Today we’d like to introduce you to Clay Garrett.
Hi Clay, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I’ve spent most of my career as a graphic designer.
As a kid, I loved drawing and painting. I took art lessons for years, won a regional art award as a teenager, and eventually discovered there was this thing called graphic design that sat somewhere between art and problem-solving. That became my career.
For more than 20 years, I worked in marketing departments, hospitals, automotive companies, and other organizations. Like a lot of people, I was doing what I thought I was supposed to do. Work hard. Move up. Take the next opportunity. Provide for my family.
Then COVID happened.
I was actually laid off right before most people in the United States even realized what was coming. I remember filing for unemployment and laughing when they told me it might take a few weeks before I received a check. I told them, “I’ll have a job before then.”
A week later, the world shut down.
Suddenly, I had something I hadn’t had since I was a teenager: time.
For the first time in my adult life, there was no pressure to hurry up and get to the next thing. There were no deadlines. No projects. No meetings. Just a lot of uncertainty and a lot of time.
I realized in the moment that I had the opportunity and to slow down.
I spent mornings drinking coffee with my wife. I played video games with my kids. I spent time in my dad’s woodshop after he retired. My brother and I, despite being twelve years apart, finally found ourselves with enough shared time to become friends in a way we never really had before.
What surprised me was how much I valued those ordinary moments. Not because my life before was bad, but because I had never slowed down long enough to realize how much meaning was already there.
The experience forced me to ask a question I’d never really stopped to consider:
“What kind of life do I actually want to build?”
A few years later, I was awake at three o’clock in the morning, unable to sleep. I sat down at my computer and started writing whatever came to mind. In the middle of that brain dump, I wrote a sentence that changed everything:
“I’d really like my work to help people.”
That simple sentence eventually became Campfire Gentleman.
Today, Campfire Gentleman is a newsletter built around five ideas that matter deeply to me: family, purpose, growth, health, and simplicity. I started it because I couldn’t find the kind of content I wanted to read. Most of what I found was focused on making more money, becoming more productive, or optimizing every aspect of life. I wanted a place where ordinary husbands and fathers could talk about building meaningful lives.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all.
The layoff was difficult. At the time, it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I had spent years building a career, and suddenly I wasn’t sure what came next.
But the bigger struggle was realizing that some of the things I had been chasing weren’t actually things I wanted.
For years, I bought into the idea that success meant constantly climbing, achieving, and pushing for more. I don’t think that’s wrong for everyone, but I eventually realized it wasn’t the life I wanted.
That’s a strange thing to discover because so much of the world encourages you to keep running faster.
Meanwhile, I was becoming increasingly convinced that some of the most meaningful parts of life happened when I slowed down. Having dinner with my family. Talking with my kids. Spending time with friends. Learning something new. Taking a walk. Reading a book.
The challenge wasn’t building a different life.
The challenge was admitting that the life I wanted looked different from the one I thought I was supposed to want.
Building Campfire Gentleman has also forced me to become more comfortable with uncertainty.
When I started it, I had no idea if anyone would read it. I wasn’t a well-known writer. I didn’t have a large audience. I just had a collection of ideas that seemed important and a suspicion that other men might be thinking about the same things.
Fortunately, they were.
Looking back, though, the struggles helped clarify what mattered.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Professionally, I’ve spent more than 20 years working in graphic design, marketing, branding, and content creation. Today, I split my time between marketing work and Campfire Gentleman, a newsletter focused on helping husbands and fathers build meaningful lives centered around family, purpose, growth, health, and simplicity.
What I’m probably most known for is offering a different perspective on personal development.
A lot of the self-improvement world focuses on bigger goals, bigger achievements, bigger businesses, and constant optimization. While there’s certainly value in ambition, I’ve become increasingly interested in a different question:
What if many of the things we’re searching for are already closer than we think?
Much of my writing explores the idea that meaning is often found in ordinary places: family dinners, long conversations with friends, raising children, caring for aging parents, personal growth, and showing up consistently for the people who matter most.
I’m most proud that readers often tell me I put words to things they’ve been feeling for years but never quite knew how to express.
The emails I receive rarely ask about productivity, business, or optimization. They’re usually about marriage, fatherhood, purpose, friendship, loneliness, and the quiet questions many men carry around without talking about.
Knowing that my writing helps people feel understood is probably the thing I’m proudest of.
What sets me apart is that I’m not trying to teach men how to become someone else.
I’m trying to help them recognize the value in who they already are and become more intentional about the life they’re already building.
What matters most to you?
Family.
That’s the answer that keeps surviving every season of life.
I love writing. I love building things. I enjoy business. I enjoy creating. But when I think about the moments that have shaped me most, almost all of them involve people.
My wife.
My children.
My parents.
My siblings.
Close friends.
Those relationships have taught me more about purpose, sacrifice, responsibility, patience, and love than anything else.
I also care deeply about helping people recognize the value of ordinary life.
A lot of modern culture tells us we need bigger dreams, bigger achievements, bigger platforms, and bigger identities. But most meaningful lives don’t actually look that way.
Most meaningful lives are built through relationships.
Through responsibility.
Through showing up consistently.
Through taking care of the people around you.
One thing I’ve learned from writing Campfire Gentleman is that many men quietly feel unseen. They don’t feel like anyone is listening to them. They don’t feel like anyone values the things they care about most.
I want to remind those men that their lives matter.
Not because they’re extraordinary.
Because most meaningful lives look ordinary from the outside.
Mine included.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that ordinary life is where most of the meaning was hiding all along.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://campfiregentleman.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/campfiregentleman/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/campfiregentleman
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clay-garrett/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CampfireGentleman
- Other: https://campfiregentleman.com/subscribe
