Exclusive: Noah Lyles’ Ultimate Goal at the Olympics Is to Be Himself

If you ask most individuals who Noah Lyles is, they’ll inform you he’s a track star. But after I asked the man himself, Lyles, who just won gold in the 100 meters at the Paris Olympics, said, “At the end of the day, I’m an artist.” That title explains Lyles’ talent when he steps onto the track. It’s in his painted nails and the intricacies of his hair. (He’s been wearing pearls in braids for months now.) It’s in the confident moves he makes as he steps onto the starting blocks and the adrenaline-fueled, bragging moments after he crosses the finish line, often in first place.

“An artist loves having a project, and loves having a project visible,” Lyles tells ESSENCE. But with all the moments we will see, Lyles does a whole lot of inner work to navigate life’s most chaotic challenges—and achieve athletic feats.

Lyles has teamed up with Wave as a part of their recent campaign “Stains occur to the better of us.” The message is that life will be complicated, regardless of who you might be. With Tide or a team of therapists, there’s a way to make the most of a difficult situation. Whether it’s coping with a stain or something as disturbing as a scary golf cart accident while driving to the races, Lyles said he finds his footing by specializing in himself.

“The stains are a lot easier to deal with. I have Tide for that,” Lyles says. “There’s no real worry there. Golf carts, on the other hand, are a whole different story. It’s more of a reassessment of the body, a calming of the mind. I can’t do anything without a focused mind.”

Fortunately, Lyles is a master at crisis management. He employs a technique of setting an inventory of priorities and moving on. And the support of his family—and the similarities he shares together with his mother—has proven invaluable to Lyles’ profession and life success.

“Me and my mom—I would say we’re similar. I’m just the male version,” he says. “We have our smile. Our laugh. We think a lot alike. We both have depression. We’ve both dealt with similar setbacks in life. That creates a lot of bonding between us.”

Lyles’ mother reminded him that “therapy is control from the neck up.” He’s taken that adage to heart, as he now works with three therapists who help him manage his physical and mental health.

“I learn something different with each one,” Lyles explains. “With my sports therapist, it’s about how we instill what we’ve done in practice into our bodies and minds. We do a lot of visualizations to do that. A lot of breathing techniques. But not as much as I do with my grief therapist. We actually talk about not just what I’m thinking, but how my body is reacting to that thought. In my daily therapy, we constantly discuss what’s going on in my life. How do I address this in a better situation or scenario? How do I just be a better person?”

All of this helps Lyles succeed on the track.

“When you start going to therapy, it’s really just a better way to understand yourself,” she says. “You’re not studying anything outside of yourself. When you start learning that, you start learning human behavior and you can start seeing it in other people. When that starts happening, you start to have an advantage over everyone. Whether you choose to use that for good or evil… with great power comes great responsibility.”

Luckily, Lyles seems to be using his power to encourage himself and others. When asked about his goals for this yr’s Olympics, he says, “Honestly, I’m just going to be myself,” Lyles says. “Everybody says, ‘Oh, I want to be like you.’ If you want to be like me, just be yourself. That’s all you can be. And I’m damn good at being myself. I love it. It’s fun. It’s enjoyable. I love putting on shows, and where better to put on shows than the Olympics.”