Please welcome, Eric Cobb.
What You Need To Know
- Born in Iowa – has lived in Minnesota, Ohio, Chicago, New York and California before Austin.
- Will kick your butt in fitness classes.
- Believes in improving lives through movement and music.
Eric and I snagged time during the Pride photo shoot to talk further about why both of these themes are such big parts of his life and who he is.
“Yeah, I’ve moved a lot!” Eric said with a laugh as we dive in. “My Dad’s job required us to move a lot growing up. After ending up in Chicago I decided I wanted to move to LA and be near all the action – but once I got there, I realized it really wasn’t for me.”
I think it’s extremely important that everyone moves out of their hometown a few times in life. As Eric mentioned, living in a new city and being near the so called ‘action’ is important in realizing if that is what we actually want – if we never take the chance, we may never know.
“From there I helped open a new Equinox club here in Austin which was amazing.” Eric explained.
Eric is a trainer at Equinox – I’ve seen him in action at a few of the ‘sphere soleful Sundays’ and let me tell you, the workout is intense but satisfying.
I wanted to know where this training originated.
“When I was interning in New York I stared doing fitness training on the side to make money, which ultimately turned into group fitness training with music, for me – that was the best of both worlds, movement with music”
Eric had music in his life from an early age.
“Music has sort of always been my thing. I was in choirs in school and always loved to sing. So finding inspiration from music through movement has been an amazing duo.”
But things haven’t always been this way for Eric.
“I had a point in my life where I didn’t really have a lot of self-worth. I lost my purpose and had to climb out of that. Through some bad relationships and other factors, I finally re-realized my worth and value – and now, I’m excited for the next chapter of my life and to take all the person growth I’ve regained to see where it takes me.”
Unfortunately, Eric is leaving us to head back to New York later this summer – but it’s a journey we support and his excitement and vibrant passion for the unknown is inspiring.
“I want to go back to the Big City and be challenged by the most ambitions people and be re-tossed back into the fire now that I’m more of myself.”
We love to see this passion. We close, in the typical fashion.
“The most successful people in any field are those who struck a chord and said ‘fuck it’ to the world and stayed true to what is right for them. Some people are just in it for the clout, but you need to move past all of that and do it for you. If you’re in a small town somewhere seek where you can go to challenge yourself.”
Eric’s words hold true – we never know what we can achieve if we don’t take that first step. In Eric’s case – moving multiple times and going through some challenges forced him to re-align his priorities and curate a rejuvenated sense of self. Because of this, there’s only good that will come Eric’s way as he heads back to the big city – and though we will be watching from afar, our support will never waver.