John Cena Reveals the Greatest Piece of Advice Vince McMahon Ever Gave Him

John Cena recently gave an interview with In The Envelope where he discussed his career as an actor and how it intertwined and eventually spun off from his many years as a top star in the WWE. At one point, he discussed the best piece of advice Vince McMahon ever gave him — give it everything you’ve got and then move forward. He linked that to how his acting career floundered at first with generic action films but eventually blossomed into major roles in films like Bumblebee, the Fast & Furious films and The Suicide Squad. 

“I hate giving advice because everyone’s got to find their own path,” Cena said (h/t Wrestling Inc.). “But if young performers are concerned, I think a good place to start is great work begets opportunity. You will get another chance. I was not the WWE’s first pick, I was their last pick. And I was going to be fired. But they gave me one chance, and then they gave me one more, and then they gave me a free run on their Saturday show, and then they moved me to Smackdown, and then they moved me to Raw. And then more opportunities came, and more opportunities came, and right when I thought ‘man, this is the zenith of all the opportunities’, a whole other door opens up. And the opportunity is ‘you come on in, but you’ve got to start at zero.’ So you’ve got to be brave enough to say ‘okay, good work is going to beget opportunity.’”

“Because I tried this thing before and failed, and I remember having a conversation, an honest conversation with my friend and confidant, someone I love very much, Dan Baime, in 2009 I think it was. I looked him straight in the eye and said ‘Dan, we’re never doing movies again, are we?’ And he’s my agent and he says ‘no, we’re not,’ he continued. “And he was genuine because we work on honesty. We always have. But even in his mind, he was like ‘no we’re not. But we’ll find a way. Don’t worry about it. We’ll find what you love, and we’ll go after what you love.’ We had a very long way of doing things, but here we are over a decade later, and imagine that. I love this all the time, I just needed it taken from me to realize how much I loved it.

Cena added — But I think to young performers, just do the best you can, don’t worry about it. Vince McMahon gave me the best advice I’ve ever been given. ‘Give your all to what you do, promote to the absolute utmost, don’t leave anything on the table, and then move forward.’ If you give it your all, you’ll find a taker. You’ll find what you can do better next time.”