What do you do when the person who helps the other people heal is the one who needs healing the most? What does it ask of you to show up for a room full of people in crisis when your own body is in a fight for its life? I don't think there's a clean answer for that. But today I'm sitting with someone who lived it. Not as a metaphor, not as a lesson he read someday. He actually did it. Welcome back to Healthy Mind Healthy Life. A part of Healthy Mind by Awake Network. I'm your host, Yusuf, and today's conversation is one of the most human ones we have had on this show. My guest today is Buddy Clay, founder and CEO of New Hope Healthcare Institute in Contsville, Tennessee. New Hope is a joint commission accredited mental health and addiction treatment center that Buddy built from the ground up, specializing in individualized care for teens and adults. What makes Buddy's story so remarkable is that he built it while navigating one of the hardest things a person can face personally. A stage four cancer diagnosis. Buddy, thank you so much for being here. I'm really glad you're here.

Thank you. What a great introduction. I appreciate that. Um I'm glad to be here as well and looking forward to having this conversation and sharing some insight onto what we do here at New Hope and just my story in general.

So, buddy, I want to start somewhere a little softer. What first drew you to mental health work? Because this is not just a business for you. I can already sense that. Where did this calling actually begin for you?

This calling happened, I would say, about 11 years ago, where I packed up everything I had. I lived in New York at the time, and I decided to move across the country to California on the other coast of the United States and wasn't sure what was going to happen over there, but I knew I needed to change the scenery. So I left and I took a job working at an adolescent or teen treatment facility. It was an entry-level position. I've never worked in the field before. Um, my background was psychology. I went to school for psychology, but prior to that, I haven't worked with um anything in the field. Moving to California and doing that, I immediately saw how impactful and powerful the work would be to directly impact people who were struggling. Um I was struggling with some of my own stuff at the time, like I mentioned, trying to just find myself in general and start a new chapter. But directly working with teens and seeing their life go in a different direction for the better was something that was remarkable. And from that first job I took, that just changed the trajectory of my life.

Yeah. And you know, there's a common assumption that people who work in mental health have it figured out emotionally. It's that's because you Yeah, yeah, please.

No, it's an interesting field because we get, I've been blessed to see um my current company here at New Hope. We have a lot of interns that don't know what they want to do yet, but they come and take a job here, and almost immediately they they usually come up to me and say, I had no interest really working with mental health or substance use, but after being here for a short period of time, this is this is all I want to do. So that's pretty remarkable.

Hey dear listeners, before we begin, a quick note from Heldiman Payavik. This episode is created for educational and informational purposes only. The views shared by our guests are their own and may not reflect those of the host or network. Nothing in this conversation should be taken as medical, legal, financial, or professional advice. Please consult a qualified professional before making important decisions. We encourage you to listen with curiosity, think independently, and use this content as a starting point for reflection, not a substitute for professional guidance. Now, settle in and enjoy the conversation.

Yeah. And was there a was there ever a moment where the professional part of you, the part that knew all the frameworks and coping strategy, just went quiet when you could not therapize yourself the way you wanted to?

I think that happens more often to people themselves. I might know all the answers. I might think I have the structure and knowledge to be able to work with other people, but often it's the internal voice and the things that I may struggle with that I just don't have an answer for. And it's it's it's a tough dynamic. It's it's easy to give advice, it's harder to live it and apply it to yourself in general. And that's been an ongoing process. I always tell people just because we work in this field doesn't mean that we don't need help as well. Everyone, everyone is struggling with something. It can be a minor issue, a major issue, but it's it's important to be able to take your own advice and apply it to yourself.

Yeah. You know, that is such an important thing to say out loud because the knowledge doesn't make you immune to pain. It just means you you can name it a little better.

That's exactly it. You don't just because you know all the answers, you went to school and you could work with other people, you you don't have you're not immune to it at all. Life, life will throw life at anyone, and it doesn't matter if you're successful, have a great family, have a bad family, it doesn't matter any background, you're not immune to life's curveballs, and it's it's important to be open and adapt and be willing to take advice from the outside and really practice what you preach for sure. Yeah.

I want to understand what was happening underneath the surface during the hardest stretch for you. So you were building new hope, you were going through the treatment, you had a young family. What was actually keeping you going on the days when any of those things alone would have been enough to break someone?

That's a great question. Um the most important question, or most important thing I think for anyone is figuring out their why. So for me, at the time, my so this this journey started about five years ago, actually. My first diagnosis for cancer happened five years ago. It was a stage three diagnosis. And at the time, um I was getting ready to. I had a little one little girl at the time. My daughter now, she's seven years old. Um, so I had her at the time. So I did have a why then as well. And my why was to be a father for her until she gets older, gets married, and let me be at her wedding. Um, I thought I beat it the first time around. And then about four years later, I found a little lump in my stomach and went to the doctor, and it turned out there was stage four melanoma cancer. And there's no easy way to handle that. I'd be lying if I said I was mentally tough and I took it. I remember hearing that news, leaving the hospital. As soon as I got outside, I hit my knees because it the weight was just so heavy, thinking about all you hear about a stage four diagnosis is grim. It's there's not much positive stories out there. And my immediate thought was I have a wife, I have two girls now at the time. I have two babies, and me and my wife were trying to have a third. And that weight is a lot. And then, like you mentioned, I'm also running a business that is somewhat newer. I opened New Hope close to five years ago. And when I had this stage four diagnosis, we were about three years into the business and in a growth phase. So there's a lot of stress going along with that. We were trying to expand our services, reach a broader group of people, and then I get hit with this. Um for me, it's the why. I needed to have a strong why, and that was my anchor point. So anytime I started to feel overwhelmed, I would ask myself, why am I doing this? Why do I need to be strong? Why do I need to figure out how to make this work? And like I said, I had a wife and two little girls, and that was a very strong why factor. Then also I have a whole team here at New Hope that was looking at me for answers. They were looking at me to be strong and lead still. They didn't know what was happening behind the scenes at the time. I eventually came clean and told them everything because I believe in full transparency. Um, but at the time it was, I need to show up. I can't, I can't have a pity party. I can't sit home and get stuck in my head. I need to show up and do something every single day. And it was one day at a time. I did that for now almost a year and a half. So it's getting easier. There's still days that are tough. I still wake up in the middle of the night often, but I'm getting there.

And who held you? Because a lot of people in leadership roles carry themselves, everything themselves. And they don't let people in. I want to know, did you let people in during this time?

I did, and I I see myself, I've learned it's a fairly unique situation. And I I talk a lot about um the circle you surround yourself with and the people that's you know, your closest group is the most important to you. I have been lucky enough to have a group of male friends that I've been I've known since high school, and we continue to stay in contact and meet up with each other every few months, no matter what life is going on. And that group of guys there, they were one of my strong anchors. I was able to go to them and talk to them. I have a wonderful supportive wife that I was able to go to. She was allowed to see me at my weakest. I was allowed to cry in her arms. There's no um, there's no stigma with that. There's no judgment. I had those, those options there for me. And then I also am part of a pretty unique network here as well of um CEOs in the Knoxville area who are on the same path. They they are um Christian leaders. I had my faith is a big part of who I am. And I had these other men that I was able to just let them know how I was feeling. It was their stress in running a business and letting them know that there's a heavy weight and they were there to support me. So I was certainly in a good position, but I was in that position because I had the willingness to also open up. There was, over the years of working in this space, I've been more acclimated to sharing what I'm feeling and seeing the power and not trying to keep it all inside me. There, there's, you know, as a man or business owner, you you're supposed to what people think you're supposed to do is be strong. Don't ask for help and you could figure it out, but that's just not the case. And I've been lucky enough to have a perspective of where I'm able to say, hey, I'm I'm struggling. I need you to help me right now, or what can I do in this situation? So I had a pretty strong support group, which is wonderful. I know it's not the case for everyone.

Yeah. And you know, there is something so quietly powerful in that allowing yourself to be supported when everything in you is wired to be the one doing the supporting. And that is in its form a kind of healing.

Yeah, it's it's I don't know, it's it could be a beautiful tool. And the thing I tell myself often is like, what can I learn from this situation? What what will I get from today? If I'm feeling this emotion today, I'm feeling it for a reason. Um the the stress I feel or the anxiety I feel, it's it's real. It's it's coming from a place of something that's tangible or something that is currently going on in my life. But how can I use this? And if I could ask that question every day and seek the answer every single day, there will be something beautiful that could come from it. And as you're aware, I work in a space where we do mental health treatment. And the amount of conversations I've been able to have with clients in my care, people who are going through the program that I have here at New Hope has been it's been awesome. Just being open and saying, hey, you might look at me and see me as, you know, a CEO of a company or someone who is supposed to have it all together, but I struggle just like you, and I'm not immune to it. You might be in a a spot that might seem somewhat lower than me at the moment, but it doesn't make you any different. And that's been a very powerful tool to bridge that gap of where someone could say, I see this person here, he's supposed to be up here, I'm down here, but we close that gap and meet in the middle, and it's it's fantastic.

You came out the other side of this, like the business is still standing, your family is still whole, and you are here talking about it. But I imagine that kind of experience changes a person permanently. What is the different about you, who you are now as a leader, as a father, as a human being, from who you were before the diagnosis?

The main one I would say that many people cannot ever say the experience is just being really in touch with my um mortality, basically. It's a stage four cancer diagnosis, unfortunately, brings life to a halt and it makes you really contemplate that I am not guaranteed another day on this earth. Um, it's a concept that many people can conceptualize and they can say and say, I know you know I'm not gonna be here forever. I might live till 80, 90. For me, it became very real. And living with that reality every single day transforms how you behave as a father, as a husband, as a business leader, because prior to that, I might have had more um macro goals. I might look at the business and say, five years from now, I want to be here. Or when my girls become high school age, I would love to be, you know, X, Y, Z as a father. But when you're faced with something that really challenges your mortality, you need to be present. And I would show up and say, when I'm done with work today, how am I going to impact my daughter's lives? They're seven and four. They're they're very young right now. What can I do today? I can't worry about tomorrow. I need to be present for today. So for me, dealing with this makes you really live the day by day when it's preached a lot and it's a it's almost a cliche where people say, you know, one day at a time, one day at a time, but it became very real to me. And that transformed my habits. And running the running the business as well is easy, it's easier to chip away at goals when I could say, what can I do today? What's possible for today? And I can only worry about today. And then tomorrow, I'm gonna worry about tomorrow. And that's been the most powerful, I think, impact of this whole situation.

Yeah. And is there anything the illness gave you that you would never want to give back? Something it stripped away that actually needed to go.

Yeah, there's probably it that's something that took away from me. I I would say is I don't want to say I had a large ego or a pride, but there's there's something that comes with being what people consider a business owner and stripping away um my desire to look a certain way. Even you could see today, I did it's Friday over here and I'm wearing, you know, a basketball jersey. It's kind of casual, but I didn't feel like I needed to perform or keep up a facade that I typically in the past felt I needed to. Um I thought it was important to always look polished, um, perform a certain level. And if I didn't look that way, that that would be looked upon as bad. Um, I wouldn't get the respect from my employees. I wouldn't get the type of respect from a client in my program. So I think it humbled me in a positive way where I thought I had it I had to perform a certain way or present myself in a manner that wasn't the actual truth. And now there's a lot of freedom and kind of almost not caring what someone thinks and just being who I am and trying to be as transparent and real as possible.

Yeah. But if people want to connect with you or just want to learn more about your work, where can they do that?

Right now, I don't have much personally going on for that. I have um my company's website has some blogs on it. I will be, I'm in the final stages of putting out a book, which I'm really excited about. And it's something that I've worked on throughout this whole journey over the last, I'd say, five years have been the bloop print for it. It's it's a a short book, about 95 pages about um, it's called Built in the Fire. So it's a story about just building something in a tough time when you're when you're under pressure. And it's uh almost like a playbook of what I did through the cancer journey, through starting a business, and just practical tips of what that looks like. There will be a um a sign-up that I could I could probably send to you and and your listeners. There's a uh a page to sign up for newsletters for it. And when the and the book gets released, it'll send out that that link to everyone. But as of now, there's nothing, but just be on the lookout for the book, and that will keep everyone connected. I'm on social media, that's all linked as well. Um, just my personal journey. But I'm just here to again just share my journey in ways that make sense to others.

Perfect. And to everyone listening, all these links are in the show notes, so just go and check that out. Buddy, is there any last message that you want to leave us with?

No, I would just say the final thing is what I touched on is just you as a as a listener, someone who's struggling it with something in life, whether it's depression, anxiety, the weight of being a father, husband, wife, whatever it may be, just ask yourself why, figure out your why, and then write down three things every every morning that you want to live for. And I think if you could find three things that are important to you every single day, you'll find purpose and meaning and it'll it'll change the course of your life for the better.

Buddy, thank you so much for your honesty, for your openness, and for being a living proof that the people who dedicate their lives to helping others are still allowed to be human, still allowed to need help, and still allowed to struggle and come back from it.

It's my pleasure. I appreciate you having me on. It's been a good start to my morning here in Knoxville having this conversation. So I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. And I again I appreciate uh your time. Thank you.

And to everyone listening today, if this conversation reads something inside you, please don't carry it alone. Reach out to someone. A friend, a counsellor, a helpline. You don't have to have the words. Just have to take one step toward not being alone in it. If you found something valuable here today, share this episode with someone who needs it. Subscribe to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life and we'll be back soon. Until then, take care of yourselves. You matter.