About Clay

The Full Story

I grew up in Houston Texas. I had a great childhood. My parents got divorced when I was very young and I have no memory of their separation. And we lived with my grandparents for the first 12 years of my life. I was raised by my mother, Grandmother, and Grandfather. They loved me very much and they taught me a couple of things that I have never forgotten.

1. Love your neighbor as yourself.

2. We love you for WHO you are not what you accomplish.

3. You can never do anything that would make us stop loving you.

As I grew up, I realized that this way of living was not as standard as I had thought. Of course not everyone is raised by three parents but, I thought that, in general, families operated this way.

Come to find out that is far from true. That reality spurs me to share what I have learned and I believe the world could be better if we were taught the three principles of my household growing up.

I grew up swimming competitively from the age of 4 through 10th grade. Through the training it took to produce a state championship team, I learned the discipline and the level of effort required to develop myself. After my high school years, I went to college at Lamar University in Beaumont, TX.

I spent all my time with friends, trying to help them wrestle with the transitions and challenges of college. I was a member of the drum line and there were about 50 of us so I instantly had a group of people to belong to. I also helped plant a church there on campus. This means I was a part of the outreach to get people to come and see what we were excited to build on the campus.

While I was meeting all of these people I was not focused on grades at all. I was more or less coasting through my classes until I got into upper-level math.

Well, I struggled with math from the beginning but who doesn’t right?! I knew it was a weakness of mine and I still refused to get the help I needed in the class. I just thought it would happen someday. That I would magically write down the correct answers on a test or gain pity from a professor and that they would pass me or whatever my expectation was it was definitely unrealistic.

I also found myself blaming the teacher saying things like “well all the homework was online so there was no room for partial credit.”, “The teacher was an adjunct so that is why I couldn’t understand.”, and my personal favorite “They made that up! There’s no way that is a part of math!”.

The truth is, I lacked ownership, I lacked discipline, and I lacked awareness. And the worst part of all of it is I thought I had each one of those things down to the proverbial “T”.

This deep seeded misconception was exemplified in my physical exterior. I gained 30 pounds my freshman year and by the time I was done with college 5 and a half years later, I weighed 255 Pounds with a total weight gain of 55+ pounds.

How could a high school, state championship athlete forget how to take care of his body? How could I get so complacent so quickly?

What had happened was that I kept eating like I was swimming and moving as much as I was but, of course, I wasn’t moving like I used to.

When I attended Lamar, it was a commuter college for the most part. This means the campus is not very big at all. But, I thought I was good to eat whatever because I had to walk to class and everywhere else. Oh, how wrong I was. I settled with the fact that all my accomplishments in high school would carry me into my future and that I could coast for the rest of my life.

How sad is it to think that you peaked in high school? Maybe you have done the same thing.

I resigned myself to my past accomplishments being the extent of what I could do in this world. I limited my view of myself to accomplishments. And they were accomplishments from the past at that!

Approaching graduation I was told by my Mother that I could not get married unless I graduated. I suppose this may seem to mean to some, but it was the motivation I needed to get through Calculus 2 in an 8-week summer mini-class. I had previously failed precalculus 3 times (passed it the 4th) and I failed Calculus 1 2 times (passed it the 3rd). So I was accustomed to failing math classes on the first and second go around.

The reason I failed those classes was of course lack of ownership, discipline, and awareness BUT, most of all it was because I believed I could not.

At the root of my failure, it was this lesson that brought me where I am today. The lesson is that if you do not believe you are capable of learning, thinking, and implementing whatever skill it may be, then you will never succeed at it.

In short, your mind is the first thing you must have control of to succeed.

This is different from “if you believe it, you can achieve it.”

That statement is somewhat true but there is a pitfall - if I believe I can fly in the air (excluding a plane or Iron Man suit) then I can achieve flight. This is physically impossible as I do not have wings…yet…

Anyway, I like the sentiment that is felt with “if you believe it you can achieve it” But it is too open-ended. If you control your mind then you have a healthy grasp on reality and where you fit into that reality. After establishing this control then you can lay out a logical pathway to success and achieve it.

I learned that my failure was a lesson and that I just happened to make the same mistakes over and over again expecting a different result.

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After so many failures and still pressing on I learned resilience and fortitude. I learned grit and I learned humility. I learned that no matter how mad you get about something, it will not improve just because it upsets you. I learned that in order to succeed you must CONTINUALLY break glass ceilings. If they appear to not be made of glass - hit harder. They are always breakable.

So why share what I have learned throughout my life thus far on the internet? Who cares?

Great questions and I want to be very clear: I am still learning and growing every day. I am a guy that is on a path and I want to walk together.

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That is what the purpose of ConvoswithClay is. This is a journey and I want to bring you with me. I want to show you what I did to break my old thought patterns and what I continue to do to break current thought patterns, complacencies, and barriers. I want to show you what happened when I started running every day. I want to show you what I want you to see that you can do all these things and more.

I used to be 55+ pounds overweight and think that I had lived the best part of my life in high school.

I had no idea how ill-prepared I would be for college due to my bad habits. I had no idea how many years it took my wife to plead with me to take my health seriously in order for me to change my eating and exercise habits. My wife, Savannah, is my biggest support, my strongest accountability partner, and my sweetest champion. Every time she would bring up going to the gym together or eating a salad I would get incredibly defensive or just laugh it off. If she had given up on trying I do not know where I or we would be today. All she wanted was to help me live the life I could not see for myself. She kept trying to help me for THREE and a HALF YEARS until I finally got it. 

Thank God she never gave up on me. 

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I do not want this kind of life for you. 

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My goal is to share what I wish someone had told me when I was younger and wouldn’t listen. I know we all need to go through our own struggles, and strife and wrestle with tough things. That is how we improve and get stronger.

I want to help you prevent making the mistakes I made and be proactive in your life so that you can realize your purpose, reach your potential and push beyond it, and achieve fulfillment and success. 

I want to continue learning together and sharing what we have learned with one another.

I want our society to be healed and I believe that comes from the development of our mind, body, and spirit for the sake of others. 

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Through self-development, we can show up in our families, workplaces, and communities in better condition than before. We can have something to contribute by cultivating ourselves.

We can live more fulfilling lives when we develop our purpose and share it with others by serving them. 

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I believe the conversations that come from these realizations and experiences in my life will promote growth in our communities, strengthen our love for others, and change the world for the better. One conversation at a time.