Achievers. By now we know the cut of their cloth and they share this simple mantra, or at least a variation of it: find something you love doing, and never stop doing it. Don’t give up at any point. Ever. Insuperable is nothing.
But I’ve noticed something else that’s laid down in the strata of successful types, an element that’s common to them all: the compulsion to share their success. I wanted to give something back. How many times have you heard it said by a pop icon or sporting legend?
Kelly Clark is no exception to the rule of reciprocation. In fact so strong was her desire to plough something back into the sport she loves, that she established the foundation that bears her name. The Kelly Clark Foundation aims to remove the financial barriers that might otherwise prevent young people from taking up the sport of snowboarding, and according to the website has to date awarded more than $100,000 worth of scholarships. Or to put it another way, $100,000 worth of commitment to others. And that takes some serious input. You might be thinking, ‘Yes but she’s Kelly Clark, Winter Sport Legend’, but while snowboarding is big nowadays it doesn’t compare to the coffers of baseball, football, formula 1, basketball, who each generate revenues in the billions. What I’m saying is, for Kelly’s foundation to raise the kind of support it has entails a keen driver. One for whom vocation is life.
“I fell in love with snowboarding when I was young,” Kelly tells me, affirming her passion for surfing snow, “long before it was an Olympic sport. When I was 14 snowboarding became an Olympic sport. I recorded it on a VHS tape and watched it after school and in that moment I decided that this was what I wanted to do with my life.”
And the seed was planted. Kelly made a decision and she stuck to it. I know what it’s like to look at someone who seems to always land on their feet, maybe to scowl a bit at their outrageous good fortune, but it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. Kelly’s endured her share of setbacks, and if you think that fourteen years on from her first Olympic competition (Kelly won gold at Salt Lake City in 2002) her injuries are behind her, think again.
“I had hip surgery four months ago,” she replies when I ask how her time is spent nowadays, “so my summer days are filled with rehab and physical therapy. I have work outs six days a week, PT sessions four days a week then I like to do house projects and work on puppy training with my new pup Iris.”
(Anyone else of the opinion that Iris is going to be one extremely well trained dog?)
If therapy is hard work, what about training for the Olympics? Ahead of Sochi 2014 Kelly’s commitment was even greater.
“In the lead up to the last Olympics I was clocking in around twenty-five hours a week in fitness work and recovery work. That is when I am off snow. When I get into my season I have about five to six hours a day devoted to my sport. Once you add in emails, video review and interviews in season it’s from sun up to sun set for me.”
At this point I would highlight that my interview with Kelly is out of season; I’m doing my bit to minimise her distractions right?
That being said, I’ve got her mind off PT and puppy training for a few minutes longer, so I ask if there’s a shining light over the many years she has been competing (sorry Kelly, not that many years but…it was meant as a compliment). I assume she’ll tell me it’s winning Olympic gold at the first time of asking, but for Kelly it’s more about the input than the end result.
“My Olympic experiences stand out to me. I think my 2010 bronze and the 2014 bronze mean the most to me. You value things based off of what they cost you. And both of those medals took everything I had to obtain. It was not my best snowboarding, but my best performance under difficult circumstances. And as they are later in my career, I appreciate them because I know how much hard work went into them. They cost me the most, so I value them the most.”
And so we come back to determination and the refusal to quit. But what’s the secret – never giving up, or remembering to give back? At first consideration it seems a tricky conundrum to wrestle with, but when I think about what Kelly has done with the foundation she formed, the answer dawns on me. She applies herself to helping others. She made a commitment to see that through just as she makes the commitment to see everything through. In other words, she never gives up giving back.
My grateful thanks to Kelly Clark for her time and to her Personal Assistant Natalie Mayer for her help in arranging this interview. To find out more about the Kelly Clark Foundation go to the website here.
You can find Kelly on Instagram at thekellyclark and Twitter at Kellyclarkfdn