Charles Clark

Charles Clark’s background

By the age of 22, Charles Clark was a 3 time National Champion, 10 time All American, and placed as the 6th fastest man in the world at IAAF World Championships in Berlin, Germany. He was living the dream and one year away from inking his first shoe deal as a track and field superstar. On the outside, he was thriving, but his inner champion was barely pounding the surface.

It took a 99% tear in his right quad muscle, a debilitating injury for a world-class sprinter, to uncover the depth of who he is. For so long, his life was one-dimensional— practice, training, rehab, stretching, race, win, get better, get faster. The injury left his confidence bankrupt and emotions starving. This was the start of building a sustainable foundation of the man he is now.

Clark moved into a season of speaking voluntarily at local schools, giving them a watered-down version of his life with surface level motivation, never touching on his pain for fear of judgment. He believed no one would want to hear him speak, if they knew his truth. His mom was supporting her grown son. He was borrowing her car, while he was trying to rise back to fame. He felt like a failure, but still, he spoke.

Instead of just talking about success, he began talking about the pain we mask and understanding that it all had a purpose. People needed to hear his entire journey. The highs and the lows. He started putting on Thrive Events and traveling around the world impacting tens of thousands of lives each year. He became an expert in habit improvement, discovering purpose, vision creating and goal setting.

This is where he truly learned that thriving is more than just a gold medal. It is impact. It is life transformation. It is excellence. It is integrity. It is intentional living. Thriving is all the things most people forget when they are determined to achieve a great goal. These are the dimensions that gave him a life of purpose, and led him to training and speaking with organizations like Dick Sporting Goods, Nike, Raymond James Financial, Frontier Communications, iHeart Radio, US Army and FSU.

His mindset of thriving led him to his wife, Shelbi. He met her serving at the Dream Center of Tampa. When he had the opportunity to love her, there was something different about it. He was at the point in his life where he felt equipped to love someone with his whole heart. They bring out the best in each other and they enjoy the simple things in life. They challenge each other to stand in their purpose, seek wisdom through compromise and believe in the goodness of one another’s hearts. She is one of the reason that he continue to chase thriving.

Thriving is something he is seeking in every area of his life, not just from the stage or during one of his podcast episodes— it is all-encompassing. Between his health, community outreach, and close relationships, thrive is not just something that looks good on paper, it is something he live by.