than anyone else.
So, what would you say is your number 1 advice for young people who want to achieve their goals?
I really got two things to say: Allow yourself to dream big but work even harder. And don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t.
Have you ever had a mentor or role model that has had a positive impact on your life?
Well, for me it has been about surrounding myself with people that are better than you, or who make you better all the time. I think we become a product of the people that we spend the most time with. So, I didn’t have a mentor per say, but throughout life I’ve learned that you become a product of the people you spend the most time with, so I think you should choose those people carefully, even at a young age. If you have toxic energy around you, I would strongly recommend to not be afraid to cut that person loose and find someone else.
Throughout life I’ve learned that you become a product of the people you spend the most time with, so I think you should choose those people carefully…
- Magnus Lygdback
I can tell you; I have been working with so many people who came from nothing, that has what we would say is “everything” today, and many of them come from a background of poverty and drug abuse and miserable places, but they all say the same thing: they had to change their environment or the people they were spending time with.
Even if you didn’t have a specific mentor growing up, what can you today see are the benefits of having a mentor in your life, especially during adolescence?
To have a mentor is a fantastic thing because then you don’t have to make all the same mistakes that your mentor did. It can help tremendously if you have someone who can show you kind of a “blueprint” or guide you towards your goals. I would say, we all got to make mistakes anyway, but with a mentor you have that support to know that it is possible to achieve what you want in life, and you might end up making less mistakes on the way there.
As always, we want to finish by asking you if you could share your favorite inspirational quote?
”Oh, I’ve got so many, but I’d say one that I really like is: “I didn’t say it was going to be easy, I said it was going to be worth it.”
A huge thank you to Magnus for taking the time to speak with us, and of course for being a part of our Advisory Board and his support of Mentor Foundation USA!