Meet Ryan Cooper | Ryan is a respected Father, Actor, Model, Health Coach and Producer

I have really made listening to my daughter a priority. Even when I have a long list of things to do and she was upset because she couldn’t find a toy, if I gave her just a minute of attention to show her that I heard and maybe I couldn’t even help in that very moment, it helped her process the emotions faster.

There has always been a magnetic pull to the arts for me. I performed in leading roles of plays as a kid, and was the bassist and back up vocalist in a rock cover band as a teen. Then at 15 my father encouraged me to follow in his footsteps as a builder, which very quickly gifted me the skillset of a strong work ethic. In 2007 after 6 years of building and being asked to travel for fashion many times, I took the plunge and entered the NY fashion scene. After securing world wide campaigns with Armani Exchange, Hugo Boss and DKNY I realized I had a substantial amount of free time as a model and cue work ethic’, didn’t want to waste that time. I jumped into acting, improv and vocal lessons, I did gymnastics lessons and stunt training and very quickly landed my manager Jill Kaplan who wanted to sign me as an actor. Along the journey were numerous responses of NO. There were visa issues, timing issues, dialect issues and we kept plugging on and up-skilling until the answers began to be YES.

It was never easy, but it was also never hard, because I loved the process of learning! I really credit my mum and dad for their example of hard work to get me through the many places, career choices and life challenges.

I’ve noticed a pattern in my career recently. Every 5-7years I like to take on a new challenge. It could be due to the fact as a child my family made a large migratory move at 5 and 11. I don’t know but it’s interesting to begin to catch ones personal flavor of patterns. If I was to recognize the biggest lesson is that. We are all different, but when we have the ability to self reflect without judgement we can start to unfold the behaviors without force but with curiosity.

The last few years have been an extraordinary learning curve. Navigating co-parenting, coaching clients with my Cooperfit company, acting in and producing movies with some fashion jobs interwoven has taught me to prioritize the direction I want my career to go and how that helps (or does not encourage) a healthy relationship with a child. The mirror I receive from being a parent is far clearer than any I’ve ever looked in before.