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EP125: Cam F. Awesome - How To Be A Champion In Your Life
49 Plays6 years ago
Win or Die. When life knocks you down, smile, get back and keep dancing. That's what Cam F. Awesome does. This Uniondale, New York native is a former multiple-time boxing champion and Golden Gloves winner who also happens to be a comedian and speaker. Thanks to all the lessons he learned from his boxing career, he's been able to successfully transition to new adventures in his life. During this interview, you’ll discover…
- How to stand out
- Resiliency with efficiency
- How to stay motivated so you’ll never lose
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Transcript
Overcoming Fear of Failure
00:00:00
Speaker
No one's willing to do anything. For the most part, everyone has these great ideas, and they're dime a dozen because no one acts on their ideas. And when someone does act on an idea, they're so hesitant to it because they're afraid to fail. And if you're afraid to fail, you're going to fail anyway. So you might as well not even try.
Introducing 'The Thought Leader Revolution'
00:00:21
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven-figure practice. This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.
00:00:52
Speaker
Welcome to another exciting episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. I'm your host, Nicky Baloo. And boy, do we have an awesome, exciting guest lined up for you today.
Cam F Awesome: A Champion's Journey
00:01:04
Speaker
This man has been a multiple time boxing champion. He's been a Golden Gloves champion. He's been a national champion. He's been an international champion.
00:01:17
Speaker
He's also been identified by Anthony Johnson of the 21 Conference as one of the top 10 thought leaders working with men and boys.
00:01:30
Speaker
A comedian, too. He actually goes out there and does comedy. I am speaking of the one, the only, the legendary Cam F Awesome. Welcome to the show, Cam. Thanks for having me. I dig the introduction. Thank you. We're known for those. We're known for those. So, Cam, the person listening to this show is a coach or a consultant who's interested in growing their business. They want to know
00:01:57
Speaker
how to do that. And they're thinking that learning how to stand out might be a good way to do that. So they're looking to learn from you. How did you get to be this differentiated expert, this recognized authority and thought leader? What's your backstory,
How Boxing Transformed Cam's Life
00:02:15
Speaker
man? Tell us your backstory.
00:02:17
Speaker
Growing up, I wasn't a very confident person. I had a lot of social anxiety and overweight. And when I was about, I was getting bullied a lot. And when I was about my senior year in high school, I joined the only free gym in the neighborhood, which happened to be a boxing gym. And I was never a fan of boxing or sports, really. But it was just free and, you know, it was poor growing up. So I joined that with no intentions of
00:02:42
Speaker
ever even sparring. I never even thought about fighting. I knew sparring wasn't even a thought process. And after I lost the weight, I was getting a little bit of confidence, and I figured I'd spar a little bit. And I would watch boxers train, and I learned a lot from watching other people. And I realized there's a lot of things that people were doing, like boxers were doing that, they were only doing it because coaches told them to. And the coaches only told them to because someone told them to.
00:03:11
Speaker
And I just decided to take my own approach.
Rethinking Boxing Practices
00:03:15
Speaker
And I kind of developed my own boxing style and realized that most boxers, which I've grown to realize which happens in business as well, are completely inefficient and don't spend their time actually making themselves better.
00:03:30
Speaker
An example of that is the most popular workout in boxing, and if you can guess it, it's a speed bag. Sure, makes sense. It's a complete waste of time. There's no purpose behind it, and no one could tell me a purpose. And every time I kind of tell one of these older coaches, they'll say, boy, I've been doing this for 40 years. Well, you can be doing something long for a very wrong time. So they usually say, well, it's hand-eye coordination.
00:04:00
Speaker
And then I say, well, you probably couldn't hit with your eyes closed. And they're like, yeah, I can. And then they hit the speed bag with their eyes closed, which means there's no hand-eye coordination involved. If you were to work out, let's say, 250 days a year, and you dedicate four of those four rounds to hitting the speed bag, that's 1,000 rounds a year you just threw away. Now, if you were to just take that time and work on your jab for an extra 1,000 rounds a year, you'd have a significantly better jab.
Mindset: From Boxing to Business
00:04:29
Speaker
So I've learned to just use my time wisely and I've learned that in boxing and that translated over into business.
00:04:37
Speaker
I'm looking at the list of titles you've won. You won the U.S. men's national champ title four times. You won the Golden Gloves national champ, according to this, five times. Okay, another three times. You won the PAL national champ three times. You were the ringside world champ five times. You were the Olympic triathlon champ seven times. Okay, so this thing's even, this list here is wrong. You won the three gold medals.
00:05:07
Speaker
at the Chio Aponte, the Olympic Cup, the Mazar Makai. That was in Ukraine. I still don't know. I can't say that. Okay. Good. And the Independence Cup and Felix Stam. And then you won, again, the gold medal at Chio Aponte and at Pan-Olympic Festival. That kind of makes you a bona fide champion. So you know what you're talking about when it comes to winning, right? Yeah.
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah, so talk about winning. People love to win. People listening to this podcast love to win. They want to win it growing their business. So what is it that you've learned, brother, about winning that you want to teach our people? I think winning is only as good as losing is bad. So when someone loses at something like, oh, it's not a big deal. It's just a game.
00:06:02
Speaker
Then you're not committed enough to be able to celebrate. I go balls out. If I lose my world crumbles, I've had close to 400 fights, I've met people and introduced myself to them, and they're like, Kim, we fought twice. I don't remember, but I could tell you all 39 of my losses in boxing rings.
00:06:30
Speaker
I think if you're willing to make yourself vulnerable to losing, then you'll be able to celebrate even better. And if you don't have a safety net, you don't have the option to fall. And that's kind of how I live my life. Wow. You know, I never quite heard it put that way before. So you've had over 400 fights. You remember every single of the ones you lost and you go out there and you give it your all and you don't have a safety net. You allow yourself to be vulnerable.
00:07:00
Speaker
which means you probably win more often than you lose. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't have a choice. You know, a lot of times, and I see it in guys, when they get tired, they're just like, ah, screw it, I'll just lose. Me, I put myself so out there, and I put myself in that position purposely to make sure I don't have a safety net. I dance on the way to the ring, I flip into the ring, I do all of this, because I don't want to have another option besides winning.
00:07:27
Speaker
So it's like the Trojans in ancient Greece, right? They burned the boats. They had to win or die, right? Basically. Yep. That's perfect. And that's how everyone should be. But the fact that people aren't like that makes it a lot easier to be successful.
00:07:45
Speaker
Just no one's willing to do anything. For the most part, everyone has these great ideas, and they're dime a dozen because no one acts on their ideas. And when someone does act on an idea, they're still kind of hesitant to it because they're afraid of fail. And if you're afraid to fail, you're going to fail anyway. So you might as well not even try.
00:08:10
Speaker
wow.
Discipline in Life and Speaking Career
00:08:12
Speaker
So how'd you translate this attitude to business and how's it paid off for you? I've adopted the thought process and I've lived it so authentic and genuinely that it's who I've become. And boxing is the greatest metaphor for life because everyone's dealing with their own their own battles or struggles and everyone's fighting something.
00:08:34
Speaker
And I was just able to take the whole concept of boxing and the approach to boxing, an unorthodox approach, and I brought it into the speaking world. And I found that the greatest thing I could have done was box. And I dropped out of college to pursue boxing. And I don't have a lot of formal education. But what boxing taught me is something that you can't learn at a school.
00:09:04
Speaker
because you have the, you have consequence in life, but physical consequence on top of consequence is, is the worst position to be in. So I'm always motivated. I train myself to be motivated because if I don't wake up in the morning and go running, or if I start skipping workouts, or if I have to step, cut weight too, too often, then I'm not prepared for the fight. And if I get tired during a fight, I'm getting my ass beat and
00:09:32
Speaker
Not only do I not want to lose, but I don't want to be exposed. So the amount of energy it takes to prepare for boxing and be successful in boxing, you can do anything else. You can use 10% of that energy for anything else and be successful. So now I've taken that type of energy and I brought it to speaking. And at first I wanted to enter the corporate world and do corporate speaking. And I spoke at some schools at first because
00:10:02
Speaker
you have to start from somewhere. And I know a lot of people who don't get far in life because they're always like, well, I deserve to be speaking to a bigger crowd. I've done speeches for three people.
00:10:14
Speaker
I started doing these workshops and I partnered with a company. I live in Kansas City. I partnered with a company in Omaha and they were supposed to sell the tickets and do the promoting. And I was just supposed to drive up there and do the, do the workshop. And when I woke up that morning, I checked the email to see how many people had signed up and it was one person. So one person. So I had the thought, like I didn't know what to do, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to disappoint.
00:10:42
Speaker
100% of my clientele. So I drove four hours and did the workshop for one person. And while anything was experienced, I've learned I've done comedy shows and in front of people on their cell phones who would rather me not be talking. I mean, I feel like you do enough stuff, you do enough gigs like that. You can prepare for anything when it actually does matter. So
00:11:09
Speaker
My thought process was I'm going to speak a hundred times for free before I ever charge anyone, because the last thing I would want to do is come up short and disappoint a book. So when I was probably speaking for not that long and someone approached, Starbucks approached me to do a talk on, ironically enough, diversity in the workplace.
00:11:36
Speaker
And I don't know about that after all this garbage that they went through in the last couple of weeks. Yeah, this was a this was like two years ago. But the stuff with Starbucks, I think people are just so ridiculous now. I agree with you. It's over the top man. And okay, you know, it's BS, like the diversity training. Like, what are you gonna learn in four hours, you're gonna undo your your whole racist upbringing?
00:12:02
Speaker
Because no one wakes up one morning and decides to be racist. I mean, that's something you're kind of brought into. Well, I'm from the Middle East. You're from where? I'm from the Middle East. I'm from Iran. And I'm a Christian from the Middle East. I'm from a Christian in a country which is almost 99% Muslim. So it just gives you a sense of my minority status. When I was a kid,
00:12:25
Speaker
People used to just come and punch me in the head for being a Christian, just randomly, you know what I mean? They saw a cross hanging around my neck. And I dealt with it, our family dealt with it. We learned to fight back and all that, and we won people's respect and all that stuff. I came to North America. Nobody was punching me in the head for how I looked or the cross hanging around my neck. I never lost a job opportunity.
00:12:52
Speaker
And you know, I'm not saying that people aren't prejudiced because everybody's prejudiced at some level. We got to all fight it. And we can't help it. It's just the nature of being human, right? Someone's different from us. It makes us feel threatened, makes us feel scared, makes us feel whatever you want to call it, right?
00:13:12
Speaker
I come in here, and for the most part, people are great to each other. You have opportunities. I mean, I wasn't forbidden from going after certain jobs because of my religion. You know what I mean? And yet people here complain about racism and prejudice to a way that people back home don't. And they're experiencing the kind of racism and prejudice that could have you killed or end up in a hospital.
00:13:39
Speaker
So I just laugh at people here. I just laugh at people here when they go, oh my God, you offended me. That was racist. I'm like, give me a break. You don't even know what real racism is. When did you get to America? Actually, I'm in Canada, but in 1982. I think the problem is, not even the problem, I think that
00:14:01
Speaker
Here in America, it's so great that we don't have anything to complain about. We really don't. We just make up a bunch of stuff. So we make stuff up. We make stuff up. Yeah, like, I'm not saying it's disingenuous. I mean, they don't know any better. I understand the ignorance of a person when they tell me something like, oh, I went to Jamaica. It was beautiful. Man, I could live there. I'm like, oh, you think Sandals Resort is what that country is? Yeah, no, it's not. Like, most people don't know what poverty is.
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah, Jamaica unfortunately has some serious poverty. Yeah. When we say we're like, Oh man, we're, we're poor here in America. Like we still have government assistance and running water and homeless shelters. I've been to- And iPhones? And like 4G TVs? Yes. You got a cell phone, you have $300 Jordans on. Like you're not, you're bad at managing money, but you're not poor.
00:14:59
Speaker
Nobody's starving that I'm aware of. No, I don't think people know the difference. I've been to countries where there's garbage on the street, not because they're dirty. It's because they don't have a sanitation system. I mean, they're drinking out of lakes. I mean, there's real poverty and we don't have problems. So we make up. Yeah, we make it like the whole gender pronoun thing, the whole bathroom deal. Yeah, don't get me started on that. I'm not saying that these people don't genuinely think these are issues.
00:15:30
Speaker
I think they don't know what other issues are like this is the things they they have to worry about while others in other countries are worrying about if you know they're gonna live alligators gonna eat them drinking from a ravine or something
00:15:49
Speaker
No, exactly. And listen, I don't want to sound like I'm insensitive to somebody who's experienced being made to feel less than, right? I mean, people say nasty stuff. That's not fun. It's not good for any reason. But at the end of the day, there also needs to be perspective.
00:16:08
Speaker
Right? And I especially think that someone calling you a name because of how you look or because of your religion or your gender or whatever, it's not a nice thing. No question about it. But you know what? You got to toughen up a little bit and be able to take it and do something about standing up for yourself rather than, you know, crying in a corner and saying, I'm a victim. And then having an overreaction. There's overreactions that people have, like,
00:16:35
Speaker
There's people who are losing their livelihood over this. Now, someone says something nasty. I have no problem with them, you know, being called out and apologizing and all that jazz. But do you need to destroy their business? Do you need to destroy their ability to make a living? Just take them down. That's insane, man. That's like insane. I mean, that's worse than what they did by a factor of 100. You know, taking away someone's ability to earn a living, feed their family, that's, I'm sorry. To me, that's racist.
00:17:05
Speaker
that the whole liberal college deal. I believe college, though I didn't go, college is a place where you go to prepare for the real world and you learn how to, because you're preparing for work.
00:17:18
Speaker
Now, although that most people are going to school for jobs that they are going to eventually hate or degrees that they'll never use, it's supposed to prepare them for the real world. And if someone says something that hurts your feelings, or someone may say something that hurts your feelings so you don't allow them to do business with you, guess what? I give speeches in places that I would never want to be.
00:17:43
Speaker
where I don't feel comfortable or I don't agree with what everyone says. No, how could you? And although I think very highly of myself, I think I'm great. I think I'm amazing. You should. That's why your name is Cam Awesome. Yeah, but I don't want everyone in the world to be like me. I don't want everyone to think like me. I think it's a flaw that people think that.
00:18:09
Speaker
Like the, I saw a video and I think I retweeted it about some liberal college not letting certain, like they want to bet comedians jokes because they want it to be a safe space. I said, you mean the funny guy holding a microphone on the funny stage at a funny show? You're going to take anything he says seriously? I don't think there's a joke that is off limits. Even when Bill Maher said that thing recently, a couple of months back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:39
Speaker
When he said that the reporter on his HBO show, where you can curse and it's not censored, the reporter said, oh man, you're in this big studio. You need to come work the fields with us. And I saw his face light up because that guy inadvertently threw Bill Maher in alley-oop. And I promise you, if Bill Maher didn't say anything, I would have thought he was racist.
00:19:01
Speaker
because he obviously had the reaction. And I say things that could come off as racist because I have no ill will, no harm towards anyone. So I say what I think if I think it's funny. And he waited. He paused a second. The timing was perfect. He said work the fields. Man, I'm a house. And I love the funniest thing ever.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, and they nailed them for it. I remember that. They nailed them for it. You know, when you said it, now it was funny. You know, shut up to a show next week to talk about language. Ice Cube. Really? Ice Cube, NWA. Yeah, that dude.
Humor and Resilience in Adversity
00:19:41
Speaker
NWA guy. The police guy, that guy. That guy. And I think that is...
00:19:49
Speaker
There's nothing that's said in jest that should be taken. I don't care if it's a dead person, a sick person, and there's nothing off limits if it's intended for humor. Now, if you're on a stage and you're a comedian, sometimes jokes don't work. Sometimes you don't deliver it right, but I'm not gonna be mad at somebody for attempting a joke. Now, if it's something said like hateful or something ignorant, if you say like,
00:20:21
Speaker
And just, you see a person, a brown person, and you're just like, oh, it's a terrorist. That's not funny. You're just trying to be offensive. But if you have a well-articulated joke with a punchline that you don't see coming, I'm all for it. I don't care if it's against black people, vegans, people. I've been vegan for six years. Are you vegan? I do, yeah. Man, you're this big buff boxer dude.
00:20:49
Speaker
And you're vegan. The man I train with, his name's Mark McCoy. He's an Olympic gold medalist, 110 meter hurdles. He's vegan too, just blows me away.
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah, I go to these veg fest, these vegan festivals. I basically MC a festival in different cities every weekend. Last weekend was Buffalo. Saturday, I'm doing Albany. Next week, I think it's San Diego. So anyway, this is what I do. And I do comedy shows at these events a lot of times. And I had a lady, a PETA lady walk out on one of my jokes because she was offended. And
00:21:30
Speaker
I'm not going to apologize. I won't apologize. I did it once. I got my first college speaking gig and my first college comedy show, which are pretty hard to get because I'm not in Napa. And it was sold out.
00:21:47
Speaker
I was pretty excited because the first show I sold out, the first college tour I did, I'm like, well, these kids probably follow me on Instagram and they know who I am. So all the comedians when I was headlining and I was walking towards the stage and someone's like, man, it's pretty big crowd here, huh? And I'm like, yeah, they're here for me. And he's like, oh, you think they're here for you? I was like, I'm the headliner tonight. He's like, oh, yeah, I know, but
00:22:09
Speaker
You don't know why they're here. I'm like, why? Why they're here? I'm about to get on stage. Tell me before I go up there and look like an idiot. He's like, oh, you're the first comedian here in a year because the last comedian said an offensive joke and all the students walked out together in an act of solidarity. So everyone showed up to repeat it.
00:22:28
Speaker
And the first thing I thought was I could do it in 30 seconds. I can get everyone to walk on 30 seconds. Nice. Oh, my God. Another part of me was like, I work off referrals and it's my first college gig and I just kept it clean. And every time I think I was leading in a direction and I could see that they were getting tense and they're like, oh, this could be our opportunity. I took it away from them. And I drove home that night and I felt like crap. I felt like I disrespected myself.
00:22:57
Speaker
And I promise them I'll never do that again. Good for you. Try not to offend people at a comedy show. Like, I won't go out of my way to purposely offend someone, but I was so upset at myself that I did that. Well, let's just roll this into some thought leadership before we wrap up the show. OK, so you've
00:23:24
Speaker
been a champion-level boxer, you've brought that into your speaking career and your comedic career. And what you've done is you've had an attitude of victory. Failure is not an option. And you've also had the courage to stick to your convictions. And when you didn't, you felt like crap, as you put it.
00:23:48
Speaker
And what you've realized is that for your business to grow, you need to be true to yourself. That's powerful stuff. I like it. Yeah, and I have commitment. This is how committed I am before we wrap up. I was on my first speaking tour, 51 days. I set it up, did everything myself. And I believe that successful people work harder than you could ever imagine, but many of them
00:24:18
Speaker
don't like to talk about how hard they work. Because when you're about it, you don't need to talk about it. And that's how I was in boxing. I would train when no one was looking and then kind of act like it's casual. I was busting my butt every day in the gym. And then once people are around, I just kind of played it cool and like, Oh, look, Cam's always winning. He barely works out. I work harder than anybody else. And with the speaking business, I realized that no one respects a business person that doesn't have representation.
00:24:49
Speaker
I was emailing a lot of these people about booking gigs cuz I'm doing everything myself and I wasn't getting any responses because I was just some Joe schmoe who's representing himself so I got an agent and a scheduling manager to book my gigs for me and I Mean it's about ten hours of work a day and it's just me Using a different email address speaking about myself in third person Her name is Alice. I Became my own my own agent
00:25:18
Speaker
just because you got to find loopholes and way around the system. I love it. I love it. My 51 day speaking tour, three hours into it, I totaled my car and I hit a sheet of ice, hit two median, slid down a hill and hit a tree. And I climbed out out of the ditch, a car, a few cars pulled over, see if I was okay. And I'm just like,
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah, I'm all right. Could you give me a ride? Because I saw a sign that said airport five miles. So can you give me a ride to the airport? And he's like, you sure you're right? I'm like, yeah. And he drove me to the airport, I rented a car, drove back to my total car, took everything out and drove through the night because I lost some time and got to the school two hours before it opened, slept in my car for an hour and a half, brushed my teeth in a Starbucks and continued my speaking tour.
00:26:04
Speaker
Now I just bought a Mercedes splinter with as a sink in it, a bed, solar panels on the roof, and I'm basically going to live in my van for the next six months and do nonstop speaking gigs. That's how committed I am.
00:26:22
Speaker
I got to tell you, I'm very impressed. You know, most of the thought leaders we bring onto our program have built really successful businesses, you know, mid six figure to seven and even eight figure businesses to see someone like you who's who's been a
00:26:38
Speaker
Champion level boxer bring that into the business world and have such a dedication to winning. It just warms my heart so I know that you've got a speaking tour coming up.
Connect with Cam F Awesome
00:26:51
Speaker
How do people find out about you speaking to is there a website sir link? Yeah, you find me at celebrity sports speaker calm and at cam f awesome c-a-m f-a-w-e-s-o-m-e on all platforms Twitter Instagram and
00:27:06
Speaker
Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube. Awesome. So if you're listening, definitely go. This information is going to be in the show notes as well. Go see Cam speak if you can. Consume his content. This man's the real deal. He's been a champion boxer. He's bringing that to the speaking field. He's going to be a top level thought leader. And this man is worth
00:27:34
Speaker
listening to, and he's obviously someone who's true to himself because he's willing to be politically incorrect. He's willing to stand up for what he believes in. And my friend, for that, I have huge respect for you. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure. And, listener, if you're wondering to yourself, you know, could I be like Cam? Could I get out there and grow my coaching, consulting business? And the answer is yes. And here's how you do it.
00:28:02
Speaker
Jump on a call with myself or a member of my team. Go to eCircleAcademy.com forward slash appointment or go to eCircleAcademy.com. Go to the top right hand corner and click on the button, schedule your success call. Jump on a call with us. We'll help you figure out a plan on how to get trained to bring your expertise out there into the marketplace and show you how you can grow your business so that your money worries will be over forever.
00:28:31
Speaker
Cam F Awesome, thanks for being a guest on the show. Thanks for having me, man. Pleasure's all mine, my friend.
00:28:41
Speaker
And that wraps up another powerful episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. To find out more about today's awesome guest, the one, the only, Cam F. Awesome, go to the show notes at thethoughtleaderrevolution.com. And to find out how you can grow your coaching or consulting business, go to ecircleacademy.com forward slash appointment. Until next time, goodbye.