Practice the Pause & S.O.A.R. with Mike Cameron

Mike Cameron is an author, speaker, successful entrepreneur and philanthropist.  With over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurial endeavors, Mike is the Former CEO of Axiom Mortgage Partners.  He has a TedX talk called Redefining Badass, is an ultramarathoner and an ironman triathlete.

In This Episode:

• What Really Drives Our Decisions?
• How to Create Buy-In By Connecting With Emotions
• How Understanding Our Emotions Can Help Us Make Better Decisions
• How to Live a Meaningful and Purposeful Life
• How Self-Examination Leads to More Effective Leadership
• How to Identify the Cause of Behaviors, Rather Than the Symptom
• The Need for Empathetic Leadership Instead of Using Brute Force
• The Importance of Avoiding False Vulnerability
• Why We Need to Take Off the Mask and Look Into the Mirror
• How Awareness is the Key to Creating Choice and Responsibility
• Shedding the Shackles of Expectation and S.O.A.R.
• How Slowing Down Allows You to Accelerate Your Results
• Accepting and Using Our Emotions to Guide Our Behaviors
• Getting More Done with Ease, Rather Than Effort
• Taking 60 Seconds to Reset and Refocus
• The Power of Rituals In Creating Consistent Success
• Challenging and Expanding Your Comfort Zone
• Shifting Your Mindset
• Setting Smaller Goals to Create Momentum and Maintain Focus
• Narrowing Your Focus to Expand Your Results
• How Ram Dass’s Letter to Rachel Helped Mike During Tragedy

Links:

Website:  https://www.mikecameron.ca

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/axiommike/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikedavidcameron/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/axiommike

TedX Redefining Badass Talk: https://youtu.be/M1mxagsjmao

Ram Dass’s Letter to Rachel: https://www.ramdass.org/a-letter-to-rachel/

John Ryan
You're listening to key conversations for leaders. This is episode number 10. Welcome everybody. In today's episode, we'll be discussing how to practice the pause and soar with Mike Cameron. We'll be covering the power of rituals and creating consistent success, how to live a meaningful and purposeful life, and how you actually get more done with ease rather than effort and much, much more. If you look at the major successes and the massive setbacks you've had in your career, they can all be traced back to conversations you either had or didn't have. In fact, your future and that of your company is determined by the quality of conversations you have with your team, your customers and yourself. This podcast will teach you how to be a better leader through better conversations. Hey everybody, and welcome to conversations for leaders. I'm your host John Ryan, and today we have a very special guest, Mike Cameron. Mike is an author, speaker, successful entrepreneur and full anthropologist with over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurial endeavors Mike is the former CEO of axiom mortgage partners. He also has a TED talk called redefining badass is an ultra marathoner and an Ironman athlete. Welcome to the show, Mike. Hey, man, thanks for having me.

Mike Cameron
I am looking forward to this conversation. I feel like we've already had a pre podcast podcast

John Ryan
we did. We've been talking for a little bit and I love it. And we said, we should actually record this and share this with other people. So I appreciate you having this conversation again. But we're going to go even deeper. And and I got it. I got a comment. First of all, because you say redefining badass, I'm pretty sure that all those things that I just mentioned your bio, that is badass. That actually is not that is the definition. I think of badass.

Mike Cameron
Yeah, yeah, a little bit.

John Ryan
But I know that your TED talk on redefining badass obviously goes into really some deep stuff. And I'd like to talk a little bit about that as well if that comes up as part of our conversation, but I want to ask you first you know, in writing Your book, becoming a better man. You mentioned how you really came from some difficult times and to becoming an award to running an award winning multimillion dollar business. Can you tell us really about how that journey progressed for you?

Mike Cameron
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I kind of joke that, you know, I literally started my career bagging shit, which I did when I was 18 years old. I got a job at a garden supply wholesale company. And literally, I was bagging steer manure. And, you know, one of the things I realized there very quickly was, that was not what I wanted for a career for the rest of my life. And I've always sort of had a strong work ethic. So I worked hard in the warehouse, eventually moved up into Poland orders eventually moved up into driving a truck and then ultimately ended up in the sales department at the the The Garden Supply wholesale shop and ended up selling those bags of sear maneuver that I that I used to put together. And what I started to learn at that point, which will become relevant much later in my journey was that nobody buys Stearman newer because they want to own a bag of shit. People buy steer maneuver because they ultimately want the feeling that they're going to get from planting a garden, growing beautiful flowers, growing tasty vegetables in those gardens. And I started to realize that people buy based on emotion, not on logic, because again, there's no logical reason to own a bag of shit. We want what that is ultimately going to give us. So so that was kind of the first seed that was planted in what what has now kind of become my life's mission and you know, ultimately I worked, I kind of hit the ceiling at the Garden Supply Company working in sales and started looking at Okay, where do I go from here? And I ended up playing hockey with a guy that that was having lots of fun making lots of money. And I said, Well, what do you do? And he was selling mortgages, financial instruments at the time. And I said, Well, how do you do that? So he told me and I went, got the license you needed and did all the courses and all that kind of stuff. And then I moved over into that realm. And I ended up doing very well with that. And that was when I kind of had my my second lesson into the fact that we buy on emotion, justified by logic. You know, I was 26 years old, I was doing really well making more money than I'd ever made in my life. Living in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia. So big city, right downtown. I was baller and I wanted to drive a vehicle like one so I walked into the Porsche dealership at the time. 26 years old and young and dumb, and All the other things that go with that. I walked into the dealership and Bill the guy that sold me the car he knew all too well that we buy on emotion and he saw me coming in and, you know, ask me a few qualifying questions. I think he figured out very quickly that this dumb kid probably had enough money he could he could make a sale. He sat me in the car, he stroked the leather seats. It does not feel nice. Can you imagine driving this thing up the Sea to Sky highway from Vancouver to Whistler. It's a windy highway and the Porsche engineering just hugs the road. He says why don't we take it out for a test drive? Mm hmm. And he looks outside and it's sunny says we can put the top down. And I'm like, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

So long story short, I ended up a 26 year old, six years old, buying a Porsche that I really had no business buying. But again, that was kind of my next lesson into the fact that we buy on emotion. There's nothing wrong logical about buying a Porsche when you're 26 years old, it was all based on emotion. And yeah, so for me, that was where I kind of started my journey. Ultimately, I started looking at, okay, so knowing that we buy based on emotion, if I want to sell more mortgages, more financial instruments, then how do I make a better emotional connection with my customers? And, you know, I'm a guy that likes to understand the why behind the what. So I started digging into the science of it and, and learned a lot and sort of implemented in that and again, ended up being fairly successful in that realm. And ultimately, I ended up Yeah, me I've got a fairly long and winding path. I ended up in another another province because nobody else wanted to, to go open up a shop for the company I worked for. Again, so we moved out to Alberta. Have the province next door and set up shop for the company I worked for at the time I was going to be the guy running the province. Ultimately a month after we moved out there. I got a phone call from the financial services regulator telling me that the company I worked for had been shut down. Turns out it had been the largest mortgage fraud in the history of British Columbia 240 million dollar Ponzi scheme.

John Ryan
Oh no.

Mike Cameron
Yeah, so Hi. You didn't find that did you

John Ryan
No I did not. I was digging man. Yeah.

Mike Cameron
So yeah, so that was sort of Yeah, my my, my first big kick in the nuts so to speak. We were literally I moved my fiance out, you know, 1500 kilometers away from home. And we were one month in, getting set up and I got the phone call. So All of a sudden I was scrambling and we were kind of starting from scratch. So yeah, it's been, that was an interesting journey. And then, yeah, ultimately, again, skipping a few years, I went on to found my own company, and built that from the ground up, and then ultimately ended up. I just sold that as I was telling you, I sold that in in December of last year. 2019

John Ryan
awesome. And that was axiom and you said that was was it 15? How long? 15 years.

Mike Cameron
It was 16 years total time. So I founded that in 2003. and sold it in 2019.

John Ryan
Congratulations. That's, that's amazing. Thank you. Now I'm kind of curious because I think when I hear you saying is that that theme of no one wants the bag of fertilizer. The in fact even when you're getting sold the Porsche it's not just the the machinery and the leather, it's how it makes you feel inside them. That makes a difference. That idea of focusing because it seems to me like beyond even the benefits, yes, because you can talk about benefits miles per gallon, that how good the mulch is going to be when you put the fertilizer in the ground, etc. It's not the benefits, it's actually the feelings that the benefits give you. That makes that really makes the sale. Is that are we getting close to that? Absolutely. Yeah. And from a leadership standpoint of sales and leadership, like, you know, we talked about a little bit I've spent two decades talking on this, this topic and and what I realized was that, you know, not only do my customers buy based on emotion, but my staff productivity is directly linked to emotion. And like I said, I've looked at it guys like Dr. Antonio Damasio, brainy brown does a lot of work around that. Dan Goleman Yeah, there's just there's lots and lots of research to talk about. The fact is human beings we actually make decisions based on emotion. So not only is it about buying in life in general, we make decisions based on emotion. And for me, that became incredibly important to really look at that fact. So if we make decisions based on emotion, we can never really understand if we don't understand the underlying emotions that drive the decisions we make, will never live a purposeful and meaningful life. And so that really has become my focus as a speaker and a writer.

John Ryan
And that actually is one of the quotes that you have, you know, prominent on your website is that if we don't really understand the emotions behind the decisions we make, I think it was something along that we'll never really realize a fully awakened existence existence. Yes, if that's the right word. Tell me if you don't mind share a little bit more about that. What does it mean to have a fully awakened existence to you? Ah, that's a great question.

Mike Cameron
don't know if I've ever been asked that one. And I hesitate using the Word awakened because it it's a little bit charged and it means different things to different people. So that's why again, in this context they use the you'll never live a fully purposeful life because I feel people can connect with I want to live a purposeful life. So for me awakened, was just getting in touch with Who the hell I really am. And having the courage to step into that and live that fully. You know, authenticity is a big buzzword we hear, and again, these these drums, they get beaten so loudly, I fear that, you know, they're so loud that they become deafening, and they become these meaningless platitudes. But for me, living a fully awakened existence is about stepping into who is Mike Cameron really, and not giving a shit about what John Ryan thinks of Mike Cameron, but just owning who I am and being okay with that and in order to do that, That I need to understand the feelings that fuel the behaviors I take, you know, you touched on it in in the sales context. We, you know, we try and influence behaviors. But behaviors are based on decisions decisions based on emotion. So if we really want to affect change in behavior, and again, with a lot of the altruistic work I do, this is where I come from. So, again, look at your kids, right? If we want to talk about impacting behavior, we want to change behavior, rather than focusing on the behavior Johnny, stop that Johnny stop that Johnny stop that, let's look at Okay, why is Johnny doing that? What's the feeling that is either causing that action or that Johnny hopes to get out of that action and if we can address that emotion that's driving the behavior, then we can seek to actually change the behavior because, you know, again, it comes back to you know, diet and sex suicides and all these things that we try and do for ourselves. We try and brute force change the behaviors. But until we address the underlying emotions, there's no longevity in that. So you know, we can brute force make changes for ourselves, we can stick to a diet for a certain amount of time. But if we binge eat because loneliness, depression, you know, whatever, whatever sort of emotional experience is driving us to take those behaviors. We can, we can brute force the behavior all we like, but it's not going to be sustainable until we address that underlying emotion.

John Ryan
So the application that I'm hearing you say is is twofold, one on self reflective perspective to know who is my Cameron who is John Ryan, and why am I making the decisions that I'm making? Where is this coming from, but also in stepping into my team members shoes, what's causing that behavior because if I I can launch a kit, I can come up with a plan is what I'm getting from you. And we can talk conscious mind to conscious mind. But we're not really getting into the emotionality behind that. We're not really going to create a change any more than if I will power myself to go to the gym or go for a run like I know you do.

Mike Cameron
Yes, no, absolutely. And that's what I talk a lot about is empathetic leadership. And that's really being able to connect with those feelings of your team. Because Yeah, I mean, you can brute force. I'm the boss, you have to do that. But I think as most of us probably know, Now, that doesn't work. So well.

John Ryan
Are you finding that people are more open to exploring the emotionality and the in the empathy than they were maybe 1015 years ago?

Mike Cameron
I think absolutely. They are, you know, again, Bernie Brown has been a huge pioneer in that space. And I absolutely love, love, love her work. And I think, you know, people like her have have made it more acceptable I still think there's a lot of misconception around it. I think there's also a lot of people trying to manipulate that and sort of, you know, put out that sort of false vulnerability in order to try and Garner connection. But when it comes from a true and authentic place, absolutely, I think they're, the impact is huge. And we're seeing it, like we see it all over the place. And I think the results speak for themselves. So yeah, I think people are starting to be a little more open to having these conversations. And I think also, we're finding that, you know, what we've done historically, just isn't fucking working anymore. So we need you know, again, it's that that quote, if you want, if you want what you've always had, keep doing what you've always done. And I think people are getting a little bit tired of what we've always had, and so they are open for change.

John Ryan
Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity to change in every level of our society. Business wise socially, economically. So it is it's an opportunity. It really is. I want to ask a couple things you said they're really interesting one, the vulnerability, the false vulnerability, are people I feel like I mean, aren't we have a cognitive bias that we tend to think that we can tell when someone's being authentic or not? And we tend to think that most people think that they're smarter on average than everyone else, that's 70% of people think they're smarter than average, which is not doesn't make any sense. So the illusory superiority, illusion of superiority. Are we good at sniffing out people who are false vulnerable and being fake and actually manipulative? Or are we not as good you think, as we might think we want to be?

Mike Cameron
Well, I'm part of that 70%. So and, you know, 78.2% of all statistics are made up.

John Ryan
I'm not sure what that means for the other 22% or whatever.

Mike Cameron
No, I do think people are pretty adept at stuff. sniffing out that falseness. I think we see it enough that, you know, there, there's no credibility in it. And and, you know, we're definitely I think getting better at sniffing that out. Well, I think you're,

John Ryan
if I hear you just said in there, like there's so much of it out there now that we're more aware of it, maybe the more in the 1980s, like one of my clients said, he gets so tired of people saying sending out a webinar link, for example. And then I Oh, sorry, I sent you the wrong one. No, you didn't. You're just looking for another opportunity to get in front of that person, and you're being inauthentic and it totally turns people off because people want real people. The other aspect I want to ask you about the authenticity is sometimes I've seen people who say, Well, I'm just being authentic, this is my truth. And it's almost like a, a shield they get to put up for being a jerk, and and not being empathetic and really seeking to understand the other person's feelings. Can someone over? Or are they not really being authentic? Or are they just using? I don't know.

Mike Cameron
Yeah. And I wonder about that too. I remember comedian who's now fallen very much out of favor, but he used to talk about that. I remember like, when I was a kid, my dad had a record of this comedian, and he talked about it was some joke about cocaine. And he said, Yeah, but it intensifies your personality. And then he says, Yeah, but what if you're an asshole? And I think the same thing like so I'm authentically an asshole, so that makes it okay. I yeah, I don't know that, that I buy that. And I do think that a lot of times, some of that behavior, those attitudes are simply masks for things that are lying a little bit deeper. And what I think some people are Want to coach's authenticity is maybe actually a mask and they're not. They don't have the courage to really take that look in the mirror and say Who am I really? Not just Who am I? But who am I really? And that takes guts to do so it does. Yeah, I definitely think there there are some that would would hide behind that as a take me as I am. Right kind of thing, but they haven't really explored who they are.

John Ryan
And that's, that's exactly I think the point, you know, very, Bernie brown asked to go in and search inside and acknowledge the feelings that are there. And if you do the work, and go inside and understand why you're doing what you're doing, then you don't have to have any excuse for being a jerk. You can even own it. I suppose there are times, you know,

Mike Cameron
yeah, not Absolutely. Well, again, it comes you know, Eckert totally talks about with awareness comes choice, and that's why I'm such a huge fan of Taking the time to sit down with your emotions, your feelings, and really have the courage to explore them be brave. Because once you understand that, you know, this is coming from a place of anger, this is coming from a place of sadness or this is coming from a place of hurt, well, then you can make that decision. Do I actually want to take that behavior, knowing where it comes from? Does this make sense to do? And, and that's where I think we've got a lot of work to do as a society. Because and especially for men, you know, we've kind of been beaten over the head with how we should be. We've got marketing companies spending billions of dollars telling us that we got to be the Old Spice men fit and sitting on a horse and that if we don't have Old Spice we're less than and you know, I don't mean to pick on Old Spice because actually like Old Spice, not commercials. Hilarious. It is Yeah, it's funny. But but you know what I mean? Like, we're bombarded with these messages of you're not enough, you're not man enough unless. And I think that is really, really problematic because we end up making these decisions very knee jerk. And we don't really take the time to dive into them.

John Ryan
What are some of the things that you think in your book becoming a better man? What are some of those attributes that men specifically feel have to do or should not have to but could help to develop empathy to have more awareness and not succumb to the external? Here's who you should be. To help them? Yeah, redefine what it means to be badass as well. Yeah.

Mike Cameron
Yeah. So I use the acronym sore, that I don't dive into that in the book. So the book is really just the story of my life, my journey and the lessons learned along the way. It's funny, I've had so many people, when they pick it up, they call me and say, or send me a note and say, you know, I fully expected this was going to be a finger wagging finger pointing, this is what you should do. And here's a dude, this is just your story. I'm like, yeah, that's exactly it. It's just sharing my story. So the book I'm working on now, book number two, will be much more in the vein of this framework. And like I said, I use the acronym soar, slow down, open up, accept whatever is coming up, and reconnect with your purpose, reconnect with your emotional self, whatever, you know, whatever resonates with you, I talk about reconnecting with your emotional self. So that is the framework. And it's been just fascinating for me to look at how I apply that and where I can apply that and it's been almost everywhere, like from a business standpoint, from a personal standpoint, from a leadership standpoint, from a sales standpoint. You know, talking about in in sales meetings, if you open or lead with that kind of framework. Imagine if he opened the meeting with a 62nd. Slow down a meditation depends on how sort of, you know woke. Your team is. But even just taking 60 seconds, you know what? team, we're just going to sit for a minute. We're just going to get fully present with what's going on in the room. I know you guys got tons of shit going on in life. I know there's a lot of pressure from you on a business standpoint.

Let's just take a minute take a pause, slow down.

Mike Cameron
Again, when I talk about open up that's that's kind of twofold one for yourself. So now that I've slowed down, I need to be open to whatever's coming up. And for guys, I always count Start with the physical because those guys were usually pretty good at identifying those somatic markers, those physical things. You know, is there a tightness in the chest, my shoulders, take my jaw. For me, I carry it my jaw. There's a little tension there. Okay, I can notice that tension. All right now what's coming up emotionally?

Right now there's just there's a lot of gratitude, and peace. That's what I'm feeling.

So open up to yourself to allow those things to come up. Because most of us don't. We get busy and we talk. I'm so busy. I'm so busy. JOHN, I don't have time for that. I don't have time for that. And we push it all away and we push it all aside or we make ourselves busy. You know, I think it's easy to understand when we talk about addictions. You know, people get addicted because they're burying feelings. Well, we do a lot of things. And for me, it was workaholism. You know, we do a lot of things To bury feelings, and they're not always socially unacceptable sometimes, in fact, we get lots of Pat's on the back for them. So just taking that time to slow down, open up to whatever's coming up. And then that accept piece is huge. Because so many of us like to beat the crap out of ourselves. Like, if I'm feeling sad, or I'm feeling unhappy, Jesus, man, what right? Do I have to feel unhappy? I've got everything. I'm so blessed. I'm so wide. Why should I and then you start this spiral of beating yourself up. So just accept that whatever you're feeling is how you're feeling. And that's okay. And then like, say reconnect for me, I use the term reconnect, because we weren't born emotionally disconnected. We've been conditioned to become that way. Do you have kids?

John Ryan
I have one kid. How old? He's seven.

Mike Cameron
Yeah, so you you know when they're born. They're not emotionally disconnected. There's toddlers, they're very adept at expressing emotions, you know. So we're not born emotionally disconnected, we've been conditioned to become that way. And and for guys in particular, you know, we've been taught that we have to be stoic, we can't cry, we have to bottle it up, we've got to keep it in. The only acceptable emotion is anger and rage. And that needs to change that needs to change. And the more we can dig deeper, so Okay, so I'm angry right now. Okay, well, let's peel that back a little bit. What's really under is it really anger? And I talk a lot about primary and secondary emotions. Again, I'm not a psychologist by any stretch, but I just talk lived experience. Can we peel back those layers? Maybe there's some hurt there. Maybe there's some sadness. How do we deal with that? How do we address that? Rather than this anger management stuff. Maybe it should be sadness man management because oftentimes Anger is just sadness masked totally true. So, and I'm a big fan of getting to the root causes as a business guy in a sales guy. You know, I don't have a whole lot of time talking about the problem. Let's talk about, you know, the root solution. Let's not just complain about things. Let's find root solutions.

John Ryan
I can see how people might at first glance, say, Oh, I like you said, I don't have time to do that. But the reality is, there's a difference between being inefficient and being in effect being effective. Efficient is getting it done fast and effective is getting it done, right. Because if you get it done right, and get to the root cause, like you said, then you're not wasting time on all these other things that aren't really related to the core issue. Yeah. For sales, it's getting to the emotions. Why do they want that same thing with leadership? Why is this problem here for this person? Why am I having this? Why is this coming up for me sore go through That process. And thank you for leading us through that process. I hope you're listening. You went through it too. It took me a second. It took me a second to calm down. I was like, but we're and I had to call it and it felt really good. Thank you for

Mike Cameron
that. We'll do that. It is amazing. Because I mean, it did I have to practice that because as you can tell, I get pretty excited, I get fired up, I get excited about stuff. And again, it doesn't mean you can't be productive. It doesn't mean you can't be excited about your shit. It doesn't mean you have to walk around like a Zen monk, all day every day. But I think there is huge value in just choosing those moments. And I use the term practice the pause. And for me when I get riled up, that's what pops into my head, practice the pause. I just take a breath. And maybe it's 10 seconds, maybe it's 30 seconds, maybe it's 60 seconds. Maybe I sit down for a 45 minute meditation. But maybe I don't have time for that. But I've always got time for 60 seconds. You know, like you can always take 60 seconds and that's for me that's a big piece too is oftentimes you can get more done with ease than you can with effort. And just really leaning into that. You know, in Canada, we're big hockey fans when we talk about gripping the stick too tight. I don't know if you're a hockey fan if you've heard that term. Yeah, but when when a when a peak performer isn't playing well. The commentators off often talk about ice, he's gripping the stick too tight tonight. And that just means he's he's, he's not just going with the flow is not just relaxing into his greatness. He's gripping the stick too tightly. And I use in my book I talk about when I learned to rock climb. And the woman that taught me how to climb she used to, she used to yell at me. When I was on the wall and her her mantra to me would be she'd yell and she said climb

John Ryan
like a girl. I'm like a girl.

Mike Cameron
And what she meant by that was, I was gripping on too tight I was I had my arms bent and, and I'm trying to muscle through. And if you're a climber or anybody out there that's a climber knows it's not about muscling through. It's about grace and finesse, it's about having those straight arms. Whereas as a guy, you know, I want to muscle through everything. Whereas when you watched her, it was just all grace and beauty and, like, just, you can do so much more climbing with ease than you can with effort. And that was a very valuable lesson for me.

John Ryan
So I'm hearing a couple things on that and I love that I'm guessing i'm not i'm not a rock climber, mountain climber, um, but the reason you don't want to clench and hold up like you're doing like a pull up is because that can also lead to exhaustion. I imagine it can holy, you get pumped. Got it, because you're using muscles unnecessarily. So a couple things on there. One, you have a vision. I know you've had visions in every endeavor you probably have ever done. Like you said, I'm here, bagging manure, I want something different. And you're on to the next on the next the same time you also look inward, to find the motivation for where you are and where you want to be. And also the way the way you're climbing that mountain is, is a big part of that. How important are rituals for you in refining your tool of your mind and body in in being the leader that you are?

Mike Cameron
Yeah, that's a great question, I think. Yeah, ritual is cuz I talk a lot about practice and I'll come back to that but but habitually performing routines or rituals is huge. And I do try and stack one on top of another. So for me for the last a little over maybe maybe even 18 months now I've been doing a daily Instagram story and those for me started as practice. If you We're familiar with Instagram stories. They're they last for 24 hours, their little one minute videos, they last for 24 hours. So I thought, Okay, well, here's a challenge for me as a speaker, I now have to try and take an idea, condense it down into 60 seconds, and put it up on the internet. And the beautiful thing is it only lasts for 24 hours. So if I completely screw it up, who cares? It goes away. And so I started doing this, like I said, probably 18 months ago, and I've done that every morning, that's my ritual is I come down at grab a cup of coffee. Maybe I do my run in the morning, I grab a cup of coffee and and I do my Instagram story. And then B once I got into the routine of that I'd add something else. So that's now I added my meditation to that. So I will take 10 minutes, and I will just after I've done that, because I'm already sitting at my studio here, and I've done my Instagram story, and I've got that efficient now so that's so real. routine, you know, it's 10 minutes.

And then I'll tack on to that another

routine, which is that 10 minutes of just mindfulness practice meditation. And then it's adding writing to it. And again, all of these things that you need to do and of course, it gets easier now in isolation that we can't go out. And as speakers, we're not traveling all over the place. So there's no reason not to have those rituals. So yeah, so yeah, that I think ritual is is very important for consistency and for practice.

John Ryan
So you're establishing that routine, and it sounds like you're very intentionally by design, expanding and expanding and, and challenging that comfort zone. I think you mentioned me earlier that you're, you're doing the David Goggins challenge. Can you tell us more about that?

Mike Cameron
Yes, well, that's exactly about expanding out of the comfort zone. For me as an ultra marathon. It's not a huge stretch. But but it's it's something I wanted to to take on. And I'm going to tie it to a cause because I try and do that as well. As you mentioned, piggybacking different things. So the Goggins challenge is to run four miles every four hours for 48 hours. And just sticking to that, so I start at 5pm tonight, so I run for miles at 5pm, I'll run four miles at 9pm, or run four miles at 1am, or run four miles at 5am and then around the clock for 48 hours. And so this one I'm doing violence prevention is, is my cause, so to speak. So I'm doing it for those where, you know, we talk about safe at home in this quarantine. For many individuals, sadly, home is not safe at all for those in abusive relationships. So that's why I'm I'm running that's what I'm tagging this this to.

John Ryan
Well, thank you for doing that. You're right. It's absolutely heartbreaking to hear about that for spouses for for children out there, like and it's such an important cause. And that's a, that's an I never heard of the David Goggins challenge before. And he's a beast in it. And you know that he is he is amazing. And so what do you think is going to be? I know you're about to start in a couple hours, what is going to be the challenge for you because you're used to ultramarathon which is what, 50 miles, much longer than 100 hundred miles.

Mike Cameron
Yeah. So So I've I've run the longest I've done as 100 miles over 32 hours. But that's straight up. So this will be interesting in that it's broken up. So you know, can I actually get some sleep for three hours in between? Or do you sit there going, Oh my god, I don't want my alarm to not go off and miss my next schedule. So. So I so I think this the sleep deprivation will be the hardest, I mean, running for miles. For me is is not hard at all. So it'll just be interesting to see how breaking it up over that timeframe will will sit.

John Ryan
And it sounds like the tricky part there is really the change of the cycles and rhythms. Mm hmm. Although you've said you've already run, you know, 100 miles over 32 hours. It sounds like you're just in it at that point in time. Yes. And I know you've obviously done road races. Have you ever done one of those long term races where you're running on a quarter mile track?

Mike Cameron
Yeah, I did. I did across the years last year. 2018 2019. So it's, it's Jamil curry puts it on it's called across the years down in in Glendale. at the ballpark there. It's a one mile loop that you run for 21. They've got 24 hours, they've got 48 hours, 72 hours and they got a six day race. So I did the 24 hour one. So I ran in a one mile loop for 24 hours.

John Ryan
Now to me, that's got to be More mentally taxing than running down the road for 32 hours?

Mike Cameron
Absolutely. Well, again, this is why I love doing these things because they, it's practice, it's practice finding new ways to think of things, new ways to shift your mindset to get you through difficult times. So after we were about halfway through, instead of just running, I set a goal that Okay, so I'm going to run four laps, and then take a break. And then I'm going to go out on the top of the hour. So if I ran four laps in 45 minutes, I got a 15 minute break. I mean, it was that was I'm not that fast after after that long. But, you know, so if I ran it in 15 minutes, then I got a 10 minute break. If I ran it in 58 minutes, I got a two minute break. So I made a game of it. And that was my thing. So all right. ever have to do is run four laps. I can run four laps all day long.

John Ryan
So it's breaking it down into the smaller pieces, smaller goals, and that became achievable.

Mike Cameron
Yeah, what and especially when you're running 100 miles, like, if I stand at the start line and think I gotta run 100 miles. Dude, there's no way on earth I can run 100 miles. But the first aid station in sinister seven that I did was at the first aid station was 15 kilometers, something like that. So sorry, I'm Canadian. I talked in kilometers. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe 10 miles. So the first aid station is 10 miles, I can run 10 miles. That's easy. Because I've trained for this. I've trained hard, so 10 miles is easy. And then once I get to that aid station, okay, well gonna run another 10 miles, the next 80 Okay, I can run 10 miles. And then, you know, the further you go once I get to 90 miles in, it's not about I don't I can run 10 miles. It's about Just going to take 20 steps, that's all I gotta do, I just got to take 20 steps, I can take 20 steps, 20 steps is easy. And then maybe it's I got to narrow that down to do just take your next step, just take one step, that's all you got to do, you just got to take one step, you could take one step any day all day long. And then do it again, and then do it again. So the key is really to narrow your focus to as narrow a window as you need it to be. And that has been a huge lesson for me in life. So you know, and again, we haven't got to sort of one of my key stories, but you know, when tragedy struck, that's what I had to do. I had to narrow that focus, not down into steps, but in the moments. I just got to get through the next 60 seconds of the day. And then the next 60 seconds, and then eventually I could start to think about the next hour, and then I could start thinking about the next day and then I could start to think about the week ahead of me in You know, so when you're in the throes of tragedy, despair, depression, grief, whatever it is just whittling that focus down to as narrow a window as is feasible for you in that moment. It's huge strategy because, again, if you've got to think about, you know, the rest of your life, that may seem unbearable. But if you can whittle that down to I just got to get through the next hour, and I could do that. Yeah, and that's, that's the other thing we talk about an ultramarathon is when it sucks when you hit that low moment. Just wait an hour and see how you feel. Because chances are, it'll be different in an hour. You know, that's the good news. Bad news thing for me, which I still sort of wrestle with is emotions are fleeting. They don't stay forever.

So what's your feeling right this moment? Maybe horrible.

But just narrow that focus to getting through the next 60 seconds, 60 minutes, whatever that is. And check in and see how you feel that because you know, you know how you felt five years ago, probably is not how you feel today. They don't last. So that that can be incredibly useful to keep in mind when when things suck.

John Ryan
Well, five years ago, that's when the the tragedy came across your life with

Mike Cameron
Yes, so yeah, so let's I mean, let's share that.

John Ryan
If you like,

Mike Cameron
Yeah, no, no, absolutely. Absolutely. I think it would be pretty, pretty cruel not to share the story at this point. I've kind of alluded to it. I kind of hate the vague thing. I'm not a big fan of that. Fair enough. No, in in 2015. And again, this is this is why I'm so passionate about teaching men, the practice of emotional reconnection in 2015. My girlfriend was staying with me October 1 2015. She stayed at my place. She woke up Friday morning, she was a yoga instructor. She left my house at about 5:15am to go teach yoga. And unfortunately, she never made it to yoga. She was ambushed by an ex boyfriend who shot and killed her and subsequently took his own life. And for me that, you know, as you said, I'm a guy that looks at Okay, so what's beyond this? What's next? How do we, how do we deal with them? And that's why I talk about so at that moment. I mean, when that call came in, you know, I, I told the story in my book. I was out at a business lunch and hadn't heard from her all morning and we were walking into the restaurant and my phone rang. And at this point, you know, it's now noon and I haven't heard from her. So I'm stressed out what is going on what's happening? I get a phone call. So I immediately look at my phone and it's a block number. And I answer it. And I say hello. And the voice on the other end says, Is this my Cameron? I said, Yes. And he says, This is constable so and so and I just I don't remember his name and my heart just sank and I remember turning away from my guests and walking out the restaurant. I said, Is she okay? He said, Where are you? I said, Is she okay? He said, Where are you were at your house. We're coming to you. So I told him where I was. And they walked out of the restaurant I stood on the curb for what felt like an eternity but was probably five or six minutes. And this unmarked police car pulls up across the street and this big badass burly looking cop with a gun on his hip gets out of the car and he's plainclothes, got a badge around his neck, walks across the street and I walk to meet him and we met in the middle of the road and he just looked me in the eye And he said the three words that would change my life forever. He looked me in the eye and he said, Colleen is dead.

And that was it.

And at that moment, yeah, your world just goes and shrinks down to nothing. And yeah, there was definitely times where I had to sit with some pretty immense grief and and pain. But it was the next day. A friend of mine again, I could tell stories all day long, this fairly long one, but to make it short, a friend of mine, who's a yoga Yogi in Montreal, messaged me and he had just heard what had happened. He messaged me. Do you know who ROM das is? I do. Yeah. So have you read a letter to Rachel? I have not. So good. So good. I've read that I get goosebumps talking about this. I've read that letter hundreds of times. So he sent me a link to ROM das as well. Rachel. So Rachel was a young girl who is brutally murdered. Rahm das wrote a letter to her parents and there were three sort of big pieces. In that letter that he talked about that absolutely changed my life. Like, without hesitation, I can tell you they changed my life. First, he said, Who among us is strong enough to remain conscious through such teachings as you're receiving? Probably very few. And I knew in that moment that I could curl up into a little ball, I could bury myself awake and start drinking, I could do a number of things to ignore, but who among us is strong enough to remain conscious through such teachings as you're receiving? Probably very few. So I made the decision at that point that I was going to stay conscious through these lessons. The second was, he talked about now is the time to let your grief find expression, no false strength, for your grief is is Rachel's legacy to you and Again, just allowing myself to feel allowing myself to grieve no false strength, no false strength. And as guys, that's hard. That's really hard. And then the last piece that that he talked about that really hit home was he said our rational minds will never understand what has happened. But if our hearts if we if our but our hearts if we keep them open, we'll find their own intuitive way. And so those three pieces when Yeah, when I got that letter, like said, I've read that letter hundreds of times since that day, but I made some very deliberate decisions based on what I read that day and it was just like said it absolutely changed my life. So you know that that was kind of what sent me down the path of violence prevention. And I started looking around at where I could make an impact how I could contribute to dissolution. And you know, a lot of well meaning friends want me to go after the justice system which surely failed her. You know, she'd done all the right thing. She had the right restraining order. she'd done the right things in court. Obviously, that had no impact that didn't do anything. And I just thought, you know, how do we build a better restraining order is akin to putting a bandaid on a ruptured juggler. The better question is, how do we prevent men like that from existing in the first place? And then, you know, circle back to bagging shit. We make decisions based on emotion. This was a man that made a decision with very permanent consequences based on a very temporary emotion. And that is what set me down the path that I'm on now. And, you know, the subtitle of my book is when something's got to change, maybe it's you. And that sort of became my, my mantra at the time again, you know, as All my friends and family surround me pat me on the back. And then you know, without fail, they'd shake their head. And they'd say, something's got to change, Mike, something's got to change. And I'd get up every morning and I'd look in that mirror and I'd shake my head and I'd say, something's got to change. Something's got to change. And then one day, I added those three words that changed everything for me. And I just looked in that mirror and I said, something's got to change.

Maybe it's you.

Well, and that, and that's when I realized that, you know, I can, I can, again, back to that truism, the platitude you can't control what happens to you. All you can do is control what you do with what happens to you. So, you know, Colleen and I used to talk a lot of philosophy. We shared a lot of stories and lessons and I remember one day we talked about talent and and I asked her, I said, you know, what's your talent? And she replied that she made things beautiful. She was an artist, a painter, a photographer, a videographer. She absolutely had the knack. For making things beautiful, and she turned it around, she said, What do you think your talent is? And I, I said, You know, I kind of hummed it, harness it, not to take anything away because by all sort of standard measures, I've been successful, but I'm not sure that there's sort of any one thing that I'm particularly gifted at any one thing that I'm particularly talented at. And I said, What do you think my talent is? And she said, Oh, that's easy. You've got a much more useful talent. I said, Oh, what's that? She said, you make shit happen. Oh, okay, as a business guy, kind of like that. So there you had it. She made things beautiful. I made shit happen together, we were going to make beautiful shit up. I love it. So that has become my mantra. My quest is to make beautiful shit happen

John Ryan
in this world. I love the depth that you bring in. Thank you for sharing all the stories because it pulls together a lot of the themes that you have on your website, all into one cohesive narrative. And of course, thank you so much. From the bottom of my heart on behalf of everyone for the work you're doing. To help raise awareness and create change, and it all begins inside, absolutely, we got to start in here. Because if we're not if we're making decisions, but we're not analyzing the emotions, and really what's going on, then we're not living, as you said earlier, the Awakened Life, or the purposeful life, and you clearly have your purpose. I'm so glad. Unfortunately, you found the purpose, but I'm glad you're doing so that about it. Because if something's going to change, the only person is gonna change it as you. Absolutely. I know, you shared a ton of nuggets in wisdom. And thank you for for sharing your story as well. Is there anything else you want to share with our listeners that we haven't already talked about?

Mike Cameron
No, I mean, I could talk for hours, my friend. No, you know what i think i think we sort of captured the main thing. It's like I said, for me, that acronym source slow down and that and that's if you've got to take one thing away. It's just practice that pause. Just take a breath. You don't have to do a 40 Five Minute meditation. But just take a breath

when life's getting too much, when you get an angry when you have to make those hasty decisions, just take a breath

and slow down.

That's, again, for me that that's kind of the one. One piece that if you're only going to take away one thing from this conversation, that would be it.

John Ryan
Thank you, what's the best way for people to get connected with you and to be in touch?

Mike Cameron
My website is Mikecameron.ca. And Facebook. I'm Mike David Cameron and I do I've been doing in this quarantine. I've been doing daily lives at 8:30 every morning, just picking a different theme. And so expanding on my on my daily Instagram stories. So today we talked about men and confidence. It was actually it was a really, really good conversation.

John Ryan
Thank you so much, Mike for being here. I appreciate it. And it's been a pleasure. My pleasure, my friend. To connect with Mike, be sure to connect with him at Facebook at Mike David Cameron, and visit his site Mike cameron.ca to check out his minute with Mike series. And you can find his book on Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Until next time, develop yourself, empower others and lead by example.

You've been listening to key conversations for leaders with your host john Ryan, and I like to stay connected. You can find me on Twitter @keyconvo or you can find me on LinkedIn @johnRyanTraining.