How Buddy Clay Built a Multi-Seven-Figure Mental Health Company While Battling Cancer Twice

What would you do if you were 33 years old, healthy, chasing a God-given vision, and a routine mole check came back stage three cancer? In moments like these, leading through crisis with faith becomes a profound challenge and calling.

That’s exactly where Buddy Clay found himself. And instead of stopping, he built anyway—a real-life example of leading through crisis with faith.

In this powerful episode of One Part Lion, One Part Lamb, I sit down with Buddy Clay, founder of New Hope Institute. His organization is a multi-seven-figure mental health and addiction recovery organization. We talk about what it actually looks like to lead through the fire and build with faith. Then, we discuss how to come out on the other side more whole than when you went in. In fact, leading through crisis with faith is at the heart of Buddy’s journey.

This is not a highlight reel. This is the real thing.

Buddy didn’t just face cancer once. Four years after his stage three diagnosis, it came back — stage four. And in the middle of all of it, he was building a company and leading a team. Two weeks before opening his doors, he delivered his own daughter on his kitchen floor. That’s not a metaphor. That’s his life.

What Buddy did in the middle of that will change how you think about leadership, faith, and what you’re actually standing on when the pressure hits.

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What You’ll Learn in This Conversation:

• Why minimizing your first crisis almost guarantees a bigger one — and what to do differently the moment the storm first appears
• How a stage four cancer diagnosis forced Buddy to stop being the bottleneck and finally build a team that could run without him
• The difference between motivational speaking and real authority — and why the people you lead can always tell which one you are
• What stress does to cancer, cortisol, and your company simultaneously — and why “just push through” is often the most dangerous choice a leader can make
• Why identity isn’t something you find — it’s something you surrender to — and how crisis strips away the performance to reveal who you actually are
• How to show up for your team when you don’t have the answers, don’t have the energy, and aren’t sure how the story ends
• The three-step framework Buddy uses to lead through any crisis: authenticity, boundaries, and building the foundation before the storm arrives

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Leadership Forged in the Fire

One of the most important things Buddy shares in this conversation is the difference between leading from performance and leading from truth. Most leaders, myself included at different seasons, spend enormous energy trying to appear strong, certain, and in control. But Buddy’s back was against the wall in a way most people never experience. He couldn’t perform his way through cancer. He couldn’t fake his way through a stage four diagnosis while trying to open a mental health clinic and care for a newborn. Ultimately, leading through crisis with faith shaped everything about his response.

What came out of that pressure wasn’t a breakdown. It was a breakthrough, and a leadership philosophy built on authenticity, real faith, and the courage to be seen exactly as you are.

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Faith That Holds When Everything Else Doesn’t

This conversation goes deep on what it means to believe God is sovereign, not just when things are going well, but in the space between the diagnoses, between the storms, in the uncertainty that doesn’t resolve cleanly. Buddy doesn’t offer easy answers. Instead, he offers something better: a tested faith and a lived example of what it looks like to stay anchored when the ground beneath you shifts. In summary, leading through crisis with faith can make all the difference.

If you’re an entrepreneur, a leader, or someone in a season that’s asking more of you than you feel equipped to give, this episode is for you.

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Listen Now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or watch the full conversation on YouTube. Don’t just survive the fire. Learn to lead through it.