Noah Lyles is unabashed while the world criticizes him for having a ‘loud mouth’. The Olympic champion sprinter, known for his resilience and positive outlook, reflects on a question he dreads being asked about his life.
With six world titles under his belt and an insatiable hunger for more, Lyles’ determination remains unshaken, even in the face of adversity like a COVID-19 diagnosis at the Paris Olympics.
The path to success was far from easy for Lyles. Growing up with ADD and dyslexia was just the beginning of his struggles. He faced severe bullying and battled medical issues such as asthma throughout his childhood.
Despite these obstacles, Lyles refused to let anything hinder his pursuit of track and field excellence. In a conversation on Everybody Wants To Be Us with Ben Gallaga, he discussed how these challenges forged his bold personality and unwavering spirit.
Lyles reflected on the challenges he faced during his upbringing and how they influenced his resilient mindset. Recalling his early years, he recounts encountering numerous obstacles and cultivating an unwavering belief that he would conquer them all.
“As a six-year-old, I had to believe ‘I’m not going to be in this situation forever’.”
This perspective has led Lyles to embrace his unconventional upbringing without regret. He never conformed to traditional learning systems and learned to handle bullies independently.
Gallaga commented on how all of this boiled down to Lyles’ faith in himself and his surroundings which eventually helped him cross the ocean of difficulties.
However, the sprinter opened up on how his sense of belief wasn’t always a tangible concept that the people around him could grasp. Lyles firmly believed that once he did manage to conquer a challenge that his life threw at him, he grew out of it and moved on.
But, when people saw his hurdles and commented on them, he had a tough time explaining why they didn’t matter to him as much as his trajectory of growth.
“The question I hate to get is like, ‘oh what would you do if you go back in time?’…I would not change a thing. Coz I wouldn’t have learned it, I wouldn’t have gotten through it…”
This mindset has been fundamental to Lyles’ approach from the beginning. Despite facing both mental and physical challenges, he has cultivated a champion’s attitude, characterized by an unshakable self-belief that sets him apart in the world of athletics.
