Olympic Gold Medalist Bryan Clay Shares Playbook For Being A Champion In Life

LARAMIE — Bryan Clay never expected to go far in life. He wasn’t an instant track star in school. He was a troubled teen just trying to get through one day to the next. 

But along the way, and thanks to many people in his life, he discovered the spark of greatness within himself and went from troubled teen to winning the gold medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics, an achievement that often comes with the unofficial title of World’s Greatest Athlete. 

His gold medals in the Olympics and world championships weren’t the product of overwhelming talent and superstar coaches, Clay said. Nor did he have a relative who was a star athlete to guide him. 

In fact, Clay’s first step along the path to greatness began almost unintentionally, with something that was little more than an unrealistic dream. A wish.

“I was watching the 1988 Olympics with my parents,” he said. “I was 8 years old, and my family and I were watching it together.”

U.S. track star Carl Lewis was winning all kinds of medals, and prancing around the track with an American flag draped over his shoulders.

“As he was doing that victory lap, people were waving these little mini, American flags in the stands,” Clay said. “And the camera lights were flashing, and people were screaming. Girls were passing out as he went by.”

Watching that, Clay was in awe.

“So, I remember as I was watching that with my mom, I said, ‘That’s what I want to do.’” Clay said. “And my mom looked at me and she was like, ‘Oh, that’s really sweet.’”

Wishes And Dreams Aren’t Goals

At that point, Clay didn’t have a plan at all. He set no goals. What he had was a dream. A completely unrealistic, seemingly unattainable wish.

One that he had no idea how to make real. 

“Dreams like that didn’t come true for people like me,” Clay said. “They just didn’t.”

Two years after that, Clay’s parents divorced. It turned his world upside down, and it put that wish, that unattainable dream even further away.

“I did what a lot of kids from divorced families do,” he said. “I thought that the reason my dad was leaving had something to do with me and my behavior and the things that I was doing. So, I blamed myself.”

By 12, Clay had become self-destructive. So much so, his mom started snooping through his things. She was terrified by what she found.

“It’s what moms do and should continue to do,” Clay said. “She found some notes that I was writing about myself, and she found some pictures that I was drawing about myself, and she got really worried. I was getting involved in drugs and alcohol and girls and all of these types of things.”

The counselor Clay’s mom found recommended sports to the family. It would give Clay a better outlet, give him something to strive for. 

“So, my mom looked at me and she said, ‘Bryan, you can either run track and field, or you can swim.’”

Clay was disappointed with those choices, to say the least. 

“I was like, ‘Why not football?’” Clay recalled asking. “And she said, ‘Those are the only two sports that don’t require you to touch anything else. Those are two individual sports. You have to stay in your lane. If you do good, it’s because you put in the work. If you do bad, it’s because you didn’t put in the work. You can’t blame anybody. It’s all on you. So those are the two.”

Track And Field It Is

Clay couldn’t see himself wearing a speedo, so track and field it was.

He wasn’t, it turned out, an instant track star. Not at all. 

“Often, I was actually getting sixth or seventh place, and that’s out of only eight places,” Clay said. 

The important part, though, which Clay couldn’t yet see, was the new mindset that track and field demanded of him. 

“That mindset was asking me to commit to something when I hadn’t committed to anything in my life,” he said. “It was asking me to sacrifice for something when I was never asked to sacrifice for anything in my life. It was asking me to prioritize and to be determined.”

All such things that had been foreign to him, until now. And they didn’t fit him any better than the swimming speedo he’d rejected.

“I probably quit my high school track team 20 times,” Clay said. “And, luckily, I had a coach who was almost like a third father for me. And he would always find a way to convince me to come back.”

But Clay was still not a kid who coaches and teachers would have said was headed for worldwide fame and greatness.

“Fast forward from those moments until now, and here I am standing in front of you guys beginning to share with you about how I became the world’s greatest athlete,” Clay told state business leaders during the 41st Annual Governor’s Business Forum.

“And I’d like to say that it was all on my own, that I was just a really amazing kid. That I was born with this amazing talent, and I was just so determined that I made all the right decisions and all that stuff. But that would be a lie.”

Punk Kid To Shining Star

What ultimately took Clay from “punk kid” to star athlete began with something he calls, simply, vision.

“One of the things that helped me with this actually happened when I was in sixth grade, and the teacher gave me an assignment,” Clay said. “She said, ‘Listen, I want you to go, and I want you to write an essay on what you think your life will look like in 10 years.’”

The exercise forced Clay to think about his future, and, by extension, what he would ideally want to have in that future. He used it to dream a little, writing that he wanted to be a professional athlete and that he wanted to get married. He wanted to own a home. With a dog. And have five children.

“I wanted to meet my wife for lunch,” he said. “I don’t know why I put that one down, other than there was a lot of chaos in my life.”

Clay kept this essay long after the school assignment was over and, from time to time, he would reread it. This was his vision for happiness. 

And now, as a successful adult and a star athlete, he recognizes it was the first step in his transformation from a troubled teen who didn’t know what to do with his life, to a man who would eventually chase and capture greatness.

“So, a challenge for you guys is to ask yourselves, ‘What does life need to look like in five or 10 years for you to be happy,’” he said. “If you’re leading an organization, what does life need to look like for that organization in five or 10 years for you to be satisfied and happy with where you are?”

Be detailed with the vision, Clay suggested.

“What kind of house do you want to buy?” he said. “How much revenue do you need for that? Be specific about it and share it with your teams, share it with your family, share it with your spouse.”

Champions Are Masters Of Elimination

But the vision also needs to be “simple,” Clay added. 

“Simple is hard,” he said. “And what I mean by simplicity is, if you want to be great, you need to become a master of elimination.”

Anything that doesn’t serve the vision has to go, Clay said.

“The best athletes in the world, the greatest performers in the world, are masters at eliminating distractions,” he said. “So, I want you to examine your lives. Take the time to look at your entire life, where your attention is being spent.”

Clay uses five categories for this part of the playbook, spiritual, emotional, mental, social and physical.

“Break all the things that are entering into your mind space and put them into those five categories,” he said. “That’s the easy part.”

The hard part comes next, and that’s asking which of the things in those categories don’t really serve the vision, and then crossing them out.

“If you want to be great, if you want to make all the difference in the world, if you want to be the best at something, there’s not a lot of room for distractions,” Clay said.

“And what I’ve found is people say they want to be great, because it sounds really good when you’re talking to friends and you’re doing those types of things. But when it really comes down to it, and I ask, ‘Are you willing to take this thing out of your life?’ it’s like, ‘Oh, no, hang on. I want to hang onto that.’”

Perfectionism Isn’t Part Of The Playbook

Now that the vision is clear and simple, the next step is adopting the right mindset. 

And that’s not as most might think, because it’s not about being a perfectionist. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite. The mindset is passion over perfection.

“We’re always in pursuit of perfection, but there is no such thing as perfect,” Clay said. “You want to strive to be perfect, but it’s the passion behind what you’re doing that is going to drive you to greatness, not perfection.”

Usain Bolt, for example, the world record holder for both the 100-meter and the 200-meter dash, is widely considered the fastest man in the world. He told reporters at the time he broke therecord that he thought he could have gone faster if he’d just had a better start.

“‘It wasn’t perfect. There are always things I can work on,’” Clay said, quoting Bolt. “That was after he just broke the world record. The fastest man ever in history to run the 100 meters. And he said, ‘It wasn’t perfect. I think I can do better.’”

Along with passion over perfection, Clay recommends a growth mindset.

“I wasn’t born an Olympic gold medalist,” Clay said. “I wasn’t born the world’s greatest athlete. It’s not about the talent you’re born with. It’s seeing something, believing that you can do it, and believing that you can be better at constantly chasing after that.”

Growth and passion are intentional choices, Clay added.

“Achieving success is intentional,” he said. “It demands deliberate practice, unwavering grit, and an expansive growth mindset. Success isn’t something that just knocks on our door. It’s something you have to actively seek out and pursue.”

Protecting The Vision From Gangsters, Literally

It’s often said no man is an island, and that was true for Clay’s own success in life. 

“Nobody succeeds alone,” he said. “You have to surround yourselves with people who share your vision and your values.”

In fact, Clay had to make that choice early on in his career. As he became more and more successful, he faced many temptations he’d never imagined.

“I remember there was this Russian gentleman who came and picked me up, and he’s asking me what I want to do that evening,” Clay said. “And I’m like, ‘Listen, I just want to go to the hotel.’”

The Russian driver didn’t believe him though. 

“So, he like pulls out his phone and he starts flicking through pictures of girls on his phone, and he’s like, ‘Listen, you just tell me when to stop and I’ll make sure she shows up to you when you get to the hotel,’” Clay said. “I’m pretty sure he was part of the mafia, but that’s the kind of lifestyle you get when you’re an athlete or you start to do really great things.”

Clay soon realized that he would end up derailing himself if he didn’t take steps now to protect his vision.

“So, I personally put a rule in place where I didn’t travel alone anymore,” he said. “I always had someone with me who shared my values and my vision of where it was that I wanted to go, because I knew that if I didn’t have somebody, there were to many hurdles, too many pitfalls, that were being thrown at me.”

Putting It All Together

The last key point Clay makes is that a vision needs to be more than just a collection of some thoughts written on scraps of paper. It needs to be a plan. A detailed, step-by-step plan.

Clay’s coaches helped him with that when he was mapping out his game plan for becoming a champion. They decided on a 10-year plan.

“We said we were going to each year of that 10 years, take one event and try to master it,” Clay said. “And so that is what we did. And inside of that 10-year plan, I had a four-year plan that got really detailed. It told me exactly what I was going to be doing every single day for four years in advance.”

It included how far he needed to run, what his body weight needed to be, and how many calories he needed to eat for that, and even how many hours of sleep he should get.

That might sound crazy, Clay agreed, but it’s the detailed roadmap that ensures all the right steps are taken in the right timeframe to achieve the vision. 

“Oftentimes, I’ll sit down with people and I’ll say, ‘What’s your plan?’” Clay said. “And they’ll pull out this plan that’s kind of written on a paper towel or something like that.”

But as Clay asks them how to do some of the things listed there, they begin to realize what they have isn’t really a step-by-step roadmap so much as a collection of vague ideas. 

Without clearly defined steps, vague ideas invite us to get lost along the way. 

“It’s all a race in simplest form,” Clay said. “(A true plan) has all the things that have to happen in order for you to get to the end.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.