Endure summary

How many marathons have you run in your life? Don’t be embarrassed if your answer is only one or two, or even none. They’re hard. They take time. They take effort.

Cameron Hanes regularly runs a marathon a day.

It’s easy to look at someone like Cameron Hanes and think that they have a special gift. They must be exceptionally talented. Maybe they’re rich, so they have the money and time to focus on their passion. This isn’t the case for Cam. He gets it done – the training, the running, the bowhunting – all while holding down a regular nine-to-five job. And he wants you to know that if he can do it, anyone can. You just need to keep hammering.

You see, Cam didn’t have an easy or privileged life growing up. His parents divorced when he was young. He’d spend his days chasing the approval of his absent, alcoholic father, or acting out against his abusive stepdad.

In high school, he had no confidence and no success. He found a love for football – mostly to stay away from the tensions at home – though he quickly found out he was an average player. After school, he took a mind-numbing warehouse job crushing cardboard. Eventually, he discovered that he was good at drinking beer, so he threw himself into what he knew: partying and being a smart-ass. He felt like he was a directionless loser, going nowhere fast.

Does Cam regret these days? Not at all. You see, Cam knows – and he wants you to know – that we all have struggles, and those struggles make us who we are. It was his need to impress his father that taught him how to keep pushing himself. His stepfather – for all his faults – took Cam on his first hunting trip. And it was in his boring warehouse job that he met his wife, Tracey. Think about your own struggles for a second. What may have seemed like a setback might actually have had hidden benefits.

But it’s not enough to simply struggle and learn. You need to overcome these challenges. You need to find your direction, your passion, and do everything you can to pursue it. Cam says that life without passion is simply existence. If you’re looking for something more from yourself and life, you need to decide what it is you want the most, and what’s keeping you from it.

Cam’s passion turned out to be bowhunting. His close friend Roy Roth would share stories about his adventures bowhunting in the mountains, and Roy would encourage Cam to come along on hunting trips. Cameron quickly fell in love with everything about it – the solitude, the challenge, the beauty of the wilderness. Finally, he had a focus in life, a dream he was prepared to chase.

Despite this, he was still going nowhere. Cam would spend his nights drinking and didn’t even get his life together after flipping his car while driving drunk.

So what was the final push to get him on the path? In 1993 Cam had his first son, Tanner. At that moment, something inside of him switched. It was no longer about him – he had to be an example. He didn’t want to die in some drunken accident or destroy his family by drinking. He had to be better.

What’s your passion? What’s keeping you from it? What’s motivating you to follow it? Cameron Hanes had found answers to all these questions, and as you’ll see, his life was about to drastically change.