S1E10 · Cam Elliott

Hey guys, welcome to the Virtus Performance Podcast, this is episode 10. Today I sat down with Cam Elliott or Coach Cam as most of you guys would know him as through Virtus. Now Cam has a lot of layers and I love him to bits and I was really excited to be able to sit down and talk to him about his journey, why he does what he does, why he coaches, what the future holds, we spoke about f*cking up and making mistakes and dealing with all of those mistakes that we make and how we can make

the best of it to create a better word for ourselves and we spoke about mentors and the importance of finding people to look up to and to learn off and things like that so I think you guys will get a lot out of this, I certainly did, so yeah, enjoy. My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day. I believe everyone, especially normal people, have a story to tell. The Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests.

Cameron Elliott, welcome to the podcast. How are you mate? I don't know if I just didn't say anything for 20 minutes. We've got Cam Elliott here, go for Cam. It would be about as interesting as Greg's podcast if he didn't say anything in the first 20 minutes. Yeah, that's fair. Before we get started, I'm going to call out Simon Cooper because he's driving his mum's car. He's driving the minniest of minivans. It's like his mum's mum's car. Shout out to Grandma. It's like that poo brown colour. The Mitsubishi, I can't remember. It's one of the movies that 16 year olds drive in American TV.

Yeah, it is. Welcome to the car podcast with Cam and Lachie where we just talk about things we don't know anything about. Introduce yourself to the people. Tell us, who is Cam? What is Cam about? Cam is about coaching at the moment. And that has so many aspects to it. People would know me in my closest circles from being one of the performance coaches here at Virtus. So I guess in those circles I'm kind of known as the strength and conditioning coach. But there'd be lots of friends or other people outside of those circles that would know me as someone that they can always rely on that can come and help dig them out of a sticky situation.

I won't call him out but he knows who he is if he ever listens to this. Someone that can come and pick him up from Chapel Street at 2 o'clock in the morning on a Friday night when he runs out of money at the casino. Just little things like that I guess that I'm proud of being. I don't make a big deal out of it all but it's nice to sort of reflect on those things and know that all the time I spend during the week coaching people still manifests itself in different ways so that I can keep serving all my friends and family around me.

Why are you a coach? Why do you coach people? Why is that your vocation? I think I do it in part because there's a selfish aspect to it because I want to keep myself accountable. I set myself to a really high standard most of the time which I'm sure we'll talk about in a couple of minutes. So most of the time I set myself to this really high standard. So there's a little bit of pressure that I put on myself and when I coach people I try and encourage that same sort of standard in them. I don't really particularly want to live in a world where we have people saying somebody should do something or somebody should stop that.

I'd rather have made the change in a few people where we have the opportunity or the ability to turn around and say well I have the power or the strength or I guess the ability to do something about that situation and I'd like to step up and have a crack at it and I think that my best way of doing that, serving that purpose is coaching and helping people get strong, particularly women. I love getting girls strong. I love seeing that look in their eyes when they do something that like the first time they walk

in and they see some of the strong girls invert us they're like oh man I'll never do that and there's just like this, I suppress it but there's just like this smirk that I want to let out and I'm like you have no idea man. Give me three months and I'm going to turn you into an absolute weapon and then you know you get them there and it's a really slow methodical process and you know I always find it a really special moment when I can help someone deadlift or squat their body weight or hit

triple figures and then you can just tell they're going to kick the door off its hinges when they leave and they're just going to take the wheel by the nads and have a really good week or good month and that's why I do it. I do it for those moments there and you know they're very few. You have very few milestone moments when you coach but you try to make every session special and you try to take you know whoever comes through the door away from their world for an hour and you give them your

attention, your energy, your empathy so that they can have a really special occasion but the milestones they're very few and far between but when they happen they're really really special. So I do it primarily because it helps me keep accountable on my standards and my training but there's also a really strong purpose behind it where I'm just saying to people hey I'd love for you to you know fall down the rabbit hole with me because it's the best thing I ever did. Can't improve. Yeah actually no that's not the best thing I ever did. The best thing I ever did was start believing in myself.

Like the training's good and the food's good and all that sort of stuff but the best thing I ever did was start believing in myself and I think that's why I like the coaching the most is because I want to help people believe in themselves a bit more. Why do you think strength training is so important for empowering, you spoke about women but everyone? I think it was like, I'm going to ruin the quote because you caught me off guard and I just dead lifted. Why did I do this? I think it was Aristotle. Same thing, same person, Aristotle.

That's the fancy way of saying Aristotle. I think it was Aristotle that said what a shame it would be for a person to go through their life and not know what their physically capable of and it's so true. So many people live their 9 to 5 job and they're excited for the weekend where they just get to go out and get drunk and they get to watch football with their friends. That's fine you can be excited for what you want to be excited for but these people have this potential that they have inside them that I didn't recognise I had until I got introduced to a barbell when I was 22.

I think it was around about then and I fell in love with it. I started to find this thing that had no conscience and it had no agenda. It was just this cold lifeless piece of metal that was extrinsic to myself. Every day I'd walk in the gym and I'd challenge myself and I'd see what I could do and it would beat me up and if I did a shit job it would tell me that I did a shit job and I had to choose. I could either suck about it and walk away or I

could look a bit in the cold, beady little eyes that I had and say alright next time I'll come in and I'll kick your ass. So yeah for the last 6 to 8 years that's been my sole motivator is I'm not going to let a lifeless, inanimate object beat me and I think when people start to realise that that's one metaphor for life. Life is this beautiful, colourful spectrum of experiences and emotions. You fall in love, you fall out of love, you make new friends, you lose friends along the way but ultimately you don't want life to just be something that beats you up.

You want life to be something that you experience and that you enjoy and the peaks and troughs. I think for me the barbell was what really set me back on the path of experiencing and enjoying life again and I love sharing that with people that come in and lift weight with me. I love it, I fucking love it. So yeah that's why I think it's so important. Obviously there's the physiological and all the health benefits to it but just the psychological and even the emotional benefits to it as well. For nearly 18 months there's that

200 kilo deadlift that I was chasing and when I hit it I had this rush of emotions that hit me and if you go back and watch that video you can see me get halfway and then it stops. It literally does grind to a stop and then I say something to myself which I can't repeat but I just felt this flare of adrenaline when I got the bar up and I was looking straight at Jared Kay who was sitting behind the camera right in front of me and he's got this big smile on his face

and he's cheering and all the boys are there and I just wanted to burst into tears because I was like you fucking asshole I finally did it. I beat that bar and then I put it down and I looked at Jamie and he just goes keep pulling son and the video cuts short but I just collapsed on the floor. I'm like I can't move man I'm dead and they dragged me to the side, they put me up against the bar and James like how you feeling, how you feeling? I was like I can't talk, I can't articulate how I feel.

I felt elated, I felt angry, I felt disappointment, I felt joy. Like at all these things it's taken me 18 months to get here and then I have to repress that disappointment and be like no, no experience the moment and enjoy the fact that you've hit a really important milestone, a training milestone and let's do it again. So I think when we get people in like shout out to someone like Laura, Laura Thorne who she used to be one of the least confident people when she walked in here and now she reps 75, 80 kilos on a trap bar and she swaggers out the door and you're like yes my child, go and destroy the world.

Little things like that and you can sort of, you can share those experiences with people and they get this massive grin on their face and that's why I do it and that's why I think a lot of people just need to at least try it. I'm open to trying anything, I've tried CrossFit, I've tried Strongman, I've tried all these different things and they're all fun modalities and I think that if we aren't trying new things then that's where we get stuck in that 9 to 5 rut and that's where we find ourselves not looking forward to anything but the weekend and not really growing and adapting.

A lot of us in here I guess see the gym as a metaphor for life and I know you do. What, if someone comes to you and goes I think I want to try but I'm not sure, what would you say to them? If they wanted to try the gym. Gym, like CrossFit, powerlifting, it doesn't matter what. If they want to hang out with that inanimate object of the barbell what would you tell them? I would, see part of me would just clap my hands and be like yes let's do it! But I know that I can get really, not many people have seen that side of me.

I know I can get really overzealous and really excited about things and that can scare people so I try to go the nurture route. So I let them, I'm notorious for not following people up when they say I want to come train. I'm like that's fine if you want to come train, cool. Full stop. Message me, full stop and I won't message them. And then everyone's like you've got to do this, you've got to do this. I'm like no no, if someone wants to come then they'll come and that's when I want to work with them.

And when they make that step there's always like a really cool moment where we share like a smile and it's like a really knowing smile. I'm like awesome, you're never going to look back. You're in. Yeah, like you've done it, you've taken the step so let's take the first few steps, baby steps. We won't leap in which is what we were talking about with Josh the other day. Everyone wants to, I reckon I get like 30 messages around about new years. Man, it's time, I'm going to do it. You'll do it. Yeah and I'm like awesome, if you want to come see me, come see me.

And it's these people taking these big jumps and as soon as your feet leave the ground you're committed to that trajectory and it's so easy to just like fuck the landing or you just land on your ass like nah I can't do this. But when people come to me and they're really serious and they start taking those baby steps and we can like focus on the path and we can make sure that we're making all the right steps and we're progressing beautifully and consistently, I think there's this transition where they go from baby steps to

okay like I get it now and then you start loading the bar up and then they start feeling that elation and that joy of just picking up something heavy. It could be the hardest thing they do all day in terms of something physical and then it manifests this joy in them and they've had a shit day with their boss and their boss has ridden them into the ground, they might be having an argument with their partner or their parents, they walk in the door, they've got all this baggage and they put it down at the

door and then they bust their ass against the barbell and the barbell doesn't talk back, the barbell doesn't say anything, it just sits there and you pick it up or you don't and then they pick it up and they go fuck yeah that was the hardest thing I've done all day but in my head I'm like no it wasn't but now you're going to go and take on all those other things that have really bugged you and you're going to have a different outlook on it and I think that's where the joy comes from and

that's that knowing smile that we share as soon as they say that beautiful first sentence like oh I'd love to come and see you, like yeah cool man let's do it and then they rock up and I'm like yes intro session, let's just take it slow and let me show you around, let's see what other people are doing, hey over there there's like you know there's KP and she's just training in the corner and she's killing it and people are like oh man that's amazing you know you've got guys and girls in here just killing

it and all sort of self managed and I think that's like an inspiring thing for them and then we nurture that and just like building a fire you know you get your tinder and you spark it up and it turns into this beautiful flame and then you don't let the flame die and you're laughing forever. It's good, keep going and it just allows people to get out of their head for an hour of their day and into their body and allows them to express what they're feeling and what they're going through. Yeah massively, I think

it's even more than that like we give them an hour of our time and I think it's criminal that they pay us, you know I'm so privileged to be in this industry but you know like the hour before it they're looking forward to it and then the hours after it they're remembering you know this session that they've absolutely crushed and as coaches there's an element of strategy to it we've got to make sure that they get the most out of the session so we don't want them missing reps but sometimes I'll just throw some of

them in the deep end I'm like well let's see what you can do you know let's again Laura T or Beck like let's throw you in the deep end and see what you can do and then they you know they might you know they might not get the bar off the floor but they just look straight at me like man I know I can get that yeah I know you can like next week or the week after yeah just a little taste and I think that's a cool thing that everyone wants to experience but again

if you jump at it and you take too big of a leap and then you fuck up that can do more damage than like more mental damage than it can physical so you've just got to be careful with how far you jump forward. Well that's the art of being a coach and figuring out what to prescribe and what to give what is what is the most challenging aspect of coaching of being a coach? Oh man I guess for me the most challenging thing about being a coach would be to I've got to learn to be paid well I have learned but it's that patience of you know not everyone comes in because they are as passionate about it as us.

Yeah. We chose it as a job. I love lifting because it literally saved my life and I love lifting because every day I get to challenge myself but you know some people they just want to come in for a little bit of general fitness and they just want to come in for a gab and that's awesome and some people want to come in and they just want to be savage and I'm like cool I'll teach you how to be savage like let's be barbarians so I've got to find that beautiful point where I have enough

empathy I haven't let me say that again I have enough empathy per day to go around for everyone you know I've got those people that want to come in and crush it and I've got to give them a lot of highly charged energy to get them through these really tricky sets and then I've got some people that just want to come and have a gab or they've had a really tough week or a tough month and I've got to give them a lot of my empathy as well to get them through an hour where they're

not thinking about that hard day anymore they're thinking about you know are my knees in line with my hips and my toes because if they're not then Cam's going to yell at me and they're like you know am I standing tall through the bar when I'm squatting or dead lifting or something like that so you know that's probably one of the hardest things that I've found as coaches as coaching and that's probably after you know being six years deep in the industry but I think a lot of young coaches would their instinctive thing would be

like getting clients you know it's got to be getting clients and I disagree I think getting clients is for want of a better word easy like it's not about getting clients it's not about getting clients like I'm the least busy person in the world and I've got maybe 20 hours 25 hours of coaching a week but they're all great people they are all consistent they all rock up on the you know 15 minutes before a session they crush it then they leave. It's about fostering those relationships with those people that you spend that time with.

And that's what makes you a better coach like it makes you a better person but it makes you a better coach so yeah when I started it was definitely like I've got to get busy because you know I've got no money I can't afford this and then as I sort of developed I was like man I can't even give a fuck like you know my parents always like can you afford it you know how you go for it I don't give a fuck if I can afford it you know I'll find a way to afford it because I freaking love it.

And then when you when you start to develop that mindset that's where the bill starts to get paid you know there's a bit of anxiety around it all but. That anxiety will come with any job. Yeah exactly and anxiety is so natural as well like that's how the bills get paid if you suppress the anxiety the bills don't get paid you have to have the anxiety otherwise the bills don't get paid so you know when I have clients that come in and they're single mums and they're stressing their heads off and like I'm sorry I'm

sorry I'm sorry don't apologise I want you stressed I want you feeling it they're called emotions feel them don't think because that's how you get the food on the table for the kids that's how you make their environment better you know just don't just don't drown them in the environment you know acknowledge that you're stressed let's beat it up let's let's do some deadlifts and then they deadlift and they're like yes I'm fucking sorry and then they kick the door off I guess now go and teach your kids to be great go and pay those

bills yeah go pay them bills baby how important for you is it to get to get to empower your clients and the people around you to experience those emotions and enjoy those emotions because I guess you're someone who's probably struggled at times with emotions but allowing yourself to grow and adapt and learn from them I think it's really important that again this comes back to my analogy about subjective and objective you know everyone I can give someone a red pen and objectively we can say yeah that's a red pen but subjectively no one can tell

me what red is you know everyone can sort of sit there and go oh well it's the colour of blood or it's an apple well that's just what it is but what is red and again that's another thing that can be a little frustrating is someone can say why don't they just get it and it comes back to the difference between knowing and knowledge the red pen they see the red pen and they can acknowledge that it's a red pen but they can't explain to you why it's red to them so for me I try

to be this fun energetic goofball so that they have an opportunity to develop that skill set in a safe environment like I don't want to be a repressive guy and sort of say like you know we have to take this super serious you know like when it's time to be serious I'll put my serious pants on like we're picking up some heavy weights so let's you know 30 40 seconds of serious time but then for the rest of it let's just be let's just be silly so that they can feel safe I think is number

one and then when you feel safe you can start to express and when you start to express all of a sudden you start developing different veins of strength like you know you've got your emotional veins of strength you've got your physical veins of strength sexual veins of strength all that sort of stuff there's a really cool book about all that but you know I want to develop that safe environment where they can express their emotions and then you know when they pick up something heavy and they want to cry have a cry man like do

it like that's good that's a feeling and I want you to feel it or if they if they miss a lift or if they do a shitty lift and they get angry it's cool to get angry yeah I want you to get angry but don't take it out on the bar and don't take it out on yourself just feel angry and go well I did a shit job so now it's got to be better move on yeah so I think that's really it's really important that they feel the emotions but I'm never going to push

someone to like you know if they're feeling angry I'm not going to sit there and go just get angry and like hit something I'm just going to say okay well you know let's let's feel angry and let's feel sad let's feel what we're feeling and then foster that and be better for it some people are ready for it and some people just aren't and you kind of pick up on the cues for when people aren't and when people aren't I think that's probably one of my one of my better qualities is I'm very aware like

we're very good at sharing empathy we're not very good at recharging but we're very good at sharing empathy and we're very good at picking up on social cues yeah so that comes with knowing the people that yeah exactly having those personal professional relationships yeah massively and the more you expose yourself to different people the better you get at speaking so many different languages that you know you can send me anyone and I can sit down and relate I'll find something to relate with them which is super important even if it's something I've never done I

can sit there and again with that empathy I can appreciate that hey that's something I've never done before but that sounds really interesting I'd love to hear about it yeah and then all of a sudden I've disarmed their suspicions and I've disarmed their preconceptions and I've disarmed their I guess their uncomfortable idea of what we're going to do and then they can start getting comfortable and talking to me and opening up and I think that's a really important thing to um like a really important step to helping people develop that safe space for emotional security

yeah and then if they can develop that in here just like the barber you know we want you to be strong and we want you to have great posture and all those and a strong core so that you can go and have a hike and you can go but I also want you to have an emotional stability that you can go home and have a conversation with your loved ones and acknowledge that even though they don't get what you're doing that doesn't make them arseholes it just means that they aren't ready to resonate with you

but you have to still acknowledge that they are still people and they just see the colour red differently to you so I think yeah we do a good job of that here but we need to be better as individuals at just acknowledging that there's a lot of work to be done definitely definitely what's the one thing you wish or you would like all of your athletes and everyone who comes to see you to know or understand just the goddamn warm up guys I mean how hard is it you know I'll see someone sitting on a

roller and they're looking at me like you've been there for 10 minutes like yeah what do I do next it doesn't change like it's the same um no okay honestly I would love for them to understand that every single day we walk on the precipice of comparison we are just a misstep away from falling into this dark chasm of comparing ourselves to one or five or ten other people that have so many of their own problems going on that you never see but we only identify with the things that we see that successful with so

to make a super big generalisation let's use Greg let's use Greg so Greg drives a BMW and everyone is sitting there going oh wow Greg drives a BMW like that's great yeah of course he drives a BMW he's earned a BMW but there are some people out there that go I'll never have a BMW you know Greg must be so successful is that that overnight success that took 30 years right how old is he now 50 60 something like that I can't remember he's way too old for Carolyn that's for sure she's like 30 true

shout out um but people people only see these these sort of external things they're like oh man I'll never have that yeah and you sit there and you slap them and go dude it's not about that it's it's about the purity of the person and what they are presenting to you like I would be hard-pressed to find a single person would have a bad thing to say about Greg because he gives you all of his time when he sits down and has a conversation with you he gives you all of his time when he hasn't

got time and that is a beautiful quality in someone but there are still people before they get to know Greg that sit there and go oh he's got a BMW does he yeah yeah he does have a BMW you fucking god damn right he has a BMW because he has you know he's earned the right to drive a BMW and then they see my car shout out to the golden stallion you know they see that yeah they see that and they go is that what you drive yeah it is gets me from A to B

just but it gets me there you know like the fuel gauge is busted and traction control doesn't work and you know there's all these little little things that just just bug me about it but you know what that's that's where I am at the moment and I could sit there and I could compare myself to to you with the new car and KP with new car and Greg with his BMW and go damn I'm so far behind everyone or I could just come and beat up myself sorry beat myself better at my craft every day

get better jump in the golden stallion you drive yourself home you do you yeah drive myself home get up do it again do it again do it again repetition repetition repetition and then when I am ready to move on to that next phase of my life I can turn around and say you know what I've earned enough money that I can buy a BMW yeah but I wouldn't drive the BMW because they're for losers you know the difference between a porcupine and a BMW is porcupines on the outside yes very very good tell me tell

me a little bit more about your role at Virtus so like you're more than a performance coach here and I think we both agree with that oh look I'm the owner I'm the cleaner I'm the accountant of the book I want to touch on something that we spoke about a couple of weeks ago we butted heads a little bit over the last two years of being at Virtus yeah I'd say that's fair but always coming out the other side better yeah we always just like have a conversation and it's still cold I'm gonna put this

on my head I'm boiling for those of you that don't know Lachlan's like a bear you're just constantly trying to hibernate away from winter so we've got the heater on at like 48 degrees it feels like an Arizona winter right now it's so freaking hot I'm dying I'm actually dying yeah like we'd always like I don't know what it is I think it's just this was before I'd had that perspective of well I know what I know and Lachlan knows what Lachlan knows and Jesse knows what Jesse knows you know I'd offer advice or input

and you guys would sort of like say yeah yeah and then brush it off and I'd be like don't brush it off because I fucking know that this is what's gonna happen and then it'd happen and then I'd just shut my mouth and be like don't say anything and then you guys would just sort of like it'd like be battle stations for like two months I'm like this is why I don't have hair you know I pulled off my hair and I've come from like job after job where I've just got this this you know

like I'm a what's the word I'm a proactive guy instead of a reactive guy and then I'd sit there and I'd be like do you remember what happened last time last time I said this and then you guys like shut up can I like cut down kill everybody and then I decided you know what they need to learn the steps just like I did yeah and I had people that were sitting there pulling their hair out when I was making the same mistakes they made and when I yeah and when I had that realization like

I stepped back and I was like just be there to help them pick the pieces up if they need to be picked up and if they don't help them celebrate the wins when they have them and then when I started doing that like you know obviously we started having way better like it's it's improved cohesion yeah the relationships significantly yeah and I just realized like I don't have to be the dad I don't have to be the guy that says you know I was I was my own dad and I'm like oh no which I

you know I love my dad but he's so protective you know he's always like don't do this don't do this and you know what I did every time you said don't do something I was like I'm going to do that like I need to know why I can't do that and then I'd learn from it it was the same relationship just in a different different part and then I slapped myself in face I'm like I am my dad I can't believe this and then I took I took a big step back and then you know

things started going wrong but things started going right and then when things went wrong I'd step in and help when things went right I'd take a step back and go well done guys like that's awesome and then we had so much more cohesion relationships started getting better and then yeah we we just got so much better for it and I realized this is probably over the last maybe six weeks that I had this realization but this relationship dynamics being laid off for like a year now yeah I realized that it was because I was trying

to I was trying to I guess for not not sounding like an asshole but just impose my will on the environment because I didn't want anything to go wrong because I had that high empathy where I was like man Lachie's got so much riding on those being successful it doesn't bother me okay like where subbies if verse goes under tomorrow we hope it doesn't but we can just go to a gym you know we can take our business yeah somewhere else I was like man so much riding on Lachie and Jesse at the time like

first needs to be successful and I can see there's so many pitfalls and I've come from these different aspects of different businesses and this these these things I can do to help you know how to always be pestering Jesse like do you need help with accounting because I can do it I'm really good at it he's like no no I'm fine and you know he wouldn't pay an invoice for a week I'm like I want to kill you like I can do this he's like no no I've got to learn yeah that's true you've got

to learn okay that's fine so yeah over the last maybe six weeks I've sort of just been reading more and watching cool documentaries and stuff I was reading this thing about the man what's the name of that park it's a really famous park too in America where's Yogi from Yellowstone Park where's Yogi from where they reintroduce wolves or no sorry wolves found their way back into Yellowstone Park after not being there for like 60 years because they were hunted out and when they were hunted out the ecosystem changed so dramatically that you know deer and

moose were coming through and eating all the vegetation all the vegetation was going and it was making it really hard for birds and for the smaller kind of mammals to find homes and stuff like that and I was reading more I'm like that's so amazing anyway long story short wolves came back and did what wolves do and started eating stuff and there was this big uproar everyone was like oh my god we've got to hunt them out again and then one little committee sort of said no like let's see what happens because this is interesting

so people were worried that the wolves would take over and then all of a sudden this beautiful balance came back you know the wolves were naturally predating on the mammals that were eating all the vegetation and then small mammals came back birds started coming back Yellowstone turned this beautiful national park again and people started enjoying it more and I was reading like man wolves are really cool so I started I started like watching cool videos on wolves because I knew a bit about them but completely understandable response wolves are very cool wolves are very cool

and I was I was reading all about them and I was reading about so I was watching this documentary on wolves and about these wolves that got re-homed to a different park for the same reason like 30 years ago just to because the predation rates were so low that all of these mammals were coming through and just eating out the vegetation and I was like oh that's really cool this is exactly like in Yellowstone and it was a story about this alpha this alpha wolf that had come through all of the ranks but he hadn't

come through the ranks like fighting at everyone to be the alpha he'd come through and he just stuck by the alphas side so he was like the alphas like confident and the best part and my understanding was always if you were the alpha you'd gotten there because you'd beaten off everyone else that wanted to take the job and this alpha was the alpha because the alpha that was originally the pack leader had died in a border skirmish against another pack of wolves and none of the other wolves wanted to take up the mantle of alpha

because the beta wolf who had been hanging out next to this alpha wolf kind of got pushed into it they were like well you know hey John you're now the new alpha because you've been hanging with the alpha for so long and this alpha didn't have like a lady alpha a female alpha because she had died as well so the beta stepped in as the alpha fostered all of the alphas kids and then like took over the tribe and I was like that's such an interesting thing like you know that's completely against what I understood

for wolves and then you know like three years later the wolf was old and then some like young new wolf came along and like killed that alpha and became the alpha I was like well that's more like what I know for wolves but again this alpha was pretty old like they'd been around for you know nearly 11 years or 12 years and I was reading more into it and I thought like that's such a cool concept where if everyone was fighting to be alpha of the pack or alpha of the environment then everyone would just

kill each other and nothing would get done yeah so in order for the ecosystem to thrive just like having the wolves come back there needs to be a balance and I thought instead of being like the alpha and trying to make sure that the environment is smooth and that everyone is safe and everyone's doing their jobs I could just be that reliable beta and then I had that realisation well that's what I've been doing for like the last year I've been taking a step back and then asking like do you need help with anything and

then you're like yeah I need this this and this or no I don't I'm like cool that's fine and then things were getting done so much smoother and I was from an outsider's perspective sort of sitting there with pride like I'm watching you guys grow and more so you now because Jesse's not here anymore but I'm like I'm watching you grow and I'm watching you develop and I'm like yes dude that's perfect like you're killing it or you know you make a mistake I'm like does he need help nah he's got it he's got it

covered you know or he's asking for help yeah like you'd ask for help of course man I'm happy to do it and then we'd knock it out and like that's what I realised like I've assumed that mantle not so much like I'm not the second in charge or anything but I've just assumed that mantle in more than just this environment as well like at home as well I used to butt heads with dad all the time but that's because I was like dad doesn't get it I'm a man now dad does get it he does

understand and he just feels a little threatened so I was taking a step away from that and going look dad needs to feel like he's still head honcho and he is head honcho because he's the fucking man of the house I'm also a man in a house that already has a man so I need to be less of the man of the house and less and just more of a supporting role and then you know when I have kids I'll be the man of the house and I'm sure I'll have this same problem when I

have kids you know if I have a son he'll be lucky to live to 18 I reckon because you know from the last year I'm just thinking correct oh man so you know that's the thing that I've been working on lately I've been doing a little bit of writing and writing up this concept about just being a reliable beta because there's such a I don't want to say it's negative I don't want to say it's pollutive but there's just this new trend going around of you know how to be an alpha male in your environment

and I'm like man if you read this and buy into this and then go to work tomorrow and try to do this you're gonna get fired you're gonna piss some people off yeah and you know what there's a pecking order for a reason these people have put their hard yards in and if you go in and start beating your chest you're not going to be a part of the group they're going to cast you out you'll be a rogue so I think it's important to draw a line and as Greg says you know I'm a

big fan of this too like you know you speak your truths and you have your standards you have your morals and you don't you don't push that boundary unless you're pushed but if someone wants to be the big loud gorilla then you let them and if it's working then let them if it's not working have a conversation if the conversation breaks down then do something then you have to step in or you step away so that's what I've been doing I've just been sitting there and acknowledging where my place is in different social circles and

where other people sort of see themselves and I've been able to kind of like I don't know pick groups apart and pick out who the natural leaders are and who the repressed people are in those environments it's been really interesting and I've learned more about people and myself from it which has been really cool I definitely don't think there's merit to like you don't let people walk all over you and like you know if anyone knows me I've never let people walk all over me like if you try it's going to be a two rams

butting heads yeah but my problem again comes back to being overzealous you know I'm so protective of mine and my friends environments that when I feel like someone's encroaching a territory my hackles come up and I'm like hey take a step back and they're like sorry sorry sorry but it's too late you know I'm already like my fur is already up and I'm like come on let's do it so yeah I've just taken that step back and now I'm picking up on more social cues and I think it's really interesting that from a person that's

well from a person full stop I can learn so much from an animal that I thought I knew so much about already and then I went and did a little bit of research and realized I didn't know shit I didn't know anything about it like I knew the bare bones of it man this is so interesting so yeah it's been really cool you know I think the main thing I got out of that chat we had a couple weeks ago was just the importance of understanding your role and what role you play in whatever organization

or team or group or family setting you've got because if you understand your role you can identify where you need to help and where you need to push and where you need to pull and where you need to step back and yep it's easy it's simple the weakest the weakest chains always have one link that lets them down and I think if you acknowledge where you sit in that chain you can then sit back from an outsider's perspective and say am I the weak link and if I'm not I need to pick up the slack

yeah until you can help someone identify with themselves that they're being the weak link or that they're ready to say am I the weak link or until they're ready to do the same and all of a sudden you know you've got a really strong environment where everyone not everyone has to get along but you know the jobs get done everyone's really in the right direction yeah and it's just such a you know at least this way you're not sitting in the middle of the ocean waiting for the wind to blow pick the ore up and

you start start rowing yeah and I think a lot of people just get stuck you know the wind's not blowing and they sort of just sit there and put their hands on their legs and go well it's not working for me well I don't have ores well you've got shoes you know just use your shoes you've got hands use your hands yeah like you know do something that's more than nothing and you will find find something happening yeah start moving progress is progress yes of course I want to talk about education a little bit hit

me why is continual education both in the gym and outside the gym so important to you oh my lord so so important um I think it needs to be important to everyone again because like it doesn't have to be it doesn't have to come from um it doesn't have to come from conventional sources and I'm a testament to that because and I'm not talking about uni because this whole thing about this like reliable beta came from me sitting there I can't even remember the situation you chase you started educating yourself on something you were excited

about I was like man wolves are fucking awesome and I watched something I was like I didn't know that like I didn't know shit about wolves and then I started reading some stuff and I watched some videos and now I've found this really cool um realization about myself all from being curious and I think that curious step is step one being curious and then being more informed and then making an informed decision or an informed decision I know I think too many people get curious then they get informed but they don't take the step from

informed to informed opinion they just get informed and they take that step back to curious and then they're like well I've learned it yeah we haven't learned it and then they and then I've done my research yeah and I read an article yeah they start spitting their subjective information like that's not the science yeah are you kidding me that's not at all what the science is like yes it is I read it like well did you read it on reddit because that's pretty inaccurate so I think it was a Facebook link yeah I think having

the ability to teach yourself something new so it doesn't have to be uni it doesn't have to be a like TAFE it doesn't have to be high school while these are very important veins I think it's important that you that you learn something new all the time because it teaches you different ways that or different weaknesses that you have that you need to strengthen teaches discern between good information and shit information information yeah like I'm so even though uni and I didn't agree and I really struggled I did actually get to learn how to how

to find really strong evidence based information so I'm eternally grateful for that because now I can actually sit there and have a good argument with someone like you know not an argument but like a conversation with someone and I can say well I read this article and here is my strong reference like this isn't just a Facebook article this is a strong reference so I think having that ability is really really good but it also this is my again I swear I call this the the framework for fucking up I could just call it the

fuck up framework I suppose and make it even simpler so every time I've made a mistake it lays a girder down and it gives me an ability to acknowledge sorry it gives me an opportunity to express my acknowledgement that well that's not the way that I do that but just because that's not the way that I do that doesn't mean that that's not a way to something else so let's not forget that let's keep it and then I'll try something else and I'll lay another girder down and that won't work and before you know what

I've laid maybe four or five girders down like on the foundation of this framework that aren't the right way but the sixth one is but I've just learned five other things even though they're not the way I've learned like five other things plus the thing that works and then I just start laying girders the other way when I want to learn something else and then you know maybe in eight or nine months time something comes up and someone says oh have you ever done or heard or seen or blah blah blah this actually yeah let's

go back to like 17 layers of this framework where I fucked up on my third time I've actually experienced this before and this is what happened and I've become of I guess a font of knowledge just general knowledge but it's you know 98% of time useless and then that 2% of the time someone goes oh you've actually done this before and then I show them like yeah I've done this and I fucked it up and you know this is how I got around it it didn't work for me maybe it'll work for you I think

having the ability to make mistakes and acknowledge you've made a mistake you don't have to stand on a soapbox and acknowledge you've made the mistake you have to acknowledge the mistake yourself and then you will get better for it every single time good I think uh is it Edison Edison like or someone I can't remember you know they fucked up a thousand times then on the thousand and first time they nailed it yeah oh was it yeah okay there you go I think you might have stolen it from Tesla though classic let's carry on classic

well actually I read this Facebook article that says good how I guess for everyone most people who listen to this will know Greg and will know understand great I thought we'll understand a little bit about him from the podcast we did with him a while ago and I guess the top person is being an educator all around the world which we're very fortunate to have him in our building how has great help you helped you I guess educate others and improve the way you educate others it's a super question I'm very fortunate I'm just very

fortunate in that every single time I've been in the hardest periods of my life I've always had someone that's been a bit older than me step in not even step in but just you know I've looked to them for advice and they've taken up a mantle of like a mentor role and I guess this just comes back to like my relationship with my dad is okay we've got a strong father-son relationship but we're not best mates yeah whereas I see other people that are like best mates with their dads but they get away with murder

like man my dad would kick my fucking ass but there's a reason why I have this relationship with dad is because it's it's instilled in me a really strong discipline and you know just like my dad I've made some really terrible mistakes in my life and we've all made mistakes and just like my dad I've got the resilience and the strength to acknowledge them and step up and make things right and for that I'm very proud that you know I've got a dad like Wayne shout out shout out shout out to Wayne who you know

he's a king and he's been there for me when I've hit rock bottom and turned around and said all right I'm going to talk to you guys about really big issues but I've always had people like Greg and before Greg it was a guy named Mark before Mark it was a guy named Murray you probably know Murray Peele from Mornington Bulldogs maybe and you know he was best mates with Simon Goosey so like Peely was probably my first experience at having an older friend who had a lot more life experience than me and he stepped

in and he took the actually before Peely was even my my English teacher Michael Long who was he was the guy that convinced me to just leave school he just said you don't need school like you're wasting your time at school because you don't want to be here and I was an asshole at school but he sat me down instead of saying stop being an asshole he just said like do you want to be at school I said fuck no of course I want to be at school you know like I thought I was just

the top shit I don't want to be at school I need school he's like you're right you don't need school like you are a very smart kid what do you want to do and I think at the time I wanted to be a chippy I was like I want to be chippy or sparky he's like great go and do it yeah like you could be earning you know money right now all these other kids go to uni and all this sort of stuff so I left I left school my parents like he said what and

then we had a meeting when I was in year 11 finished year 11 yeah so I left and then whole bunch of shit hit the fan I didn't get the job I got a different job very different job you know but he sat down with my parents and he said look you know Cam doesn't need to be at school for these reasons it would be great if he could stick around and finish but not only will he be a distraction for all these other kids that do want to be here his heart isn't his heart

isn't in it and having that having someone that age resonate with me and acknowledge that I didn't want to be there not because I was being a piece of shit but just because I wanted more for myself yeah made me realize okay like you know maybe parents and oldies aren't just trying to be arseholes all the time yeah and then you know I took my parents yeah and then it took my parents a little while to acknowledge took him a few years actually took me making quite a few mistakes to acknowledge that leaving school was

a good idea and then you know I turned like I think 20 and I got my I got my job and then I was working with Peely so this was like you know when I was starting to come out of this really bad sort of phase and I'd been through a bit of a mill and you know I'd had Crohn's and the Crohn's had sort of knocked me around and given me some really fresh perspective and then I met Peely and he was my manager at good guys warehouse where you know we used to have

so much fun but again he's the one that taught me about the serious pants you know we'd have fun and then we put serious pants on when we needed to work and I learned a really strong work ethic from him and I also you know it was the first time that I in quotations fell in love and I sat down with with Murray and that was when I met Mark and Mark came on as a as another guy in the warehouse and he was 65 so I had Peely who was like 30, 33 married was

trying to have kids trying to get into the trying to get into the metro firies and then Mark who had just come from Blue Scope been made redundant and was like man I still want to work so I'm just gonna go get a shit job at warehouse and I was so grateful that he did because you know I fell in love with this girl who was you know six years older than me and we had a little fling for a while and Peely said you know just be careful man because you know girls can girls

can take a part of you and they can keep it for themselves but they can't always give it back and I was like okay that made no sense you know he was like really mysterious and Mark just goes well yeah but guys can do that too so make sure that you don't do exactly what Peely just said about her and then you know we had like a couple of scares and you know a whole thing that I won't get into but then it all came crashing down and you know Peely stepped up and he was

a great guy he was like take a wig off and Mark you know we'd just get coffee and have a chat about all these things and you know this 20 year old guy was relating with a 33 year old and a 65 year old in ways I'd never had before and I've always just managed to find myself in I guess the right place at the right time with the right people and then when Greg appeared you know this was when I was having those like those head butts with you and bitey and then you guys

said I don't know if I've ever told I haven't told you this story but I'm going to tell everyone's story so like you know me and Bailey had already been all over Greg's stuff we're like oh man I love Greg Day I'm frothing Greg Day and then you guys are like we're going to get a physio and he's like oh no I don't want a physio Jan around the corner she's great let's keep going to Jan I was like let's get Jan in here he's like nah she's got commitments don't want a physio I'm off

him and then I walked I literally got here one day and I was like there's this pristine black beamer sitting there I'm like who's this like oh Jesus and I walked in and I literally walked in the door looked upstairs silver fox there he is I was like that's a fucking great day and I walked into the office I was like just be cool just be cool I can't remember if it was Katie that was sitting there she's like I think it was Katie I can't remember she's like someone's like who's that I was like

that's great fucking day and she's like who's that and I was like typing on the camera like look look look it's this guy me and Bailey being all over him jump on Breaking Muscle and start reading all the articles yeah I was like look at these articles they're really good we'd read the last the week before yeah my memory was so bad I can't remember if it was Katie I'm sure it was Katie Katie will tell me if it wasn't I was like oh man it's great day and I was like they can't let him

leave without like without just getting him in here and then he like I was like trying to be cool in the office I'm like he's gonna come in just be cool man just be cool and he walked straight past the office and he was kind of like come back and then the like you advise he walked in I was like oh Greg what's up with him and Jesse's like oh you know Greg oh you know Greg do you I was like do I know Greg like and I like marched over the computer like these are

the articles I told you to read the other week he's like what's that guy I'm like what are you please tell me he's coming back oh yeah he's a maybe he's a maybe no I don't want a maybe it was a yes yeah all right yes I was so excited and then um yeah and then I found out he was a solid yes so I was really excited to work with someone's like like Greg's caliber and then um when we got chatting I was so nervous I'm like man I don't know what to do and

it was Bailey actually that that um made the connection between you know like the um I guess the inner kid that Greg is yeah and and the connection with me because Bailey comes downstairs and we're shooting poops and and um Bailey goes hey Greg can plays battlefield on Xbox too and I was like what like excuse you and Greg goes oh add me and just pulls his phone out it's just like opens the app it says oh add me I was like all right and then you know I went home that night and there is

online invites me into a little group chat I was like I don't know what I'm going to do like do I like you know what do I do I've got to be really professional I was like all right cool so I like I put it on like hey hey Greg how you doing and he goes oh I can't say the word that he said but he's like oh what's up like he was just a bit of a dickhead and I'm like okay this is cool we're gonna get along really well and then from then on

it's been a really good relationship that we've had yeah and then coming back to that original question when I was having those sort of you know head butts with you guys Greg was the one that just sort of said hey you just got to you got to let people make their mistakes and they will if they need you they will come to you and they will say I need some help and if they don't that's totally fine but you have to be the guy that is still there to help right the ship even if they

don't see it you've just got to choose to do it and then if they don't acknowledge it you just keep choosing to do it choosing to do it I was like that's such a good point of view like that's exactly the way I was kind of brought up but I just forgot it and you know I was having some having my existential coaching crisis where I'm like I'm not a good coach and oh my god I'm not a good person and I was having all these problems and you know Greg was telling me all these

stories about you know when he was younger and he was having you know all these coaching failures and issues I was like oh that's really interesting that someone of your caliber has these things to draw upon and then it made me realize of course he does because he's a human that's how you get to that point he's so fallible and I was like coming back to my fuck up framework I'm like Greg is this framework he's he's experienced so much because he's not afraid to make mistakes and you just have to acknowledge that you're still

here and you're still making your way through it all and you know people were getting opportunities and I was like oh fuck I'm a better coach than you and I was like no slap yourself on the wrist that's not how you look at it you know they've got so many better qualities that you might not see you're just comparing yourself and then yeah you know Greg took me under his wing thankfully and taught me a lot about movement and strength and the bonds between it that I'd already like loved the idea of but he just solidified those and filled in the gaps and before I knew it I was like shit.

Simplified the complex. Yeah I was like shit man like I've been trying to articulate these things for almost like a year and a half and you come in and you start like two sentences to sum up my last year and a half of trying to butt my head against the wall and he's like you know he just like does that shrug and just goes you know good and I was like good. Walks away with the head wobble. Yeah the biggest head wobble. But he is yeah he's again one of those mentors that's just stepped in

at the right time right place and his ability to simplify things has really rubbed off on me and if I'm able to get my message across to more people in a simpler way so that more people understand it I'm going to be a better person and better coach for it and yeah I'm so grateful for everyone around me but particularly Greg and also to Mark and Peely who have been massive in my life as well but yeah Greg's one of those very few sort of older mentors that have been able to step in at various times in my life and go you know he's a little pat on the bum and a push and off you go.

Yeah he's a legend. What advice would you have for young performance coaches? Oh man listen to the last, how long have we been going for? Listen to the last however long it's been and this is the advice I'm giving you. Get a mentor or mentors. Yeah man just get 50 of them like you know learn everything even if it's got nothing to do with coaching. Read everything even if it's got nothing to do with strength and conditioning or if it's got nothing to do with energy systems. Just expose yourself to different material because it will

teach you to speak different languages, fuck up a hundred times, beat yourself up, break your bones, break hearts, fucking stub your toe I don't care you've just got to make opportunities for yourself to grow and if you don't grow you get stagnant and then you die as a coach not as a person. Well probably as a person too I guess that's adaptation. Eventually that happens. Yeah but you will like that's why the majority of coaches don't survive is because they don't evolve, they don't adapt, they don't grow, they don't learn to speak different languages and they don't learn to you know be in environments that make them that make them better.

They're afraid of being uncomfortable. I love being uncomfortable, not even uncomfortable in uncomfortable situations anymore unless it's public speaking like sometimes my old anxiety will creep in but you know I've got my little ways of dealing with that and it works really well. Good. What advice do you have for more experienced coaches and it can be the same answer. Oh look for Greg it'd be he just needs to be a better teammate on battlefield he's just really he likes to. Selfish? Yeah it's not even that I mean if I had a dollar for every sentence that started with I'm single-handedly I would be a very I'd be able to afford a BMW right now.

For older coaches and clinicians my advice would be to have some patience, definitely have patience because there's a lot of there's a lot of talent that's around and it just needs to be fostered yeah and again it comes back to acknowledging that some people just don't know as much as you and some people will be defensive because they don't know as much as you. You just have to be very patient with those with those environments so that you're not threatening them and making them feel like they have to retreat into a shell or repressing them

and making them feel like they can't express themselves so we've got you know plenty of amazing clinicians and coaches around us that are really good at helping us express us like you know Mark Simpson at pace was in the other day and we had a really good chat yeah where we bridged the gap between clinical and coach and the whole time like we were just backwards and forwards in I think Mitch was like it was like a game of Wimbledon for Mitch it was just like head back and forwards and I was like yeah it's

really cool concept and you know we we we gelled on some really cool things in terms of like strength and then he brought them back to rehabilitation and his exercise prescription I was like yeah totally man that's awesome we wrote some stuff and then I beat him in vertice ball so yeah shout out yeah definitely have that patience don't be repressive and don't be impatient good massively how do you see your job description changing over the next three four five years I think I'll be a coach forever it may not necessarily be in strength and

conditioning it may not necessarily be in rehabilitation or in teaching but I'll always be a coach because the skills that I've learned have always will always be with me so I'll always have the ability to you know speak the languages that I've learned and impart the lessons that I've learned on someone honestly I can like I'd be honored to be someone's thirty three forty five sixty five year old mentor one day and to help them through you know a troubling time where they get their heart broken for the first time or they you know quit

their job and dive into a completely different industry or they're having their existential crisis in this industry and they just need that little kick up the ass yeah that'd be that'd be something that I'd be that I'd be humbled and honored to do but it's not something that I'm looking for so I guess my job description won't change it'll just be the environments that I subject myself to that will change and if I'm not coaching someone I'll be coaching myself good answer what is your favorite thing about the industry and what would you change if

you could my favorite thing about the industry is definitely the relationships we get to make with clients coaches other people in other professions and even if you don't gel with them I think it's really cool if you've got the right mindset it's really cool taking a step back and going well that person was an asshole wait no they weren't an asshole they were just coming at it from a different perspective a different point of view yeah whereas too many people just go oh man that person was an asshole you know I'm sure I'm an asshole

to a lot of people but that's fine it means that I need to work on some stuff and they need to work on some stuff and we need to bridge some gaps and we need to find some things to relate on so that we can be cohesive and at least work together so that we can all go forward because the last thing I want to do is be an asshole step on someone's toes and leave them behind because I would hate that I would hate for that to happen to me but if I can still

teach someone something even though they they don't quite get along with me you know I'm not going to be best friends with everyone I'm not going to get a beer with everyone but if I can if I can at least impart something that's going to change the way they think or the way they move or the way they look at life then I'm bringing them with me yeah that's the really special thing about this industry is having that opportunity to develop those relationships if I could change one thing about the industry it would just be

to have it more regulated like I know it's beating our head against the wall but how do we do that well there's so many ways you know but I just think having it again it comes back to that thing where you know we see on social media I'm tagged all the time in videos of poorly executed exercising or maybe not not adequate coaching and people are always like you know lol have you ever seen this cam like yeah I have unfortunately in a lot of places I am the person and people don't like me for

it but that's fine I am the person that steps up and says that's not right we need to change that and it steps on a lot of toes and that's okay but it comes back to I'm not someone that gets stuck in indifference and I don't get bogged down in inaction and if I see something that's wrong and I step up and say something everyone will always have something to say until I turn around and I make it for the betterment of you and that's how I've always been I've always just had that it's not

courage I think it's falsely acknowledged as courage it's just my I just don't like seeing shit go on that affects other people when there's no care involved like I'm always the first person to come off the line and charge at the demons and make sure that someone else isn't getting hurt even if I'm throwing my body at it because that way I know that I can at least handle it a little bit different than someone else who isn't completely prepared for it so when I see these things happening in gyms I don't encourage people to

go up and say to coaches you're doing that wrong but I know better therefore I should do better so I have no problems going up to someone saying mate you need to be really careful with that and I've done it and people are always like who the fuck are you I'm nobody but I know better and you should too and if you don't then let me educate you and if it steps on their toes that's totally fine but at least maybe they'll think about it and that's my thing I just don't want to be that

person that's like somebody should do something because if that was one of my loved ones I wouldn't be the person sitting there going somebody should do something and I challenge anyone to disagree with that like if that's one of your loved ones you wouldn't be sitting there going someone should do something you'd be sitting there going what the fuck are you doing yeah well if everyone followed rule five then rule five put your egg on why don't we why don't we have that attitude with everyone because everyone here at Virtus is my loved one like

I fucking love you all and I'm not going to sit by and just let some turkey like treat you like a piece of shit that's just you know it's just not right that's not how we should live stuff table flip tell us about tell us about Crohn's about when you were diagnosed the the whirlwind journey that has taken you yeah okay that's been six years seven years no no no it's been about 10 years now 10 yeah 10 years Crohn's so when I was in school I used to be a bit of a beam pole

and then I hit my stride when I was about 16 17 started to fill out got the facial hair went from the ugly duckling to the you know moderately ugly duckling like I had my had my big growth spurt my shoulders came out I was like yay I'm turning into an adult and then 18 transitioning from 18 to 19 I was at my fittest I was at my strongest and then it all just got robbed I think I went from about so I'm sitting at 90 kilos currently and I went from about I think I

was about 85 kilos lean so I was pretty strong and I was a little bit shorter now so then so I was about six foot two so if you can imagine that shorter thicker bearded human and then I just got absolutely caned by this thing that no one could diagnose and that went on for about eight months I lost 20 kilos in two months I went down from 85 to 65 kilos I was just skin and bone yeah skin and bone still had on my hair but it was like it was like tissue paper like

you could it was crumbling in my hand I don't know what's going on and yeah I went from doctor to doctor to doctor and it was just unfortunate that the time my family GP who I've been seeing since I was like two was on long service leave so he was away I think for like three months so this went on for about six to eight months and then he finally came back and I went from so many specialists we got blood tests done I think I had I don't know maybe like it would have been

at least 20 different doctors I'd seen and then my doctor came back David Fairweather another shout out and he sat down in front of me he hadn't seen me mind you for like you know two years because I hadn't had a health issue yeah and then he sits down in front of me and mum goes I don't know what's wrong and she was like at her wits end because she was so worried like she was losing weight and dad was stressing out and I had no energy and I had no body mass and he looks

at me and he goes he had blood tests she goes and mum goes he's had so many blood tests and I was like whimpering I just didn't want to get pin pricked again and then he goes has he had any here and she goes yeah he's had three or four he goes cool so he pulled up the file and I don't know what he looked at he just like looked at three or four of them and he goes has he been tested for Crohn's disease and mum goes what's that and David goes alright I need

you to go into hospital so into hospital eight hours later David comes to the hospital and he goes he's got Crohn's disease like you know he's not even at work anymore he's like he's got Crohn's and I was like oh no my brother's got Crohn's and he goes that was my next question has anyone in your family got it so it skips generations sometimes it even skips family members and I'm the unlucky slash lucky one to get it so that means I've got it so it means that my sister has a very reduced likelihood of

getting it it also means that my kids and her kids have a very reduced likelihood of getting it but if anyone's going to get it it'll be probably Crystal's kids which is sucky so the trade off of my sister and any of my cousins not having it is that I've got it which is good so once we got diagnosed it was off to see another specialist named Michael Merritt who I've been seeing since I was like yeah 19, 20 I think we're coming up on to nine years now and he was really great he straight

shooter he just said this is what you need if you don't get it you're going to die and it's going to be very very ugly I was like okay cool let's do that mum was wailing I'm like it's cool mum you know it's fine let's just knock it on the head so he started me on this like myriad of cocktails that was like acid in my fucking veins it sucked I'm getting emotional and yeah and I had no muscle mass either so I had to get these different injections in different sites in my body have

you ever had like a needle in your leg before like in your quad I don't think so no so that kills and because I had no muscle mass it was like hitting my femur so they'd go in and like you know they're just used to injecting someone and then they'd go in and they'd hit the bone and I'd be like man that kills so then I met this specialist nurse Judy Hooper who she is a beautiful beautiful human and she's still she's still my specialist nurse she took my case over personally she handled all my

injections because she was the only one that could do it without inducing like blackouts amount of pain so I went through that for about two years my weight slowly came back and I got to about 75 kilos which was pretty which was big for me oh a big win not big size but a big win for me yeah and that was when I was about 21 and there's photos of me in my 21st I'm in a I'm in a white top and you know I've got this like sort of scraggly facial hair and this scraggly

mane of hair and I'm in this white top that's a large and it's swimming on me and like I've still got that top and I've put it on in recent times for like weddings and stuff and like I fill it out beautifully now I'm like man I see that picture like man so skinny so yeah I was about 21 22 and I started to I guess find my feet a little bit with it medications got changed in and out the the public I can't remember what name it is the PBS where the government funds medications

it was like a battle for ages to get onto this really good drug that helped block this specific cell the specific immune cell that my body rejects and everything else was kind of like suppressing the cells around it and and you know merit mark when it was being heading it's always like we need this drug this is the drug that will fix it and will not fix a bit of like suppress it and they're not letting you have it's like a grand a pop I was like and my parents are sitting there like maybe we

should just do it and you know we can finance the house or stuff and I was like I was adamant I'm not letting you do that because I'm fine we can keep making this work I was taking like 30 pills a day it was brutal and then we finally had this win where the government just turned around and said yep cool this is on the PBS and I was in three days later they juiced me up and I walked out of there and I've never felt so good like immediately like this immediate reaction and yeah

ever since then I've I've had that every eight weeks it just gets in and it blocks a specific immune receptor and what happens is my body gets a little bit inflamed through my gastrointestinal tract and that immune response is to attack the inflammation and just bombard it with these immune cells to reduce the inflammation but what they're actually doing is building more inflammation so my body sees that there's more inflammation and sends more of these cells and it's just a vicious cycle so this drug suppresses that but unfortunately that also suppresses my ability to like

if I have a cut it's those same cells that come and they clot the blood or it's those same cells that come and they create more more tissue so it slows down that process so I've got like scars all over me from like when I was kickboxing and when I was like you know I took a bit of chunk off my leg when I was cleaning the other week and now I've got a scar on my leg I'm like man that's so annoying and it also blocks my immune systems response to my anti-immunity system which

for all you science aficionados is your hair skin and nails luckily my skin and my nails are okay but my hair fell out which is really cool and that started happening when I was about 23 when I was with my then girlfriend Alicia who was really good at helping me come to terms with the fact that you know yes I was skinny and yes I was sick but there was a lot more to people than like than their illness or their disease and she taught me to be more than just my disease and that was

a really really important lesson for me so yeah we sort of got through the next few years as a pretty tight knit family and a lot of bridges got burned because so many people didn't understand it you know people just thought I was lazy when I couldn't get out of bed which was just hard for mum and dad because mum and dad came at it from a very protective parent way like you know they were sort of like fuck you instead of a well let me tell you more about it and you know for years

I was saying to them like I don't need a sword I need a shield so I don't need a shield I need a sword like I don't need you to protect me I need you to cut all this shit away so that they can see what's happening and then you know flash forward to today ugh it's Jess Ryan flash forward to today and we're more educated and we're doing that sort of stuff hello Jess what's up? Hey are you guys still recording? Oh yeah I won't interrupt Did you hear that? I won't interrupt Yeah But

she's interrupted She's interrupted Get the hell out No way darling Can you just educate the wider community really quickly on what Crohn's is and the effect it has? How would you go about doing that? So in the simplest way it's like when I'm at my best it's a dull throbbing ache in my head and when I'm at my worst it's been compared to terrible menstrual cramps like from women that have Crohn's they say that it's worse than their worst menstrual cramps I've met girls with endometriosis that say it's worse than their when they've had endometriosis

like I don't know because I haven't got that point of reference but I know that it's crippling and it puts me in the fetal position and I just have to like hug a heat pack and Let it out Yeah listen to some tunes and just wait it out and it's really really hard so it's one of those things that can be debilitating if you let it and even more so if you fight it so for me I just I accept when I'm at my flattest so you know roughly you know that seven to eight week

mark I start to lose a bit of energy and if my food hasn't been great then that's when I start to get a bit beaten up if I'm stressed it'll induce a lot of that inflammation in my gut and then bang it hits you like a truck when I'm at my when I'm at my best you know it's manageable I just take a pill and suppresses the nonsense and then I get moving and happy days So you've just got to loosen your body and let your training and food and intake and hydration and everything all

the extra curricular things you do you've just got to let that adapt to how you're feeling Yeah absolutely so yeah it's for me it's just a matter of trial and error and if I get anything wrong my body know it tells me and two dollar KFC sliders and so worth it yeah if I get anything wrong my body tells me and I'm just super adaptive and I've had to be and that's part of the reason why I am much more adaptive these days is because I've had to if I wasn't then I'd induce a lot of pain and suffering and it would suck What has your Crohn's taught you about the little wins?

Oh they're so important and people don't acknowledge them because they don't know better and that's fair enough again I'm patient enough to acknowledge that people can't have that perspective but for me like when I picked up 200 that's why I wanted to cry like for me picking up 200 kilos was a pipe dream when you know I'd only been lifting for about four years and I can remember a time where I was in a bed weighing 65 kilos wet struggling against you know feebly against these slender women holding me down while they just put a

needle in me like I wanted to push them off and fight them and I physically couldn't because I was that weak and these girls you know I could blow them over with a breath of air now but they were holding me down I was so weak and then watching my mum in the corner you know just like not being able to watch so hitting that 200 was amazing for me that's not a little win that was a big win and it was a culmination of you know dozens of little wins like four years worth of

little wins and having someone like having people like Jamie and Charlie in my corner to help me get there and when we did it that had Jared and Trent and Johnny Bravo they were all there and when I got it up you know hit the ground I was like I'm cooked but they all came over and they slapped me on the back slapped me in the hand they're like that was so sick I'm like yeah I'm cooked like I'm dead don't talk to me and I just got lost in my hand I just remembered every

single tough session that I didn't want to do every single I guess like infusion that I just managed to scrape through every single needle that ever pierced me and I thought yep that was worth it and that changed my mindset again to a it's all worth it like you know I didn't know that until I hit that and now I know better so now I put myself through a volume program that you know I don't want to particularly do I get up at five in the morning I don't particularly want to do it but you

know these are the little wins that we have you don't have to let everyone see the little wins but they still happen they still add up and then when you hit those one percents and you do it a hundred times you've just made yourself you know a hundred percent better it's so true and eventually you buy a beamer man and then and then you work as a team as a team Greg at battlefield as a team shout out to the rest of the team talk to me about your decorated fighting career how long have you

got three minutes forty minutes three minutes okay I was pretty good it started when I was eighteen and you know I left school started when I was seventeen got a fake ID left school went to the pub got drunk started just getting into fights like an absolute larrikin and then one day I got my ass kicked and it really gave me a sharp perspective I was like great I'm going to stop being a dick then I started IKEDO IKEDO for a lot of people is a joke and I can understand why they think that but

for me it taught me again another element of discipline shout out to my sensei at the time Joe Tambu Martin Rice who's another guy who's really cool Enrica and IKEDO they were really cool people and they taught me to put my ego on the hook which was so important for me at the time because you know I came in and I was getting pounded by these tiny little girls and guys who were just so good at manipulating the little one percents around my body and I was like this shouldn't be happening I dare you and

then yeah I got an opportunity to go and do a little bit of fighting and I was horrible at it I got beaten up if you want to hear the story of my first fight it takes about forty minutes to tell you a thirty second thing where I just got knocked out spoiler alert I got knocked out but I don't even remember being hit eighteen times apparently yeah so that was really fun and again that taught me a ton of stuff as well it taught me that my body can endure a shit ton of stuff

so this was post Crohn's and this was when I was coming back up on top it was about twenty one twenty two I mean twenty three so I was with Alicia yeah it taught me that my body can endure a shit ton of pain and it also taught me to switch off a bit of pain so when I'm having those days where I'm feeling you know that gut ache I can suppress it a little bit I don't ignore it because I want to acknowledge that it's there to make sure I'm not beating myself up but

I can suppress it enough that I can come in and you know I might be a bit grumpy and I might be a bit short with people but I still am functionable like I can still come in and participate and do my job and provide that empathy and that environment of energy for those people that come and see me and then go home and jump in the hot shower and I'm just like ah kill me so yeah it taught me a little bit it taught me a lot but I for any amount in the world

I would love to go back and just study Aikido not even just because it's not a fighting martial art but just because it's so beautiful it's just beautiful to watch two people move with each other and it does teach you you know elements of self defence but it's more just about having the energy flow between two people it's like a dance it's really graceful and I recommend that to anyone over kickboxing because kickboxing fucking hurts really bad although I never got kicked in the face which was great I only got punched because no one could

kick that high cause the little Japanese guys couldn't kick that high I was like yes not that it mattered in the end cocky cam well yeah it didn't you know I came in thinking I got the room and then they find ways to put me down good it was very good you've never known pain so you've been kicked in the quad like eight times like that hurry up that drills you sit there and you're like I got this and then your quad stops doing what quads do and you're like oh it's not working it's not

working anymore yeah and then they come in and they punch you on the beak and you're like oh night time sleepy time tell me something not many people know about you not many people know about me well not many people know that I love acting and I'm a massive fan of acting I love theatre and I was going to ask that question but I arid it to this you're thinking that would be your answer good carry on you're good you're good at musical theatre I love it I when I was in school I got introduced

to it actually I didn't even get introduced to it I'll tell you exactly why I started doing it in school you know it was a goof off subject I was like oh man what's the class that I can do that has the least amount of work involved it's either cooking or it's drama and I was like you know what cooking I still have to do something plus we got to do dishes stuff that I did drama and I did it anyway this was during that period where you know I was coming out a little bit

more with my body like I was feeling myself out a little bit more and I was getting a bit bigger but I was getting like constantly bullied by like this group of guys and girls but for specifically for the person people that I hung around with I'm not going to call them out but there was a group of people that I would hang out with and there was one or two of them that used to get bullied incessantly and I would go in to bat every single recess and lunch and I would have you know

words to the point where we nearly would just kill each other so I was just getting so much grief and you know I'd go home every night and mum and dad would say I was school and I'd say it was shit and I hated it it taught me well it didn't teach me but it made me very you know defensive very short with my parents you know I didn't want to tell my parents I was getting bullied for reasons that were out of my control because I didn't want someone to turn around and say well

just stop being friends with that person because that was what I thought was going to happen and then you know dad one day just said well fucking hit the mum with the loudest mouth so I did and then I got my ass kicked but you know that made things really challenging for me in school the way that I learned to get around that this was before year 11 was to just be the funny guy to be the guy that would make people laugh and disarm situations so that people wouldn't necessarily be looking at cam they

would be looking at something that they liked better than cam so I would learn to put on all these masks and I didn't realise how important that would become as a developmental tool but at the time it was just a survival tool so you know I'll come back to this in a second but at the time my masks were wearing me so I wasn't cam and I didn't know who cam was I had no identity for myself and you know I'd go home and my parents would say how was school and I'd say man it

was okay and I'd go to my room you know and I'd just get lost in just this deep pit of anxiety about having to go to school the next day and then when you don't do anything about that anxiety manifests into depression and then when you don't do anything about that sometimes it can have really tragic consequences but for me luckily I actually found drama and it did start off as a goof off subject and then I met my teacher who was Michelle Zinchenko she was a really cool lady and there was also Emma Sproul

at the time as well who was there doing some theatre my friend Braden was big into the scene and he's like you should come and do an audition and you know cam at the time was like that sounds so gay dude and you know and I apologise for like that that homophobic sort of stuff but that's how it was in school I was like that sounds gay and I'm not going to do that but that was me being defensive because that's how I used to get treated you know like why do you hang out with

these people are you a fucking faggot and all that stuff and I was like no you know I'm just hanging out with them because they're cool people and they're not pieces of shit so anyway Braden wrangled me into it because I can't remember how I made my memory shit I can't remember how but he definitely wrangled me into it he's like you should come down and little did I know that I'd already had the part it was just he wanted me to come down and just audition so I auditioned jumped up on stage read a

line or two for the director in front of like 50 people it was the most nerve-wracking thing I've ever done and then I did it and everyone applauded and then a few people like you know whooped and I was like it wasn't that good like I just read a thing and the director goes that was actually really good like I'm really happy with that do you want the part I was like okay sure so I took the part and it was only a small part I think only about 12 lines but I learned them as

soon as I got my script like I had them nailed down and then I learned everyone else's lines around me in those little areas because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't letting anyone down and I found myself becoming like a little pseudo director on stage when someone said what's the line about this and you know I'd be like feeding people lines and then if someone was mucking up on stage I'd be like picking scenes up like man this is so fun like you know I feel like I feel like I have a an

important place in these scenes not just as an actor but also as a as a character so I was putting on all these really fun masks really fun costumes I was getting over my stage fright or my fear of public speaking because it wasn't cam it was you know I think in my first play I was this cop you know I had this really shitty no I wasn't a cop oh my god I was a cop but I was a stripper I was a stripper cop and you know I had this shit I had this

arm like you know English policeman's uniform on and I think the whole joke was that there were two cops there investigating a problem and then there and every time they'd leave the scene I'd come in with my manager who was there and I was there to like entertain a hands night and and like one thing led to another and I became like this cop that everyone was looking to like oh my god there's a problem officer and I was like you're goddamn right there is and like you know I'd be like taking my buttons off

and then people weren't watching they were typically talking to each other explaining things about the scene in like grizzly detail and I'd be like taking my buttons like this is weird but all right I'll go with it yeah like it was so fun and yeah like people were laughing I'm like man this is so much fun I'm having I'm having fun entertaining people and it's not cam they don't get to judge cam they get to judge the the person that they think is cam and then little did I know that I was getting like there

were critics coming out and watching shows and they were like you know blah blah blah and cam was really good I'm like great some people are judging me like that's so much pressure anyway I enjoyed it year 11 comes around let's do drama it's a bit of a goof off and in the first lesson we learned about breathing and I was such a smart ass and she's like we're going to talk about breathing and I was like probably give me an A she goes what do you mean I was like do it my sleep like

I'm pretty good and she laughed and she laughed in a way that it was just she has the most beautiful laugh and she laughed and she goes we're going to have a lot of fun and I was like all right whatever and we did we had so much fun I actually met Alicia in this drama class like I knew I knew her at school she was one of the popular girls in quotes but she did this drama class because again she wanted to goof off and yeah we always like ended up sitting next to each

other and chatting so that's how we actually met which is pretty cute super cute yeah and then we did like a show like a little show in class together that was the first time we actually had like a chance to sit and talk and I remember saying like three words to her and she just did all the talking and I was like she's just she just won't shut up like why won't you shut up and then when we started dating she's like do you remember this time when we were talking I was like yeah I

do and I just wanted to shut the freaking hell up because like man I hate this chick anyway drama fun ended up picking up a couple of shows in year 11 and they were my escape from all the bullshit that was happening at school because I freaking hated school just getting bullied really bad grades teachers hated me because I was trying to be the funny guy all the time to just keep the spotlight away from me and then did a couple of shows won a couple of awards people were really happy and then yeah left

school left the area and then had a year where I did some stuff I did a little bit of naughty stuff and felt the cold steel of handcuffs mum turn off the podcast and yeah and then I came back and then the Crohn's thing happened and when I was maybe 22 or three I had my had my next show which was really fun and then I got the buggy and 25 did another show I think 25 I did 24 I did mouse trap so I was lucky enough to do Agatha Christie's 60th anniversary show for

that mouse trap which was really big deal on the peninsula I was really happy and we killed it and then so much so that the people that did it professionally like they actually had a professional run for the 60th anniversary it was being compared to the local performance that we did and I was like yes I'm so happy that's cool yeah and during that show actually I met another mentor of mine Anthony who owned and operated men's health and fitness and it was through Anthony that I actually started coaching yeah so that's how I met

Anthony and we resonated really fast too like just two guys just wanted to be really good actors and then after that when I was 26 I did another one in Rosebud Rosebud yeah I did Sherlock Holmes which was really fun and I've been asked maybe five or six times since then to do more shows and they were like man I'd love to but I haven't got the time to commit to them like I love acting but it's such a big commitment you've got to you know there's maybe six hours a week of auditioning oh sorry

six hours of auditioning six hours a week of rehearsal and then you've got show week but outside of those six hours just like with coaching you don't just coach for six hours you've got programming you've got to study the scenes you've got to talk to the other actors you've got to make sure that everyone's on par with this and you go talk to it it's just a nightmare so as much as I love it I really want to cement myself with what I'm doing here and then maybe pick up a little show but yeah I

love it I freaking love it and then going back to what I said before where my masks were wearing me now I'm at a stage now where you know I'm I'm confident with it all and I love it so much that I wear my masks instead of my masks wearing me so you know if I want to bring some positivity into the environment I know exactly how to do that and if I want to make someone laugh I know exactly how to do that I can disarm people in different situations so that they feel more

comfortable and less less threatened in an environment where we're all in so yeah that's that's what musical theatre taught me good yeah I love it I just hate singing on stage like I'll sing like an idiot at the top of my voice in here yeah and I'll yeah and I'll nail Celine Dion notes man I'll kill them and then you put me on stage no one can nail Celine Dion notes except me and Celine like you can yeah and then you know like you put me on stage and say just sing this for me I'm

like I gotta go I'm dying all right I got a bunch of questions for you I want short answers all right I'll do my best if anyone's still listening they've got a couple minutes to go how long has this been going for I have no idea it's probably not overly good um it's not so bad we just make it to parter it could be it could be a little shit what is your philosophy my philosophy I have a pure heart rule so do what do what gives you the least amount of fear and it's it's

similar to what Greg says you know speak your truth and have your standards um you know I've fallen short of my standards so many times in my life I've done it this year as well you know everyone's familiar with that situation um but having that pure heart rule and speaking your truth having zero expectations from from the people around you when you do that I think is really important because you're gonna make mistakes you're gonna fuck up but having a pure heart at least means that you're able to pick yourself back up again you dust

yourself off yeah and get better um I'm ashamed of some of my fuck-ups but I'm also proud that I'm still here and I'm still because it's easy to quit yeah it's easy to turn out and say no I'm just gonna walk away you know but you know history remembers the cowards it also remembers the heroes I don't want to be a coward I don't want to be a hero either I'd be gay I don't want to be a hero um but you know like I just don't want to be I don't want to be the

guy that walks away from all these mistakes and those problems just have a pure heart speak your truth have your standards learn from fucking up fuck yeah good so many times what's the best wasn't a short answer at all no it was short enough what's the best piece of advice you've been given fuck up good murray peel attaboy peelie fuck up because I was so nervous about it this is when I was trying to woo that chick and he goes just make mistakes man she just wants to see they're human and he's so right people

will resonate more with someone that's a person what is success to you well I could almost just steal all of josh's because we can I can just all right but all right this is a break success to me success to me is being able to do the things that I love with the people that I love for as long as I can where I'm not making anyone or anything in my environment around me worse for it so if I'm being brutally honest it'd just be being and making the environment around me is as good as

it can be regardless of the people that are there but if people want to be better themselves bringing them with me but what do you do for fun I read and I play xbox probably more xbox yeah if you could be remembered in one sentence what would it be not an asshole that'd be nice if you could give teenage cam one piece of advice what would it be how old is teenage cam 19 okay um 19 one piece of advice I'm just like racking my brain down because I've been given so many pieces of advice

you know if I it'd be read more it would be read more because I didn't use I went through a really cool phase where I read heaps in school and then I left school and I didn't pick up a book again until I was like 21 so I'd just be read more that's where that's where I find my best self develops is just from reading more yeah good what's the nicest thing you've ever done with someone I saved someone's life once she's pretty cool yeah I have no idea who they are but yeah special it

was very cool if you could give every human on earth one piece or one personality trait what would it be kindness just be kind what's your favorite quote this one's for Greg clear eyes pure hearts can't lose maybe right now okay I said that yeah I said that view my favorite movie fluctuates all the time but it has to be magnificent seven it is it is that good it's always in my top five favorite sport favorite sport I mean it's probably just 40 it's so boring to say but it's so true I'm not fully favorite

recording artist as in like musician correct Miles Kennedy good favorite resource just books good favorite hobby kind of yeah reading definitely read what's the last book you read start to finish and what did you learn from it does this cat audiobooks or just book book well now let's go let's go book book the last book I read start to finish would be Joseph Campbell's the hero journey but I've already read it like eight times but I always learn something new from how good is that book oh I wasn't a four minutes of that audiobook it's

really good yeah I picked up again because I recommended it to a friend when we were over in New Zealand with Greg as if you got it you got to read this so that she's got the best orders I just keep them doing that forever read this it's such a good book every single time I read it it reaffirms my place in the world and it reaffirms my belief that I'm doing the right thing even though you know every time I read it I'm always at this like point in my life I'm like fucking up

or I'm just not where I want to be and I read it I'm like it's cool man like you know I'm right at one of these stages and it's fine yeah and then when you can think when you can have that solidity you can say yep okay this is where I am then it makes you feel a little bit better yeah between that and all the fantasy fiction books I read that's probably one of my faves good who's doing cool shit uh who's doing cool shit I mean Jamie and Charlie at Strength Culture are always

doing cool shit Josh who you guys will they're on in a couple of weeks yes Josh who you guys will hear from after this one he's off to Cressy Sports Performance for three months four months which will be amazing we're doing cool shit here at Virtus Greg's doing cool shit right now in Sydney but if I had to pick out one person I would jump on Instagram and check out Stephanie Cohen I really would because she is a machine she can lift like a fucking Viking and she's smart as shit she pushes all the right

stuff she's big on women's health both mental and physical um yeah big fan Stephanie Cohen S-T-E-F-I Cohen good good from her last one tell me a joke why couldn't the t-rex tie shoes why not because he's extinct oh be better change it good any more for any more no that's pretty much it well done love your work I hope this is definitely gonna have to be a two-parter an hour and forty shit I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry carry on thanks for listening guys I hope you all got plenty out of the

last 90 minutes if you guys would like to follow coach cam you could jump onto Instagram and follow @coach_cam if you like follow Virtus Performance same deal at Virtus Performance if you'd like to contact us shoot us any questions or queries or anything like that contact us at info@ VirtusPerformance.com thank you very much bye