Tom Terwilliger – UCW Magazine Nov/Dec 2021

Who is Tom Terwilliger?

Tom Terwilliger is a true American success story, that is the short answer but lets give you the WHY.

Beyond being a former Mr. America he has grown to become one of the most sought after motivational speakers in the country. That all begins with the first step of his journey, which was competitive bodybuilding. He won many titles, one of which was the Mr. America title, yes he competed in the Mr. Olympia a few times but didn’t snag that crown. All this did was give him drive with a new direction and that was being an entrepreneur.

He was successful at launching a small athletic club chain in New York but he wasn’t satisfied with that success, he wanted more. That more came when he took shot with his business partners and pitched a show to the Madison Square Garden Network called “MuscleSport USA”, they had no clue if they would even allow them to pitch it at all. They went all in and with that mindset it brought them to having a very successful 16 year run TV show, which many shows of any type don’t make it through their first year.

Now that is the positive stuff, there are a lot of other things that occur that most people don’t hear about or want to hear about. Like the struggle and failures when trying take on other ventures. While most see this as a negative , it’s actually a part of the process and the most successful people in the world have had the most failures.

Thomas Edison, one of the greatest innovators of all time, he failed thousands of times but he kept trying and without that tenacity we would not have electricity or most of the other things that we have today. Terwilliger has that tenacity, he has failed plenty of times on his journey but that didn’t slow him down, not an inch, he has that fighters mentality of never staying down for the count if you can still breath.

He took those experiences and wanted to work with them to show others that they too can push through their failures, fears and desires. He wanted to share what he learned because he believes that giving back is a necessity on the path to success. The next venture brought him to becoming an author, he penned an Amazon Bestseller in “7 Rules of Achievement”, a guide to true success.

Now some may equate success to solely monetary but you’ve heard the saying that you can’t take it with you, so his book is much deeper than the money, its about true success in life. Being happy, being passionate, overcoming the fear of what is holding you back.

He has been featured in numerous magazines from the world of fitness, business and success, but you will never see a Failure Magazine, I guess that is because people don’t want to hear about those stories. Trust me if you did then you would understand that there are millions of people that need to hear those stories to be inspired.

His journey has led him to being a successful Motivational Speaker and Mentor but that didn’t happen alone, Batman always needed Robin, his Robin is his wife Dawn Terwilliger who has been his guiding light for him to achieve what he has to date.