How to Start Thinking Like a Champion with Cam Awesome

00:00:00 - Courtney Elmer
You're about to step inside the mind of a true championship mindset. I am joined on the show today by none other than America's number one heavyweight boxer, someone who conquered bullying and intense anxiety from a very early age and who has since uncovered the secrets to real mental toughness and gratitude. And he's here today to help you learn how to think like a championship mindset, to embrace fear and failure on your journey to success so you can forever change the way that you approach challenges in your life. That's all coming up next, so stay tuned. Globally ranked among the top shows in business and education. We're known for helping overworked online business owners navigate the ups and downs on the way to seven figures each week. You're going to learn how to get the right systems, structure, and support in place so you can build a self-sustaining business that thrives in a rapidly changing digital environment and grow through what you go through to create the greater income, influence, and impact you deserve. This is AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™

00:02:08 - Courtney Elmer

Now, as any boxing champion is going to tell you, boxing is all about perception. That's what Cam Awesome believes. And I have a strong feeling that he would say the same about life itself because Cam Awesome, who is now best known as the Taylor Swift of boxing, won the US title multiple times, and he's a three-time Golden Glove winner. But like most of us, his rise to success did not come without struggle. He faced some serious challenges from a very early age, including anxiety and bullying. So, while his story might look like one of triumph over this adversity from the outside looking in, and despite achieving tremendous accomplishments and influencing thousands of people, Cam has not let society's ideal of success define him. Instead, what you'll quickly come to realize about Cam and his story is the humility, resilience and mental fortitude that success actually demands. 

00:03:16 - Courtney Elmer                                                                                                       

And so Cam joins us on the show today to share the real secret behind his winning more matches than anyone else in the history of the sport. Because, as he'll tell you, being the record holder of this incredible accomplishment is not because he's undefeated, but that he's won more than any other boxer. Because he's lost more than any other boxer. Cam's secret to greatness lies in the fact that he competed more than anyone else because no matter what, he never quit. So get ready to be inspired because today's episode is all about the role that your beliefs play in your growth and success, as well as how you should approach failure and setbacks and how to always bet on yourself, both inside and outside the ring of business and in life.

00:03:33 - Courtney Elmer
Cam, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here today. You are an inspiration, and I want to dive right into your story because I feel like for those listening today who don't know you. I want them to get to understand the adversity that you've overcome in your life, to be able to reach the levels of success that you have reached in your career and to be able to create the impact that you're making in the world right now. So, thanks for making the time to be here today.

00:04:06 - Cam Awesome
Oh, thanks for having me. Yeah, this is going to be cool.

00:04:09 - Courtney Elmer
Let's start with you. What was it like to experience anxiety and bullying from such a young age, and what specific mental strategies and championship mindset did you have to develop to navigate these challenges?

00:04:23 - Cam Awesome
My family were Islanders, and they didn't really believe in anxiety. That's not like a real thing. So you have to figure things out. And I'm grateful that I had to figure things out because I didn't even know what the word anxiety was until I was in my twenties. I would volunteer in the nurse's office in school during my lunch hour because, as I would say, I was afraid to be in a room with so many people. It would make me feel uncomfortable. And I was afraid I would get beat up in front of all those people, which I think is a part of the whole anxiety thing. So I kind of developed habits of taking certain routes home or making sure I was the first one off school property so no one, like in elementary school. I was released from school 15 minutes early so I could get home before my bully got to me because we lived on the same block. So that was kind of my childhood. But it sounds sad or whatever, but that was my childhood. When I was 14. I figured out when I was 14, because of the bullying and all that, I wanted to lose weight. So I tried to join a team, but I wasn't good at any sports. So, I figured out how calories worked in school. 

00:06:27 - Cam Awesome
I learned, like, you consume about 2000 calories a day, and you naturally burn about 2000 calories a day, and you break even. So, if you want to lose weight, you have to burn more calories than you consume. That's how my simple mind worked when I was 14. So I was like, okay, I'll join a team. But then I tried out for all the teams, and I couldn't make any. So then I decided, like, oh, I'll just rollerblade every morning before school. So, I rollerblade every day before school. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, day after day after day after day, six days in a row. Courtney, on day number seven, I woke up, I was like, I was sore, I was tired, and no one had stopped and said, hey, Cam, I can tell you're losing weight. Keep up the good work. And I had to ask myself the question, like, what's going on? Because I did this six days in a row. Am I wasting my time? But then I looked at it like an equation. Math is always correct. One plus two equals three. Me. Like, I just have to burn more calories than I consume. I didn't gain this weight in six days. I'm not going to lose it in six days. Also, I have nothing else to do with my life. I'm 14, and I just kept doing it. And after about two months, people would say, like, oh, look at Cam. He thinks he's skinny. And I would blush. But to me, that was confirmation that it worked. So, through that experience, I figured out an equation that changed my life forever. I found out the championship mindset, the secret to success: how you can accomplish anything in life. One plus two equals three, right? In this equation, you are one. You should always be your number one. No one's going to believe in you unless you believe in yourself. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. Three is the outcome, the goal, the objective. One plus two equals three. Two in this equation is everything you need to do to get to three. Now, it's called number two, appropriately named because it is the crappy part of the job. It's the part where you have to actually put in the work. It's waking up early. It's the studying tape. It's running in the rain. It's calling people back. It's following up. It's being annoying. It's the stuff that people don't want to do. Now, here's the thing about this equation. One plus two equals three. 

00:08:50 - Cam Awesome
The only thing you cannot add to this equation is your feelings, your emotions. Like, we live in a society where everyone's like, feel your feelings, feel your emotions. Sure, do what you want with them, but don't make any decisions based off of your logical emotions. So, I took this equation. One plus two equals three me. One, two, burning calories. Three lose weight. So I decided to go to the boxing gym, and I started working out more than all the other boxers. I was in there because my day was just burning calories. And after a few months, the coach is like, you're in better shape than everyone else. Do you want to spar? And I said, oh, no, my mom's not going to let me. And then everyone laughed, and I was like, I'm joking, I'm joking. And I was so afraid to get hit that the equation became me, plus not getting hit equals surviving. And I got in the ring to spar, and I moved so much, like, trying not to get hit. I felt like I burned so many calories, and I was like, this is a way better workout than anything else I've ever done. So that's all I did. I just sparred. And after a year, I was like, maybe I can be a boxer. Because if it's one plus two equals three, if I just don't get hit, I win, right? You don't have to know a lot about boxing, but if I don't get hit, I win, right? Yeah, that was my thought process. So, I started boxing, and I found success pretty quickly. I did everything; I questioned everything, by the way, because I taught myself how to box. I just saw what normal boxers were doing, and I thought to myself, does this make sense? My whole goal was not getting hit. For most people in boxing, their whole thing is learning how to hit people. I took the opposite approach, and within two years, I qualified for the 2008 Olympic Trials after never being able to make a team.

00:09:52 - Courtney Elmer
What I noticed most as you shared this story, Cam is that you didn't let the fear of losing or of being laughed at stop you. Because for someone who was bullied, who was laughed at, you could have easily let this be the thing that made you hide, that kept you from showing up, that made you say, no, I'm not going to do this. But you pushed through it anyway. So tell us what happened next.

00:10:19 - Cam Awesome
Couple things. Here's how it happened, though. I was very unconfident in New York and then my senior year in high school after I started boxing, I started losing weight. But I was still so unconfident in New York. Then, I moved to Florida my senior year, and no one knew who I was. And I realized I could just pretend to be whoever, I could have an English accent and no one would know the difference. And I pretended to be a compilation of really cool people I went to school with in New York and everyone in Florida bought it. Problem living in Florida, though. My boxing gym was 6 miles away from my high school. And every day after school, I walked 6 miles to the gym, and people were like, oh, it was 6.3 miles. So I legit did that every day. And I didn't have this back with MP3 players, and I didn't have batteries. So I would make up stories in my head, and if going to make up a story, I'm going to be the protagonist. So in all these stories, I was kicking butt. Like I was winning all my fights. I was making these stories. I had all the money, I had all the women, I had all the fame. None of this was true. I was just like a really sweaty kid walking to the gym. But I would do that for 3 hours a day, 15 hours a week. I was patting myself on the back, telling myself how amazing I was. People in school believed it, and it started to be showcased in the gym. I was getting so much better in the gym. And people started looking at me as a leader in the gym, and I was getting all this confidence and championship mindset. And then I had an opportunity to move back to New York for a month to finish and graduate where I went, and I was like, I'm ready to go back to New York. It was like a movie. I had this whole makeover. I had this new confidence I was going to let Unidale High School know who I was.

00:12:56 - Cam Awesome
And as soon as I walked into that high school, I reverted to the completely unconfident, clumsy person I was before. I remember going back home, and I couldn't figure it out. It was like whatever it was, was broken. And as soon as I graduated, I left New York and never went back. I never spoke of it. I used to go by Cameron. I changed my name to Cam. I became this whole new person, and I just acted like that person in New York never existed again. And I started winning all these fights, and I was just Cam from then on. And I won nationals in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 I was traveling around the world fighting for Team USA. I was a kid who couldn't make the team in high school, so this was unheard of for me. And I felt like I was tricking all of these people because no one I had no connections with, anyone I went to school with in New York. I became this whole new person and I felt like I was lying to all these people. And in the back of my head, I thought, one day, they're going to find out I'm not really that cool. And I won the 2012 Olympic trials and I was like I felt like my life was a movie. I left the country to fight in Azerbaijan, and I forgot to tell the drug testing agency I was leaving the country they showed up at my home in Kansas City to give me a random drug test and I wasn't there. A missed drug test is a positive drug test. I was suspended for a positive drug test. Kicked off the Olympic team.

00:13:35 - Courtney Elmer
After all that work. Wow. I'm curious: As you share this story about your thought process throughout this journey, how would you say that your championship mindset about yourself played a role in your success and in your ability to navigate the losses?

00:13:58 - Cam Awesome
I have seen a quote and Charles Horton. I believe I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am. When I was in New York, and I was in school, I thought everyone thought I was a loser. So, I just thought I was a loser. And I got to Florida, and I thought I tricked all these people, and they thought I was cool. So then I thought they thought I was cool, so I legit thought I was the coolest person in the world. When I look back at it, I was that same clumsy, sweaty kid in Florida, even more sweaty because it was humid. I just thought they thought I was cooler. And I realized that led to my confidence. I walked into the boxing ring thinking that I walked on water like nothing I did was wrong. The pendulum had swung. I went from that unconfident person to I was arrogant, I was cocky, I was obnoxious. So, what this taught me was the pendulum can swing. You can change the way you think about yourself. And it all had to do with my internal dialogue because in 2012 when I got suspended, I hit rock bottom. I started drinking. I got up to about 277 pounds. I was very depressed. I was sad. I had a pity party. And I thought about the difference between me in 2012 and who I used to be, like, even six months before, or who was I when I was walking to the school, and one of us liked me. So, let's think about our internal dialogue, right? I realized your internal dialogue: if your beliefs are everything and whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. And your beliefs are only really connected to what you think you're capable of or what you think you deserve. I was humbled by life. So if you ever wonder why the words humility and humiliate sound so similar, the Latin root word is lowly, small. Now, when, let's say you have something good going on in your life like you have good news, everything's going great, and then you run to a friend whose things just aren't going so good for them, you don't share all that with them, do you?

00:16:22 - Courtney Elmer
Usually, no, it's usually, I'm fine. Things are good.

00:16:25 - Cam Awesome
So what do you do in that moment? You lower yourself down. You humble yourself. Now, if we are in a society and all we do is lower ourselves to the lowest person in the room, and you think we do that in every city, every town, then we become a very low society. Now, when I say being, I say don't be humble. I'm not saying be arrogant. I don't believe the opposite of humble is arrogant. I believe the opposite of humble is confidence. Because confidence means with faith, you know it's going to happen. I don't question things. When I walk into the ring, I have faith that I'm going to win. When I lose, I cry because I'm confused. I think I'm supposed to win, but I'm sure I'm going to win. You can't walk into the ring humble, and you can't walk through life humble because life's going to humble you. You don't need to help it.

00:17:14 - Courtney Elmer
I agree with you. Life is going to throw you curveballs that you did not see coming, and you're going to face setbacks. You're going to face defeats. Are there any specific strategies that you use personally to bounce back so that you can maintain this level of confidence that you're describing?

00:17:33 - Cam Awesome
Okay, look at the society we live in. Who's supposed to be thinking about you? You are right. You are your number one. One plus two equals three. Who's looking out for your health? Who's going to stop you from eating the things you aren't supposed to be eating? Who's going to slow down your drinking? You are responsible for you. And I feel like what we try to do is we try to displace that. I believe in full accountability and responsibility. So, in 2012, I was at my lowest, and I had this epiphany with being humble. I realized I was so embarrassed because I thought people thought lowly of me. So, I was going to trick the universe by just assuming people thought I was awesome. And if people think I'm awesome, they're going to treat me like I'm awesome. I'm going to treat them like they're awesome. So, I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what you think I am. I'm what I think you think I am. So I went out, and I legally changed my last name to awesome. It's $178. I don't understand why more people don't do it.

00:18:34 - Courtney Elmer
I think it's the coolest thing that you even thought to do that most people would never even think of. That would never even cross their minds. So what would you say to people then who are struggling to bounce back from a failure or an embarrassment when your ego is hurting? When our ego is hurting, it's easy to revert back to our old ways of being, and it can feel really hard to fully embody that level of confidence that maybe we felt previously because of the blow we've just been dealt. No pun intended.

00:19:06 - Cam Awesome
Yes. I would say, first of all, we're going to intend all puns. I love puns. Secondly, I think what I do is anchor my confidence in myself, not the outcome. I'm not walking to the ring because I know I'm going to win. Like win or lose, I'm walking to the ring regardless because that's who I am. I'm a confident person. If I win, I won't become any more confident. So, I don't bet on the outcome. I bet on myself. Now, my loss doesn't make me a loser. So, if you're a business and you're having a losing year or losing quarter, you're not a loser. First of all, you're a business owner. Do you know how many people who don't have an LLC who's talking about they finna what they bought to do? So pat yourself on the back to let you know you might be having a losing year. You're not an at your look at the last few years if you just started, give yourself some grace because the whole idea of believing yourself so one of the big lines I live by and one of the quotes from my speeches is if you can fail without being discouraged, success becomes inevitable. And a lot of people think failing is the bad word in that quote. It's like failing is how you learn. It's how you get experience, how you get better. In boxing, let's say you have 200 boxing matches, right? And I have three. And we're the same height and weight and everything, and we fight. Who do you think is going to win?

00:20:38 - Courtney Elmer
The one who has 200.

00:20:40 - Cam Awesome
So, in boxing, I realized I couldn't make the team because I'm not that athletic but through experience. Experience IQ, because a lot of people think about normal IQ, but your EQ or your experience IQ, I decided, oh, I'm just going to have 200 fights. So, I ended my career with more boxing matches than anyone in the history of the sport. The reason why I'm the most decorated boxer is because I just fought more than everyone else. I don't have the best record. I've got 39 losses, bro. That's more than any other boxer you can name. But the idea is, I fought a guy who came from Italy, right? He's the number one boxer in the world. Fought me in Reno, Nevada. And if you think I'm going to let some dude come to the US on my own home turf and beat me, you're out of your mind. Courtney. This man beat the shit out of me. I lost that fight. It threw me for a loop. They throw punches differently in Europe, like things I'd never seen before. And he schooled me, and I got to the locker room, and I was like, oh, man. He did something to me I've never seen before, but now I've seen it. And after that fight, I went on a 32-fight win streak here in the United States because I was just doing stuff they do in Europe, and I never thought about incorporating that. From that one loss, I got 32 wins. How many lessons do you think I gathered from 39 losses? But if we start to lose and we start to be hard on ourselves, and we decide to quit because we get discouraged, because if you can fail without getting discouraged, like, if you can just believe in yourself, you'll keep going, and then you'll eventually have 400 fights. So if you started a business, if you're a business owner, you started a business, that was a scary, difficult process. Your first business, right? How hard would it be to start a second business right now? If you started from scratch? It's so simple because if you were explaining to somebody else, you'd be like, oh, this is all you have to do. Realize once you do it the first time, it's not that hard. You just have to suck long enough.

00:22:41 - Courtney Elmer
To be you know, you bring up personal responsibility, accountability and championship mindset. And Cam what I love about your story and your journey is how you kept going and how you kept believing in yourself and you championship mindset. And it's refreshing to hear you share this so openly here today because this is the stuff that most people who have achieved the pinnacle of success aren't willing to talk about. We don't talk about the failures enough. We don't talk about the losses that led to the wins. So what you said about betting on yourself is so wise versus placing all of our hope, energy, and anticipation into some sort of outcome that may or may not happen because that thing outside of you is something that you can't control. But you've just reminded us that what you can control is what you think, especially about yourself, how you respond and how you choose to show up. And you're a living example of this. So, given our conversation here today about believing in yourself and about what it really takes to start thinking like a championship mindset, is there anything else that we need to be thinking about in order to take what you've given us here today and apply it to our lives?

00:23:58 - Cam Awesome
Yes. I would say the whole championship mindset thing is changing. The way you look at things, the way I look at goals is when I first started boxing, my goal was to go to the Olympics and go from someone who literally couldn't make the team the year before, and my goal was the Olympics. The reason why my goal was the Olympics, that was, of course, my goal. But I thought if I made my goal so big that it was unattainable, I wouldn't be afraid to take the first step. So, I look at goals as a lighthouse. You're in a ship in the ocean. You're really far away. You see that lighthouse. You just go in that direction. You don't know exactly where you're going. You're just going in that direction. The closer you get to that lighthouse, you're going to start to see some details. You're going to see colors. You're going to see patterns. You may even see textures. You're going to start to see details on that lighthouse that you didn't see from a distance. And you realize your goal, as you get closer to it's, going to start to change. It's going to start to look a little bit different. But that doesn't mean you should turn around. Now, my goal was the Olympics. In 2008, I won the Olympic Trials. I lost in 2012, I won the Olympic Trials, got kicked off the team, returned to boxing, changed my name, and made this whole personality. Netflix followed me around for three years doing a documentary called Counterpunch, which shows me spoiler alert. I won the 2016 Olympic Trials. Finally, but then I lost an international competition, and I didn't get to go to Rio. I kept boxing. I ended up building my speaking business, travelling around the country, living in a van for three years so I could travel, train, build, speak, and then I finally qualified for the 2020 Olympic Trials. And then the pandemic happens. 

00:26:29 - Cam Awesome                                                                                                         

  So 16 years of my life, more than half my life, I've been going after this one goal, and I didn't get it. Now, you can look at that as a failure, but this is where I'm talking about championship mindset and the way you look at things. I think of that as my lighthouse. And on the way to the lighthouse, I was able to travel to over 30 countries. I've made friends all over the world. I've had experiences I couldn't pay for, all because I was able to represent my country in over 30 countries. That was my journey. So, when people talk about enjoying the journey, I enjoy my way to the lighthouse. And as I got close to the lighthouse, I changed. Now, I didn't get to go to the Olympics, but I ended up the most decorated boxer in US history. Change the way you look at your goals. You can manipulate it and warp it to make yourself look like a hero. Do that it's. You be your biggest fan. You don't have to change your last name to awesome, but someone has to believe in you. And if you see your kid and I like to tell parents, like, look at your child. If you ever see your child, like, not believing in themselves or being hard on themselves, and you wonder, where would they get that from?

00:26:38 - Courtney Elmer
We got to look in the mirror, don't we?

00:26:40 - Cam Awesome
Yeah.

00:26:41 - Courtney Elmer
Cam, thank you so much for all that you've shared here with us today, especially for sharing so openly. You've given us so much to think about. I'm so grateful to you for your witness of what can happen when you do believe in yourself. When you do, choose to keep going and never give up. So thank you for making the time to be here with us today.

00:27:05 - Cam Awesome
Thank you for having me.

00:27:07 - Courtney Elmer
And thank you so much for making the time to join us today for another episode of AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™. Now, if you want to connect with Cam, make sure you head to the Show notes. Follow him on social media so you can keep learning from him. Because Cam thinks differently than most of us think, and he is proof positive that simply changing your thoughts and how you see yourself will change how you show up, what others think of you, and the results that you're able to get. And if you liked this episode and you were inspired by Kim's story, I know that he would love to hear that from you. Look him up on social media, send him a DM, and let him know your biggest takeaway from this episode. And while you're at it, if you have never left a review on the podcast, we would love it if you would take the time to share your feedback with us. Even just one sentence helps. It helps us improve. It helps us make sure that we continue to bring you the kind of content you want to hear. And it helps other listeners know that this is a show worth listening to. 

00:29:08 - Courtney Elmer                                                                                                         

Now I'm officially out of the office. The next couple of weeks, we soaked in the last days of summer vacation with our son. And I feel so blessed and so grateful to have a business that allows me to do that. But there's one thing that is absolutely non-negotiable, and that is bringing you another great episode here on the podcast. So we won't leave you hanging, but next week, we're going to do something totally fun and very unexpected. It's something we haven't done in a while. We're going to flip the mic, and I'm actually going to have my mentor interview me on what it takes to launch and grow a top 100 podcast. So, if you're someone who has ever toyed with the idea of launching a podcast, but you haven't pulled the trigger because you don't know if you're going to have the time or you're worried you're going to run out of things to talk about, or you're worried that the tech is too complicated or confusing. Or maybe you're listening right now, and you're someone who has a podcast, but it's not growing like you expected. You can't seem to break past that 1000 downloads per episode milestone. If you relate, then join me back here next week, where I'm going to reveal the three ingredients you need to launch and leverage a top 100 podcast that positions you as the go-to in-demand thought leader in your niche. That's all coming up next week, so join me back here, and until then, let's go out and grow through what we go through together.