00:01
You're listening to the Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it.

00:13
Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey, guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host. We say this radical. We cover it. Well, today we're talking about radical sport. We're talking about recovery. We're talking about mental health in a lot of ways. We're talking to the founder of Forever Athlete, Corey Camp. What's up, brother?

00:36
Ryan, man. Thanks for having me. I like that intro a lot. I'm just going to take that with me everywhere I go from now on. There you go. You are our guest on Apple Podcast number one, marketing and business show. We appreciate everyone listening. We're excited to tell Corey story and we're always brought to you by vacay, V-A-Y-C-A-Y, and ever you need to get away. Take a vacay.com. Corey, man is fascinating learning about you. I'll say this. So to bring it,

01:06
I have four boys and they all have played in their dabbling in sports. They're all young, 14, 12, 11 and seven. And I played basketball through college. My wife was a college athlete. And so there's a lot of things that I think related to your story. But I will say this, my two oldest are really gravitating towards swimming. They're bad ass swimmers. Let's go. I was a good swimmer, but I'm tall. I'm six, five.

01:35
and I played basketball and I swam too. I was a good swimmer, but I stopped at, you do the swim team thing. I was probably 11, 12, and that's when you start getting into the camps and all that for other sports. So I just went the total basketball route. But my two boys are into swimming. So there's a little side thing there. So I like the swimming stuff. I want to hear about all that. Let's tee-dup for everybody, Corey. I'm talking about your background. I know swimming will be involved, but I had to do that little intro with my boys. So I'm excited about that. But let's tell everybody a little bit about Corey Camp.

02:06
Yeah, one love to hear it. I think you should just for warn them like being on the swim team. Not as much like street cred as you're gonna get in a lot of other sports. That's just the way it is. Going I spent at the University of Delaware. I remember walking on the campus freshman year, the captain sat us down. They're like, all right, first rule. Don't ever wear any of the swim team stuff to bars parties go out with it because whether you believe it or not.

02:35
It's not going to help your luck with anyone. Just leave it at home. Okay. I know what you're saying. It's sad. I guess I've seen that myself. It's sad because of how work and how good a shape and as athletes go, swimmers are pretty bad ass, so I like, but it sucks that maybe that stigma is still there. It's not even a stigma as much. It's just not, no attention. Yeah, no, you're working in the shadows, right? I grew up. So my

03:02
For context, my dad swam in college. He swam at Towson. And I got involved at a pretty early age, as you can imagine, because of that connection. I grew up not really the fastest, not really the best, but just loved it, man. Felt at home, at peace in the water. I remember, it probably wasn't until like eighth grade or so, it was when probably about your oldest age, where things started to really click, where this dream of, oh, I could be a college swimmer started to become a reality.

03:32
had some major time drops, started to get some interest in where I was going. And it was interesting. Now, looking back, the swimming pool and just water in general, I viewed as my playground for just self discovery of who I was. And I know a lot of athletes can relate to that, where it's just, you felt at peace, you felt safe to express yourself and to try new things because of the context of the environment that you were in. And so up until when

04:00
I retired at the end of my senior year, 22. I view myself as a swimmer. Everyone that knew me as Corey Camp, the swimmer. And that kind of laid the groundwork towards the work that I do now with Forever Athlete of understanding who are we beyond just that first title that we gravitate towards or that first identity. But yeah, for a while I was like, oh, this is me, this is who I am. And I never wanted to embrace any other title because I happen to be good at it.

04:30
It's funny how that fascinating. I always people talk all the time like about following your passion. You got to follow your passion. You know what? You follow the passion of what you're good at and you get good at stuff that you work at. And so there's this misnomer in business, I think in life sometimes that she's going to naturally come to you, but like you got to get yourself out there and try things and do things to see what you're good at. Then it becomes somewhat natural for you to follow that path. Yeah. I even take it a step.

05:00
further back, right? Like before you can even discover passion or what might even potentially be passion, you have to be curious. So I look at, I try, swimming was the one that I gravitated towards over time, but played baseball, played flag football, played soccer a little bit, played a little bit of basketball, but I'm 5'10", so didn't quite get the height gene there to continue on. So you're kind of, you got to be curious to explore the hand that you're dealt and then play it.

05:29
in the best way possible from there. That curiosity is what breeds passion. And then with time, I think when you continue to add curiosity to passion, that's when you get to that ultimate purpose that we're all running around like chickens with their head cut off trying to find desperately, right? But if you waited to start the company or whatever it may be until you were crystal clear on the purpose, you'd be waiting forever. It's just not happening. You gotta be curious first.

05:58
to take that first step. Yeah, I love that. You're wise, but on your years, the curious thing is in my, people ask me naturally, I go on a lot of shows too, and it's like, what's the keys to success? There is a total correlation to every successful person I know, there's this natural curiosity. I think you have to because you're curious how things work so that you can either create something better or something different, and, but it seems to be just so important with.

06:27
I don't know with an athlete to that way to the career. So I can push myself this far or how are they doing that? Like, how are they that good? And I think it comes in a lot of different forms, but I think it's uber important.

06:41
Shoot, you want unlimited motivation. You want something that you can tap into at any given time to get through those days where you're like, it's a drag. I don't want to do it. Find a way to get curious. And now all of a sudden you're willing. It doesn't make it any easier, right? But it now makes it attainable. It makes you actually want to go proactively towards this fight. They'll never forget my freshman year at Delaware is funny. The coach that ended up coaching me, he didn't was the guy who recruited me.

07:08
but I was really grateful that he was the one that was there. And he and I, he and I started to play this game where we were both getting curious, how hard can he make the practice to the point where I would miss an interval? And it got to the point where I think it was like five, six months into the season. And I was the only kid on the team that hadn't missed an interval as freshmen or as a team collectively. And he just threw me for a loop one day where he, I was,

07:38
a distance freestyler and I am her, but breaststroke is my worst stroke. I remember getting to practice one day and I look on the paper of the workout and I see six, 100s breaststroke on one 10 or something. I was like, dude, I can't do this. And the head coach kicked us out of the 25 yard part of the pool and sent us over to the city, became a 20 yard. And because of the double pullouts, I was able to make all six of those 100s. And I turned him, I was like,

08:07
I guess we'll never know if I wouldn't have made those or not. Just made the most of the cards I was dealt. But it became this really fun game and it made pushing myself every single day that much more exciting and enticing because I was just getting up to be like, all right, can I beat Coop at this mind game today? And he would probably be waking up doing the same thing. Can I beat Corey down to a point where he can't make this interval anymore? And thankfully.

08:35
I prevailed. D1 swimmer at Delaware. Couple questions. So number one, what was your stroke? Did you have a certain one or was it like all around? And then explain for people that might listen. Swimming's not. If you talk about American football, most people kind of know stuff like and swimming is not in any way complex per se. That's your four major strokes. But I don't think people comprehend just how in shape and just how hard.

09:05
swimming is. So maybe talk about your stroke and how truly tough it is. Yeah. So I swam, I swam everything from the 200 free up to the 1650 free, which is a mile and that's in yards. And then I would do the 400 IM, do a little bit of 200 butterfly. I could do a little bit of everything, which was a blessing and a curse because then I became that like versatile Swiss army knife of sort wherever they needed me, they would throw me in.

09:33
And for context, what that means is the shorter end of the stick, I'm going for about a minute and 40 seconds, maybe a little faster, a little slower depending on the day for the 200. And then for the mile, I was just over 15 minutes was my best time. And that's just, that's continual. You're just going, you're going, you're pushing that pace as fast as you can to like hold on on for

10:02
that amount of time. I'll never forget. I used to coach swim for a while as well. And I remember a family came that I coached to come watch me swim the mile and to put it in the context. And they were like, it was crazy, Corey, you were going. And then I realized that I needed to put money in the parking meter. So I went and I went back and put money in the meter. I came back and you were still going.

10:26
And I was like, yeah, like, how do you think I felt like I felt like I was still going? Like it was. Yeah. I think they say, I forget what the exact actual energy, like one to one, it's not a one to one with running. It's like a one to three. So one mile of swimming is about the equivalent of running three ish miles. So like my mile swim is using the same amount of energy that your body would use to run like an all out 5k.

10:56
Well, let me tell you, I don't care what they say. I'm six, five, 260 pounds. If I go swim a mile in the water, that's 10 miles, brother. That is not, I don't even think that's fair. Maybe for a trained swimmer or something, but I don't know. That shit's hard. I always joked with people. I was like, I'm envious now of the people that are in that not great swim shape, so to speak, quote unquote, because that's like.

11:22
You have to swim way less to burn the same amount of calories that I'm going to have to swim like three X, four X that. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just not efficient in it. But I, I swam growing up, but I was like, man, I'm just, the gravity is hurting me to the bottom of the pool. I think that body position and efficiency is everything. It's fascinating to me though, watching like Olympic swimming or watching professionals swimming or something. Like you said, over 15 minutes.

11:52
how close the times are and how shaving time. I would think there'd be these gigantic, depending on the day and like certain things, there'd be like 30 seconds difference or a minute, but on these 15 minute, one mile, you're talking shaving like a second or two. And it's even middle, it's like 0.1, 0.001 seconds. Man, I had a great day. I shaved 0.01 off my time. But how close it is and how consistent it becomes when you're

12:22
professionally trained. I'll never forget. So my dad swam in college, my mom very much did not. She knows how to swim, but that's about the extent of it. And mom, if you're listening, I love you. I'll never forget leaving a meet one time when I was in high school and I absolutely ate it. It was so bad. I added a minute in my mile and my mom is the one who took me to the meet and she said, in the grand scheme of things, Corey, it's just a minute.

12:52
And in my head, I wanted to be like, you don't understand how bad a minute off your best time is. But in her heart, I was like, I know she loved me one way or the other. I was like, I needed to hear that in that moment because it was like, yeah, it's just one performance. It's one meat. It doesn't really matter the grand concept of things. Yeah. So what did the struggle set in for you? Like you swim, what were like another.

13:19
everything you're doing is around this athlete. Like where did you struggle the most? Was it because of how much structure there was like the structure of sport and everything else? Like you said, it's one day it's gone. Yeah. For me, it was, I had a subconscious backup plan or had thought of future beyond swimming. And I never really gave it much more thought than that. So I've, I plan to be a physical therapist.

13:47
Got my like PT hours and as an intern, my senior year of high school even, so that I had like the resume ready to go. But by the time I was in college, I just took swimming so seriously, like that was my major and everything else was like, if push came to shove, it would get to 10 PM. I was like, if I study for another two hours, maybe I get another like 5%, 10% on this exam, or I show up well rested for practice and can rock it there.

14:17
I'm going to go to bed and wake up and go crush practice. And that unfortunately led to 2.9 GPA where then going to try to go to grad school. I just got denied from every single program that I applied to. So where it really took a turn for me, I would say was my senior year. I going into it, they brought in a freshman that was there to replace me and my events. And that was the first time that there was like a doubt in.

14:46
my mind of, Oh, maybe I'm not the best in my events anymore on the team. My role was called into question and I started to really realize, okay, this is a legitimate business. Like they're just turning kids out every four years as it makes sense, right? Like I'm running out of eligibility. They want the program to keep going, but it's natural. You need that. But it was feeling that on an interpersonal level. And then when it ended for me, my last race ever,

15:15
I was slower than I was my junior year of high school. So it was like the slowest mile I had done in about six years time. And that was it. That was like hand touched the wall, it's written, it's now history, I can't change it. I was really upset with it. I remember just turning to my coach and just being like, at least I'm done now. Like I can walk away from this thing. And it didn't, I didn't really realize how much that last performance impacted me until years later.

15:45
I didn't realize how much that rejection from the grad school a month later played into it. And then the girl that I was dating at the time, her and I ended up breaking up too as a result of me not having my shit figured out of where am I going post-grad. And it was like, okay, I was already feeling kind of down on myself of I don't have the thing that I've always relied on to define myself as. The secondary thing that I always thought would be there is not there.

16:14
And my support system is now not there either. And that was where the heavy drinking started to come in. That's where the heavy partying started to come in. I was just like, you know what? Like I hate how I feel on a day to day basis. Let me escape it. Cause this feels better. At least if I'm dumb, I'll wake up and I'm still young enough where I don't really get that hung over. So I can just wake up and do it again the next day and the next day. And as you probably know, that doesn't.

16:43
work. No, it's called snowball downhill. And you know what happens to snowballs that run downhill? They eventually hit a brick wall. I think the brick wall's coming. I feel it coming like a snowball about to hit me in the face.

17:00
Yeah, it was. Thankfully, I never had like a rock bottom moment where like my life was in total shambles and I needed to make a change. But it was just that slow burn of the self-awareness started to really kick in. And I started to look around and I was like, dude, I'm really unhappy with what it is I'm doing. It felt like I was on just this like rabbit hole repeat.

17:27
Groundhog day every single weekend, going on vendors, staying out way too late, spending time with too many girls. And I was unhappy with my Mondays and Friday, but I was not doing anything to change it. Eventually at the start of 2021, I was just like, I'm gonna take a step away from this alcohol thing. Now we're gonna stop drinking cold turkey 30 days. Let's see what happens in 30 days. And then 30 days later, I was like, whoa.

17:55
I feel like I unlocked a superpower a lot of ways. Let me just keep going and see what happens. Yeah. I have older than you, but I have a lot of friends that have gone that path. It's becoming enlightening for a lot of people that, like, whoa, that's how I feel. Like, they get their life back and then some. Yeah, I think what I learned, truthfully, I'm still figuring out what that relationship looks like, right? Like, I don't...

18:23
Personally, I don't see myself as sober for the rest of my life. I would love to be able to introduce alcohol back in to be as it's intended to be as like a celebration, as a bonding experience, but not over the top point of diminishing returns. And that's where I noticed myself really struggling was I had no idea where that point of diminishing returns was. I just would start and I wouldn't stop. I was telling my roommate,

18:53
last night. I was like, yeah, man, reminiscent of there's a bar right when I graduated college. I moved down to Baltimore. There's a bar around the corner from me that did Friday, seven to 10, all you can drink for $10. And I was like, the hack was to give the bartender $20 and say, keep the change because you're a big shot 22 year old, right? $10 tip goes a long way. And you feel pretty, pretty wealthy. And I could drink like a fish in that place because

19:22
the bartender, I would be like six, seven people back from the bar. I just raised my glass and they'd pass it, pass me another one. Cause I tip so well and quote unquote so well. It's like, yeah, this is putting myself for $10. Man, I would have definitely been in trouble if I'd had those great school, great deal, great business, or maybe not. I don't know. It must not have had the drinkers we had at school. I don't know. I would have made money of that.

19:51
Yeah, it's interesting to look back on that time and I'm actually really grateful for all of that. It's, that might sound weird, but I needed to get all of that out of my system to learn that, okay, when I'm feeling certain types of way, I can't turn to these things that are escapism, that are suppressing, that are allowing me to continue to just sidestep the problem and just feel good in this moment.

20:19
It's okay that I've learned now. It's okay to actually feel anxious. It's okay to feel angry. It's okay to feel depressed, sad. And the way you actually address them is actually sitting in it for a second and like setting up your system around you and your support team that they help. Like you can tug on the rope and they're like, okay, cool. Right. Even sitting in this for a while. We'll, we'll pull you out of this. I didn't have that. I didn't know how to talk about that. I didn't, the guys in my life,

20:49
what we talked about was sports and how much we're drinking at that all you can drink on Friday nights. That was the social currency. It wasn't, Hey, are you unhappy at this job? Cause this thing is miserable for me. Or if it was that talk, it was just like, screw this job. So screw this job. When he quit. And I was like, I don't know, but like, when you do it, let me know so I can believe too. But that was like such surface level combo. When did you have the epiphany or realized that

21:19
You're self aware to recognize the struggle from leaving the sport and then developing thoughts and mechanisms, the playbook, the business that you're developing now. Like, when did that like moment take place and is formulate for you? Yeah. So we'll paint a quick picture. Graduated, completely lost, drinking a ton, took a sales job refinancing mortgages outside of Baltimore.

21:48
refi loans and a call center. Definitely not what I expected myself to be doing with an exercise science degree with a concentration in biomechanics and a coaching science minor. But here I was, it was the highest paying job that I could land out of school. I was very money and monetary driven at that point. So I was like, I'm going to be the first of my teammates to make a hundred thousand dollars a year. If I couldn't be the first one, I wasn't going to get into grad school like some

22:17
telling myself like that was what I wanted. That was success for me. I had a breaking point about eight months into that role where I just was like, and I feel super, super lost and I don't know what it is. So without really any answers, I quit that job and I took a summer swim coaching job at a country club back in the DC area. And that turned into a swim clinic where

22:46
We had a four lane indoor pool at that club. And I turned to the operations director and I said, Hey, is this pool, is it used year round? And he goes, yeah, but four people, no one really swims in this thing. And I was like, Oh, what if I started year round swim program, I learned to swim clinic and teach private lessons in there. And he was like, sure, come up with a business plan. So I go on Google and I say, what is a business plan? How do I write one and come back like the next day I was like, here is my.

23:15
business plan that thanks for taking the time to hear me out. I've been thinking on this one for a while. He had no idea that I just wrote it up the night before he liked it enough where he was like, all right, the space is yours. We won't take a percentage of it. You just run the thing. And I was like, Oh, this is weird. What? That wasn't in the business plan. I was expecting some sort of rev share something, but he just let me run with it. So much so to the point where a year and a half later,

23:45
He turned to me and go, Hey, so about that, like no revenue share thing. Can we like, rediscuss that because you're making way more than we thought you would be making. Oh, sorry, man. That was the contract. That was the original terms. Not into fitness outside. How many kids are in that thing? I had about, about 120 kids and it was me and one assistant and the learned to swim clinic. Kids were paying.

24:11
We had as many as 40 kids a session paying about 20 to $30 a drop in. And then the year round swim program we did in three different sessions. And we had probably about, I want to say we had about 60 kids in that and they were paying anywhere from a thousand to 1500 for that session. So it ended up doing fairly well, a lot better than he or I or anyone else involved anticipated it doing.

24:40
And then of course that was talking about time for money. It was great because my living factor was just like how many kids I could work with at once. But instead of introducing more sessions because of the pool time caps, I started to explore what would it look like to get into personal training, gotten a personal training on the side, thankfully at the same club, cause they had a gym. And before I knew it, I was assistant fitness instructor running the swim program. And then

25:08
COVID hit and I was like, Oh, everything crumbled, gone in a second. And that whole time, what I noticed was like, I was starting to feel more and more like myself again, as I was getting back into the coaching role, as I was walking with other people through their fitness journeys, as I was walking with kids through this, like to this day, some of the best joy in my life is being able to help a kid go from absolutely terrified from the water.

25:37
just swimming their first lap across. And I know like the confidence that instills in that kid and the relief that instills that parent as well. I was like, oh, what if I can instill that same feeling again now with former athletes? What would it look like to sit with someone who's 22 or 23? What did I wish I had at that age where someone actually understood me and what I was going through? And

26:06
I can provide them that confidence boost that they don't even realize they need and provide their parents and their loved ones that relief that they don't even know they need to be like, okay, I can stop worrying about Corey. Like he's got it somewhat figured out. Like he's gonna land on his feet. I can trust that. What do you think, are there like common signs? Obviously with yours, it was, you had such the trifecta hit you all at once.

26:35
and led you down a path that you knew was not sustainable and then kind of waking up. But like for other former athletes that are out there and are parents of athletes, so they're like these telltale signs of the struggle. Yeah. So what ends up happening is what's very common. We actually see this in military as well. It's concept called identity foreclosure. So when.

27:01
an identity that you've always embraced and viewed yourself as forecloses unexpectedly or even expectedly. We see this in later generations as we age and we retire, right? And that sense of meaningful purpose is now removed or it's not as apparent. So what you'll see oftentimes, if you're looking for warning signs and someone's going through this, looking at any change, like subtle changes in behavior, are they

27:30
have they always eaten well and now they're willing to grab a little bit more junk food. They're turning to sweets a lot more. That's a warning sign for me still to this day is if I'm grabbing ice cream three to four times a week, like I know, okay, something deeper is going on. I need to book a therapy session or I need to sit and open my journal and actually just give myself an hour to unpack what it is that I'm actually feeling.

27:59
So changes in diet are huge changing and sleeping patterns. If someone who is always up early, going after it like I was as a swimmer, if all of a sudden now they're sleeping in or they're snoozing multiple times, that's a pretty easy telltale sign to say, okay, Hey, something a little bit deeper is going on. And really just subtle changes in mood. If they're really quick to be irritated or

28:26
just don't want to be bothered. They're really quiet, oftentimes, especially guys. If we're really quiet, oftentimes it's something's there. We just don't know how to articulate the words around it. That makes a lot of sense. It's a lot of different. Whenever there's like tragedy or any type, and that's what it is almost, it's like loss on some level. When you've had that structure, it's not just a crutch, but just it's like losing.

28:55
part of yourself and it sounds like a lot of the same type thing. Yeah, I was going to say it's the structure can be viewed as, Oh, it was a crutch, but really that structure was what was needed to be in place for you to succeed at that level. So it's not the structure that's tough. You just have to look at it with a grain of salt, right? You're learning social skills at 22 or 35, like whenever it is that people are finishing up.

29:24
and walking away from this sport that most of your peers learned a lot earlier because they didn't have to navigate this. I look at the biggest thing is community and teammates, right? Friendships as you get into an adult. You never had to really worry about who your teammates were because they were just assigned to you. You showed up to the team and they were there. And then by default, you're like, I see you guys every single day. I might as well just call you my boys and we'll be friends.

29:54
outside of it, it's given to you, it's easy. Now when you get out, you have to be proactive and actively seeking out those relationships. And while that can be challenging, it can also be really freeing, because if you were ever like me, it's like I didn't get along with every single teammate that I ever had in my life. Now I get to choose who is making up my team, who am I selectively surrounding myself with?

30:20
And when you start to shift viewpoints like that, you're like, Oh, okay. Yes, there's a lack of structure, but now it's on me to become the general manager of my life. And I can build the structure that serves me now in this season. And it's way more personalized than any system that you found yourself in that. And inevitably it's especially at scale college athletics, pro, whatever. They can't serve the individual needs of every single person on that team. But now you have the opportunity to do that in your life after sport.

30:49
And that's a really cool and exciting opportunity. It's I wish someone framed it for me that way, rather than, all right, all the things that you had gone. Good luck. But it's true. It's unless you talk about that. And I'm thinking about my own kids like back to that, like they have. I want to think they're more resilient, but like looking at it, they do have these teams and things that they're naturally teed up to be around.

31:19
and just being aware that it's true. Like they show up and they have 40 people on their swim team or whatever, and that's who they practice with every day. So they're not that they're forced, but it just creates that natural situation to become talking and becoming friends and doing all these things where in the real world, you might have to try harder to make friends and like they learned it earlier. So that's an interesting insight.

31:48
Yeah, it's a consistent cadence, right? Like you look at even now, like the challenge of community building and where I think a lot of companies get it wrong when they're, when we're talking about, oh, I got a community, it's, oh, do you, or is it an audience? Is it like, are they actually connecting outside of the thing that you're doing? Anyone can have a one-off experience where you bring like-minded people together and form connection. That's the first level of any form of human connection. How many first states?

32:17
did you have before your wife that you were like, oh, I felt connected to that person. That was good. But obviously they didn't progress any longer because of a whole bunch of different variables. The challenge, if you're truly wanting to build a community, it's about consistent cadence of how often are you able to bring like-minded people together and how are you able to diversify experiences enough where you're getting them to actually learn and trust one another, where they feel safe in that environment with one another. It's the same way.

32:45
that teams, championship teams were developed in sport is you had that consistent practice cadence, right? But within practice, you didn't do the same workout Monday through Friday for the entire season. The experience got diversified. And then if you were part of a really great team, you did team building activities outside of that, whether that be something as subtle as you went to the dining hall and shared meals together, or you watched the fight on Saturday night together, or you...

33:12
went to the trampoline park and played dodgeball against one another. All of those different experiences diversify and add layers to the interconnectedness. And that's ultimately the goal that we're talking about. And that's what I'm trying to do with Forever Athlete is just adding to this level of diversified experience to deepen connection among people that happen to have the similar background of sport. And so as core, Forever Athlete is

33:42
You're bringing together people that have shared this experience of being high level athletes or just athletes at some level doing and having that structure for an extended period of time, giving them a community, obviously giving lessons, but also the community with which to help one another. Am I summarizing that right? That's exactly it. It's the way I like to say it is we want to be able to honor where you've been in your life, because I think.

34:12
Everyone's past experience plays a vital role in their present day future and the future. But we also want to be able to support you in that current season as you progress through these different seasons of life. The original slogan I came up with, which I ended up scrapping, was we want to be there for when the NCAA kicks you out the door. We want to help you land on your feet. It's like, ah, it probably doesn't sound too great, but essentially it's that. Yeah. When they've gotten all they can get out of you.

34:42
Those pre-NIL days, right? Like now, at least you got these athletes that are able to make something, but you can talk about pay gap that exists in that, right? NIL wouldn't have changed my college experience as a swimmer. It doesn't change most football players' experiences. But now you have guys that are making seven figures in the same locker room as guys that aren't making anything. That's tough to continue to mesh this team together with.

35:12
It might be the equitable thing to do, but it's hard to, I think for the coaches to navigate all that, I think that's why they get paid a lot of money to do it. But it's tough nonetheless. Is that, is the NIDL stuff entering into your discussions with what you're doing with Forever Athlete? I think there's such a long way to go in that. And there, there needs to be more athlete education on how to pitch yourself, how to actually show your value.

35:40
the amount of messages that I get that are somewhere along the lines of I'm an athlete. What can Forever Athlete do for me in terms of NIL? And I'm like, all right, show me your roster. Show me something here. And most of the kids that are sending me these messages, and it's not to shame them, love the ambition. I love the courage and the confidence to go out and pitch, but they're like a fifth string player at their D3 school. And I'm like, I

36:09
I think the question is, what can you do for me? Like, why would I give you X, Y, and Z? Where's the value added here? There needs to be a system in place that teaches these kids, because quite frankly, they're like 18 years old, just thinking, oh, NIL, now I can make some money. Teach them how to create win-wins in business. And that's going to be what actually helps them, I think, on the flip side as they transition out more. One of my favorite.

36:38
guys that's done a really good job at this is this guy, Taj Washington out of USC. He's not, he's a starting receiver, but he's not like their number one guy, but they've done a really good job of showcasing how he has this passion for cooking and spending time in the kitchen outside of football. And it's like now brands can see that and they can look at that and say, Oh, okay, I can see how we can work with Taj because if we're a kitchen company where you have anything to do with cooking.

37:06
He's a value out there and he happens to be a solid player on a top 10 team in the country. That's a win win for both sides. Yeah. I tell people I've counseled a few athletes that they've got to be willing to lean into their passion outside of sport and showcasing it so that whether it's baseball cards or tennis shoes or cooking or whatever it is, you got to demonstrate something that has interest that a brand or someone might want to work with.

37:35
Yeah, I'll tell a quick story. Like a client of mine, she swims at the University of Texas. And a few years ago, she was really struggling with just from the mental side, like feeling really burnt out, wasn't performing well. She's a top 10 swimmer in the nation in her events. And she was just feeling like basically borderline, like wanting to quit. And she's just don't understand it. Like I'm on a full ride. I should be excited for this thing. And when her and I sat down, I was like, what else do you enjoy?

38:03
I enjoy horseback riding. I enjoy like arcade games, all this stuff. I was like, okay. So how often are you doing that? Just none because I'm swimming so much. I was like, yeah, I get that. I was like, been there, done that. I understand. But if you don't prioritize these things, you don't proactively seek out your interests that you're curious about outside of the passionate thing. The passionate thing quickly becomes so worshiped that you lose the passion in the first place that brought you there.

38:31
I was like, I know you're not scheduled out busy all the time. You think you are, but if we reduce time here and here, and now we add in an arcade session or finding a time to just go ride horses, watch what this does. And sure enough in six months time, she was able to turn around and be in a session renewed head space as she was going in, which is a shame because it's, I wish that could have been a month turnaround if we were more proactive about this, but because it was a reactive, I'm basically.

39:01
ready to quit, I'm ready to step away, it took more time to build back up. The analogy that I like to give, it's like a bar stool. And our identity, as we start to embrace that we can be multiple things, actually, it's like another bar stool actually being planted on the ground. So the more identities that you're willing to embrace, the more you're able to withstand one of those being taken away. So if that identity as an athlete forecloses, yes, will it suck? For sure.

39:29
Will there be a grief period for sure? But will you be completely off balance and toppled over if you had three or four other things that you felt grounded and rooted that this is who I am as a person at my core? No, you'll just be balancing a little bit differently. And that's the name of the game. And we're talking like proactive mental health and proactive identity building. It's how can you encourage people in your culture, in your immediate circle?

39:58
to start to embrace this concept that you can be multiple things. Each thing that you do is an expression of who you are, but it's not an entire definitive, like this is the box that you're placed in. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Good counsel. I think you know what you're doing. No wonder. What's it been like building the business and finding clients and doing all that stuff on the business side.

40:24
Yeah, truthfully, as you probably know, in the business world, comes and goes in waves, for sure. I would say it's had sputters, start stops. It wasn't probably until earlier this year that I got really clear on how we're actually building this concept and how we actually want to grow things. The focal point of it is this Wednesday morning idea that we come together for cone drills, agility work in a field.

40:53
and then partake in just fellowship of just dropping in and saying, Hey, what's going on in your world? What do you got going on this week? How can we support one another? That has transformed into a platform where we're starting to keep athletes here in Austin connected in between these experiences. Like I said, like we want to inspire initial connection, but then allow for constant communication to be available to them if they choose to after the fact, which is huge.

41:23
So it's been a slow build, but now we're really hitting a cadence where I've gotten some bigger sponsorships, partnerships in place, started to secure more venues here in Austin where that are allowing us to do what I want to do and get really creative with the things like our September event, gel blasters, this like toy gun company, they saw what I was doing, they loved it. They sent me 150 guns. I said, great, we're gonna do

41:52
16 to 25, we're going to build an obstacle course out of a gym here. And we're going to go all out war 25 on 25 people for tournament style and then do some taco trucks afterwards. And those things have been really fun, but it has come with lots of late nights, lots of sitting here being like, so what am I doing after I talked to Ryan today? Like, I don't know, but there's no clear roadmap, right? There's not the boss that I can report to anymore.

42:21
So it's come with it a lot of periods of, okay, if I embrace the, what am I doing after this and actually sit with it to get clear on it, that actually speeds up the process rather than just trying to go like meeting to meeting. And then as far as you asked to like, how are we getting people aware of this? It's just through social media. Was fortunate about two years ago, was able to grow a pretty sizable audience over on Tik TOK and that kind of

42:49
cultivated awareness around what the brand represents and spark enough curiosity where people are like, Oh, you wrote a book. What's that book about? I'm going to order that. But they'll message me afterwards and be like, Oh, your book really made me think. Or like that thread or tweet that you put out, if we're still calling them tweets, I don't know. Really made me think. My favorite. Yeah. A friend of mine was like, dude, you put something up the other day and I like couldn't not stop thinking about it for two hours.

43:18
Uh, I guess, I guess I got you pretty good with that thought provoking thing. That's the whole goal is just to get people to second guess their experience and start to question like, Oh, can I maybe be doing this better? What would it look like if I did this slightly differently? Is what was the name of the book? For my forever athletes. Yeah, forever athletes happen to your true identity daily. Where can people find the book?

43:46
that might be interested. Amazon or website is forever dash athlete dot com. There it is. What's in the future, brother? I'm hearing symbols like if you paint the picture the next five or 10 years, like what's what's the success roadmap look like for you? Yeah, the goal is really right now, this year in particular, just hammering home on building a legitimate rock solid community here in Austin of former athletes. It's a hotbed of there's a ton of them here. It's the city to do it.

44:16
building that out and then essentially franchising out that model into other cities. I want, I see this being a concept that is in every major city across the world, where when an athlete retires, they just simply go to Forever Athletes Social Club and they're like, oh shoot, like, this is pretty cool. I never knew this world existed beyond sport. Let me get plugged in. And now all of a sudden they have mentors, they have peers that they can turn to.

44:43
And now they have counsel that they can trust. That was the hardest thing for me was I went to that sales job and I was trying to express to colleagues and coworkers how I was feeling, but no one could really relate. No one even related to the fact that I was like, yeah, I still get up at five and go to the gym because that's just like part of who I am. And they're like, you're crazy, dude. Like, why would you do that? You were in the office until 10 30 last night. I was like, because that's what it takes. It's like, I want to be around people that like.

45:11
Challenge me in a way that's hey, are you still taking care of yourself? But also understand me and don't pass judgment and just write me off And that's the goal in the next five ten years is to make that Accessible at scale. Yeah, I want it to be bigger. It's bigger than me. It always has been bigger than me I don't want to be the face of the brand. I want it to be telling other people's story and Just helping people one day at a time I got an idea for you on your evolution. So you're thinking athletes and high-level athletes

45:41
have the mindset and the skill set to be highly successful in almost anything. Now, it doesn't come with guaranteed roadmap, but if you are correcting and helping these athletes get some baggage out of the way, you're building a database and a set of highly desired individuals for companies and otherwise, because you're bringing together extremely good athletes, they're mentally strong already on some level,

46:11
They have the discipline for what it took to get there. So if you're getting hurdles or you're getting the baggage out of the way, you suddenly become the source. So tying that together with some recruitment or something, I think there's something there. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, a little bit of head hunting, connecting opportunity. I 100% see that in the future of, whether it just be a job board, being able to go to.

46:35
these higher level neutral Toyota. Yeah. Like get jobs and the people looking to hire, get the best, the closest thing to a sure bet. Exactly. And it's, Hey, here's this model of you want to talk about corporate wellness that actually work. It can't be, it can't be directly tied to wellness initiatives, like from your work. It's got to be somewhat separate. So like they already have that in place. And it's one less thing for that company to worry about. Yeah. 100%.

47:05
all around, all three parties involved. Hey brother, I love your spirit, I love what you're doing. Where can everybody keep up with, learn more about everything Corey Camp's doing and everything that's happening with Forever Athlete? Yeah, Ryan, first off, man, thank you for having me. This is fun just jamming with you. I really appreciate the time. And if anyone wants to connect more, Corey Camp, C-R-Y-C-M-P on Instagram, you can shoot me an email,

47:35
Super confusing. I have a whole bunch of domains, but that's the one with the email address. You can find that on the websites and you just go to Instagram. That's probably the platform I'm most active on. I would love to connect further. Yeah, man. I love it. Everybody go check out forever athlete. Go follow Corey Camp on Instagram and see what everything's got. Big things coming. Hey guys, find us the radcast.com search for Corey Camp. You'll find the highlight clips from today, the full episode, the short episode.

48:03
and find me I'm at Ryan Alford on all the platforms. You'll see the blue check before I can buy it. We'll see you next time on the Radcast. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, the.rad.cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.