Retired quarterback Cam Newton is widely known as a memorable NFL quarterback as he was a hot commodity from his adolescent years to the big leagues. He grew up in Atlanta, Georgia with a modest family that was heavily involved in their church. Determined to play football at the highest level and defy the odds, he worked tirelessly at his craft, eventually becoming a well-regarded sports figure. Throughout his extensive sports career, he accomplished a lot, like winning the Heisman Trophy in 2010 and defeating the University of Oregon, winning the 2011 BCS National Championship Game, being the No. 1 draft pick in the 2011 NFL draft, and being named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 2015, to name a few.
Despite his career not ending in a picture-perfect way, he was a true force in the sport. Since retiring, he’s become a businessman and a marketable brand within himself as he hosts two podcast shows, has launched a production company, has steady brand partnerships, and more. During 2024 REVOLT WORLD, Newton stopped for a live recording with REVOLT CEO Detavio Samuels to discuss how his life blossomed into what it is now and how he’s remained successful. Below are seven standout moments from the episode.
1. Seeing Auburn University football motivated him
Newton grew up in an area where drug dealers were the people that he often saw despite him being part of a middle-class Christian family. What inspired him to want to be an NFL player was an invite to a football game at his alma mater Auburn University when he was a teenager. This experience afforded him the chance to witness the high energy of the crowd that permeated the atmosphere of the arena, which was life-changing for him.
“Tristan had went to Auburn and he got us some tickets to the game. That was the first time where I had an aha moment, where these players were on a gladiator stage. It was like 90,000 people. I've never seen it. I never heard it until that day. I looked around and was like, ‘Yo, I want this,’” he said during the conversation. “And you can kind of dream a little bit because I'd never been to a game where Michael Vick played, but you could see that they were panning in a crowd and you will see people just screaming and hollering and hollering and screaming. I was like, you get a secondhand visual of that but actually being in there…in a[n] actual stadium where they're screaming, they're hollering, hell, you nervous and you ain't even playing. And I wanted that for myself at the age of 14, 15.”
2. He loves to accomplish the unthinkable
As someone who wears many hats, the podcast host credits his limitless imagination and tenacity for accomplishing things some deemed unobtainable. Understanding that everyone will not see his vision adds fuel to his optimism, which he believes brings his ideas to fruition. Additionally, he loves to blow people’s minds.
“I want to be optimistically delusional, if that's a word. I want to be so optimistic that it's delusional to people when I be like, ‘Yo bro, I want to do this.’ ‘You're delulu.’ And I'm like, ‘That's cool,’” the ESPY Award winner told Samuels.
“I want to be so optimistic that to the regular, it's delusional to them because they don't see what I see in me and that's fine,” he later added. “After that, the next step is, I have to make myself right more so than me wanting to prove you wrong.”
3. Public embarrassment assisted him in aligning with the correct people
As a public figure, Newton’s mistakes aren’t private, but instead public knowledge. His years being in the spotlight as an athlete, the father of eight says embarrassing moments in his life always revealed who was around him for the wrong reasons.
He explained, “So, while I was going through these different experiences, people's true intentions started to show. And my prayer to God is always I pray for discernment. I want to see people's hearts... I just got to see it because you could tell me, ‘Oh, can we be down with you? We like you. We this, we that.’ But I'm an easy guy to love. You know what I'm saying? It's one of them situations [where] you got a lot so you can give a lot, but I don't want to be the person who gives to a leech.”
4. He didn't start out as a quarterback
Although his claim to fame was being one of the best quarterbacks in the nation when the public caught wind of him, he didn’t start out playing the position. A 6’5” giant on the field, he initially played as a linebacker and running back before becoming a quarterback.
“Yeah, no, I never really played quarterback until a year or two before high school. I was the linebacker, I was the running back, all right? My girl actually asked me this the other day,” the entrepreneur said. “I was like, linebacker, like, they will have to come see me. Like, you ask any of my partners growing up, like, my, the Cam name didn't derive until I got to college. I was always Newt, right? Like, they would say, ‘Newt, hey, blah, blah, blah.’ And I was the biggest kid, but the youngest one. And I think it was so good for me to transition into a quarterback because I was not afraid to hit.”
5. Accolades don’t move him because he always sets a new bar for himself
For the 35-year-old, chasing greatness means his mentality can’t be stagnant, meaning he's not easily satisfied with the goals he’s previously met. With a mindset that thrives on achieving the impossible, he’s always thinking about what lies ahead for him and how he can elevate.
“All these things are happening and as it's happening, it's like, what's next? So, I'm hard to kind of satisfy with accolades because that's how I trained. That's how my mentality was. It's like, once you get a goal, you have to be so quick to, you know, replace that goal with another goal. You can't dwell on the goal, you know what I'm saying? They always say, like, turn the page,” he elaborated.
6. He wasn’t ashamed of his emotions following his Super Bowl loss
It’s every athlete's dream to win a championship ring. In 2016, Newton got very close to securing one when he led the Carolina Panthers to the Super Bowl to play against the Denver Broncos after a momentous football season. Unfortunately, his team lost the game 24-10, a major disappointment following such an electrifying season. He didn’t hold back his emotions as he couldn’t hide his sadness, leading him to walk away from the press. He received some backlash for his actions but doesn’t regret them.
“You show me a person who's good at losing, and I'm going to show you a loser. You see what I'm saying? That's how I looked at it. I looked at it on some, like, ‘I want people to see my emotions,’” he shared. “Man, I literally, so my sons play football now. Last week, my son didn’t have a good game, and he cried. And his mom is like, ‘Oh, no. It's okay, son.’ I'm like, ‘No, no… console him.’ But understand it's an emotion. He's telling everybody it means something to him. I would want him to cry rather than just be like, ‘Oh, it's just a game.’ This game can change your life, just like it changed mine.”
7. His children have been his greatest teacher
Although Newton manages certain aspects of his business, as a leader on and off the field he’s had to learn how to work with others and properly delegate action items. The team behind the scenes that supports and helps execute his business ventures was selected for a reason. To fully let those people do their jobs effectively, he’s constantly learning how to surrender control, properly communicate, and study how people operate. As a father of eight, something that helps him with these areas of focus is his children.
“I think the biggest thing that teaches me that is being a parent, and contrary to popular belief, I have a lot of kids and my children have been my greatest teacher,” he said.
“That's one of those things where it's like, when you relinquish control, the thought is like you have to empower them to think on their own and knowing what you and what your expectations are,” he continued. “And it happens directly sometimes and indirectly. And when you see or when I see my children, it's like, ‘Yo, it's like hmm… okay.’ Not to compare people who work alongside with me as my children, it's no different than that. Because when I'm working with people that are impacting my life in a positive way, impacting business in a positive way, or even in a negative way, it has to come off as authentic, loving, but also accountability.”