Knocked Down, Never Out: Olympic Mindset, Grit & Game-Changing Self-Talk with Cam F. Awesome (A Must-Listen for Recruiters)

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast.

Cam F. Awesome [00:00:03]:
I'm completely delusional in the sense where I literally think I'm the greatest thing to have ever happened. Are you going to allow yourself to sit in the discomfort of delayed gratification until you get what you want? I made an agreement with myself just not to be happy. If I say I'm going to go running five days this week and I only ran four days, I will not allow myself joy. Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:45]:
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Benjamin Mena [00:01:14]:
I am so excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast and I normally try to stay within the recruiting world for all these episodes and like, that's my goal is to bring recruiters nonstop. But I got a chance to listen to this guest actually at a recruiting event and it literally took me back to my early days of recruiting. I remember the days where my first recruiting job, I was taking the bus each way because my car was broken down in the parking lot of the recruiting office and nobody knew it. But during that time period, I somehow, with my back against the wall, learned how to recruit. I got punched in the face every single day. And I had to learn the business of recruiting because there was no plan B. And here's the thing, recruiting as recruiters, we literally, it's a full contact sport. It is a sport that we have to get up every single day and the only person that is watching us, keeping track of everything that we're doing is ourselves.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:06]:
It's a battle against ourselves nonstop. And that is why I am so excited to have this guest who's actually been punched in the face to share. So, Kim, welcome to the podcast.

Cam F. Awesome [00:02:17]:
Oh, thanks for having me, man. And I'm honored to be accepted into the recruiting world.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:23]:
So it's just your story. When I, I got the chance to hear it at the Pinnacle Society, I was like, my God, that hits so many of the things that a recruiter every day, every week and every month has to deal with. So real quick, before we get started, like, let's just jump in a quick 30 second self introduction because I don't think I can introduce you as well as, as.

Cam F. Awesome [00:02:44]:
Okay. My name is Cam F. Awesome. I'm a multi time national, well, 12 time national champion, heavyweight Olympic boxer, former captain of the USA National Boxing Team. I've won three Olympic trials. I've traveled to over 30 countries as captain of Team USA representing the Red, White and Blue. And I've since hung up the gloves and picked up the microphone after retiring as the winningest boxer in US History. That kind of sums it all up, right?

Benjamin Mena [00:03:11]:
So you won't nationals three times and.

Cam F. Awesome [00:03:14]:
You'Ve qualified four I Olympic trials, three times, Nationals. Well, yeah, well, who's counting?

Benjamin Mena [00:03:21]:
I see that. This is why I don't do the introductions. I like, I flip it up, man. It was like one of those things, like, and we'll talk about it in a minute. But like, I remember in high school running, I picked up running. I ran cross country and track. And I remember writing in everybody's like yearbook, Beijing Olympics, I'll see you there.

Cam F. Awesome [00:03:38]:
Yeah, baby.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:40]:
And I was never that good.

Cam F. Awesome [00:03:43]:
But how good were you?

Benjamin Mena [00:03:45]:
I was good enough that I was able to walk onto a D1 program and get a scholarship. But also the amount of years that I needed to get to that professional level, you know, I just, I didn't put in the work. I had to realize that I had to jump over to the career sector after college. So.

Cam F. Awesome [00:04:05]:
Oh yeah, and no, you gave it your full effort. But the idea is like your goal was. My goal was the Beijing Olympics and I was boxing for less than two years and I didn't go either. But it's like imagine if your goal was like to win regionals in your city because you have a choice of where you set your goals. And yes, you failed at going to the Beijing Olympics, but that mark that you set for yourself allowed you to just walk on D1.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:33]:
And that is. I hate to say this, Cam, that is exactly what I want to talk about, recruiting. Because like so many of us, like, and we'll jump into your story, but so many of us have like these, these big goals that we work towards and we say that we're going to do. But you know what? I really, truly believe so many recruiters don't turn around and be like, oh shit, look at everything I accomplish on the way. You know, I might not have had that gigantic firm. I might not have had that big goal or things have changed. But look at the impact that I've had.

Cam F. Awesome [00:05:02]:
Yeah, look at your accomplishments on paper. Remove your name from them. And I'm talking about all accomplishments. Everything you've done, every argument you've won, every argument you lost, went back and apologized, every recruiting gig you closed, you survived a pandemic. Like, I mean, everything should be on this list. And if you take a step back and look at that list, you're gonna think, well, that person did all that. What else are they capable of?

Benjamin Mena [00:05:29]:
That's great. Well, Cam, let's take a few steps back. The normal question is, like, how you ended up in this wonderful world recruiting. But we'll skip that since your world recruiting probably started at the Pinnacle Society meeting. So how did you even get into boxing?

Cam F. Awesome [00:05:41]:
So I got into boxing in high school because I was dealing with bullying my whole life. And in elementary school, I was getting bullied so bad that they would allow me to leave school 10 minutes early so I could get home before my bully got to me. And on that walk home, like, it was clear why I was leaving school. It was because I was a coward. I was afraid I couldn't defend myself. And walking home every day, that's the story I told myself. And when you tell yourself a story, you create a role for your character. And this character that I played was just very good at avoiding confrontation because he was afraid all the time.

Cam F. Awesome [00:06:17]:
And in high school, I lost an altercation with a girl. Well, here's the thing. A girl hit me a bunch of times. I didn't hit her back because I can't. Right? But what echoes in the school hallways is Cam got beat up by a girl, and to a 14 year old, that matters.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:36]:
That's like. I mean, like, at that age, like, those things, like, hit you hard, like the. The peer pressure.

Cam F. Awesome [00:06:43]:
Wow. Yeah, it was. It was bad. And thank God it wasn't, like, recorded. Oh.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:53]:
I mean, thank goodness.

Cam F. Awesome [00:06:55]:
I barely missed it, bro. We barely missed it.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:59]:
So, okay, so you got. You got beat up by a girl.

Cam F. Awesome [00:07:01]:
You're like, I saw that life was dealing me cards, and I didn't like the cards I was being dealt. And I felt like. I've always felt like I had power over my situation if I wanted to do the things that I had to do. So if you look at my, like, the story I was telling myself, I decided if I joined the boxing gym and looked like a big, physical guy, people would leave me alone. So if I Change my character's physical appearance. I would change his role in the story I was telling myself.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:31]:
You thought about that at that age?

Cam F. Awesome [00:07:33]:
Well, I can articulate it a lot better now. But back then, I was like, if I joined the boxing gym and I became a big buck foxer, people will leave me alone.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:41]:
Okay, so you joined the gym, and this is the fun part.

Cam F. Awesome [00:07:44]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:47]:
You just enjoyed the workouts?

Cam F. Awesome [00:07:50]:
Yeah, I thought the harder I worked out, the faster I would be safe. So I connected. Hard work with safety and everything sucks in the very beginning. And after, like, a couple months of doing it, it just became my normal routine. And I didn't have friends in school, so I was just looking forward to the gym because I was somewhere I was accepted. Oh, I actually. And this might be related to the recruiting world, Once I got to the boxing gym and I started working out really hard, I got in really good shape. And my coach was like, cam, you're in better shape than all the other boxers.

Cam F. Awesome [00:08:26]:
You want to get in the ring and spar? And I was like, no, thanks. I don't think my mom's going to let me. And like that. Everyone laughed. I was like, oh, no, I'll get a mouthpiece. And I was so good at avoiding confrontation and altercations that that was my approach in boxing. I just ran from my opponent the whole sparring session, and I felt like I burned more calories in the sparring session than I did anything else. So I got addicted to sparring, and this is where I felt like I was a part of the team for the first time because everyone loves sparring.

Cam F. Awesome [00:08:57]:
Me, I was a big guy. I did a lot of moving. You could throw punches as hard as you want, and I don't throw a lot of punches back. And because everyone came to the gym to spar me, I was afraid to miss the gym because there might be someone there who wanted to spar with me, and I was afraid to let them down. Once I understood what I could bring to the team and that I was a valuable member of the team, I showed up in a more consistent way.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:21]:
Huh. I think that's one of the things a lot of, like, us recruiters, like, we don't realize. Like, you know, when we start recruiting, it's, you know, the calls, the sales, the focusing on finding the candidates, the sourcing. But what I've learned over time is every single recruiter has a different way of doing it. Every single recruiter has a different way of how they bring what they do to the table. And there's I really need to find another way to say this, because I love my cats, but there's, like, a thousand way to skin cats in recruiting. There's a thousand ways to do it. I remember, like, this is kind of funny, Cam.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:50]:
When I first started recruiting, like, about three months in, they wanted to get rid of me. They actually sat me down and said, like, you actually suck at recruiting. Like, nobody wants you on their team. The only reason why, like, we haven't gotten rid of you is because you know how to put in the work, and you show up every single day. Like, we hope you figure this out.

Cam F. Awesome [00:10:10]:
Yeah. But I would much rather have you than a talented person.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:14]:
Why?

Cam F. Awesome [00:10:14]:
Because I. Because when I started getting the boxing gym, there were people who were. There were boxers in the gym that were naturally gifted, and they were here. They started here. I started here. Hard work allowed me to push up to here. Hardware got them here. But when we both reach the same level, the only difference is now hard work.

Cam F. Awesome [00:10:37]:
And to me, hard work is easy because it's what I do all the time. So the fact that you're able to put in the work, learn and grow, that's a growth mindset. I would much rather have someone at level one who's willing to grow to 11, a thousand than someone who's at 700.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:53]:
Well, you know, I want to go back to your story, your work. Like, what did that work look like in those early days as you started growing?

Cam F. Awesome [00:11:01]:
What was crazy was I noticed something with the bigger boxers. They were all about knockouts. And if you watch any heavyweight fight, the first round is the most exciting. Then it gets extremely boring after that because they both get kind of tired. And I realized it was because no one wants to run. Running is the worst part about boxing. Training. And guys, they'll hit the bag, they'll spar, they'll jump rope, but no one wants to run.

Cam F. Awesome [00:11:23]:
And running is basically the fuel for the engine in your car. You can have a powerful Mustang, great engine, all the cylinders. I don't know much about cars. You get what I'm saying? But if that car doesn't have gas, it's useless. And that's what all those heavyweights were to me. There were big Mustangs with all these muscles, but they just wouldn't run. And I would think to myself, oh, I'm willing to do that one thing that no one else is, if it means I win. So every morning, before I even brush my teeth, I take my morning piss, and I would put my shoes on, and I would run Before I brush my teeth, before I talk to anyone.

Cam F. Awesome [00:12:00]:
It sucks for the first couple months, but after that it was just like normal. Some people grab their coffee, I would just go for a three mile run. I'd run it in about 20 minutes and then I would wait an hour to stop sweating before I shower. But to me it was like, that's the one thing I'm willing to do that other people aren't. If that's going to make me better than you, bro, I'm going to do that every morning.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:19]:
Well, like, this is going to sound dumb. Like, when did you figure out that running is going to be the thing that set you apart from everybody else? Because, like, it's, you know, you see the, the manual on how to box or boxing for dummies and it's like, you hit here, you hit here, you start doing something else. That was completely out of the blue.

Cam F. Awesome [00:12:38]:
Yeah. So I didn't know anything about boxing when I signed up. So the judges are there, the referees are there. So I would ask the judges, what do you look for? Because it's a subjective scoring system. And they said, well, they're looking for clean, snapping punches. So I was like, oh, I don't, I don't throw any powerful shots because powerful shots get you tired and they take longer to throw. I understood the efficiency in the game and the point system. If you hit me, you get a point.

Cam F. Awesome [00:13:04]:
If I hit you, I get a point. I'm going to hit you once and then run from you until you get tired. One of us is going to get tired and I know it's not going to be me. And then once you're tired, then I'll throw another punch and another punch. Before you know it, the score is four to zero. Then you're desperate. Now you're doing things you wouldn't normally do because you're thinking with scarcity and you're throwing long punches. You're telegraphing.

Cam F. Awesome [00:13:29]:
Now I'm up 565-060-70. And although it's boring for the spectators, I understood the rules to the game and I used them all to my advantage.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:41]:
So you figured out the rules, you put in the work while other people were just putting in the work just to score just a few points.

Cam F. Awesome [00:13:48]:
Yeah, I understood how to score points and then I figured out how to take points away from people. And one of my favorite things to do, if you throw a hook, I could block it or I can duck it and throw back, but instead of throwing back, I would duck it, step behind you Grab your hips, twist it, and basically lightly hump you from behind. Now you just got helped by another man. You're emasculated. You're very upset. The referee breaks us and then warns you for turning your back to the action. If I could do that to you three times in a round, you lose a point.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:22]:
Oh, that's epic. That's awesome.

Cam F. Awesome [00:14:28]:
But that was a part of the game. The idea was, what I want to do is I wanted to get into his head. Think about in the times when you're recruiting, if you could step back and remove your emotion from it. You can see the times when you get frustrated. You start to make the worst decisions when you're desperate. I understood I always had to remove my emotions from boxing.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:46]:
Candidates and clients can smell the muddy breath when you're desperate. It is like, you are right about that. It's like, you know, anytime you start looking, you're like, oh, crap. Like, that fell through or that fell through, or I got punched in the face by this candidate. Like, they know when you're, like, really looking to try to close a deal no matter what, and you're taking your eyes off them and the value that you give, and it's like, hey, I'm just looking for that commission check.

Cam F. Awesome [00:15:15]:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh. And we could smell desperation. All of us can.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:20]:
And we never think that the other person does.

Cam F. Awesome [00:15:23]:
No. No. And even in boxing, it relates the same way. In between rounds, most opponents sit down. I don't sit down. In between rounds, the bell rings, we're fighting each other. I walk you to your corner, and I watch you sit down. And then I walk to my corner.

Cam F. Awesome [00:15:37]:
I stand up and I look at you. My coaches don't get in the ring. I don't allow them in the ring because I need clear sight of you, because I need you to see that I'm above you. Just those little mental games.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:48]:
Well, we'll talk about some more of those mental games in a minute. Let's go back to, like, these early days. Like, you know, you started sparring. Everybody wanted to spar you. Yeah, everybody wanted to go, like, go there. And it became like, almost like a place where you got accepted.

Cam F. Awesome [00:16:01]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:03]:
What happened next?

Cam F. Awesome [00:16:04]:
My parents picked up and moved from New York to Florida before I started my senior year of high school.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:11]:
Ooh, that's always the worst.

Cam F. Awesome [00:16:13]:
Yeah, usually it would have been worse, but it was different for me because, again, I was a kid who got beat up by the girl in New York. In school, I wasn't confident, but weirdly, at the boxing gym. I was accepted. I felt comfortable being myself and being outside of my shell. When I got to Florida, I realized I could be whoever I wanted to be. I got to rewrite my own story. I got to change my character. And I decided my character was going to be this super outgoing, funny guy.

Cam F. Awesome [00:16:39]:
And everyone believed it. In my high school in Florida, they're like, oh, that's that really cool kid who just moved from New York. And they believed it, but I didn't believe it. Luckily, I had a six mile walk from school to the boxing gym every day.

Benjamin Mena [00:16:52]:
Wait, wait, okay, you know, wait, there was a six mile walk between you? Like, okay, let's take a stop there. Like, I think that's a perfect place for you to quit boxing. Like, it is six miles.

Cam F. Awesome [00:17:03]:
Yeah. So luckily I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to box. Because I understood that if I put in the hard work like I was in New York, like, most people are lazy. Like, in the comparison of what we're actually capable of, what we're actually willing to put our body through. Oh, I'm willing to do what most people aren't. Wake up early in the morning. Like, I took a completely different work ethic and mentality to boxing because I'm like, if I could work really hard only on the efficient things.

Cam F. Awesome [00:17:32]:
Because a lot of people spend a lot of time, like, one of the things people hit the speed bag. I never knew why boxers would hit the speed bag. And I would ask them and they would say, oh, you hit the speed bag for hand eye coordination. And I'd say, hit it with your eyes closed. And then they close their eyes and they hit their speed bag. I'm like, at best, it's hand air coordination. It's not hand eye coordination. If you can hit with your eyes closed, why do you hit it with your eyes closed? And the reason why is because they saw boxers do it and the boxers before them saw boxers do it and boxes before them.

Cam F. Awesome [00:17:59]:
Saw boxes do it before them. But has anyone thought the first person to ever do something might have been dumb? That's why it's important to question everything. And I know it gets annoying and tedious to question everything, but in those moments of questioning things you already know the answer to is where you find spots for innovation.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:17]:
That just makes me think of, like, there's so many things in recruiting that we did or we have done because that's what the training manual said or that's what the recruiter before you knew. And I love how, like, you talked about like, you know, just now and also previously, like, focusing on the certain things that can move the needle and not just the things that make you look busy.

Cam F. Awesome [00:18:41]:
Yeah, yeah. And people thought the speed bag was. I argued. This is the hill I would die on. And I would argue with coaches like, I've been coaching for 40 years. Yeah, you've been doing it wrong for 40 years. There's a bunch of ways to do it wrong. There's very few ways to do it right.

Cam F. Awesome [00:18:54]:
I'm not saying my way was right, but I was big on efficiency. If you hit the speed bag, four rounds of workout, average boxer works out 250 days a year. That's a thousand rounds. A round is three minutes with a minute in between. It works out to be 69 hours a year. If you had 69 hours a year extra to work on something in your craft, would you work on something that looked appealing and was fun but ineffective? Or would you work on the things that are less fun but will move the needle? The networking, the reaching out, the building your brand, your social media game. There's things you. And also, that's another thing.

Cam F. Awesome [00:19:33]:
Is social media moving the needle for you? Is it helping or hurting? And although everyone else is doing it, I'm a big believer in being a strategic nonconformist. I know what everyone's doing, but if I did what everyone's doing, at best, I would fall in the middle of the pack. I'm not special. So what I would do is I'll take a completely different route. Sometimes I end up in the back of the pack, sometimes I end up in the front of the pack. But the way I think, you'll never end up in the middle. And that's what I'm trying to avoid. That's where comfort happens.

Cam F. Awesome [00:20:05]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:05]:
I get to talk to so many recruiters that have just found so many unique ways to do things. But then I look back at my own career, and I look back at, like, the years where I just did the things, because that's what I was supposed to do when I could have done this, like, put on an event and had clients come to me. I got a podcast interview next week where the guy has $30 million of business coming in because of one event that he put on. Like, there are so many different ways to look at moving the needle. And that's one of the reasons why I love these interviews, I love these conversations, is I get to pull this information apart for you.

Cam F. Awesome [00:20:40]:
Yeah, yeah. You only. You only got to be right once. You only got to Be right once. And to be right once, you just have to eat. Being wrong a lot. Something wrong a lot.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:54]:
I want to go back to this, the six mile walk, because I actually started cross country training in Florida.

Cam F. Awesome [00:21:02]:
Oh yeah, it's rough out there.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:05]:
That 3pm sun, man.

Cam F. Awesome [00:21:09]:
The thing is, the more we go through, the stronger we become.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:12]:
During the walk, what did you do?

Cam F. Awesome [00:21:16]:
I would just make up stories in my head. I was always an oddly optimistic person, especially as a kid. I remember I was like 9 years old. My mom went into the gas station to pay and I was sitting on the passenger side and there was a fence with a bird on the fence. And I was like, I have magical powers. If that bird poops right now. And then the bird pooped and bro, I lost my mind in the car. I was like, I'm a superhero.

Cam F. Awesome [00:21:42]:
I'm a superhero. My mom came back into the car and everyone knows the first rule of superhero movies. You just don't tell everyone you have superpowers. So I didn't tell my mom, but I tried to figure out what that power was. And I figured out what my power was. I got to have one small wish a day. It couldn't be anything crazy that would mess up the fabric of the universe. But like, if I didn't study for a test, my one wish of the day is like I would say out loud, my wish of the day is that I get a 73 on that test.

Cam F. Awesome [00:22:14]:
Now, I know not to ask for 100 on that test. That's not going to happen. But if I would ask for a 73, I would usually get what I asked for in life. But I only got one of those a day. If I had a boxing match on Saturday, I wouldn't use them up the entire week because I thought if I saved them up, I'd have one bigger wish. I had that very optimistic outlook on life. I always thought I had control over my life. During the walk, I decided to make up stories about how amazing I was, about how good I was at boxing, about how I had all the money and all the cars and I got all the attention and I won all the fights and people were afraid to fight me.

Cam F. Awesome [00:22:50]:
And none of that was true. But there was a direct correlation between how highly I spoke to myself on the way to the gym and how well I did in the gym that day. And I can articulate this at 36, but when I was 16, I didn't realize I was doing affirmations followed by action. Three hours a day of affirmations followed by about three hours of action and patting myself on the back for 15 hours a week, telling myself how amazing I was and how I could accomplish anything and how I was the best. That confidence allowed me to tell myself the story that I was the best. And within two years, I became the number one heavyweight boxer in the U.S.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:36]:
Were there any days where you started the walk and, like, it just, excuse my language, just sucked. Like, every. It's hot as hell. I'm not going anywhere. Like, this is hard. Like, nothing's working out. How did you change that self talk back to being positive?

Cam F. Awesome [00:23:54]:
Oh, I kept doing the self talk. I didn't believe it, but I was like, I'm still going to do it. You've been in Florida. You know what rainy season is? It just violently rains for like, 45 minutes between 1pm and 5pm every day for like, three months. So I would have a garbage bag in my book bag because it rained sporadically. And back then, like, our electronics wasn't waterproof. So if it would start raining, I would literally stop. I take the garbage bag out of my book bag, put the book bag in my garbage bag with my Sprint PCs flip phone, and continue walking to the gym.

Cam F. Awesome [00:24:31]:
Like, and it sucked. But the thing is, like, it does suck, and there's no other way around it sucking, right? And it's like, success isn't. There's actually no secret to it. Everyone writes books on what to do, which is, are you going to allow yourself to sit in the discomfort of delayed gratification until you get what you want? I made an agreement with myself just not to be happy. If I say I'm going to go running five days this week, and I only ran four days, I will not allow myself joy. It's probably not healthy, but to me, I was like, if I don't put parameters around myself to do what I need to do, I. I'm going to get hurt. Ben, you're a grown man.

Cam F. Awesome [00:25:13]:
Who's going to tell you to put your phone away at the end of the night because you need adequate sleep?

Benjamin Mena [00:25:18]:
Nobody except for me.

Cam F. Awesome [00:25:20]:
How do you parent yourself? And how do you keep it real with yourself as recruiters? No one's watching over you.

Benjamin Mena [00:25:26]:
It's me versus me.

Cam F. Awesome [00:25:28]:
So one of the things I've realized that I fall into is I love music, specifically rap music, freestyle rap music, because it's the only genre of music where it's the only place in life where someone can speak unapologetically positive about themselves. It's like, rappers are like, I'm the best. I got the best cars. I deserve this. I deserve that. I'll take your woman like that. That's the energy they're giving off. If you could just have a percentage of that confidence.

Cam F. Awesome [00:25:57]:
So when I listen to that music, I sing along with the words. And back when I was boxing, I was listening to more violent music. Then during the pandemic, I was like, I retired. Why am I still listening to this? It bleeds into my life. I'm not that angry anymore, but I specifically look like I was a walking Lil Wayne mixtape for like six years. The drought.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:17]:
Like, bro, back in the good albums too, bro.

Cam F. Awesome [00:26:21]:
The good.

Benjamin Mena [00:26:22]:
All the.

Cam F. Awesome [00:26:23]:
The good days before the. Before the Styrofoam and the Styrofoam cup. But I would listen to that music. And in the music, I was that artist. I had all the money, I had all the cars. I was the best. And now I do that same thing. But I listen to inspiring music.

Cam F. Awesome [00:26:41]:
I'm very big on independence. It's one of my own personal values, like working for myself, being an entrepreneur, making my own decisions. That's big for me. Owning the rights to my own things, that's big for me, especially in the music industry and all that. So I listen to an artist. Larussell. I'm the biggest Russell fan. It's probably the only thing I listen to because he's this artist from North California, from Vallejo, and he could sign up with a record label, but he decided to do everything on his own.

Cam F. Awesome [00:27:08]:
He puts concerts on in his own backyard. You can buy stock in his songs, so if they ever do go viral in the future, you profit off of it. He found a new way to do music and he's innovative. He's asking questions we already know the answer to. And he's doing things his own way. And he raps about the hardships and he raps about keeping his head up and he raps about dealing with the hard times and he keeps going. So I listen to that music and I sing along with that music. And that music is my affirmations.

Cam F. Awesome [00:27:39]:
And it's like what you listen to is what you become. What you consume is what you become. What are you consuming? And I gotta check myself on the things that I'm consuming. The Russell's good for the diet, though.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:51]:
I mean, you have to. It's so easy to, you know, flip on the phone and get sucked down the algorithm. But I just. I love that you talked about like the self talk and the writing, your identity. Because when I first heard you Talk about that. It really just, like, stuck with me. Like, I did great with that in high school. Like, with running.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:09]:
Like, I never saw myself as, like the best, but I believed in myself. I'm like, I'm going to do this. I put in the work self confidence there. And the second I got into recruiting, I had a family member tell me, oh, we're menace. We're never good at sales. We're not salespeople. And recruiting is sales. I mean, sales is getting beat up in the face nonstop.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:28]:
But I kept that identity for so long throughout my career. And I told that story over and over. And I'd have an opportunity pop up, a sales opportunity. And nope, I'm not a salesperson. I'm just going to stay over here. And I watched the impact of that in my career and I had to rewrite the self talk. So that's why I wanted to ask you, like, if you didn't do those walks there and back, do you think you would have been in the same place you were?

Cam F. Awesome [00:28:54]:
No. And that. Thank you for asking that question because no one has ever asked me that before. And I've never thought about it. I never thought about what would happen if I had a car. Yeah, I would have been me. It's like your struggles is why you become who you become.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:09]:
Well, let's fast forward two years. You just won. Let's talk about this. Let's talk about some of these goals that you ended up slaying.

Cam F. Awesome [00:29:16]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, so I qualified for the 2008 Olympic trials, which was like a huge deal for me. I'd been boxing for like a year and a half, and I lost the first day. Not a big deal happens. I was just happy to be there. Honestly, I'd never been done anything like this. I couldn't make any teams in school. I'm in the Olympic trials in Houston.

Cam F. Awesome [00:29:39]:
I got to be on a plane for this. And that's when all the boxes around me there were all the top boxers in the country after the Olympic trials. That's what they were sticking around for. They then all turned pro or quit boxing. And everyone looked at me like I was going to make one of those decisions, like, are you going to turn pro? Are you going to quit boxers? Like, there's a third option. If I stick around, if everyone quits and I stick around, aren't I automatically the best? Like, that was my logic. And when I got to 2008 nationals for the first year, all the other boxers started to look at me. They looked at me like oh, that's the guy from the last Olympic cycle.

Cam F. Awesome [00:30:19]:
He's the most experienced, he's going to win. And they started telling me that story. So I started telling myself that story and walk around because I was the most experienced guy and I decided to walk into that energy and not to shut her back. When someone sings your praises, that's not the time for you to dim your light. If I'm saying, oh, Ben, so amazing, Ben can do this, Ben could do that. Ben, it's not your business to argue with me except accept your greatness. Like, walk in that.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:51]:
Did you ever have to deal with a limiting to belief where you had to flip that and learn to accept the greatness?

Cam F. Awesome [00:30:57]:
No, I'm completely delusional. I'm completely delusional in the sense where I literally think I'm the greatest thing to have ever happened. And I'm like, okay. In boxing, I'm like. And for me to continue that, I have to just show up to the gym every day and never miss it. Bro, I miss my little sister's graduation or high school graduation for a tournament. It's like, that's how dedicated I was. And just so you know, she's still bringing it up, but these are the sacrifices we have to make to be great.

Cam F. Awesome [00:31:31]:
And the thing is, I get to tell myself, if I made those sacrifices, if I did everything he could do, wouldn't that make me, him?

Benjamin Mena [00:31:42]:
So true. And then let's fast forward. You put in. I mean, here's the thing about the Olympic trials. It only happens once every four years. This isn't like the normal sports world where you have a championship run every single year. This is like, I got to keep my butt in shape. I got to keep on putting in the work when nobody else is looking.

Cam F. Awesome [00:32:02]:
Yeah, yeah. Those moments. I would be present in those moments of suck. You seem about my age, so you get the reference. And of course, he didn't age the greatest, so give me grace. During those times, I would literally tell myself, la la la la Wait till I get my money right la yo, that song would just play my head. And during the times of suck, I'm like, it's not going to suck one day, right? Right now I'm eating shit. I get that right now I'm getting a bunch of no's.

Cam F. Awesome [00:32:38]:
Right now I'm getting stomped down. Right now I'm not winning, but, oh, I'm going to win. And when I am winning, it's going to feel so good. It is going to feel so, you know, I'm Going to take this walk. You know what? I'm going to go to the gym. You know what? I'm going to do that extra round because I just want to make sure I am the best I could possibly be. So when I do get to celebrate and I do walk to that ring, I'm not walking to that ring with any hesitation. If I lose, I'm going to lose.

Cam F. Awesome [00:33:02]:
But I did everything in my power to win. And that's where I get my confidence from, is the work that I put in.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:08]:
And it's from one Olympic cycle to the next. It's all that work behind the scenes. And like I said, it's. It's not like an every year thing. It's not like a quarter. Like, let me run hard for 90 days, let me run hard for six months. It is. I'm running hard for the next three and a half years to show up again.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:23]:
And let's talk about the next Olympics.

Cam F. Awesome [00:33:25]:
Yeah. So I won Nationals in 2008, and then every year I was captain of the USA National Boxing Team, going to other countries, fighting the number one boxers, and won the 2012 Olympic trials and then was removed and kicked off the Olympic team for not sending in my drug testing paperwork.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:41]:
You won the Olympic trials?

Cam F. Awesome [00:33:44]:
I won the Olympic trials.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:47]:
And then, yeah, it got taken away.

Cam F. Awesome [00:33:53]:
Then I lost the Olympic trials for.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:57]:
Excuse my language, something fucking stupid.

Cam F. Awesome [00:34:00]:
Yes, it was, it was. It was around the time Lance Armstrong went on Oprah and the drug testing agency was just cracking down on psyllium fractures. I feel like I was made, I was made an example out of. I was suspended for a year. Returning to boxing. I became the athlete rep on that same drug testing agency to speak up on behalf of the athletes because I wasn't a fan of that. It was a very tough year for me.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:26]:
And it's like you literally just trained for 8 years, 9 years, 10 years for this moment. This moment was taken away from you. Like, this is like, I can't even put this into recruiting. But like, you just watched your entire book of business, everything that you've spent the last 10 years put together, just go back to zero.

Cam F. Awesome [00:34:43]:
My Rolodex fell in the pool. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:46]:
How did you. I mean, I'm sure you're pissed. You're like, screw this. Like, I'm hanging stuff up. What'd you do?

Cam F. Awesome [00:34:52]:
I. So I'm a very realistic person and I have the ability, which, not the greatest in relationships, but in setting goals. I'm very good at removing my emotions from situations. And I looked at My situation. I was like, okay, first of all, food and shelter. I was living in the place. I was living in a condo paid for by sponsors, my car sponsors, my meal plan sponsors, my gym membership sponsors. I lost all my sponsors that day.

Cam F. Awesome [00:35:21]:
They were one of the first people to find out before the news broke. And they called me and say, hey, don't bother coming back here. Let us know where to mail your stuff. And at that point, I was just like, oh, where do I go? I have nowhere to live and always got my ride or die. Matt Mays called Matt up, told him the situation. And my thing was always, if because I fly close to the sun, it's how I live. I go big. And my running joke was, if it all goes to shit, I'll always have Matt's couch.

Cam F. Awesome [00:35:50]:
And we joked around, and then I ended up on Matt's couch. And I called him and he's like. He picked me up from the airport. And the first thing he said is like, can we laugh about this yet? I was like, those are the friends you need. Those are the friends you need.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:07]:
Man. Everything, like, everything was pulled from you.

Cam F. Awesome [00:36:10]:
Everything was pulled from me. So the first thing I was like, okay, hustle mode. Because I'm always hustling mind, like, all right, how do I make money? So one of my sponsors was Ringside. It's a boxing equipment company. They have a studio where they take photos of their new products. It's a brand new gym. That's basically what it is. It looks like a photo studio, but it's a gym.

Cam F. Awesome [00:36:31]:
It's all brand new equipment. So I asked him, I was like, hey, can I train people in the photo studio? He's like, as long as you clean up after. So I'm like, sure. I was on Craigslist back in 2012. I made some posts. Hey, number one heavyweight boxer in the country. Was still using that anytime I could doing personal training sessions. And I would get four nurses, $25 an hour.

Cam F. Awesome [00:36:50]:
I was making $100 an hour. I was doing like two sessions in the morning, three in the evening. So I was able to make some money for myself and try to stay afloat while I kind of just like, drank myself into desperation. I was a fat personal trainer. It's a bad business model.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:07]:
When did you make the decision to start running again for the next round?

Cam F. Awesome [00:37:10]:
I. I knew I would have to go back. Cause I was like, well, I'm not going to community college. So I was like, okay, I gotta go back to boxing. I realized at that moment the power of athlete privilege. You see, I got special treatment when I was a boxer. I didn't wait in lines to go into nightclubs. If I had an event to promote, I could go on the news station.

Cam F. Awesome [00:37:30]:
I dated above my looks because I was very good at a sport. Remember back in high school, the athlete got in trouble, but he didn't get suspended because they had a game that day.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:39]:
I saw I was a cross country runner. We weren't cool.

Cam F. Awesome [00:37:44]:
You saw the other athlete. Yeah, yeah. But you saw that special treatment. Yeah. And that special treatment is a privilege, and you have that privilege as an athlete. But what I learned was that privilege can be taken away from you. And I was going to return to boxing, but I realized I can no longer identify as an athlete because that has a lifespan on it. I began to rebrand myself and identify as an entertainer.

Cam F. Awesome [00:38:12]:
Boxing falls underneath that. Speaking falls underneath that. Comedy falls underneath that. But I wanted my purpose to not be taken from me, so I changed my purpose.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:25]:
How old were you when that happened?

Cam F. Awesome [00:38:26]:
22.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:28]:
I think it's one of the things that maybe it's because I'm a military brat and I've seen people have to change and move and reset themselves. And then I see it in the corporate world, too. You could spend 20 years working for someone or spend like 10 years working at a recruiting agency. And then you have to like, redesign your identity and redesign your purpose for you to actually make that next step.

Cam F. Awesome [00:38:48]:
Yeah, I looked at it as a system and I looked at the system and I removed my emotions from the equation and I realized it wasn't personal. No one was after me. No one's trying to take me down. When I realized it was just me having to take accountability for not sending an email, because if I sent an email, I would have been to the Olympics. So this is how I had to grapple with it. Why did I not go to the Olympics? I didn't go to the Olympics because I didn't deserve to go. Bottom line. Now, if I can admit I didn't deserve to go, I can figure out why I didn't get to go.

Cam F. Awesome [00:39:24]:
There's rhyme or reason for me not going. But if there's no accountability and I just. There's no reason why I didn't go to the Olympics, then there's no rhyme or reason why I should be able to go next time, so why even try? The lack of accountability leads to despair. Whether it's your responsibility or not, Just accept it as your fault and it'll allow you to grow so much Faster. So I'm like, okay, if I do X, Y and Z next time, I can do all these steps and do that one little thing I didn't do last time. And I get to go to the Olympics. The hardest part about failing is not failing itself. It's how long it takes to prove that you can actually get it done.

Cam F. Awesome [00:40:05]:
And for me, it took four years. Wow.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:13]:
And four years from then, where are we at?

Cam F. Awesome [00:40:17]:
So I returned to boxing. I decided to identify as an athlete also in the comments, because I read the comment and you shouldn't read the comments, but I did. And one of the major comments, because I was walking to the gym three hours a day. I was patting myself on the back, I was telling myself how amazing I was. And you can see the aura of me when I walk into a room. I felt myself, bro, my shit did not stink. And when I lost, one of the number one comments was, I bet he's humble now. And that was like a gut punch.

Cam F. Awesome [00:40:49]:
And it was like. It didn't feel being humble's good, but this didn't feel good. So I looked up the definition. Have you ever looked up the definition of Ben?

Benjamin Mena [00:40:57]:
The first time I actually looked up the definition was sitting in the room where you asked me to look up the definition.

Cam F. Awesome [00:41:06]:
Life changing, right? And it will blow your mind.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:11]:
And so say it for people. What is the definition of hubble?

Cam F. Awesome [00:41:15]:
Having or showing a low or modest estimate of one's own importance. Take out your phone. If you listen to this right now and you don't believe me, the second definition is lowered administrative, political or dignity. And I. So the Latin root word is lowly. So, Ben, and you're killing the rooting world, right? You're up there. If you run into someone who's not. A lot of times what we do is we don't just lower ourselves, humble ourselves down to where they are.

Cam F. Awesome [00:41:44]:
We go a little bit lower so they can feel good about themselves. My question is, in this situation, who does being humble serve?

Benjamin Mena [00:41:53]:
I mean, it was after you saying that, I was like, because we, like, we try to teach our kids. I remember being taught like, be humble, be humble, be humble. And then I was like, you got to be shitting me. That's what they've been telling me to do. Which makes sense because I have had to like, you know, one of my self limiting belief that I've had to deal with is just like, you know, the get praised. Like, no, no, don't worry about it. I got it. It's because I'm a hard Worker.

Cam F. Awesome [00:42:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. And. And it's hard the way I explain this to people. I say, would you wish this definition on your children? And they'll say, of course not. I say, well, then why would you want that upon yourself? Because kids, they don't have ears. They have eyes. They see the way you treat you.

Cam F. Awesome [00:42:36]:
And people will always treat you as bad as you're willing to treat yourself. If you talk down to yourself all the time and other people talk down to you, it's not going to be that alarming.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:47]:
So you saw all these comments about time. He's humble. And then you looked it up.

Cam F. Awesome [00:42:55]:
I legally changed my last name to awesome. I'm doubling down. Humility's out the window, bro. Humility's out the window. And here's the thing. Life is going to humble you. Life is going to be hard on you. There's no reason to be hard on yourself.

Cam F. Awesome [00:43:08]:
Be your own wind beneath your wings. Like, no one's going to believe in you until you believe in yourself. And here's how it works. Once you believe in you, you start to take the actions of a person who believes in themselves. Once you take those actions, you get those results. You get those results over and over and over again. That becomes a pattern. The people around you will identify that pattern and grow to expect that pattern and grow to expect you to succeed.

Cam F. Awesome [00:43:35]:
And that's their belief in you. But it can only start when you first believe in yourself. Now, you don't need to change your last name to Austin to believe in yourself. I just thought that'd be funny. Turns out it was. But I do believe in the importance of believing in oneself.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:50]:
Was the changing your name to awesome? Was it another rewriting your self identity?

Cam F. Awesome [00:43:53]:
Yeah. I realized when I was walking home from school. In elementary school, after being bullied, I told myself I was a loser, I was a coward, I was afraid. And then I filled that role. Then when I was walking to the boxing gym, I told myself another story. And then I filled that role. So in 2012, I decided, oh, I'm just going to tell myself the story of the role I want to walk in. We so often identify with what we say about ourselves.

Cam F. Awesome [00:44:18]:
Oh, I'm always late. Of course you are. If you got a new group of friends. If you're the person who's always late and you get a new group of friends, the first time you hang out with them, show up 20 minutes early and say, oh, I'm sorry, guys, I'm just always early. That's just me. The next time it's going to encourage you to be early, and then they're going to know you as that person who's always early, and you're going to be that early person. But the second you go back and hang out with your old friends, I bet you'll be late. So often we fall to the expectations of the people around us, and that's why it's so difficult to change where we are.

Cam F. Awesome [00:44:50]:
It was easy for me in high school because I changed locations and the people around me, the expectation changed. They thought I was this outgoing guy. And Ben, if I'm being real, I just changed zip codes. I didn't become this funny, charming guy overnight. Life's not a movie. It was just what I thought they thought of me.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:07]:
And I know this is like a sidetrack because I actually moved in high school, too, and it was just military brat, man. Looking back at the stories that the new high school told about me years later. We thought you were this, this, this, and this. And I'm like, no, but you somehow wrote that story, spoken it into existence, and a part of me became that.

Cam F. Awesome [00:45:27]:
One of my favorite quotes of all time. Charles Horton Cooley. Charles Hooley Horton. Whatever. Look it up. I'm not who I think I am. I'm not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am.

Cam F. Awesome [00:45:43]:
That's why that made sense. I'll explain it again, slower, for your audience. I'm not who I think I am. I don't know who I think I am. I'm not who you think I am. I don't know what you think. I can assume what you think. So I'm basically, I am what I think you think I am.

Cam F. Awesome [00:45:59]:
So in New York, I thought everyone thought I was the kid who got beat up by the girl. In actuality, everyone's dealing with their own stuff. In New York, probably no one even cared. A week later, it was just me. When I got down to Florida, everyone thought I was this cool, outgoing, fun guy. I didn't just become charming overnight. I'm the same person. I just thought these people thought I was cool.

Cam F. Awesome [00:46:19]:
So often we fall into the expectations of others.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:22]:
It takes me back to, like, you know, dealing with clients in different times where, like, business is so good, like, you just don't care. Like, clients will call you up and be like, oh, yeah, we know you can handle this. Like, the expectations there, the belief is there. Like, oh, yeah, we need this XYZ person to work on this weird cleared project. We know you got this.

Cam F. Awesome [00:46:39]:
Yeah, it's great to have those people around you that actually believe in you. But think about the people who might not. We all have those people around us.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:48]:
We do.

Cam F. Awesome [00:46:49]:
We all have a negative person in our life. Think of that negative person. Does that person think that they're negative?

Benjamin Mena [00:46:56]:
Nope.

Cam F. Awesome [00:46:57]:
How do you know that's not you? It's a spectrum. It's something that we can all work on, being conscious of how positive or negative we are. Because no one hears a story you tell yourself but you. And you've told that story so much, it's truth. It's the foundation of your existence. And the thing is, that story that you're telling yourself may not be true, and it's only true because you believe it. That change won't happen overnight. But the way you speak to yourself dictates who you become.

Cam F. Awesome [00:47:25]:
If you say, I'm bad at technology, as soon as you run into any type of issue with technology, you throw your hands in the air, I'm bad at technology. You know me. But if you say you're the type of person to figure it out, you run into an issue with technology. You Google it, YouTube it, you use ChatGPT, you figure it out. If you would've taken that mindset since the iPhone 6, imagine where you'd be right now.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:49]:
Well, let's jump a little bit back into your story. You've had to, like, reset your mindset. You renamed yourself, you know, rewrote your story again. Another XYZ amount of years of work to the next Olympic cycle?

Cam F. Awesome [00:48:01]:
Yeah, four years. I reclaimed my spot as captain of the USA national team, won national golf. Four years, won the 2016 Olympic trials. I ended up where I left off. And then I lost an international competition in the finals on a split decision and didn't get my spot in Rio.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:22]:
You won nationals, but then you still lost because of something.

Cam F. Awesome [00:48:27]:
Yeah. So they changed the rules after you won the Olympic trials for the US I was representing the US Then you fight in an international tournament, and then they choose the top boxes from that international tournament for the actual Rio Games. And I lost, honest. And it was such a close fight. If the other guy would have lost and I would have won, he couldn't complain. But I lost, so I couldn't complain. You got to be able to eat your losses and not identify with them. It helped me when I realized losing doesn't make me a loser.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:57]:
So your goal was the Olympics?

Cam F. Awesome [00:49:00]:
Yeah. Yours too.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:02]:
I never got close to even qualifying, you know, like.

Cam F. Awesome [00:49:07]:
Yeah, you could have had that goal, though. That's the good thing is, like, you can set any goal you want. You can set an unrealistic goal. And if you set a goal that you're going to fail at, it gives you room to fail freely and openly. Instead of going for the thing you can probably get, go for the thing you definitely can't get, and then do everything in your power to get it. Like, if your goal was, let's say, a million in recruiting, right? Change your goal to 10 million in recruiting, right? Do what it takes to get to that 10 million mark. It's a lot different than what it takes to get to that 1 million mark. But do those things to get to that 10 million mark.

Cam F. Awesome [00:49:44]:
And even if you fail and fall short at $6 million, you're still six times further than your original goal of succeeding. That's the idea of setting big goals.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:56]:
And with the setting of the big goals, one of the questions I wanted to ask you, and I don't know how to properly ask this, but it's the idea in my head, it's, you set this gigantic goal, even though technically you never got it, and you worked two decades of your life for it. Everything that you have missed, family, things for this goal. For two decades, when did you turn around and realize how much you still accomplished?

Cam F. Awesome [00:50:22]:
Oh, actually, I was very conscious of it after I returned to boxing. I won Nationals in 2013. I was like, okay, if anything, that story alone, cool enough, all the pressure was off of me at that point. I'd won maybe seven or eight national championships, and I saw what championships are because I'm very systems guy. I saw the value of that. I understood athlete privilege, and I understood that I got it back for a small amount. Here's how it works. If I have a national championship and you have an associate's degree and we apply for the same job, who do you think is going to get it?

Benjamin Mena [00:51:00]:
National champion?

Cam F. Awesome [00:51:02]:
Let's say you have a bachelor's degree and I have four national championships, who would probably get the job? So after I got six nationals, to me, everything was just padding. I was just running up the scorecards. I was just running up ranking points just to flex. I had 49 fights in 2014. I was going for 50. But, like, at the end of December, there's a snowstorm in Iowa and the fight got canceled. I'd never do that again. My body just went through hell that entire year.

Cam F. Awesome [00:51:32]:
It was a lot.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:33]:
Like, overall, do you know how many fights you've gone through?

Cam F. Awesome [00:51:36]:
About 400.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:38]:
And this is like something else. I want to kind of highlight, you know, how many fights you lost?

Cam F. Awesome [00:51:42]:
39.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:43]:
Can you remember all your fights you won?

Cam F. Awesome [00:51:46]:
Nope. I don't even remember the people I fought.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:48]:
Can you remember the fights that you lost?

Cam F. Awesome [00:51:50]:
All 39. I could tell you who I lost to, what city I lost in, what I did to lose, and what I could do to make sure I don't lose next time.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:57]:
How did you keep track of those losses and learn from them?

Cam F. Awesome [00:52:01]:
When I lose, it takes me like a week or two to even watch the video. I wake up in the middle of the night and I. I think about what can I do differently? And I wish I was back there. And I allowed myself to suffer in those losses and feel that suck, because that sucks. Losing sucks. It's embarrassing. And I would feel that feeling and be so present in it and think to myself, I never want to feel this again. What do I have to do to ensure I don't feel this again? But if, like, because I see people who lose and they're just not bothered by it, I'm like, ah, I don't have that, bro.

Cam F. Awesome [00:52:44]:
If I lose a game of Monopoly against you, my whole evening is ruined.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:48]:
Well, and I want to ask because it's one of those things that, like, it's so easy to talk about. Like, you know, the analyzation of a Tom Brady or a Cam. Awesome. When it comes to, like, losing. Like, you see, you see, I'm up.

Cam F. Awesome [00:52:58]:
There with Tom Brady. Thank you.

Benjamin Mena [00:52:59]:
You see that in the sports world, but how do you most people flip it to their careers in which way? And like, the, hey, like, I need to, like, analyze the losses to really learn from them. So that way, the next time I get to that rating or the next time I get to that meeting, or the next time I get to xyz, I know I'm better prepared.

Cam F. Awesome [00:53:20]:
And I think this is a great answer for the recruiting world. So you're the sum of the five people you hang out with the most things. Jim Rohn. Now, I have a similar thing. So in boxing, think of it in the recruiting world, and you kind of fill the holes for me. So in boxing, top five people you hang out with to be successful. Your number one person, we call that your pinnacle. That's the person at the very top.

Cam F. Awesome [00:53:41]:
You don't ever have to actually meet this person. That'll be the Michael Jordan of recruiting, whoever that happens to be. For me, it was Muhammad Ali. That was the top of the top. That's the number one person, the pinnacle, number two person that's the person who's better than you, that's more successful than you in the recruiting world. For me, that was the boxer in the gym that had more experience than me. I wanted to get as successful as he was. So he threw a four punch combination, I threw a five punch combination.

Cam F. Awesome [00:54:10]:
I'm doing whatever he does to get successful. The number three person, that's my direct competition. That's someone who's toe to toe with you in the recruiting world. Your goal is to never, ever let that person get better than you. And their goal is for you to never, ever get better than them. And your job is to give them all the tools it takes to be better than you. You're competing with them, but you want them to be their very best. You don't want them to do bad so you look good.

Cam F. Awesome [00:54:38]:
No, you want them to be great so it challenges you and you both push each other. I don't know how you are with my friends. We talk shit. So that person who's neck to neck with me, that's how I am. And it's like we're pushing each other constantly. And both of our goal is to catch that number two person. The number four person, very important. The person who's less successful than you, but just as hungry as you are.

Cam F. Awesome [00:55:02]:
So that number two person you're looking up to, you're their number two person. Your goal is to give them all the tools, mentor them, to get them where you are, give them the things you wish your number two would give you. And also never let that person get better than you. Number five person, most important of the five, it's you. Why would any of the other five of them want to spend time with you if you don't want to spend time with yourself? Self awareness.

Benjamin Mena [00:55:34]:
Ooh.

Cam F. Awesome [00:55:35]:
So I've left boxing and there's a boxer who's same same level with me on the national level, Tony Mack. And we got into he. He owns a boxing gym. I have a speaking business. But in my mind, he was like my number three. And my goal was never let him get better than me. And his goal is I'm never supposed to get better than him. And we push each other and we text each other, man, give me your progress.

Cam F. Awesome [00:55:55]:
How's it going? And then at some point, Tony Mac became my number two. He surpassed me. I wasn't supposed to let it happen, but I have to admit, when it did, he built a team around himself that I never built. He did certain things. I was like, oh, those are things that I missed out the lucky thing is now I have a mentor. I could just call and text anytime. We completely changed position. It's competitive, but we're never against each other.

Cam F. Awesome [00:56:25]:
I mean, now I just look at Tony in a different light where I admire the things he's doing and he gives me a lot of advice because now he's opened up doors I've yet to open up, and I'm learning how to behave when I get in those doors. So there's levels to this. There's no level you can't get to, but there are levels to it and there's ways to get there.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:46]:
I love that.

Cam F. Awesome [00:56:47]:
Shout out to Tony Mac.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:48]:
Yeah, well, we've covered a lot. And before we jump over the quickfire questions, it's mostly because I just looked up and saw how much time has already gone by. Oh, I was like, looked up a second. I was like, oh. So we've covered a lot about your story about overcoming self talk, identity, goals, work ethic, habits. Before we jump over to the quick fire questions, is there anything else that you want to share in your story?

Cam F. Awesome [00:57:16]:
From the outside, it looks like I know what I'm doing. I have no clue. I'm just sure if it doesn't work, I'll do it again. And I'm very good at articulating my past and making it seem I knew exactly what the next step was going to be, but I was just walking in a fog and I would just figure things out as the next step. And I didn't win 12 national championships at once. I have so many losses in that I have 39 losses as a boxer. Cool. Everyone talks about my wins, but imagine if I would have quit after 10 losses.

Cam F. Awesome [00:57:49]:
Because successful boxers don't have more than 10 losses. You can't name any with them. So I didn't always think like. Also, if I thought I was actually awesome, I wouldn't have had to change my name to it. Seek what you want for yourself into existence.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:06]:
Awesome.

Cam F. Awesome [00:58:07]:
Rao.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:09]:
Well, jumping over the quickfire questions, and they don't need to be quick answers. You've talked a bunch of times about goals. When someone's thinking about their goals, like their next step and their goals, what should they be thinking about as they go into putting them together?

Cam F. Awesome [00:58:23]:
What would it take for you to quit your goal? That's one thing you should figure out. What's your threshold for discomfort? Risk for reward? How much you're willing to risk?

Benjamin Mena [00:58:34]:
How bad do you want it?

Cam F. Awesome [00:58:35]:
Yeah, not everyone deserves it. Because if everyone could just have it, you wouldn't want it, would you?

Benjamin Mena [00:58:40]:
Nope. Now, when it comes to people that need to rewrite their internal dialogue and the stories that they tell themselves, what's the first piece of advice that you give them? There's.

Cam F. Awesome [00:58:52]:
Oh, everyone's in different situations in their life. But I realized the easiest way to make that change is changing the people you're around. No shade to them, but they might know you as that person who's always late. It doesn't have to be late. Fill in whatever that is for you. But it becomes hard for you to break out of that habit, whether it's you're the person who always drinks, so you get around their friend like, oh, buy him a shot. And you're trying to stop yourself and drink. It's easier to just get a new group of friends.

Cam F. Awesome [00:59:20]:
It has nothing to do with your old group of friends or the old people you hung out with. There's like 9 billion people around here. You could find a new circle. Until you go and let that be you going in your cocoon and becoming a new person. Like, sometimes you got to disappear, like, go off the map. What I like to do is I like to meet with people, especially people. So I meet people with coffee all the time. I don't have a conventional education.

Cam F. Awesome [00:59:43]:
I have a coffee education. Man. There's things you wouldn't answer on our podcast if they're personal, but if I sat you down for a cup of coffee, you'd be willing to share so much insight. I've learned so much about people's successes, their failures, and their mistakes that I could learn from over a cup of coffee. And I'll take everything you said and I'll throw away a lot of it away, because a lot of things work, but they work for you. And they may not work for me, but I'll take the nuggets that do work for me and keep going. So I would say reach out to the people who you want to be like. Also, you'll never become what you despise.

Cam F. Awesome [01:00:24]:
So if you hate successful people, or you're resentful against successful people, or you're mad at what other people have, it's likely you won't ever get those things.

Benjamin Mena [01:00:39]:
You might not have realized this years ago, but you really created yourself a set of habits. Looking back now and switching from the boxing to the entrepreneurial side of the house, where you've had to almost recreate these habits, how did you really set those up for the systems for you to keep on winning even in a completely different environment?

Cam F. Awesome [01:01:01]:
An arena it's baseline discipline. It's discipline of taking action. We all have information. ChatGPT is free. There's nothing you can't find out. I don't even know why college is still so expensive. Information's free. What you should be doing is valuing the actions on things.

Cam F. Awesome [01:01:19]:
The secret to success is in the book, Ben. You get to the end of the first chapter, they said, hey, you read this book because you value me, you respect my opinion and you want to learn my ways. Do this action step before going any further. What do we do, Ben? We switch the page and we start reading chapter two. I've got a shelf of books over there with things. I'm definitely going to get back to action. It means more than anything. And then you get to learn from your actions.

Cam F. Awesome [01:01:46]:
Failure is a filter. You get to figure out what not to do next.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:51]:
Failure is a filter. I love that. Well, talking about books, has there been a book that's had a huge impact on you?

Cam F. Awesome [01:01:58]:
Yes. So during the pandemic that whole. Because I realized we read books but don't do the action steps. So I told myself during the pandemic I had a lot of free time. I was like, okay, I'm going to read this book everyone's been talking about. It's a business book, but I'm going to do everything it says. I've got the time. Turns out it was a little woo woo for me.

Cam F. Awesome [01:02:18]:
It was think and grow Rich Napoleon Hill. I read the book, I did the post it notes, I did the affirmations. I wrote my goals, I wrote my plan, I did it all. It was like three months into doing everything in this book. Dogecoin hit big. And I remember reading a line in that book saying once riches come in, you'll be wondering where they've been hiding this entire time. I started to understand that success is based off the energy you give. As you said earlier, we can smell desperation.

Cam F. Awesome [01:02:50]:
It's not so much we smell it, we feel it. It's an energy you give off. And when you have that energy of abundance, things find you so much easier. That would be the top book for me.

Benjamin Mena [01:03:02]:
Are you a dogecoin millionaire?

Cam F. Awesome [01:03:04]:
No, not a millionaire. I probably hit for. I think it was like 19K. That was like a lie. I actually pulled out while Elon Musk started Saturday Night Live. I was like, you know what? I feel like this is good enough. And I pulled out. Then it tanked.

Cam F. Awesome [01:03:18]:
So I want but I made during the pandemic. You know, money was hard back then, but it Was like I was a billionaire. It felt like I put probably like $30 in there. I was like, it was a good turnaround. But I was like, oh, it's working. And it's not so much it's working. It's. I can't remember the things that aren't working.

Cam F. Awesome [01:03:41]:
And the idea is, if you can give yourself hope and convince yourself the story that you're going to eventually figure things out, you'll keep going, and if you keep going, you'll eventually succeed. If you can fail without being discouraged, success becomes inevitable.

Benjamin Mena [01:03:57]:
What's one of the biggest failures that you had to work through out of all these?

Cam F. Awesome [01:04:01]:
Ooh, biggest failures I had to work through. I guess what would be defined as a failure? If I work through it, I could tell you one of the things I struggle with or I'm learning to get better at. I was big dog in boxing. I walked into the room, I was the man. I switched spaces. I'm in the speaking world. I'm not big dog anymore. And I see the people around me.

Cam F. Awesome [01:04:22]:
I'm like, okay, I know where they are. I see where they are. It's going to take me a while to get there, but I'm going to catch up. And I've learned in the speaking world, I have to work on all aspects of my game. The greatest thing about boxing is coaches didn't care what you did, right? A coach never mentions what you do, right. That's not their job. The job is to pick out all your flaws, to make sure your weaknesses aren't exposed during a fight. So I've taken that same approach to speaking, and I realized maybe I'm not the greatest communicator yet.

Cam F. Awesome [01:04:48]:
And I have to learn to even slow down when I speak, to articulate things a little bit better, to use less ums, to be more direct with my stories, to even throw away stories that I like, but they don't really benefit the audience. So I'm working on being the best speaker I can be, and it's difficult because I like being the best, and I'm not yet.

Benjamin Mena [01:05:14]:
Well, next question. In two different ways. But I will start with the speaking side. Like, now that you are traveling the US and traveling the world speaking, if you got the chance to have a conversation with yourself and give yourself advice when that journey started, what would you tell yourself?

Cam F. Awesome [01:05:29]:
To be wary of the advice that people give me that couldn't have done it themselves. I like that people tell you how to do it and they couldn't do it themselves. And if I was them, I wouldn't be where I am to be in the situation, to do what I'm doing in the first place. So sometimes you have to just bet on yourself. And I've always been big on that. And when I lose, I lose by myself, but I will always bet on me.

Benjamin Mena [01:05:54]:
Same question, but back to your boxing days. We'll say maybe a year and a half before you won your first national title. With everything that you know, like your wins, your losses, how the story actually ends, what would you go back and tell yourself?

Cam F. Awesome [01:06:10]:
Bitcoin. I would show myself Butterbean, because that was the most relevant option at the time. I would say, hey, look at Butterbean. Look what he's doing. He's not that talented at fighting. He's a spectacle, but he can sell tickets. Boxing's still a business. At the end of the day, they don't care how good you are.

Cam F. Awesome [01:06:33]:
They care how many tickets you can sell. Usually the really good boxers have fans, so they sell tickets, but the end of the day, it's the tickets. Butterbean sold a lot of tickets and made a lot of money. Wasn't that talented. He understood the business of boxing, what Jake Paul is doing with respect to his athleticism, because he is giving full effort. But he took the spectacle of boxing and made it into a business and made himself very successful doing it. I'd have pointed myself in that direction at the boom of the Internet, of social media.

Benjamin Mena [01:07:00]:
Like that advice. Well, this will be the last question. We'll wrap it up so you get a chance to speak all across the country, business environments, you know, a few of us, recruiters here and there, like corporate, you know, executives. And you're talking about the story. You're talking about the struggle. You're talking about so many things, which is like, why I wanted you to come on this podcast. You know, I've seen you after a talk, like, everybody's talking to you, asking you questions. You get a ton of questions.

Benjamin Mena [01:07:25]:
Is there a question that you wish somebody would ask you, like, in those environments, but they never do.

Cam F. Awesome [01:07:29]:
Oh, great. Great question. I would say one of the things that I would like to be asked more, or I think a question we should be asked more, is, what could I not do? What can I stop doing? Because so often in the idea of, like, what can I do to be successful? And people ask, like, what should I add onto my plate to be successful? You could just also ask, what could I stop doing that I'm doing already? And for me in my life, when I've asked myself that question. You don't stop doing something is a lot easier than doing something. And we have so many of our habits that may not serve us. So one of the things that really did me justice in my life, and I didn't have this huge problem, but drinking. Once I removed drinking from my life, and it's not that I was an alcoholic. I didn't get any DUIs.

Cam F. Awesome [01:08:18]:
It just changed my habits. It changed my sleep pattern, it changed the people I hung out with. It changed where I spent my time. And that changed my life. And it wasn't anything I did. It was something I stopped doing. And many of us have things in our life that's hindering us from getting to that next level. And no matter how much we add to our plate, until we stop doing that thing, it's not going to get us to the next level.

Benjamin Mena [01:08:41]:
Love that. Well, Cam, if somebody wants to follow you, how do they go about doing that?

Cam F. Awesome [01:08:47]:
Craigslist. Missed connections. No, I'm joking. CamFAwesome.com or @CamFAwesome on all social media platforms because I'm not famous enough for anyone to try to take my name.

Benjamin Mena [01:09:00]:
So LinkedIn too.

Cam F. Awesome [01:09:01]:
LinkedIn as well. LinkedIn. Is LinkedIn.com in.

Benjamin Mena [01:09:08]:
It was hard for me to find you. I missed that little. That little part in the beginning.

Cam F. Awesome [01:09:11]:
People forget that. Yeah. For LinkedIn, all the personal profiles, it's LinkedIn.com in. Send the number.

Benjamin Mena [01:09:19]:
Well, before I let you go, is there anything else you want to share with the listeners?

Cam F. Awesome [01:09:22]:
I'm big on risk, and what I've learned is I'm a lot less likely to fall if I don't have a safety net. What are the things around you that are keeping you safe that's not allowing you the ability to be uncomfortable?

Benjamin Mena [01:09:38]:
Well, Cam, I love that. Cam, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on. Like I said at the very beginning, it's just like, recruiting's hard. You're getting punched in the face nonstop. It's also a place where the only person truly checking the work that you're putting in is yourself at the end of the day. But it's also, we set out many times for these goals, these dreams, these aspirations that we have in this career that we just fall into. Like, many of us didn't choose this world, but once we're in the world, we chose to do something in the world. But how many times have we missed those goals and then turned around and actually looked at what we actually accomplished? So what Cam said at the very beginning.

Benjamin Mena [01:10:15]:
Like before you do anything else this week, write down your accomplishments and don't put your name on there. Look at it. Would you be proud of that person? And look what they've done. I truly believe 2025 is the year that you're going to hit your goals. I believe 2025 is a year that you're going to crush them. And remember, if you put in the work, keep the self talk good, you're going to make things happen. Thank you guys. AI is already replacing recruiters.

Benjamin Mena [01:10:39]:
Not next year, not eventually, right now. But here's the thing. It's not replacing the ones who are known, the recruiters who are trusted, visible and respected in their niche. These recruiters aren't just surviving, they're actually thriving. And that's where HOXO comes in. Like their Personal brand Bootcamp is helping recruitment founders build real authority online. So instead of chasing leads, they they attract them. It's based on something they call the 3X system.

Benjamin Mena [01:11:02]:
It's working across every market and it's helping founders turn a few hours a week on LinkedIn into inbound clients, candidate demand, and real business growth. If you want to stay ahead of the AI wave and actually grow through it, go watch the free masterclass the links in the show notes. Just know access is limited, so don't miss out. P.S. tell them we sent you and you'll get £500 off if you join the HOXO Personal Brand Bootcamp.

Cam F. Awesome [01:11:28]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed hit subscribe and leave a rating.