Podcast Summary: The Amazing Authorities Podcast

Episode: The Trust Trap—How Clay Moffat Turned Vision Loss into Purpose, Power & Profit

Host: Mitch Carson
Guest: Clay Moffat
Date: October 31, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features Clay Moffat, author of "The Trust Trap," who shares his transformative journey of dealing with severe vision loss—and how he leveraged adversity to craft a life of purpose, resilience, and entrepreneurial success. Hosted by Mitch Carson, the conversation traverses Clay’s personal battles, his philosophy of responsibility, his book’s inspiration, and the actionable lessons he delivers to blue-collar entrepreneurs and listeners seeking to redefine their sense of agency.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Expat Life and Values (00:43–03:14)

• Shared Experience: Both Mitch and Clay discuss living as expatriates—Mitch as an American, Clay as an Australian—now residing in Thailand. Clay reflects on how parenthood (and considerations over his children's education) shifted his priorities.
• Family Decisions: Clay’s wife, a chief revenue officer at a fintech company, may move the family to Dubai for better educational opportunities and career growth.

"Up until about five years ago, yes, it was very much that way [choosing where to live]. Now with two kids, homeschooling and everything, education is pretty important." — Clay (01:35)

2. Overcoming Vision Loss: Adversity and Perspective (03:14–07:14)

• Vision Impairment Since Youth: Clay recounts living with visual impairment from the age of 10, expressing a nuanced view:
  • He avoids framing his experience as uniquely harsh, highlighting the importance of gratitude and perspective.
  • Nevertheless, losing vision in one eye (2010) and later facing potential total blindness deeply tested him.
• Professional Impact: Fear of job loss led Clay to hide his disability during his oil & gas industry years.

"I had to cheat to keep my job… And then fast-forward to last year and the vision in my remaining functional eye started to disappear." — Clay (05:53)

• Catalyst for Change: Faced with potential blindness, Clay was propelled to distill and distribute decades of hard-won knowledge.

3. The Birth of "The Trust Trap" & Navigating Unknowns (07:07–09:48)

• Book Motivation: Clay wrote "The Trust Trap" during a period where he might have lost his vision completely, opting to self-publish the book on the day of his cataract surgery—assuring himself a triumph regardless of the outcome.

"It was a very real situation that I could have been looking into permanent darkness… If it happened again, I’m not going to see my kids again… It attacked every single possible realm." — Clay (07:39)

• Choosing a Book Over a Course: For simplicity and lasting impact, Clay opted to publish a book, demonstrating the importance of tangible legacy.

"Once the book’s published, it’s published. And then you can keep going, you keep moving, and you can have a good result with it." — Clay (08:32)

4. Military Service & Personal Evolution (10:12–12:38)

• Military Background: Clay served 7.5 years, joining young and leaving after deployment in Iraq—choosing to walk away from the Navy after realizing it no longer fit him.
• Growth & Accountability: He describes his former self as “entitled and selfish and immature and a victim,” emphasizing the importance of personal evolution.

"I was a very interesting character back then… As sad as it is, those would be all things that you could equally label me with back then." — Clay (11:19)

5. Parenting, Education, and Foundational Skills (13:00–18:55)

• Parenting Philosophy: Clay is committed to giving his kids a strong foundation, emphasizing analytical and emotional intelligence over academic credentials alone.
• Cultural Differences: The Australian view is less fixated on university degrees; options in skilled trades are viable and lucrative paths.
• Critical Life Skills: He stresses the need for logic, critical thinking, and especially social and emotional awareness.

"You can be the best critical thinker and the best problem solver in the world, but if you can’t regulate your own emotions… you won’t be able to interact with other people." — Clay (17:52)

6. Social Connection in a Tech-Driven World (18:55–24:33)

• Face-to-Face vs. Digital: Mitch and Clay lament how technology is reducing real human engagement, especially among younger generations, and discuss the rise of digital-only communication.
• Cultural Observations: Clay is bemused rather than bothered by the expectation of texting before calling—highlighting shifts in communication norms.

"If someone got upset at me for calling them without texting them first, I’d just laugh and say, 'Okay, yeah, cool.' …That makes no sense." — Clay (22:24)

7. The Science & Philosophy of Trust (25:08–31:03)

• Origin Story: Clay’s work on “trust” arose from his own self-discovery and witnessing patterns in his clients’ lives: most people are, to varying degrees, authors of their own pain.
• Neuroscience of Trust: Trust is a heuristic—our brains prefer shortcuts, putting people into “safe boxes” to conserve energy, but this leads to blindness to changes or red flags (“the trap”).
• Heuristic Pitfalls: Trusting someone means the brain stops looking for evidence that things have changed, leading to sometimes disastrous oversights.

"The second you put someone in that box is the second your brain will start fighting you when you start noticing deviations… That’s the trap." — Clay (30:06)

8. Ownership, Victimhood, and Healing (31:03–36:39)

• Degrees of Responsibility: Mitch and Clay discuss the continuum from full accountability to victim mentality, acknowledging that people must own their part, even if an outcome was beyond their control.
• Therapeutic Insights: Clay shares that owning even a small part of responsibility (in traumatic events) can be key to healing, as it restores an individual’s sense of agency.

"The second you choose to abstain from that and release that, you are a victim, and therefore you have zero power to change it." — Clay (33:34)

• Difficult Conversations: Clay speaks candidly about helping abuse survivors through self-forgiveness and understanding their role—however small—in order to move forward.

9. Addiction, Choices, and Redemption (36:39–38:23)

• Personal Stories: Mitch shares his recovery from alcoholism, connecting success to the choice of sobriety. Clay echoes the importance of recognizing and correcting destructive choices.

"All of my success mushroomed out of me making that conscious choice not to pollute my body because I can’t control it. It’s my kryptonite." — Mitch (37:14)

10. Clay’s Work and How to Connect (38:42–40:05)

• Audience & Coaching: Clay works primarily with blue-collar business owners—tradespeople striving to break through growth barriers, often by first addressing limiting personal beliefs or systems.

"Their personal systems are limiting their professional systems. And so we modify and then watch it just go crazy." — Clay (39:55)

• Contact:
  • Email: go [at] claimoffat [dot] com
  • X (Twitter): @MoffatClay

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Rough is relative, right? If I’m going to compare it to kids that are growing up in Afghanistan… I certainly did not have a rough childhood." — Clay (04:57)
• "So when making moves about, okay, what we’re going to do with the kids… I don’t necessarily want my kids to go to college… you’ve got options and now you’ve got options and room to move." — Clay (14:38)
• "The foundational level, the core level—if you get that right, it makes the rest of high school and college easier." — Clay (16:25)
• "We are lazy by default. That doesn’t mean that you’re a horrible slob—it means [historically] we had to conserve energy." — Clay (28:37)
• "The second you choose to abstain from that and release that, you are a victim, and therefore you have zero power to change it…" — Clay (33:34)
• "My outcome is I’m an alcoholic now. I’ve been able to change my behavior. I take responsibility for it." — Mitch (36:51)

Important Timestamps

• 00:43 — Expatriate experiences and family context
• 03:47 — Clay’s early vision loss
• 05:53 — Hiding his disability at work
• 07:07 — Catalyst for writing “The Trust Trap”
• 10:12 — Military background and personal growth
• 13:00 — Education, parenting, and societal expectations
• 18:55 — Social interaction & the value of human connection
• 25:18 — The science and psychology of trust (“the trust trap” explained)
• 31:03 — Responsibility, ownership, and agency
• 36:39 — Addiction, choices, and positive transformation
• 38:42 — Clay's ideal clients & contact details

Tone and Delivery

The conversation is candid, introspective, at times playful (complete with “travel chicken” sound effects!), and grounded in Clay’s hard-earned philosophy of resilience and self-responsibility. Both men are straightforward and empathetic, blending personal anecdotes, tough truths, and practical advice for listeners seeking to overcome obstacles, claim agency, and build lasting authority.

Additional Information

Clay Moffat’s book, The Trust Trap: How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over and Rewrite the Rules of the Game, is available on Amazon.

For coaching or collaboration inquiries, contact Clay via:

• Email: go [at] claimoffat [dot] com
• X (Twitter): @MoffatClay

If you’re seeking actionable inspiration on overcoming adversity and building your own authority—the hard-won way—this episode is essential listening.