“Cam F. Awesome: Laugh Off Losses—Resilience to Redemption Blueprint”

Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show podcast, the podcast show where we unlock potential one dream at a time. Today we have another guest whose journey is truly worth hearing. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the Moneyway experience.

Hey, what's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show in association with Believe Network. The show where hustle meets heart and where we dive into real stories of resilience, reinvention, and real success. Today's guest, a force of personality and perseverance. He's a 12-time national boxing champion, 3-time Olympic trial winner, and captain of Team USA. But that's only part of his story. He legally changed his name to Awesome, became known as the Vegan Boxer, and has since reinvented himself as a keynote speaker, stand-up comic, and I will tell you that the guy is funny because he's a Boston Celtics fan growing up. Now that was funny to me. And entrepreneur. Welcome to the show today, The Champ. What's up, awesome man? How you doing, bro?

What up, what up? Thank you for having me on, CJ.

Oh man, thanks, Cam, for coming on, man. It's been a long time, man. We both been getting this going a long time ago, but I know life be lifin'. I hear you, man. It is what it is, but I appreciate you taking the time out today, man, to come on today, man. So man, let me ask you, Cam, man, Let's start with the obvious. You literally changed your last name to Awesome. What inspired that move and what does it mean to you?

What inspired it was, I think it's important the way we talk to ourselves and the way we talk about ourselves. And we all tell ourselves stories. Like, I walk in rooms where no one looks like me.

Mm-hmm.

I can walk in a room and tell myself a story, oh, they think I don't belong here. Now I start giving off that energy as if I don't belong here.. And then they feel that they don't know what it is and they start giving that same energy back and it's like, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then when I leave, I'm like, see, I knew I felt like I didn't belong there. I was right. Because you told yourself the story. You can tell yourself the story, I'm bad at technology.

Mm-hmm.

And then every time you run into an issue, you throw your hands up. I'm bad at technology. As soon as you run into an issue, instead of figuring it out, Googling ChatGPT, YouTube, If you would've taken that attitude, you would've been, by the iPhone 4, since that came out, imagine how good you'd be at technology.

Yeah.

So the stories we tell ourselves. In 2012, I needed to get myself out of a slump and out of a depression, and I figured I was just gonna start telling myself that I was awesome. Turns out I was.

I would say you was awesome in a lot of things, man, as we would go through. But I tell you one thing that wasn't an awesome decision, and we already know, I ain't gonna keep on harping on it, man, but you broke my heart, bro, Like I say, we ain't gonna do no fight. We know who got them hands of bricks, you know what I'm saying? I'm still not messing with— I heard that one, that boxers, like, they can't street box, right? You know what I'm saying? Like, you can't go outside and have a fight because y'all hands are considered lethal weapons or something like that, bro.

That's not real. It's something we say, but it's just to sound cool.

That's not right. Okay, okay. Yeah, I know. Yeah, like, man, you can't fight outside, man. We got lethal weapons right here. And I would agree, I wouldn't go pick on a Mike Tyson or nobody, you know what I'm saying?

Here's the thing, once you know how to hurt a man, and once you're capable of violence, and you know what— because it's just one punch. Yeah, you'd be the greatest fighter in the world, get hit with that punch, and then your body's just unconscious out in the street. Once you know that can happen, you become a very non-confrontational person. Like, everyone I know who knows how to fight has no interest in fighting at all.

Oh man. Hey, so let me ask you, man. I know you've been— this one on the list, man, but since we talking about boxing and things of that nature, you talk about getting knocked out, and once you get knocked out and see them, see them, uh, cuckoo birds, you know what I'm saying, to give you a different perspective. Now, you've been a champion, you've been to Olympics, you know, saying things of that nature. Have you ever had your bell rung?

Bro, I've been hit once in Kazakhstan and my entire body— so remember back in the day, Zab Judah got knocked out and he was like, "Don't play with matches." Uh, Cedric the Entertainer did that thing.

Yeah.

All right, so what happens when you get hit really hard, it don't hurt, your body just goes numb and you don't know where your legs are. So when you're trying to step, like when your legs fall asleep, You don't know where your legs are, so you start stumbling around. So when I got hit, that's what I thought about immediately. I was like, oh, Zab Judah couldn't feel his legs because I'm telling my whole body went numb. And I thought to myself, maybe I should go to community college. Like, yeah, I never want to be hit that hard again.

It's like, ever in life, huh? Oh my goodness, man, I could just imagine. I'll be watching some of these older fights back in the day, like Tyson A matter of fact, just say something the other day, Cam, man, where he had like a 15-punch round or whatever, where he had a combo of 15 punches, man. I don't believe that this dude stood up for the first 14 of them the way he was rocking that dude, baby. You know, Tyson, he was straight in his game. He had like 2 uppercuts in it, man. He was nailing that boy. That boy, I tell you what, like you just said, he couldn't feel no parts of his body after probably that 6th hit. He was just like, you don't feel that in like 3 days.

Saturday night, Tuesday morning, you walk to the mailbox and you just, you feel yourself getting hit from 3 days ago. It's, it's not how I want to live my life.

Oh man, I feel you, man. You know, I, I used to throw them up back in the day. Not, not on the level that you did, man, but I could just imagine. I never got rocked like that, but I have got rocked before, right there in the neck. I never forget that.

The, the scariest thing I've ever heard a man say We're out in a bar, like, restaurant in Orlando back in the day, and my coach is an MMA fighter, pretty big dude. And he got into it with another guy there, and my coach was like, hey man, I'm gonna knock you out. And he was like, I've been knocked out before, doesn't hurt. And I was like, oh, that man has nothing to lose. Yeah, I was like, let's just— that, that I got, I got it. I was like, oh, That's not the dude you want to mess with.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I ain't scared, you know what I'm saying? Uh, I ain't never scared. Yeah, that was good. Yeah.

Hey hustlers, I'm CJ Moneyway, and if you're building a team to grow your business, let me introduce you to ZipRecruiter. Their AI-powered platform finds the right talent fast, posting your job to over 100 job sites with just one click. I've seen how their smart matching delivers quality candidates in 24 hours. Perfect for job seekers like you scaling brick by brick. Try it free at ziprecruiter.com/click. Use code CJ Moneyway Johnson for an exclusive deal. That's ziprecruiter.com/click. Hire your hustle today. Now back to the show.

So let me ask you, man, take us back a little bit since we talking about boxing and things of that nature. What was going on through your mind as when you was a child, man, and to say that you was being bullied and, you know, say that you was an anxious child and making those 6-mile— and what decided you to start making those 6-mile walks to the gym, man?

Uh, so I started in the very beginning. So I dealt with bullying and it was physical. I'm not throwing shade on any bullying, but this dude, when I said— when you say on-site, anytime he saw me, it was over. So they would let me out of school 10 minutes early so I could get home before he got to me.

Hmm.

Now my dad owned a construction company. And so he drove a cement truck Monday through Friday. On the weekends, he would do sidewalks and driveways. That was his like side hustle. And he would pick me up on the weekends and we would go to Home Depot. We'd pick up a couple laborers and they would break up the concrete, throw it in a dumpster. That'd be all Saturday, Sunday morning. He would get two— they call them floaters, they're the ones who make the concrete smooth. And so the laborers get paid $100 a day. The guys who make the concrete smooth, they don't do any physical work, they get paid $450 a day. So I saw that as a child, like, oh, if you have a skill, you get paid more. So the first day, my dad would pay $300 for labor. Second day, $1,000 for labor, 2 floaters and a laborer to grab the tools. And then you pay for the dumpster. So about $2,000. My dad would charge the owner of the house $5,000.

Mm-hmm.

And I would see my dad would make more money than everyone else for just organizing work. Now, I was looking for my dad's approval. So I was in the back of the pickup truck with the laborers, and I was trying to work Bro, they're built different.

Mm.

Like, there's a lot of talk like being a man, 'cause a lot of these dudes are educated dudes who had to come to America for work opportunity.

Mm-hmm.

And they get paid and at the end of the day you drop 'em off to Western Union so they can spend $7 to send $90 back home to their family.

Mm.

And it's like you haven't seen your wife in years. She might be married with another man, but you still taking care of your kids. It's like, that's what these dudes are dealing with. There's no Band-Aids, there's no worker comp, there's no mandatory breaks. This is the level these dudes are working at.

Mm-hmm.

Not built like us. And that's what I was trying to keep up with growing up to get my dad's approval. Like, I can work just as hard as these guys. Those dudes aren't human. Because these dudes walked to America. A lot of them died on their way here through coyotes, getting robbed. And then they learned a language in a country with no education and are just doing any work to just make do. That's a different level of hustle. So when it came to boxing When it was time to put in my workload and my effort, I gave the effort in boxing that those dudes gave to labor.

Yeah, it's—

we're soft in America, bro. We are so soft. I can't sleep without AC. Some of us need our phone. Even homeless people got cell phones. That's how soft we are. And that's how great life is here, but it's— we always compare ourselves to those who have more than us.

Mm-hmm.

But I think it sounds like if you've got $400, you're in the top 75% of the world.

How much?

Man, I gotta look up the— I'll look up the stat. Uh, I saw the stat, I was like, it's crazy because we forget how good we have it here.

Yeah, yeah. I'm still thinking about, like you say, you know, thinking about what we're going through in life right now as society. And like you say, these people, we just not getting out there doing the type of stuff that they out there doing, man, for the minimum amount. That some of them making that for it. It's just not, just not happening. But you know, I ain't sitting at the top of the world either, so I don't know nothing, bro.

We are sitting at the top of the world, huh? We are sitting at the top of the world.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you on that note, you know what I'm saying? But I'm talking about individuals, like the things that's going on, you know what I'm saying? As far as what you talk about with the laborers, I know, you know, saying what that is, but like, I don't know what's going on on that end, you know what I'm saying? But I ain't up there, so I'll make those decisions.

So yeah, so when it came to boxing, I had to walk 6 miles to the gym. Those dudes would walk 6 miles to work, um, and then work, and then work. So I would walk 6 miles and then go work out, and then after the workout, I had to go on a run because you gotta go on a team run. And if I don't go on a team run, I don't get a ride home. That's my ride home. So But when I realized like the people around me, because the boxers were talented, and I saw that as a curse. Because if you got too good too quick and you're naturally gifted, you never learn how to work hard. So when I catch up to the talented dude, and the only difference between us is work ethic, he don't stand a chance.

I hear you. I hear you. Work ethic. Always. And then that's in everything. That's in life. That's in and your work habits and things of that nature. The regular job, 9 to 5, you know, you got to have work ethics, man. And a lot of— and you said something about the phones and what we— how soft we— that's something that's missing with this younger generation right now. They do not have work ethics, man, you know what I'm saying? They don't like to be on work on time. When they get to work, they don't want to do no work, you know what I'm saying? That, you know, that's how it is.

I think they saw behind the curtain too early.

Mm-hmm.

Before, we never got information. We didn't know how things worked. We didn't realize that no one's going to actually check if you have a high school diploma or not.

Yeah.

But these kids figured it out already.

Mm-hmm.

And before, you only knew how much the people around you made and how much NBA players make.

Mm-hmm.

But now these kids are seeing how much other people are making. They're like, you want me to work for $18 an hour? Is that what you— do you want me to show up on time for that? And they don't think their time is worth it.

Yeah, yeah.

But the problem is they have a lack of ability to assess their skills and what they're bringing to the table.

I mean, I get it because I got a 14-year-old, be 15 on Halloween, and so I get it. That's how I— you know, some of the stuff that he watch on YouTube, I would sit there and look at it sometimes. Like I tell my wife, I want to know what he looking at, you know what I'm saying? Because what's influencing them? And one day, Cam, man, he was sleeping, but he had TV on. He was watching some YouTubers, and they were debating some of the older people, you know, saying something like myself, you know, probably your age group, that actually had 9-to-5 jobs. Now these YouTubers, you know, they making this big money, so they going back and forth. I'm talking like they like 15, 16 years old. They going back and forth like, why would I go work a job like this? And so One day we was out and my wife, I said, he don't plan on having no regular job. He watching the YouTuber thing where they, you know, saying going back to back because they making the type of money. But what they don't understand, everybody's not gonna be a YouTube sensation or, you know, saying go out there and make like MrBeast and make hundreds of millions of thousands of million dollars and things of that nature. Everybody not gonna be like that, man. So a lot of that is tied into their thought process too. Like you say, I don't have to go out there and expose myself like Mommy and Daddy did and work for the man, this and that. But you don't have a real plan on what you gonna do either, you know.

The thing is like, you can— like MrBeast posted like 3 years in a row every single day. Christmas, deaths, birthdays, still posting. Like, you can get there, but the level of work it takes, and now it's so oversaturated. And the people that you're watching who talk about making all this money, a lot of them aren't making anything. It's a lot of people out here faking the funk. It's a lot of smoke and mirrors. And what I understood, like, seeing my dad have a business, and I always had an entrepreneur spirit. I've always worked for myself, with the exception of I worked at Waffle House at the age of 18. And then I thought, I'll do whatever it takes, but I don't think I can work for somebody again. And I'll do— I'll work with you. I will work with you and I'll learn. If I could benefit from it, I'll work for you. If I can learn something from you. But if I don't see it benefit me in the long picture, I'm at the point where I won't. Your time's the only thing you have.

Yeah, it is. And I totally agree with you. Let me ask you, Cam, man, getting suspended from the Olympic team in 2012 could have ended your career.

Yeah.

Instead, you reframed it. How did that setback rewire, not just your training, but your mindset as well.

Yeah. So I started boxing. When I found success in boxing, I was traveling around with it, and I was like, all right, it's time to go to college. I was about 17. I was like, okay, do I go to college where I'm terrible at high school? I'm not doing well here. Am I about to pay to do bad at school? So I was like, okay, I can go— if I go balls deep into this boxing thing, I won't need to get a job right now and figure out, because all my peers are figuring out what they're doing. If I'm focused on boxing, it's like, okay, Cam's not a loser, he's doing something. At least no one's like— so you have that pressure when you're 18, like, what are you doing with your life? So I put all my eggs in that basket, and it was fun. I won relatively easy. I fought a lot. I had more experience than everyone else, and I won nationals away every year until 2012. Got kicked off the Olympic team. And I looked at my life and I realized I did all this boxing. I don't even like boxing. I just figured out how to win. I was like, this is the path I'm going to use instead of going to college. And I thought, well, here's something I realized as well. Athlete privilege. It's a thing. Like back in high school, the star of the football team does something, supposed to be suspended, but he isn't because they have a game that day.

Mm-hmm.

That also happens in real life. You get special treatment and privileges when you're an athlete, but you don't realize it because you think you're special. You're not special. Your relevancy as an athlete dissipates faster than the sweat on your jersey from your last game.

Mm-hmm.

When I got kicked off the team in 2012, that's where I lost my athlete privilege immediately. I had to pay for my own gym memberships. Had to pay for my own supplements, my own equipment. I lost everything. And I realized the power that I had as an athlete. And I was 23 years old and I was like, okay, how can I— 'cause I have no discernible skills and now I'm in hustle mode. I'm 23, I'm like, how am I gonna do life? And at least I have the foresight to know I don't wanna work a job and I'm gonna swing for the fences. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna return to boxing. I'm going to change my last name to Awesome. I'm going to believe in myself again. I'm going to celebrate myself, but I'm also going to market myself as more than an athlete. This is where the hustle came in. Okay, I'm the number one boxer in the country. So I started doing stand-up comedy in 2012. Understand comedy, it's not how funny you are. It's not how many tickets— how funny you are. It's how many tickets you can sell. So I would claim my spot as captain of the USA national boxing team. My name is Mr. Awesome now. I'm doing interviews every time I get an opportunity. I started a podcast. And let's say I would go fight in Detroit. I reach out to comedy clubs in Detroit. Hey, I'm fighting here this weekend. Allow me to perform 4 shows at your club this weekend. And I could sell tickets because I'm a novelty. So I started doing comedy when I travel. I will go to Denver to fight, reach out to schools and start speaking at schools. And I started marketing myself as more than just an athlete because I understood sports is going to be over again soon. And this time when it's over, I want to be able to transition smoothly into a career where I do what I want and I'm at high value. So I saw an avenue in speaking. So I would travel around and I love speaking because I would go to schools and talk about bullying because that was near and dear to me. At first, I didn't even know it was a career.

Mm-hmm.

So to— so I return to boxing, win national every year. There's a documentary on Netflix called Counterpunch that documents that story. I win the 2016 Olympic trials, but then lose an international competition and don't get to go to Rio.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm like, okay, what do I want to do with my life? It's not boxing. It's not what I want to do. I want to be a speaker.

Mm-hmm.

So I understood business. I understood I could get an LLC. And I understood in boxing, Boxer A has 100 boxing matches. Boxer B has 3. They fight. Who do you bet on?

Um, bet on 3.

You would bet on the guy with 3 boxing matches? You, you seem like a parlay type of dude then.

So, oh, okay, I might have misinterpreted the question, you know what I'm saying?

So if a guy with— Boxer A has 100 boxing matches.

Okay.

Boxer B has 3. Okay, that's the power of experience. You would assume, oh, the guy with 100 fights will win.

I'm gonna go with one. Yeah, yeah.

So you don't even need to know the record. They could be 5 wins and 95 losses, but experience is that powerful.

Yeah.

So in boxing, my thought process, if a boxer has 50 fights, that's a lot. I thought, I'm gonna go about— I don't care about my record, I'm gonna go out and get 100 fights, and after that I'm gonna be fighting dudes with 15, 20 fights. I'm gonna be more experienced than everybody.

Yeah, but ain't it too, sometimes some of them cats, you know, you might have a lot of fights, but you know, like a lot of them be journeymen, right? You know what I'm saying? They have a lot of fights and they have a lot of these pro fights. Then you have some up-and-coming boxers that's, you know, coming through the ranks that might be 4-0, 5-0, and you come across some of them and it ain't no joke. It was— yeah, yeah, yeah, they ain't out there playing. Like, okay, how much experience you got on, man? You know, I'm gonna kick that butt. And I've seen that too, you know what I'm saying? Like, so I feel like that's a perfect example. It depends on who it is and what's going on.

Perfect example. There are those guys who are 5-0 and killers like that. I'm not that guy. Uh-huh. And you have to realize sometimes you're not that person, but play the role that you are. Yeah. I understand as the not naturally gifted guy, not the talented one, I got to get experience. I got to put in work. That's how I'm going to be able to compete. So like My favorite player of all time. And you're gonna throw your shade. I'm gonna let you throw your shade.

Don't tell me no Larry Bird, bro.

No, no, no. Even worse. But so many people, people, they think my favorite player is LeBron. My favorite player is LeBron. We can't all be LeBron, bro. There's one LeBron.

Yeah.

You know who we can be? We can be Paul Pierce.

I don't wanna be no damn Paul Pierce though, bro. I mean, you can.

Okay, so here's why I love Paul Pierce and he's my favorite player.

And I know you're a hater, but hey, hold up, hold up, can we go— we gonna strike that label off of my, off of my jacket. I have not no hater, I'm just a Celtics hater, period. It ain't nothing you can tell me that's gonna convince me otherwise. Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Rondo, KG, Antoine Walker, Kevin McHale, none of them. Dennis Johnson, all like, none of them.

Here's why I relate to Paul Pierce, because when you wonder, like, Paul Pierce has an MVP and he has a ring.

Yeah.

And then I ask, what's special about him? Is it his 3-point ability? Is it his dunk? Is it his crossover? There's nothing, really. That's work ethic. He's not naturally gifted. That man's a dog. And in life, sometimes we're not the LeBron. I'm not the LeBron. But it doesn't mean I can't get a ring. You just have to figure out the role you play and play that like a, like an effort.

When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, like Alo or Skims, sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand, and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making selling, and for shoppers, buying simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify with Shop Pay that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts are going abandoned and way more sales happening. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell whatever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Skins uses. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/westwood1, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com/westwood1 to upgrade your selling today. shopify.com/westwood1.

Yeah, I know what you said. Yeah, I know exactly what you said.

So in boxing, I'm Paul Pierce. It's like there's nothing special about me. I'm not supposed to be as good as I think I am, but I got championships.

Yeah.

Hey CJ Moneyway Show fans, coming up I'm spilling the secret to hiring top talent with ZipRecruiter, AI that works as hard as you do. Stick around for details at ziprecruiter.com/click. Use code CJ Money for a free trial. Let's get to it. Try it free at ziprecruiter.com/click. Use code CJ Money for an exclusive deal. That's ziprecruiter.com/click. Hire your hustle today. Now back to the show.

I ain't gonna argue with you there, man, but, you know, I understand. I understand.

A triggering player.

Yeah, yeah, we're gonna agree to disagree, you know what I'm saying? I ain't gonna mess with the 12-time champ like that, you know what I'm saying? Whether you say your hands legal or not, I ain't gonna mess with the Vegan Boxer, which, man, on that note, man, let me ask you, man, I only got a couple more questions for you, bro. I appreciate you coming on the show.

Oh no, I just looked it up. So if you have $8,000, you're in the top 50% of the entire world.

Wow.

But everyone in America, we all have so much that we don't see anyone with less than us dramatically. And we're always comparing ourselves with people we see on TV or celebrities or people who are honestly being paid to advertise these watches and these purses. And then we think we need them, these things, to be happy.

Yeah.

So in 2016, when I decided to speak, I started living out of my Prius, driving around the country, speaking at schools, trying to build my speaking business. Because I think if I have a bunch of fights, I become the best boxer. If I had a bunch of speaking engagements, I would be a better speaker. So I'm like, I totaled my car doing this, and I use the insurance money and I buy a van to live out of. I'm out of van. Here's the hustle. Here's the grind. No hotel fees, no rental cars, no flights. I have low overhead. My mortgage is now my car insurance. And it allowed me, because I understand most businesses fail before 5 years because overhead. I have no overhead. So I just drove around the country 3 Christmases, 3 years, trying to perfect the craft of speaking and becoming a better speaker because that was the direction I wanted to go in. After the boxing. But making that transition in boxing, I was, bro, I was the man. And then I had to leave and I had to start from the very bottom in the speaking world, which is humbling. When I was driving around the country living out of a van, I try to make it seem like a cool adventure, but I would shower at Planet Fitnesses or boxing gyms wherever I can. And there's been times where boxers who's on Olympic team with me, who they're making millions of dollars and they're seeing me. Living in a van. And I see the look of like, oh, it's a little pathetic. Like, I see the look in their eye like, oh, Cam kind of— this looks like rock bottom.

Yeah, fell off. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, fell off.

Yeah.

But I'm like, I knew I didn't. I just knew this was the bricks that I had to lay to be able to have the foundation to where right now I'm hopping on planes and flying around the country speaking at a way better fee in the business. But that's the part people don't see is like me sleeping in Walmart parking lots for 3 years.

Mm. Yeah, see, like I said, I would— I wouldn't have known that, you know what I'm saying? But you don't know what route we had to take through in life, you know what I'm saying? Sometimes those are the paths that he gives us, man. We have to go through uncomfortable things to be stretched, you know what I'm saying? And a lot of times we get in situations we don't want to be stretched. I'm content with what I'm doing or where I'm at, but when he starts stretching us because he wants more out of us to get what's in us. You know, you start going through certain things, but you going through what you did now, you know, at the bottom, man. But now my man sitting right here at the top. Hey, Cam, man, tell us, man, before we get to this next question, where can we find you at on social media, man? Where can we hear some of these TED Talks, man? Where can we hear some of these speaking engagements from?

Actually, funny enough you say that, I have my first TED Talk one month from today in Montana. And it's going to be on the power of the stories we tell ourselves. And so if you're looking for me, that should be available soon enough. You can find me on Cam F. Awesome on all social media platforms because I'm not famous enough for anyone to try to take my name. You can also find me at camfaawesome.com. I'm an open book. DMs are open.

Oh man, I got you, man. Congratulations on that TED Talk too, man. Had to come back on and share it with us, bro. And I'm for real about that.

I'm here for it.

Yeah, so let me ask you, man, you're also known as the vegan boxer. How did plant-based living enter your journey, and how do you balance advocating without preaching?

Well, so I lost a bet in 2012 when I got suspended, and I had to be vegan for 28 days, and I felt so good after 28 days. First of all, I wasn't happy about being vegan. I don't like losing also don't like being vegan. But after 28 days, I found something that felt good doing, and I was like, I'm not going to be vegan. I'm just going to continue living like this until I find a reason not to. It's been like 13 years. I haven't found a reason not to. I'll do charity events to raise money for causes, but I think it's one of the least interesting things about me. Is like what I eat. So I advocate by doing charity events and giving stuff to animal organizations to help with that, because I'm passionate about that. But I just keep it moving.

Okay. I mean, you know, you like my man Samuel Jackson on Pulp Fiction. I watched Pulp Fiction when he went in there, jumped my man up. I'm vegan myself, you know what I'm saying? But I do like a good kahuna burger.

I love that movie, man.

So let me ask you, Kev, man. You're vocal about mental health and masculinity, two areas a lot of men struggle to talk about. How do you use humor to open up these conversations?

So you hear dudes talk about stories about their childhood, and they're like, yeah, my mom would put me out on the street and make me fight everybody on the block, and I never lost a fight. I was not that dude.

Mm-hmm.

Non-confrontational. I don't want to fight. I just want to have a good time, play video games. I'm not about that life. But I joined boxing, and then I realized, oh, once you can fight, you don't need to pretend to be tough.

Mm-hmm.

That's what dudes do that aren't tough. That's an insecurity. If I know I can kill everybody in this room, I don't need to walk around like it. So It's been easy to check who's secure and who's insecure by how they carry themselves. And I think once you point that out, dudes start to relax their shoulders a little bit.

Yeah, I agree. Like, yeah, I come walking in the room, I ain't gonna tell you, act like I kick your butt, but I can kick your butt. Don't try me though, you know what I'm saying? Or whatever. I guess, I guess that is a different type of— I guess same way on the other side too. If I'm packing, you know what I'm saying, I'm really not more for you know, whatever, whatever, because I'm ready to let loose. Because it's a different game nowadays than how it was with us coming up. We had to use these. Nowadays it ain't these, it's these.

So, uh, yeah, bro, a well-armed society is a polite society.

Mm.

Because everybody got a gun, everybody is capable of violence. Nobody wants violence.

Uh, you say nobody wants violence?

Well, I mean, if everybody has— everybody's very polite because No one wants to do that. Like the average person, everybody just— but you got it on you.

Yeah.

So everybody's very nice to everybody.

Yeah, because things could go foul real quick, you know what I'm saying? Hey, let Cam walk in with some of them fresh white gym shoes on in Rhode Island, man, and somebody come step on them, you know, we'll see how quick it can go. Yeah, I don't think it'll be Cam though, man. As y'all can see, this is the nicest guy it is, man, with some lethal hands, man. Hey Cam, man, on our way out, man, Man, give us one last nugget, man, that you would like to share with the people, man.

I think that life is hard enough. You shouldn't be hard on yourself. Celebrate yourself. Speak highly of yourself. Be kind to yourself. If you make a mistake, like, no one knows the way you talk to you. And every so often, it's important to check in and make sure you're being nice to you. Because if you ain't being nice to you, who else going to be?

Mm, that's the truth, man. You got to be nice to yourself. Don't go out and change your name to Alstrom 'cause my man had already took that. He had already patented that after himself already, so leave him be. Cam, man, thank you for bringing your energy, humor, and resilience to the show, man. Your story is a reminder that setbacks can be setups, especially after you said waking up sleeping in Walmart parking lots, man, and taking showers at Platinum Fitness. I will say that this man had some setbacks, But look at him now, first TEDx Speak next month, man. My man doing big things.

Hey, hey, hey.

And I appreciate it, man, that you know that you had the power to reinvent us, giving us the attitude, you know what I'm saying, to know that we had the power to reinvent ourselves no matter what the scoreboard may say. For our listeners, make sure to follow Cam on social media, check out his comedy series Comedy in the Courtyard, and tap into his work as a keynote speaker All the links will be in the show notes. As always, thank you for tuning in to the CJ Moneyway Show, powered by Believe Network. If today's conversation inspired you, subscribe, leave a review, and share with someone who needs a reminder to stay resilient, stay strong, stay real, and maybe even stay awesome. Until the next time, keep hustling. This your boy CJ Moneyway with my man, national boxing champion, 3-time Olympic trial winner, Cam F. Austin, we outta here. Peace.

Ditch the other hiring sites and let ZipRecruiter find what you're looking for, the needle in the haystack. 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at this exclusive web address: ziprecruiter.com/work. Again, that's ziprecruiter.com/work. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire.

Thank you for listening to the CJ Moneyway Show. Don't forget to share this episode with your friends, leave a comment, and drop a review. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday and Friday for more inspiring journeys. Who knows, your story might be next.