Episode #358: Bryan Clay, Eat The Frog Fitness, Founder

HALO Talks: Elevating Wellness

As a very active kid, Bryan Clay (Founder of the fast-growing franchise Eat The Frog Fitness and 2008 Olympic decathlon gold medalist), found himself with an ultimateum by his Mom: Track and field or swimming . . . and he chose track and field because, "There was no way I was going to wear a Speedo!" he jokes. Clearly, it turned out to be the right choice. "The track became my sanctuary," he states. Clay went on to gain a Fulbright scholarship, compete in the 2004 Olympics, won the gold in 2008 in Beijing, and has been at the top of his game in the athletic world. How then, do you go from that-where every part of your life is controlled and revolves around your fitness-to the craziness that is entrepreneurship?

It's not easy! Clay continues, "One of the hardest things about going from professional athlete to entrepreneurship is that when you're a professional athlete, everything revolves around you. If I need to get better, I have to put in the time. I fix it, I become obsessive about it until I have it perfectly. There's a certain intensity that you train with . . . a certain amount of grit, tenacity, drive and focus that you have to have."

"When I moved into entrepreneurship, it was the complete opposite! In the beginning, me or my business partner could do it all, but as you grow, you can't. You have to bring on team members that can help you. And that was a new world for me. It's still kind of a new world that I have to learn. It's personalities and people and all kinds of stuff. The hardest thing was realizing that people don't operate the same way I do, or the same way I did," he states.

Bryan and his team (the "Frog Squad!") call their workout "honest." In other words. . .it's not one-size-fits all. (Something Bryan saw when he first entered the industry which upset him quite a bit.) It's programmed and progressive. It's not fancy, but it gets results! Clay dug in and learned to become an an operator at the grass roots level, but he learned the balance of wearing the CEO/Founder hat when the time came to deal with other matters.

As someone who dealt with the highest levels of competition his entire life in athletics, when it comes to business he says, "There are people who try to find shortcuts, or find ways to try to work the system. When you see that as an athlete, you have to be confident enough in your system, in your training and what you do and why it works, so that when you look at the others you just think of it as noise . . . as distractions."

This is the same mentality he and his team have about EFT. They are a company who cares about results. They care about giving an honest and safe workout. They care about their employees and not going back on their values to make money. This is a group to pay close attention to and to learn from.

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