You Winning Life Podcast Ep.68- Michael Cameron:Conversations That Change Lives (Especially For Men)
In this episode, therapist and host Jason Wasser interviews Canadian writer, speaker, philanthropist, ultra‑marathoner, and gender‑based violence advocate Michael Cameron. The conversation begins with Cameron’s early life: a high‑school rebel who, after dropping out, moved to Australia to live with his uncle, a former boat‑worker turned multimillion‑dollar entrepreneur. A near‑death car accident sparked a work ethic and an early awareness of emotional influence on behavior. Cameron recounts his climb from bagging steer manure to sales, finance, and eventually founding a multimillion‑dollar business, illustrating how emotion drives buying decisions (the Porsche anecdote). The dialogue shifts to humility versus ego. Cameron describes his struggle with self‑promotion, the fear of appearing egotistical, and his article “Is Humility Hurting You?” which reframes humility as a barrier to sharing one’s gifts. He contrasts false humility (over‑suppression) with authentic humility that still allows impact. A major portion of the interview is devoted to values‑based living. Cameron critiques traditional goal‑setting, proposing a three‑part framework: Values → Intentions → Milestones. Values anchor purpose; intentions define the person one wants to become; milestones are concrete, goal‑like checkpoints that align with values. He argues that chasing monetary goals without this alignment leads to mis‑directed effort. The conversation then moves to personal trauma: the murder of Cameron’s former partner, Colleen, and how that tragedy deepened his commitment to men’s emotional health. He shares teachings from Ram Dass, the importance of allowing grief to surface, and the need to move beyond the cultural script that equates masculinity with emotional suppression. Cameron explains his initiatives to address this cultural gap: the Ignore No More Run for Respect, an annual run that engages men in dialogue about domestic violence, and Connected Men, a community that uses the acronym SOAR (Slow down, Open up, Accept, Reconnect) to teach emotional mastery. He emphasizes that vulnerability is a skill practiced in groups, not in isolation, likening emotional fitness to physical training. Throughout, both host and guest discuss the concept of “emotional muscle memory,” the danger of “trying” versus “practicing,” and the importance of surrounding oneself with a “dream team” of mentors and peers. They also explore how language shapes perceptions of masculinity and how reframing narratives can open space for healthier male identities. The episode ends with reflections on risk versus reward in personal growth, using analogies from marathon training and Ironman preparation, and a final invitation to explore Cameron’s book Becoming a Better Man and his online resources.
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Hey everybody, welcome back. Today I have a really incredible guest. His name is Mike Cameron and he's a Canadian writer, speaker, philanthropist, ultra-marathoner, and advocate against gender-based violence. He went from literally bagging shit to founding, building, and running an award-winning multi-million dollar business. He's a sales and leadership authority, and he's studied and spoken on the impact that emotions have on human behavior for over 2 decades now. He's worked with a variety of nonprofits and charities, and he's paving the way for a violence-free future. And his TEDx talk, The Way Men Think of Strong Is Wrong, urges society to help redefine what it means to be a badass. Mike, thanks for hanging out with us today.
Hey, I'm glad to be here, man. Really glad to be here. So you make me sound either really old or really accomplished in that intro. I'm not sure which, maybe both. Maybe both.
Well, definitely accomplished. And I think that the effort and energy of the things that you're passionate about most obviously will shine through, hopefully with less effort and inertia. And so, you know, age is really just a mindset in our mind, just like running 100 miles, right? It's just the mindset.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
So before we get into all of that and all these awesome accomplishments that you are doing, let's start with your backstory and share everybody where you, where do you come from and how did you end up getting involved in this business mindset and health? But where, which, who are you before all this stuff became part of your life?
Well, it depends on how far back you want to go. I was sort of a rebel without a clue in high school. You know, I did very well in early school, like, you know, 98th percentile kind of stuff, like, just did very well in, you know, grade 7, grade 8. And then it kind of fell apart when I hit the bigger school and just wasn't getting the challenge I needed. And I started to sort of rebel and challenge authority and do all kinds of stupid, stupid, stupid things. And Ultimately, my parents ended up, they sort of didn't know what to do with me. I was raised in a very Christian household and pushed back hard against that. And when mom and dad didn't know what to do with me, my uncle lived over in Australia, my mom's brother, and he was kind of the black sheep of the family. Dan Well, my mom was born over in Taiwan, missionary's kid. Her brother, Uncle John, same kind of story as me, was a rebel, got a job on a boat, jumped ship in Australia, made a life for himself, became a multimillionaire. So, you know, he was the rebel done good and a bit of an idol in my eyes. So when mom and dad didn't know what to do with me, they said, how'd you like to live with Uncle John in Australia? And I went, hell yeah. Because yeah, by that time I dropped out of high school and was, you know, hanging with the the wrong crowd, so to speak. And yeah, Uncle John really took me in and put me to work. He taught me how to work, you know, here I was, a 16-year-old, you know, 120-pound weakling, and got a job on— he ran prawn trawlers, fishing boats. So, you know, a pretty manly man's kind of vocation. And I was just determined not to let him down when I, when I got over there. So, you know, he put me to work and yeah, I mean, it was, it was interesting because, because that's, you know, there's so many of these pivotal moments in your life that, that come up and that was certainly one of them. And when I was over there, I ended up getting into a really bad car accident and was in a coma for 4 days, was probably half an hour away from being dead on the roadside, internal bleeding, ruptured spleen, all that kind of stuff. It was only that we had some friends following behind us in a car behind us that actually saw the accident and were able to get first responders there right away that really saved me. And so that was kind of a a big, well, I was going to say it was a big turning point in my life, but I'm not sure it changed a whole lot. It just made me realize that, yeah, I'm fucking invincible. And I can, I can sort of still go in the way, but it, but it definitely started planting seeds in it. And I think that was sort of the, the seed that germinated into my work ethic. Just learning, you know, more of Uncle John's story. And he's just a fascinating dude. And he actually, he passed away about a year ago. Yeah, actually, it's almost exactly a year ago coming up. So yeah, it's with fondness that I speak of him. He, yeah, I just recently, as I -authored my first book last year, I recently learned a little bit more of some of his backstory. And, you know, I always knew he sort of took off from Hong Kong and made a life for himself in Australia, but it turned out he'd crashed his employer's car and was hanging out with a bunch of Aussie university students. And rather than go back to work the next day and face the music, they said, Why don't you hop on the boat with us? So they actually stowed him away on a boat and took him back to Australia with them.
Amazing. Amazing. So there's this legacy of people kind of finding the right thing to do by having to transition from something that wasn't working for them in your family.
Yes, absolutely.
And at that point, what were some of these philosophies and beliefs that you had to kind of recalibrate for yourself, right? Being this high school kid, then going off and and moving and having your family say, listen, we can't figure this out for you here. What did you have to like let go of? What did you have to drop and what did you have to relearn about yourself at that point in life?
Yeah. You know, that's an interesting question and I'm not sure I've really fully explored that, but, but I would say my immediate reaction would be I was too stupid to really explore anything at that point. Like I said, you would think a near-death accident and, and, uh, you know, having my ass handed to me by my uncle who, who, you know, made me work incredibly hard. You know, we were working 10-hour days, 6 days a week, um, in pretty brutal labor. Uh, but the reality was, you know, that just kind of reinforced my sense of invincibility versus teaching me humility, which it really should have. And I think, Reflecting on that, if I could, it took a few more times before I'd learned some of the lessons I probably should have learned back then. And it was interesting because I had, you know, I speak professionally, so I get in front of a lot of audiences. And I had a young man come up to me not that long ago at one of the presentations I did. And he was maybe mid-20s, maybe actually he was probably early 20s, late teens. And, um, the question he asked me, I thought was so obvious and I gave an immediate reaction. Um, but I'm not so sure. So what he asked me was, he goes, do you think you have to live those lessons to learn them? Or, you know, can, can I basically, can I take your message, what you're standing up here telling me? And I'm like, well, of course you can take my message and learn from that. You don't have to go through the shit that I went through. Right. And as I thought about it, it's like, yeah, you know, that, that sounds wonderful in theory, but I don't know that somebody preaching at me back at, you know, when I was 16, 17, 18 years old, I mean, clearly even with the experiences that I had, it didn't fully penetrate that heavy armor that I was wearing.
So it sounds like this empowerment message of someone wanting to learn by example isn't as powerful as someone knowing that they can choose to make that mistake, make that mistake, and then realize back retroactively that maybe it wasn't a mistake. I needed to learn it that way for me based on my narrative, my experience, and my story. Because that's your story, that's your experience, that's your challenges. I get the theme and the message, right? And we can take that either on a spiritual level, right? Whether it's from Christianity or my background in Judaism or other people's spiritual beliefs, right? That we We have all these things that are taught to us in message, but we also have to walk the walk ourselves.
Yes, absolutely.
Or in your case, run the run.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think the biggest sort of piece I would— if I could go back and re-have that conversation with that young man, because again, my answer was, well, of course you can learn from my mistakes. And maybe you can, but I think in order to do that, it's not so much about sort of learning from my mistakes, listening to and hearing. It's about being able to drop that shield and let some of those things actually penetrate. Because like I said, back at that point in my life, like, I was so walled off. I was gonna be this badass, you know, whether it was businessman, whatever, I was destined for greatness and nothing was gonna stop me from achieving that.
Yeah. Well, you said the magic word a few minutes ago and you talked about humility. Yes. And the average young adult has to find that balance or hopefully will find that balance between conquering the world and knowing how they can have help. And support and nurturing in doing that. In fact, I was just working with a client today who is an incredible person, ran a crazy 100-mile marathon and has a military background. And the whole idea of a mindset of like doing it all alone, having a way to support— when you're running a major run, you have a support system, right? And you need to do it. It's not just the people along the way are going to give you your water and your gels and your food, but like having a backup and a team. And a mindset that I see a lot of my clients have is that I have to I go through the world alone, and if I need help or I ask for help, that means there's something lacking in me.
I'm weak.
I'm weak, and therefore X, Y, and Z. And I wonder if like this idea of humility, how would you play the idea of humility into all of that? Because someone could be too humble, right? This false humility, and someone can be really, really truly humble in a way and never reach their potential. So what would you say is like the key balance?
You know, this is a fantastic question for me where I'm at in my life right now. Because so I turned 50 years old last year, and it's part of the reason I acknowledged the introduction you gave me. Like, I've done a lot of really freaking cool things in my life.
Yeah.
But I struggle with that sometimes. So for me, humility, and I actually just wrote an article called Is Humility Hurting You? where I talked about not fully showing up for fear of being seen as egotistical. And that's been something that has challenged me because again, I was brought up in an environment where humility was a big part of who we wanted to be. The flip side of that is it can it can really make you withhold everything you've got to give. And it was a business coach of mine, I don't know, probably 7 years ago now, that really sort of framed it for me. And we were having this conversation and it was when I was looking to take my speaking career to sort of the next level. And if you're in the speaking business, there's a big part of that is self-promotion. I got to beat my chest. I got to talk about how I went from bagging shit to building a multimillion dollar company. And that's really awkward for me. Like I struggle with that. And he just paused and listened to me go on. And then he said, so let me get this straight. You're willing to withhold the gifts that you've got to give to the world for fear of being seen as egotistical.
Right.
And I just went, oh, okay. When you frame it that way, it's a little different. But you're right. The flip side is, you know, we have no humility and/or false humility, and we go out with this arrogance, you know, and that can be problematic because it's a different kind of wall. You know, we're not open to lessons because we know everything. We don't have that humility. So sorry, I don't know if that answered your question. I kind of got off on a tangent, but—
Well, yeah, I think I'd say I was— the idea of like Abraham Lincoln, the book that was most recently written about him by Doris Kearns Goodwin, who was the White House historian, was called Team of Rivals. And one of the incredible things about Lincoln, even though he suffered from crippling depression and those that ran in his family with his wife, and he lost his son in battle, but he brought in a He brought in his cabinet with people who actually opposed him philosophically and practically, right, in order to get input and advice on how he can have a successful presidency and how he can have change. And there was a— there had to be a level of humility in that mindset, especially if you take it to contradictory to where we are today in the world, where someone who is opposite of us politically or spiritually or culture or gender, all these different things, doesn't have anything to offer, enrich our life. Because they're automatically wrong.
Right. Yeah. And going— yeah, sorry. Going back to the— you're talking about not asking for help. That's one of the sort of the tenets that I try and live by is, you know, read something that challenges your beliefs, not reinforces them. And that can be extremely challenging in a world where algorithms serve you up everything you want to hear. I can't remember who it was. I was reading somebody or listening to somebody talk about how, and it may have been from a political bent, but they started making posts on, I think it was Facebook was the platform they were using. They started making posts that were sort of, you know, if they were right-leaning, they started making left-leaning posts. And all of a sudden they started getting all the left-leaning stuff pop up in their feed to a point where they almost started believing, you know, whatever the op— and again, I'm just picking things out of the air, but, but they actually started believing some of these philosophies that were actually counter to that. They had deliberately planted these counter seeds. And so I found it really fascinating because it's so easy these days to get caught up in that echo chamber of everybody just reinforcing what you believe. And the beautiful thing about you know, taking on a cabinet or surrounding people with individuals that will challenge your beliefs, I mean, one of two things are going to happen. Either your belief is going to crumble because you'll find evidence that maybe it's not serving the purpose you need it to, or it's going to get reinforced. Either way, I think it's probably a good thing.
Yeah, let me— yeah, go on.
It's about having the humility and even the courage to be able to do that.
Well, in a way, it's, it's being an expert at not being an expert.
Yes.
Right. And I love this idea. And I talk about this with my therapy and coaching clients all the time of who do you want on your dream team to help support you, nurture you? And it doesn't have to be family and it doesn't have to be friends. You know, like, what do you need to help solve this problem? Let's think out of the box. And, and I'll say you don't even have to know them. And they kind of get stumped like that. You know, they're like, what do you mean I don't have to know them? How can they be on my dream team? I'm like, well, who out there in the world is doing and living a life the way you want to be? And how can you plug them into your year or on your YouTube videos or wherever it may be?
And can I pick Casey Neistat? Can I pick Casey Neistat?
Yeah, right. So this is the beautiful thing. It's like whoever you want it to be, it can be. And you don't have to know them in person. How many people You know, it's like when The Rock shows up on Instagram, it's not just about working out. Everything he's showing now is how he's just showing up for other people and going to the hospital. And my fame allows me to be there to uplift and support other people and to help other people when they're struggling, right? And sending that message. Or for people in business, if they want to listen to Gary Vee or a Tony Robbins or even a Grant Cardone, right? Whoever it may be that they feel like there's something about them that they want to acknowledge in their life, people out there can help them life hack it. You don't need to know them or even pay them a buck, right, to do that. Yes. Right. So when it comes to that and the humility, I think it's kind of— we kind of subscribe to people that have the missing or unowned parts of ourselves.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's— I mean, it comes back to self-awareness, right? Acknowledging, recognizing, and again, having the humility and courage to be able to actually explore what are the parts of myself that maybe are lacking and missing. Uh, and I think, you know, society doesn't necessarily teach us how to do that all that well. Um, because we get beat down when we, when we show that vulnerable side of us.
Yeah. Um, or we overshare and we overshare, which isn't vulnerability. And I think people confuse that space now, especially with social media and Instagram and now TikTok and, you know, um, mentioning Gary Vee a moment ago. It's like 3 months ago, I'm like, oh my God, TikTok, right? All these 15, 16-year-old— my friends' kids are using it, stuff like that. And then Gary Vee's like, if you're a business and you're not on TikTok, you're missing Instagram 10 years ago, and you can have all this stuff. So we have this mindset of, oh no, we're not going to do that because I'm not going to be engaged in this activity because I'm not going to hang out with this type of people because our preconceived notions. So I'm wondering for you, like, you, you have this multi-versatile life, right? You got running and you got business and you got speaking and you have coaching and you, right. And just sharing your life with a lot of people and being a book author. Where do you think that you found the lessons that you needed to learn the most? Like if you can kind of break it up from in the business world, I got these lessons in my fitness world. I got these lessons in my life experience. I got these lessons. What would those big parts be?
Well, I mean, I think first off, let's not compartmentalize the fitness, the business, the life. And I think, you know, I always talk about balance is bullshit. It's integration is what we really need to strive for. So the biggest lessons for me, I think, probably came out of the worst moments. My separation from my ex-wife, my divorce, I certainly had to reflect and really take a good hard look in the mirror and have a look at why I didn't have that, because that was high on my list of priorities and values, or at least I thought it was. Um, and, and sort of reflecting on, you know, again, these, these things that sort of fell apart in my life. Um, I think externally everything looked wonderful, but there were definitely pieces that were crumbling. So again, getting to a point in my life where I could actually sit and have the courage to look at the pieces that were, that were maybe not really where I wanted them was a big thing. And for me, a big shift in mindset. And I wrote a piece about this. I don't know, it was maybe 5, 6 years ago, maybe even more now, where I stopped setting goals. And I talk about that because the problem for me at least was you become— you can become pretty myopic. When you set goals. So instead, I changed the framework a little bit. So let's talk a little bit about, you know, why I think setting goals is potentially harmful. You know, if I go back to when I was 20 years old or whatever, and I wanted to make that $100,000 income, that was kind of my first big goal that I was chasing. And, you know, when I was 20-something and didn't have a family, that was fine. I could, I could throw everything at that. And then, you know, when I had a family, sort of there was that next goal and there always becomes one more thing. But the goal is never usually, I shouldn't say never, but it's quite often, it's not really the thing. So I didn't want $100 grand. I mean, $100 grand doesn't, you know, it's, it's, it's money, $1 million in the bank. So my goal is to have $1 million in the bank. Well, is it really? Because having $1 million on a piece of paper that says I've got $1 million in the bank does absolutely nothing for you. What you actually likely want is that lifestyle you believe that having $1 million in the bank will give you, that peace of mind, the security, the happiness, the freedom, all of these things. So rather than getting caught up in the, I want to have $1 million in the bank, which may end up having me work 18-hour days, alienate my wife and kids, to get to a point where it's actually crippling because I got to have that million dollars in the bank so that I can get happiness and freedom. And it's like, oh, wait a minute, maybe I could do that another way. And we sometimes lose the opportunity to see those other possibilities. And again, don't get me wrong, I have nothing— I mean, that was a goal of mine and I hit it. And I don't have a problem with anybody that has monetary goals. I still have monetary goals. I'll reframe that in a minute, but I still have monetary achievements on my list of things, but they're not the goal. They're a result. And if I hit them, great. And if I don't, so, so I shifted the framework for me. It becomes values, intentions, and milestones. So we start with values because again, if we don't start with values, you know, maybe I become Jordan Belfort to get that million bucks in the bank account. Pretty sure our values do not align. Again, don't know the man personally, but from what I've seen, I'm fairly certain our values don't align. So I never want to compromise my values to get to a point where I've got a million bucks in the bank. Intentions, who do I want to be in this world? How do I want to show up? I want to help other people. That is one of my intentions. This year my intention is to be bold. You know, back to that humility thing. So that's been a struggle for me. And then milestones, milestones are much more akin to your traditional goals. So, you know, do I want to make X number of dollars this year? Sure, absolutely I do. Actually, income isn't a goal of mine this year, but you know, it could be. Um, so, so again, milestones for me are a much more palatable way of saying goals because they're the net result of my values and my intentions. And, and they're little, they're milestones along the way. And if I hit them, great. And if I don't, I don't, but I don't become so blindly committed to a goal that I forget to see all the other shit that maybe I could get me to where I want to be on my journey anyways.
So you're really saying that it's the trajectory, because I'm a huge fan of everything you just said, and, and I discuss this often in each of the episodes, but more so in my practice here with my clients, is that I don't necessarily need to know the problem that you need to solve because you're coming in for something, right? But what I do need to know right off the bat is what are your core values? And I can guarantee that 90% of the problems that you're having is because you're A, not clear of your core values, and B, you're not living in alignment of it. Yes. That's number one. Number two, I want to know what your five top priorities are, because if you're telling me having a healthy relationship— I love this when I work with couples, they're like, "Oh man, our relationship is the number one priority." Okay, so you've been together for 10, 15 years. How many times have you gone to couples therapy? "Well, we went once and we went to someone for like 3 or 4 sessions." Okay, so you've been married for 10 years and we do the math on how many hours are in 10 years, and of that you went for 4 hours worth of therapy. That's 0.003% of your entire relationship, right, that you've done therapy. Okay, fine. I get that life is crazy. Stuff happens. What books have you read? Zero. YouTube videos?
Zero.
Talks with a spiritual leader, anybody of influence? Zero. Like, okay, so clearly, if you're saying that you want it to be your priority, but you've done no effort in momentum of that goal, then I don't know if I believe you.
Right.
And I think that everything you're saying is very much spot on, right? It's the priorities you're your core values, your priorities, how do you then tackle your priorities in alignment with your core values? And I think you're very much on it when the money shouldn't be the goal. What's the experiences and what I want my life to be like and how do I want to show up in the world? And the money will show up because of that, because if you're living your purpose and in your values, how can it not? Because you're going to be aligning with people who want to be in partnership with you.
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And that's, I mean, my last vlog I talked about, you know, commitment to the process. You need to be more committed to the process than you are interested in the outcome. And if you can commit to the process, things will be great. And again, the values and intentions sort of map out what that process looks like.
So when you started your business and you went from literally, like you said, picking up crap to creating this, what was that process for you? What was that like for you at that time?
Well, again, I think that's just those little milestones along the way. It's the accumulation of little pivots all along the way and being open to receiving the lessons. I could have done it a lot faster if I'd been a little more open to learning the lessons, but I feel like I did a few things probably the hard way. Which is fine. Some of us have thicker skulls than others and sometimes have to do things the hard way. That's okay. But if you can avoid doing things the hard way, then great. So again, for me, it was the little milestones. So like when I say I literally started bagging shit, I worked in a garden supply wholesale. That was where I started my career. I mean, there wasn't a whole lot of options for a high school dropout at that point. So, you know, it paid decent money and would keep me in beer and food for a while. And so I started literally bagging steer manure for a living. And then, you know, ultimately I worked my way out of the soil plant into the warehouse, eventually into sales. And then, you know, that was kind of my first lesson on that emotional intelligence piece and the impact that emotion has on human behavior, was when I started selling steer manure. Because I can tell you, nobody buys steer manure because they want to own a bag of shit. They buy steer manure because they believe it will help them cultivate a garden that will end up growing them some beautiful flowers or vegetables or what have you. So they want the feeling that that shit will ultimately give them at the end of the day. And that was kind of, like I said, that was sort of my first clue into the impact that emotion, feelings, had on human behavior. And I started, you know, as I sort of expanded my sales career, I started diving into that deeper. And, uh, you know, and then, uh, I moved into, I sort of hit the ceiling where I was at in the garden supply biz and got into the finance business. Um, started making, you know, doing very well there. And I remember I was living in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, and I remember walking into a Porsche dealership where I met a fellow by the name of Bob, and Bob fully understood the impact that emotion had on human behavior. And he sat me down in this canary yellow Porsche. It was one of the first in Vancouver at the time. I think this was back in 1996. And I was 19 years— no, how old was it? I was, I don't know, 26, 26 years old, something like that. And, uh, you know, he, he sat me down in this Porsche and he smoothed over the leather and he lowered the roof and said, how'd you like to take it for a ride? And I'm like, oh yeah.
Oh yeah. He seduced you in that.
Oh, absolutely. And then, you know, so, so that, that was the, I mean, That was when I really started to understand that we make decisions based on emotion because there is absolutely zero logic in buying a Porsche at 26 years old. Like zero logic.
Yeah. So that was kind of Simon Sinek thing, right? With the Start With Why, where he breaks down the three brain theory, which I use a lot of my practice of neocortex, rational brain, mammalian emotional brain, and reptilian fight or flight brain, that marketing specifically hits each part of those brains. In order to get you to want to buy something. But I'm also reflecting back to where you were starting off at the beginning of our conversation with this dance that you're doing between owning all the successes and how far you've come at 51, right, years old, to balancing it out with humility. And I'm thinking, I'm like, this man can sell someone else a bag of shit. And if you can sell someone a bag of shit, you can do anything you want in the world. This is bigger than the, right, that's bigger than the, from, sorry, going back to Jordan Belfort, right?
Yeah, sell me this pen.
You sold someone shit. And who do you think you are to have doubt of, right, of your capability bringing into the world, my friend, right? And I think that's such a beautiful thing that I want people out there who are gonna be hearing this episode to hear, like, we have this opportunity to show up in so many different ways and look at the billion and one stories we're going to have about doubting ourselves. And there you were at high school age, college age, selling crap to people and then buying it because you found a way to make it valuable to them. And I guess that everybody can find a way to bring value in this world. They have to find their uniqueness. One of my clients and I were discussing this, and they're, they're trying to figure out later on in their early 30s, like, to go back to school, and they have this pressure on them. Of the to-do, a specific field, and we're trying to figure out if that's authentic for this person. And they've been debating if they're really being, you know, they feel left out. They feel like they're disconnected because they don't have it figured out at their age. And I'm like, well, if you figure out whether— let's get rid of the words right or wrong, that there's a right timeframe. But how is, how are you being unique in this journey? And if you're unique, then you don't need to do it the way everybody else has done it.
Yes.
So I love that pivot.
And I think that's really important because it is, it's, it's, it's about owning your story, not trying to live somebody else's. And again, I keep coming back to that word courage. It is sometimes, it takes a lot of courage to actually own your story and not be that doctor, lawyer, dentist, accountant, whatever that you feel like you should be. If that's not your story, then own it.
Or alignment with your core values. It's funny, as I've done this journey the last couple years and I got involved in this program called Business Finishing School, which was created by a capital venture billionaire who his whole giveback is to create a curriculum in the community around entrepreneurship through an empowerment model and core values-based. And I realized like my practice has changed, who I'm taking in as clients has radically changed. And even I recently went on a date with someone and I'm hearing all these wonderful things in her life. And then I start hearing things about this person's family and I'm like, wow, you're really amazing. But I don't know if I want that in my life because I wouldn't even allow that onto my couch as a therapist.
Right.
And I know that if I preempt it, and it's not a judgment of this person because I know how amazing this person is, but I know what I can tolerate and what I can tolerate. And it's not going to make me more egofull or more happy or braggadocious if I say, look what I put up with, look what I'm willing to tolerate. Right.
Yes. Yeah.
And it's not a judgment of them. It's a definition of what's okay and fitting for me, of what I can handle, what I can handle. In alignment with my core values.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And I mean, I think, you know, coming back to your, your, where have the big learnings been? And, you know, I think the biggest learnings come out of crisis. The problem I think we often run into is we're not open to receiving those lessons. Like I say, we armor up and, you know, or we, or we, we curl up and, you know, hide away when the shit hits the fan. And those are the opportunities that we have for the most growth, you know. And that was, you know, coming sort of back around to how I ended up with doing my work in masculinity and with men. Um, you know, one of the things that I found shortly after my separation was meditation, mindfulness, yoga. Um, and I really started doing sort of the inner work and I met a woman who was on the same path, very much on the same path. And, you know, she taught me lots. She was probably, you know, sort of, I would say, a few years ahead of me on that journey. And so I had the opportunity to share a lot of that with her, and it was wonderful. And again, I grew a lot. But on October 2nd, 2015, she woke up at my house and headed off. She was a yoga instructor actually. And so she left my house to go teach yoga for 6:00 AM. So she got up at 5:00 and came around and gave me a kiss goodbye. I said, have fun at yoga. And that was the last time I saw her. She was ambushed and shot and killed by an ex-boyfriend who subsequently took his own life. Um, And that, again, coming sort of full circle back to that, we make decisions based on emotion. Here was a guy that made a decision with very permanent consequences based on a very temporary emotion, based on the fact that he couldn't have this woman. And so for me, a big part of my journey has been remaining conscious, remaining conscious through such teachings as you're receiving. It was a yogi friend of mine, probably 2 days after Colleen was killed, sent me a letter to Rachel. Are you familiar with Ram Dass's work?
Yeah, I know he just passed 2 weeks ago.
Yeah. So, so Ram Dass wrote a letter to Rachel, which was a letter to Steve and Anita, the parents of Rachel, who was a young girl who was brutally murdered. And I've probably read that letter several hundred times since then, but it was a yogi friend of mine who, again, very serendipitous connection, sent me this letter and it absolutely changed my life. There was, it's a very short letter, maybe 5 paragraphs, but there were 3 big takeaways. Ways in there for me. And the first was, uh, he said, who among us is strong enough to remain conscious through such teachings as you are receiving? Probably very few. And when I read that, I just thought, you know, I'm going to remain conscious through this experience. I am not going to, you know, throw myself into a bottle, curl up into a little ball, Um, and then the second thing he said was our rational minds will never understand why, but our hearts if we keep them open, we'll find their own intuitive way. Uh, and again I can't tell you how many times in those initial stages— Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why would this happen to somebody as wonderful as her? Why would this happen when we had just connected on our journeys at Why, why, why, why, why? But understanding that there is no rational answer. You've just got to follow your heart was a big piece. And then the third piece was now is the time to let your grief find expression. No false strength. And that comes back to, you know, that the TEDx that I did, Redefining Badass: The Way Men Think About Strong. Now is the time to let your grief find expression. No false strength. And I think that is key. And I think that's key in so many different domains. Uh, I mean, my girlfriend was murdered, so of course everybody expects me to grieve, to cry, to be upset. But this holds true for just about any kind of loss in life. Whether, you know, it's a job loss, or I mean, maybe, maybe it's, maybe it's a, a C when you were hoping to get an A on an exam. Um, understanding that that is something that needs to be grieved, and, and that's okay. Like, there's going to be these feelings, these emotions that stem up from any number of incidents in life, and allowing yourself to actually feel them. And again, this circles back to the work that I do with men and teaching them the power of vulnerability, because as men, we're conditioned to not feel, to not show vulnerability, that vulnerability is weakness. And it causes so many problems because this stuff is coming out whether you want it to or not. So the question is, how is it going? Going to come out.
Right. And how are you trying to control that experience? I know what you're saying is very, very Buddhist, and I know that one of the basic teachings of Buddhism is that there is suffering in the world, and we create our own suffering by holding on to specific expectations and outcomes of how we want things to be. And when it doesn't happen that way is when we suffer. So, right. And the duality of that is on one side, as I'm sharing space with you in this conversation, of my heartbreaking for you and her and everybody who's ever loved her and known her. And then the triteness of that, because what does my sorry do, right? As opposed to on the other side, and obviously people do want that and we need that, and this is part of our human connection. And now in our short time of knowing each other, you know, the connection gets deeper through that vulnerability and sharing. And I think maybe that's it, right? Through that vulnerability and sharing, of these difficult moments, not just the, you know, the Instagram, Facebook, social media, everything is great in my world, is how we truly deeply connect and share our experiences with each other. And the other side of that is, and how do we honor that? And how do we move through that? And how do we, how do we learn what we need to learn? Like you said, right, from these experiences.
Yeah.
And again, not on the trite, simple way.
Yes. It's about taking that, that, that time to reflect and just, I mean, I love the term holding space. You know, it's just about holding space as much for yourself as you would for anyone else. Um, one of the favorite, my favorite sort of formulas that I heard that, that you brought up when you touched on it, uh, suffering equals pain times resistance. The more we resist, the longer or the harder we're going to suffer.
And we create that resistance. And this is a big theme in my therapy and coaching with clients. And I'm a very big Law of Attraction, Esther Hicks fan. And I share with my clients that as much as Law of Attraction is very woo-woo hippie-dippy, it's all neuroscience and quantum mechanics if you really get to the underpinnings of it. We're always talking about something we want in the future to happen for us from the place where we are at now without all the cooperative components showing up that it would in the place that we would have it if we dropped all the resistance, right? So the example I gave is like, being playful with the client, like, oh, be cool if I had a Ferrari. But where I'm at now in my business, where I just got into a fender bender with my car a few weeks ago, I'm like, oh my God, if it was a Ferrari, how much more money would it cost me, right? And I can't afford that now. I can't afford the maintenance. I can't afford— and I have trips that I have to go up to, a 4-hour road trip. The Ferrari is not a road trip car. It's, you know, I have to go away for a week and a half and I'm driving up there. So I'm thinking about all the resistance around it, as opposed to, wouldn't it be great if this happened? Yeah, wouldn't it be great if it just showed up? Wouldn't it be great? And you can drop some resistance in that phrasing. And then all of a sudden I started being more like, yeah, it would be cool if I had a Ferrari. I'd find a way to get everything up there. And if I didn't, I just go to to, you know, Marshalls, and I can buy it up there. Because if I can afford a Ferrari, why do I need to bring everything with me? But I was trying to solve it from the place of where I'm at now. And that's all resistance thinking. And I have this conversation over and over again with my clients. I'm like, no, no, don't solve it from the place you're at now. What would show up for you? What could show up for you? Who could show up for you? Yes. Okay, the universe show up for you in ways that you were unexpected— it was unexpected. Because if you're saying it, I don't have the money now, I don't have the person in my life now, I don't have the right place to live now, I don't have the right job. But if you did, what would have had to show up? That's what I want to focus on, right?
Yes. Yeah. Well, and I mean, again, looking at sort of the things that have transpired in my life, um, you know, with Colleen being murdered, you know, it's not something I would wish upon my worst enemy, but it's an opportunity for growth. And, you know, based on who we were together, uh, who the fuck am I to squander that opportunity? Um, like, that would be shameful. That would be incredibly shameful. You know, I tell the story, um, you know, we often we'd have these long sort of philosophical conversations, and one of my favorite conversations was on the topic of talent. And I asked her what her talent was, and she's an artist, a photographer, a videographer, so she responded immediately. She said, "Well, I make things beautiful," which she absolutely did. She turned it around and she said, "What's your talent?" And I kind of hummed and hawed, and I said, "Eh, you know, not to take away because, you know, I've been successful by sort of standard measures, but I'm not sure that I have a particular talent or gift. I said, what do you think my talent is? She says, oh, that's easy. You've got a much more useful talent. I said, oh, what's that? She said, you make shit happen. I'm like, oh, okay. As a business guy, I kind of like that. So, you know, there you had it. She made things beautiful. I made shit happen together. We were going to make beautiful shit happen. So, you know, that day on October 2nd, I vowed that I would do my best to continue to make beautiful shit happen. And, and so that's, you know, that's my hashtag now is #MakeBeautifulShitHappen. And, uh, yeah, well, if, if, if anybody follows me on Instagram, I do a daily story and that's my sign-off. Um, all right, my friends, as always, continue to make beautiful shit happen. Have yourself a great day.
And that's so powerful because I always share this idea of never solve a problem from a place that feels like crap, right? Or a place that feels like shit. And we're being playful with this word now because twice this has come up in your world, right? Coming from a place of I can sell you shit and now I'm making beautiful shit happen. So there is a running theme here about taking things that you wouldn't ever think could be useful and making it really useful and then making something really powerful happen with it. But also that emotional emotional negative inertia of that. When you are feeling that way, when you are feeling down, when you are feeling low, when you're feeling disconnected, that's not the time or place to solve the problem.
Right.
And that's when you need the blessings of people in our life, mentors, friends, supportive, whatever. I call it the dream team, right? The NBA. Yes. But when they allow the NBA players to play the Olympics, like, have your dream team like we were talking about before. And you don't even need to know them. And you had the blessing of having someone be witness to your superpower and guide you on that. And everybody out there who's gonna be listening to this, who is listening to this, who are those people in your life that you can ask the same question to? And you can ask this question of them. What is your gift? What is your talent? What's your superpower?
Right.
And be vulnerable enough to ask from your perspective, from their perspective of you. I just saw on Facebook a few days ago, someone started asking If I were to be giving a TED Talk, what do you think the TED Talk would be on?
Right.
Right, which is a different way of putting it. So, and I'm watching this person get all these really cool responses. And I'm like, wow, that's like a really cool, non-invasive, uplifting, empowering perspective of, you know, I'm having a little doubt of myself right now. What do you think I'm good at? And finding a way, especially in your story, with honoring the greatness and the gift of having her in your life.
Well, and again, the outcomes of that have been substantial. I've shared our story on stage many times. I have the opportunity to work in the domestic violence arena now. They're starting to do more about engaging men and boys in the conversation. And I think historically that hasn't been a thing, which is problematic. When this happened, I can tend to be a bit of a crusader. So I think people recognize that. And there was a lot of people that wanted me to go after the justice system, which surely failed her. She had done all the right things. She had the right paperwork. She had a restraining order. Breached the restraining order. She'd filed all the right things. But when I looked at solutions, you know, how do we build a better restraining order, to me was akin to putting a band-aid on a ruptured jugular. And, you know, for me, it came back to how do we prevent men like this from existing in the first place, and then circle back to all the work that I've done in sales and leadership and how to how to not manipulate, but how to influence emotion to impact behavior. So from a sales perspective, absolutely, we need to make that emotional connection with our customer if we want to sell more widgets. From a leadership perspective, you know, we need to make that emotional connection with our team. We have to give them something to buy into. So I look at sort of my 20-some-odd years of, of journey and learnings has all sort of circled back around to this. Again, here's a guy that, you know, made a very permanent decision based on a very temporary emotion and what might have happened if he had a deeper understanding of what he was going through. What might have happened if he'd allowed himself to truly feel, acknowledge, and just sit with, hold space for those feelings of anger and rage. Yeah, you know, he might, he might have been able to go deeper and find that sadness. And, you know, I'm sure there, you know, we could peel back many, many, many, many layers and many years, right?
Because this is not something that just happens. No, of course. And this is a kind conversation that needs to be had on so many different levels. One, for the people who are the victim of this intimate violence, right? And the numbers of intimate partner violence or ex-partner violence is staggering compared to random violence and domestic violence in general or attacks in general. But you're talking about a long-term game plan starting when people are young. Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Right.
And that's why I say men and boys, because I think that's important. And, you know, again, you look at all the statistics, whether it's, you know, violence-related, but I mean, look at suicide rates. You know, 4 times as many, 75% of all suicides are males. I don't think that's a coincidence. You know, there's something wrong with how we as a society are raising our men. There's clearly a problem here.
Yeah, and as we get into the next part of our conversation, we're going to tackle more into that. We're going to go a little bit more deeper into that, what you're doing, what you're— how you're addressing it, how you're solving it, how you're bringing it out there, both with the nonprofits that you're doing with the run. And we'll be back in the next segment with that. Hey everybody, welcome back. We're with Mike Cameron, and if you've listened to the last part of this conversation, really powerful topics over grief and expectations and purpose and potential and passion. And we just finished up the beginning of a conversation, a segment of the conversation on intimate partner violence and domestic violence, and with Mike's story of his girlfriend who was unfortunately murdered by an ex-boyfriend. A handful of years ago, and what he has now planned and is involved with in his life to change the trajectory of men, boys, and how to have this accomplishment of changing struggles and sadness and anger and bring that into the world. So let's go a little bit deeper into that because there's been a lot of things that I know you're involved with, right, doing that, and I know you have nonprofit stuff that you're doing and charities and this run. What, what was the first thing that you decided to do?
Well, I think the run from an organizational standpoint was, was kind of the first thing, and that, you know, we've just finished our third annual, and my current partner helped me put that together. So we co-founded the Ignore No More Run for Respect. She, you know, she has— my current partner Michelle has her own story as well. But really it was about engaging men and boys in the conversation. And again, this isn't finger-pointing, finger-wagging. This is just— this is a big, big, big problem and we need everybody to be part of the solution. So you know, as a runner, it was just natural for me to look at, okay, how do we— let's, let's partner with a charity. Um, let's put together a run because that's what I enjoyed doing. We can do it as an awareness raising thing. We can also do it as a fundraising thing, although the fundraising piece has been secondary. Uh, the primary objective is, is really just to get men involved in the conversation. So that was, You know, that was where it started. And then, you know, again, I started getting asked to come, you know, I've spoken in the context of sales and leadership for many, many years. And so I would get asked to come speak in the context of getting men involved in the conversation around domestic violence and sort of sharing my perspective on what some of the solutions might be, uh, and again, I'm not here to tell you I've got all the answers, but from what I've seen, like I said, men are hurting. Men are hurting everywhere. And that causes huge, huge, huge problems all over the place. Again, we touched on the suicide rates, uh, intimate partner violence, um, you know, it's a big issue. So again, for me, based on what I know and what I've learned and what I've witnessed around emotion, when we teach our boys and men to suck it up, man up, don't be a pussy, don't feel, don't cry, that becomes problematic. And, you know, I know we hear a lot more of that these days, but I fear that some of that gets lost and that we don't fully understand what that means, you know? And then we get these terms coined like toxic masculinity, which makes people tune out because I'm so sick of hearing about this toxic masculinity. So, you know, for the record, I don't think masculinity in and of itself is toxic. I don't think there's anything wrong having a beer with the boys. I don't think there's anything wrong with scratching your nuts in public. I don't think there's anything wrong with playing sports, growing a beard, doing all these masculine things. I don't think that's a problem. I think where we run into problems is when we buy into some of the societal conditioning around this. We need to bury, suppress, avoid feeling at all costs because you can't— it's just, you can't avoid feeling. You can bury it and suppress it, but it's still there and it's, it's coming up in one way, shape, or form. So I started last year, last year or the year before, I started an organization called Connected Men. And it really, you know, I use the acronym SOAR. So the principles there are slow down, open up, accept whatever's coming up, and reconnect with your emotional self. And I use the term reconnect because You know, we weren't born emotionally disconnected. Anybody that's a parent knows that. Your toddlers, they know how to connect with their emotions. They know how to express their emotions. But somewhere along the line, and especially as guys, you know, not that this doesn't hold true for women as well, but, but I think it's especially problematic for guys, is we get that taken away from us. We get it conditioned out of us. You know, I sort of joke, and I have to be cautious with this because I don't want it to be taken the wrong way, but I joke like, ladies, give us a break, give us some patience. We weren't born knuckle-dragging mouth breathers. We've been conditioned to become that way. And again, not to, you know, sort of lump men in there, these evil, vile, nasty things, because they're not. I think men are beautiful. But we had an awful lot of conditioning. And again, not to take away from the privilege, the patriarchy, I acknowledge all of that. But I also acknowledge that there's a fucking price that comes with that. And that's all I'm asking for. And this is where I sometimes get into struggles having this conversation. So, you know, International Men's Day, I don't know if you're familiar with International Men's Day. Heaven forbid anybody make a post or a comment or want to have a conversation about International Men's Day, because what do you get? Well, isn't every day International Men's Day? Yeah, but see, this is the problem. If we can't— again, I'm all about legitimately talking about the problems the patriarchy causes. I am definitely pro-feminist.
But we're buying into a story, right? We're buying into someone else's story of that. Perspective. And then based on it, it's no different than the story that I shared about the Ferrari in our last conversation, right? In the previous conversation that I can't solve it from here. So if you have this idea, you have this mindset, this must be the only thing in which that means right now. If someone changed that day to Men's International Men's Vulnerability Day, yes, then we would have a different conversation. I love that story. I think it was Mother Teresa, that someone came over to her and they're like, hey, will you join our anti-war rally? And she's like, I'm really sorry, I can't do that. And she's like, but I thought, but you hate war, you hate fighting, you hate— she's like, well, yeah, but of course that's true. But if you invite me to a pro-peace rally, I'll be there.
Yes. Yeah.
So the languaging is so very important to what we're discussing here. And I think that's really what you're trying to say, if I can distill it down as I'm hearing you, is that everybody has jumped on to if you use a specific word or a specific phrase, it only means that.
Yes.
And there are things out there, right, that are negative connotations, slurs, right, racial, religious things, stuff like that. That's— let's accept those as a given. I'm talking about other contextual things like masculine, feminine, whatever that may be. And I'm not going to get into gender politics or the concept of transgenderism in a different episode that I've already had, you know, the politics around it.
Yes.
It's more along the lines of what do we believe these words mean and what's the context that that person has subscribed to that, that we can't have a conversation around. I think that's what you're getting to.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we just, we have to be able to have this conversation and right now it's very difficult. It can be very difficult to have these conversations. Um, and, and I think there's a lot of guys that, that just feel lost. So Connected Men is about creating safe spaces for men to practice that emotional mastery and practice vulnerability. And that was, for me, that was a big piece of it. So I talked about, I found yoga, meditation, mindfulness, doing the inner work, but that was alone. That was me figuring it out on my own. What I realized was vulnerability is not something you can practice alone by definition. So we've created these spaces where, I mean, men get together and we literally practice feeling. I mean, I think it's widely accepted. If you want to get physically fit, you go to the gym a couple of times a week. What do you do for your emotional fitness? I mean, unless you can afford to see a therapist once a week, um, probably nothing. So, so I equate a therapist to a personal trainer. So I probably can't afford to have a personal trainer follow me around at every workout, but I go to the gym more times than I go see a personal trainer. So with, with a therapist, I feel like Probably most people go there, you know, the one-time thing, or if I'm in crisis, or if there's a bottom, if I feel like I've hit bottom, then I go do that, I get fixed, and then I stop doing that.
Right.
Again, same with physical fitness. Well, you don't go get in shape and then stop. You got to continue.
Only if that was their goal, which goes back to the previous part. If my goal, like we talked about, like I'm running a marathon in 2 weeks, no, my my original goal, just to really go back and to put this into context with everything, is I wanted to lose a few pounds. But me losing a few pounds wasn't working. So I need to set a bigger thing. Because what will allow— what will losing the weight allow me to do?
Right.
So I'll be lighter on my feet, I'm going to feel better, I'm gonna have more energy and eat even cleaner than I already do. So I decided that running a marathon is going to be the right— that pivot point. And because of that, I'll have the weight loss, the more energy, the better eating, and all those other things that are going to come with it. The same way, like practicing the muscle of being vulnerable. And I love how you say that, that you can't practice vulnerability alone. And that's the dynamic of relationships. You can't work out your unfinished business in a vacuum. You need to have someone in your life to push up against, to struggle with, to fight with. That fighting isn't bad in a relationship. It's bad when you're not doing all the other things and the fighting becomes physical and condescending and painful and hurtful. That's a whole different ballgame. But the disagreements and the fighting of itself, you need someone to rub up against in order for you to learn why is that bothering me in the first place. So the space you're creating for men with men is accomplishing that.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's been fascinating to see sort of what comes out of that. And, and it's, you know, I think there's an awful lot of men that hide who they truly are for fear of being judged. Um, and that's what these spaces are. So one of the first things we often see when we start with a, with a new group is the struggles are all the same. And as soon as that one dude drops that mask, the other guy's like, what? Wait, what? What? Wait a minute. You got that too? Like, holy shit, man. I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the only one. And almost without fail, they talk about this immense weight, this pressure that they've got to perform, to be the provider, to, you know, bring home the bacon, to be that loving husband, to not show emotions because I have to be the strong one to help you and my children or the people around me to get through it.
And I have to be the anchor. Totally.
Well, and, and, or the flip side of that is, you know, again, there's a lady by the name of Melanie Hamlett that wrote a piece for Harper's maybe a year ago. Says men have no friends and women pay the price because either that or your partner becomes your emotional dumping ground. And that's just not conducive to a healthy relationship either. So, you know, for us, the connection that happens with these men in this space is incredible. When we can— and it all comes back to intention, right? It's not just about having a dude that you go out for a beer with every once in a while. It's about setting the intention that we're going to show up. And we're going to slow down, open up, accept, and we're going to reconnect. And we have a number of different themes that we run through. And some of them are somewhat psychoeducational. Some of them are just, you know, Christmas time. So we talked about what emotions come up for you at Christmas. And for lots of the guys, it's joy and peace. And for me, It's not. I fricking hate Christmas. It's a stark reminder of my failed marriage and my two kids that don't have a home that's together. And it kills me and I fricking hate it. And I feel a lot of guilt and shame around hating it because again, I grew up in a Christian household. Christmas is supposed to be this wonderful magical time. Um, But it's not, it's just fucking not for me. And that's okay. You know, so, so being able to have that conversation, I mean, I'm pretty good at having that conversation with total strangers, clearly, but you know, again, creating an environment where guys can have that conversation if that's what they need to, or like I said, for, for most of our guys, they, they love it, you know, and they shared some, some magical moments of the holidays with their family and the connection with their kids and, you know, all these things. And again, not that I don't have moments, but by and large, you know, and again, I've got some other things that have come up for me after Colleen was killed around the holidays that just make it difficult. So, you know, that was, that was one of our themes and And we've talked about the goal setting piece. We've talked about forgiveness was a huge one. We could, we could probably do forgiveness as a recurring theme every week and not run out of stuff to talk about. But it's really just about allowing guys a space to get out of their heads and into their hearts and do that with other guys.
You just said a moment ago that I'm really good at just sharing this even with strangers, and I want people who are hearing this to really get this. It takes practice. My guess is this wasn't where you were at 18, 19, 23, 24, 27, 30, post going through your separation and divorce, that this is like you said before, this is the muscle, the emo— I call it emotional muscle memory.
Yeah.
And you have to learn to change the momentum of that. If you're used to pedaling a bike, and I give this, this example to my clients all the time, we know when you get on a bike, if you push your foot down, right, left foot, right foot, and you keep going in that direction, the bike is eventually going to keep going forward. And at the beginning, it's a little bit more difficult because you have the resistance on the ground. But once you, as long as you keep fueled and you have the energy, you can go for infinite You know, infinite amount of time. Now, now the challenge I give them is imagine that there's a switch on the bike that you can flip that will automatically change the gears that you have to start pedaling backwards to go in a forwards direction. So now what do you have to do? You have to be really conscious about starting to pedal backwards. And the second you stop doing that, what's going to happen in your muscle memory? It's going to start going the opposite direction again. And then you're going to— right, you're going to lock up and jam up. I think what you just uniquely described is that, and I want people out there to know that, like you said, just because I can do this now, I'm really good at doing this now, doesn't mean that it didn't take time, effort, energy, and a lot of work to get there. Going back to that, originally we had all this capability. We had the ability to self-express. We had the ability to show emotions and to show love without fear of being hurt. And Harville Hendrix and the Imago therapy theory of couples and relationship counseling talks about the wounding in each stage of our life that we now play out in our intimate relationships with the partners that we're looking to attract in our life. And we're looking for that to be healed from back then. And if we get more conscious about that, we do the worksheets, we do the work, and we can figure that out. The fights with our partner, the is not bad. It's you can now find a place to finally heal that, and your partner is the best person to do that with, right?
Yeah. And I mean, I love that you picked up on that, because so chapter 22 of my book is Stop Trying. And so, so I frame that because I think trying becomes problematic the same way goals become problematic. Well, I tried that, didn't work. Okay. So stop trying, start practicing. And that's what I tell when I give a talk or a speech, you know, I usually wrap it up with, so I don't want you guys to try anything that I've told you today. And of course you get some sideways glances like, what? I want you to practice everything that I've talked about today. So, you know, trying leaves us open to failure. Trying leaves us open to quitting because if we try something, we either pass or we fail. If we practice something, we know we just get a little bit better. So yeah, it's just about practicing and maybe you start from zero, um, or maybe you're at 9 already, who knows, but just continue to practice. And that for me, you know, back to your, your question way back when, How did you sort of go from here to there? I just continued to practice over and over and over again. And that's, I think, yeah, I think that is probably the number one shift for me is when I stopped trying and I started practicing.
And for those who are listening to this audio, you're not going to see me having this ear-to-ear grin on my face. And I just walked away from the screen for a second to go grab something off my bookshelf in my office, and I'm showing it right now, and it's Yoda from Star Wars. I have a little piggy bank of Yoda, Star Wars piggy bank in my office. But what you just said is the world's greatest philosophy. There is no try, only do. So I love calling my clients out and saying, yeah, you're full of shit. And I've gotten more brave as my, you know, as I graduated in 2005 from graduate school We're now in 2020. My bravado and my practice and being so bold to my clients has gradually increased over the years. And whenever I hear a client say, all right, well, I'll try that. And I'm like, no, no, you're not. That's not a commitment. That's a, if, if the stars line up for me, maybe I'll think about doing it. And I always challenge them to say, what are you committing to? What am I going to know when you walk back into my office next week or on our next call? That you've said, this is what I've done, right? This is what I've practiced, like you said, what I practice. So, so I want people out there to hear that very much, that, that the trying, that I'm going to— when it's not— and this goes back to even our first thing about what you're saying about the money, right? I'll be happy when— yes, is this whole big theme. I'll feel healthier when I'll be able to share and talk to my partner. When this happens, I'll be able to connect with I'll start working out when. No, it's not the when, it's what are you committed to do that's part of this process that has a bigger value and has a bigger goal and what's gonna, what are the benefits to that? But we also on the flip side have to talk about the risks of what will happen if you don't.
Right. Yeah.
And do you see that happening for those people that you're working with and when you're speaking that let's talk about the risks. If you are you are today and this continues without you doing this work, here are the risks that you're going to face down the road. Yeah.
I mean, for sure. And I tend to sort of focus more on the positive, but it's like, yeah. So what does it look like 6 months down the road, 12 months down the road if you consistently practice this versus if you don't? And which outcome would you prefer or which process. And again, I tend to use the sports analogies because, you know, for me, I did Ironman back in 2013 and I couldn't freaking swim. Like when I started that journey, I couldn't swim.
And I made a decision to do it anyway.
Well, yeah. So this comes back to the, we make decisions based on emotion justified by logic. So my, my then 12-year-old boy had just finished doing the ITU, the International Triathletes Union, um, race in Edmonton here. And he got out of the, like, it was, I mean, it was starting to get to be real distances now. I think it was a 500-meter swim and, uh, uh, maybe a 15K bike and a 3K run. Um, so, you know, at 12 years old, they're starting to get real.
Yeah. Like, I think that would be equivalent to a sprint triathlon here.
Yeah. No, it's not quite a sprint. Sprint. It was a little— yeah, it was close. It was close to a sprint, but it was a little shorter than a sprint. But he finishes up and he looks at me and he's wide-eyed and grinning and he says, "You know what, Dad? We should do Kelowna together." And Kelowna was a race that I knew they had a tri-a-tri. So, you know, here I am, proud papa moment. What the hell else am I gonna say? But like, of course we're gonna do Kelowna. Together. I made a decision based on emotion. I justified it with the logic that, yeah, Kona has a tri-a-tri, it's a 300-meter swim. You know, I've run a marathon, so a 3K run is not a big deal. And then I got home and it's like, oh shit, I don't know how to swim. Like, I, I, I, well, it's 300 meters. How hard could it be? And then I hopped in the pool and it's like, oh, I can't swim 25 meters. Like, so again, that comes back to that, that practicing. And eventually I swam the 300 meters and eventually I swam the 3.8 kilometers, um, of Ironman. But when I started that process, I really couldn't swim.
And that's all the resistance. That's all that old emotional muscle memory, all that old story. Right. And as I shared, I'm running a marathon in less than 2 weeks now and my training hasn't been as consistent. So I'm trying to squeeze in some long runs. And maybe just do a, you know, a 5K once or twice a week. But I'm nowhere near— I think my longest run was half the distance of the half marathon. And I'm 2 weeks out. And I'm like, oh my god, I'm not gonna make it. I have 2 weeks to— but I'm like, I don't need to run the whole marathon, half marathon before the half marathon. I just need to get a few miles away.
Yeah.
And just keep the inertia up. And we psych ourselves out on so many levels where people are like, oh, are you going for a time? I'm like, nope, I'm going to enjoy the whole experience besides waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning on that day. So I'll probably not have much sleep, but, but I'm looking forward— I don't care about my time. I'm looking forward to enjoying it and being connected with other people who are like-minded and just enjoying that experience more than the time. Now, my guess is because I'm focused on that, my time's it's gonna be even better than what it was 5 years ago, 6 years ago when I ran my first half marathon. And now I'm 6 years older.
Right.
And my guess, you know, maybe I'll shave off a few minutes. I don't really care. I just want to have the experience of having fun while doing it. And if I lose that intention, right, I'm not having fun in this process, and I'm doing it wrong for myself.
Well, yeah. And that's, I mean, that's a great, great point. It is about the process, like we talked about before. So, you know, that's part of the reason I got into the ultra marathons, the trail running, like just the, the opportunity to see nature that way. It was amazing. Like I ran, uh, Costa Rica, the Coastal Challenge. I did a 6-day, 235-kilometer stage race. Got to see parts of Costa Rica that other people wouldn't see. Um, I'm in, I'm headed to New Zealand to run a 100-miler next in 3 weeks from now, actually. And back to your point about fun, I did a 100-miler for the second time, the Sinister Seven, um, in July of last year. The year before was the first time I did it. I finished it, but I was almost 2 hours past cutoff time. So I went back in 2019 to try and do it under cutoff, but it was the wettest year on record. Like there was mud up to your knees. It was just nasty. So I finished 5 legs of the 7 and I pulled the plug. And I remember texting Michelle, who's crewing me about half an hour out from the transition area at the end of leg 5. And I just said, I'm done. And I could see her starting to text back and I knew she was going to try and give me some words of encouragement because that's her job. And I just replied before she could even send a message. I texted, I'm not having fun anymore. And then that little text bubble went away. And it was just because it wasn't fun. The mud was, you know, you're taking two steps forward and you're sliding one step back. It was, it was brutal. The conditions were horrible. And I just stopped having fun. And again, I'm not a guy that's going to win this thing. So like, it just, yeah, it wasn't fun anymore. So, so I stopped.
And I hear that story in contradiction to someone like a David Goggins, right, who is a different type of badass.
Well, it's—
but it's interesting, though, very different extremes on that polarity, because his mindset is, right, it's not— I don't hear him saying, I'm doing this for fun. I'm doing this for very different reasons. And we can get into the whole psychological challenges that are there on that story with with what everything that he's been through. And I was reading his book a few months ago and I got connected to him through Jesse Itzler and the Build Your Life Resume crew. I'm sitting here reading this as a therapist and I'm like, this shit ain't healthy. You know?
Right. Well, and that's what I wonder. So the flip side of that, so the first year that I did finish, again, I was committed to finishing and it wasn't about just having fun. I came there to run 100 miles. So I ended up with— so that year, um, I was on track to finish on time. At leg 6, at the top of the summit, um, yeah, there's a— there's a— I won't show you because it'll screw things up, but there's a big picture of the summit of leg 6 up on my wall.. And I got to the top of, of leg 6 and my, both my feet split. And so I was not moving well at all. And I texted, I phoned Michelle and I broke down. Like I started crying. I said, okay, new plan. You had to be out of transition area 6, uh, by noon. Or they'd take you off the course. So that was 94 miles. The last leg was only 6 miles. So I thought, there's no fucking way I'm gonna— that I came here to run 94 miles. That would only leave me an hour to finish the last, uh, leg, which, you know, best case scenario, I would have been an hour 45. But on split feet, there's no way. So I said, new plan, there's no way I'm gonna make the 30 hours. I said, you need to get me into legs, um, into TA6 and out on leg 7 by noon. I'm going to haul my ass, bandage my feet, and let's go. And I just was bawling because I knew I wasn't going to be able to do what I wanted to do, but this was now the new plan and I was determined to finish. So, so I took off and I, and, and she's, we're texting back and forth a little bit and she says, okay, we're going to come out to transition area 6C or checkpoint 6C, and we're going to cheer you on. And I'm thinking, what the fuck do you mean you're going to cheer me on? You're a nurse. My feet are bleeding. I don't want you to cheer me on. I want you to bandage my freaking feet. And then we lost reception. And so then I'm vacillating between being incredibly angry at this woman that's been out there for 26 hours now supporting my sorry ass. And thinking that, okay, dude, settle down. She's been out here supporting your sorry ass for 26 hours.
That's—
yeah, but what does she mean she's going to cheer me on? This is ridiculous. So I get to checkpoint 6C and there she is. And she's, you know, got her pom-poms and cheering. And I'm like, dude, what the hell? She goes, well, you know, I can't touch you on course, so you'd be disqualified. I'm like, oh yeah, of course I knew that. I just wasn't thinking.
That wasn't the priority thought.
So, so Anyways, so I take off and I've got maybe an hour and a half to get from 6C to a transition area 6-7. And I'm not moving well at all. The balls of my feet. Oh yeah. There was a medic at 6C. So he looks at my feet. I said, can you bandage my blisters? So he takes off my socks and shoes and he, he looks at Michelle and he says, these aren't blisters. He says, that's trench foot. Oh shit. So off we go. I'm about a kilometer out from, from where I need to be. And Michelle, I see, is walking out on course back towards me because she's just, you know, she's tired of twiddling her thumbs waiting for me. And so she gets to me and I just looked at her and I said, I got nothing left. And then immediately I heard my, my buddy Dave Proctor, who's a world record record-holding runner. And one of the things he says is the mind only knows two things, the words that we tell it and the pictures that we draw for it. So I needed to start changing those words. And I said, okay, I got a little bit left. I got a little bit left. And Michelle's like, okay, dude, she says, you got about 250 meters. We got 19 minutes left. You got about 250 meters up the hill. And then we go down into the transition area. You got this. So we chug along.. And we go maybe 500, 750 meters. And I just looked at her. I'm like, dude, I said, this isn't 250 meters. She goes, well, you know, I've never been very good with distance. And I'm like, there's no fucking way we're going to make this on time. She goes, well, here's the thing. I kind of lied to you about time too. You got 12 minutes left. Move your ass. Oh my God. So long story short, I came in with 9 minutes to spare. I got out onto leg 7, which in training camp took me 1 hour and 45 minutes. This day, I'm embarrassed to tell you, but it took me 3 hours and 5 minutes to cover that same ground because I was like walking on my heels. It was, uh, it was horrific, but I finished. Like I said, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't go there to finish 94 miles. So I got the, I got the grit factor when I need to. But like I said, 2019, I'd already had one over an overtime finish. I knew there was no way I was going to make the 30 hours. And plus there was the Canadian Death Race was in August and I wanted to, so I did that one. I finished that one.
So the moral of that story is really the, that, like you said, with, with your buddy's quote is the story, the words that you're telling yourself and the images that you're giving yourself can change anything. And you really did have a distortion of time in a positive way for your favor.
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's about sort of manipulating, not in a negative context, but that story and that version of what you see and what you think is possible. And, you know, thanks to her, I made that happen. And it was so, so amazing. So we had It's about, it's about a 7-hour drive from home. Um, so this is now like cutoff is 30 hours. So I was 31. I'm looking at the thing. I was 31 hours, 56 minutes, 0.00, 0.91 hundredths of a second. So that, that was my finishing time. Um, but I had almost a dozen of my friends from Edmonton who stuck around to watch me finish. It was amazing. So like I say, I was almost 2 hours over the time limit. And, uh, I, I'm pretty well connected in the run community. The race director was kind enough to leave the finishing arch up for me. And, uh, this is, uh, I'm grabbing a beer. This is my death race beer, but they, they give you a big beer with, with your name on it and your, and your finishing time.
That's awesome.
Uh, I didn't get my belt buckle because I was over time, but he, but he gave me my finisher beer. Oh, and it was, it was the best beer I ever drank in my life.
What a great metaphor. It's like we're not always going to get the finishing medal, but we still might end up with, with an unexpected gift.
Exactly.
That we can still use in some way, shape, or form that can come in to benefit from some other place. So we tackled a lot today, right? We went from, from, from the mindset of building a business letting go of old stories and expectations that our family puts on us in order to find our purpose and our passion. We talked about core values. We talked about finding our priorities. We talked about goal setting and maybe a new way of thinking about setting goals based on things that can be more authentically aligned with us. If there was one thing that you can share, and I call this on my, my on one foot, question, that if you had 2 to 5 minutes with somebody that you know you would never meet again, but you wanted to impart some wisdom in that time frame, what would that be?
Well, I feel like we've done that for the last 90 minutes.
I know.
But, um, you know, again, for me, the awareness piece and the practice are the two biggest things. So take some time. So again, I go back to the SOAR acronym because I feel like that solves so much. Slow down, just take that pause. And we didn't, you know, we haven't dove into that, but I think so often we feel like we need to rush everything, that we've got to hurry. I've got to be in an appointment in half an hour. I've got to finish this piece of work. I've got to do this. I've got to do that. I don't believe there is ever a point in your life where you can't stop and take 60 seconds and just breathe.
Yeah.
And open yourself up to whatever's coming up. And I can feel it. I got something coming up right now. I don't know what it is. But there's something there. And then accept it. Don't fight it. Just acknowledge that, you know what, there's something coming up for you today, Mike. And then make that reconnection and just step into who you really are. I love that question. Who are you really?
Really?
Who are you really? And take some time to find that. And then once you've done that, you could do all the exciting things. You can do the practice, you can do the work, you can run the 100 miles, you do all that stuff. So don't get me wrong, cause I got, I got that jacked up energy, but there has to be the contemplative side too. That slow-down stuff. And that's where, you know, again, I haven't read Goggins' book, but I suspect, I mean, he must have done some of that to get to where he is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of trauma from that side of his story of what he went through. And I have two thoughts that are coming to my mind. One is the, uh, to wrap it all together, is one is the great philosopher Vanilla Ice who once said, "Stop, collaborate, and listen." Right, right. And then the other one is the story of the meditation student going to the guru or the yogi and saying, you know, "I've really tried this, like, I don't think I have the time to meditate." And the guru goes back to them, "You don't have the time to not meditate." Yes. So I challenge people that when they're trying to get into a contemplative state, into a meditative state, that you don't have to sit there for 20 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour. But you can do 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 10 times a day.
Yeah, or even once a day.
Or even once a day, right.
So this was a big thing for me with my current partner Michelle, is, you know, I would initially, I started with 5 minutes with her. Well, what I didn't realize was 5 minutes was an eternity. And she couldn't do 5 minutes. So then it became, let's do 30 seconds. And even 30 seconds was a struggle. Um, but again, it's like the swimming piece, right? There's— you got to swim 3.8 kilometers. I don't know what that is in miles. You got to swim 3.8 kilometers to do an Ironman, right? Uh, yeah, there's no way in hell, but I do it 25 meters at a time in a pool until eventually I get there and I get that practice over and over again.
Well, that's the headlight metaphor, right? Of you can only see whatever your headlight's showing you, but that headlight's always moving. So it's always the next, you know, yards or the next X amount of feet, but that it's always constantly unfolding. And maybe as we tie all this together is that life will always constantly be unfolding. What are you willing to drop the resistance around? What are you willing to stop and embrace and contemplate over? What are you willing to learn about it? What are you willing to drop judgment around it? And who are you willing to take on that journey? Yes. To help you see and get where you want to get and to help them also in return get to where you want to get. So Mike, we have talked about so much incredible stuff today. Let's talk for 30 seconds about your book and how they can find you and how they can track you down and hear you and get more involved in your— subscribe to your YouTube channel.
You bet. Website, MikeCameron.ca, because I'm up in Canada. So that's the best place to get me. The book is called Becoming a Better Man: When Something's Gotta Change, Maybe It's You. And that one again was— that subtitle was a direct result of of Colleen. You know, I had many well-meaning friends around me pat me on the back and shake their head and say something's got to change. And that kind of became my mantra for a while until I added those 3 words. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the one that needs to do something with this. Book's available on Amazon. I think it's all the major bookstores available there. But yeah, MikeCameron.ca. If you want the YouTube channel, best way is MikeCameron.ca/YouTube. And that'll kick you over to the YouTube channel. I post, yeah, I do a weekly vlog and I've got most of my race events. So if you're a runner, there's all kinds of cool scenery stuff up there as well.
So one of my favorite things about being able to have the ability to do this and the boldness of doing this, because I didn't grow up a public speaker, I was actually petrified. And back in the day, I would rather get an F in school than actually give a presentation. And now I'm connecting with people all over the world and having some really awesome people. And I think as I'm doing this journey that I'm finding all these people in the world, I'm like, my God, like, I could be best friends with this person. And I'm finding that like over and over and over again with all the people that I'm, that I'm, that I'm spending, you know, and sharing this space with. So I want to thank you for one, for showing up and being vulnerable and doing the work that you're doing with, with everybody out there, specifically, specifically with men and boys, but just that lessons that everybody can take and walk away with. And, and that's why the podcast is called You Winning Life. And the things that I believe are important for someone to win life is master your psychology and your mindset and your spirituality. And how do you do that with, you know, nutritional wellness and alternative medicine and entrepreneurship? That are the 4 main pillars. To be successful, to be healthy, to bring your purpose and passion to life. So I want to thank you for being an incredible example of that.
My pleasure. Thanks for having me out.
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