Lessons and Reflections | Ft Justin Brayton 6

There are many lessons learned from racing motorcycles. Responsibility, work-ethic, determination, and sportsmanship are a few core examples many of have learned through our years of riding and racing. With Lessons and Reflections we want to hear from past professional racers and have them reflect on their careers so they can tell us five lessons which impacted them and helped post-racing career. These lessons may impact them in business, relationships, personally, or some other way. In this inaugural edition we spoke to Justin Brayton who raced professionally for over twenty years. JB10 felt like the perfect guy to start this feature off with due to the length and trajectory of his career. Justin wasn't a highly-touted amateur but built a successful career racing as a privateer and later for teams such as JGR Yamaha and MCR Honda, and won two Australian SX titles and got a Monster Energy Supercross win at Daytona in 2018. 

Justin Brayton: "I think it's cool you are doing this because you can learn so much in this sport and as a professional. You learn a lot as a kid, too. Most of us started racing when we were fairly young. I started racing when I was four. I took some years off from around eight to twelve. Then, when I was twelve or thirteen, I started riding a lot. You learn so much through injury and perseverance. As I sit here at almost forty, I'll be forty in March; these are the five biggest lessons I've learned."

Lesson #1

The first one for me is relationships. Even when I was younger, my mom would have me do a resume. We would work on it together, and you would send them out. My first-ever sponsorship was 50% off from JT Racing, and I could not believe it. I was like, "No way! I have a sponsor." Later, when I was about fourteen, I got something like two free sets of gear from Thor. You would have to make those sets last all year. Then you start meeting people such as the gear reps, the goggle reps, and all those guys. You start to build relationships, and then at the pro level, that's really what it's all about, especially for me. I was a third to sixth or seventh place most of my career, and there are a lot of those guys. You need to build relationships to get the job or salary ahead of those other guys. You need to be able to keep those relationships for a long time, even when times get tough because times will get tough. You still need to manage those relationships when results don't go your way. I think I did a good job of that. I got rehired by teams multiple times. Relationships are such a big thing. Now, it may be even bigger in business and life after racing. I own a couple of dealerships here in Charlotte, North Carolina, where relationships with the customers are everything. When you walk into a dealership and can create a relationship with that sales or parts guy, that's everything to a customer. 

Lesson #2

Maybe the biggest one, which I was bad at during the beginning of my career, is communication. I learned this through my JGR years. During my first few years at JGR, I was young, had just signed a 450 deal, and made decent money. I felt the team and I were not communicating well. I was thinking of myself and just wanted results. I rode for them for four years. My first two years were a bit of a learning curve, but my last two years were amazing. I think it all came down to communication between me and the team. Now that I'm done racing, it's massive. Communication with my wife, kids, and friends is so important. When I give kids or even veterans of the sport advice, I say, "Over-communicate with your team manager, trainer, and spouse." We're all thinking and have our own opinions, but we don't speak them. Then we can have some animosity between you and the team, your wife, or whoever. You have to talk and communicate. That was difficult for me, and now, if I think about it, I say it in the right way. Even if it's something negative that I'm thinking, I know I have to communicate because I don't want that thought to stew in my brain. That's a huge one I learned through racing by communicating with the teams, suspension, and engine guys. I find it funny these days when many riders complain about suspension or something, but the suspension guy will find it weird they are saying that because they didn't communicate what they were feeling. It's also hard as a rider because you are thinking about so many things, and the last thing you want to do is make the fifth phone call of the day to your team manager, suspension or engine guy, mechanic, or trainer. So many people are involved in the program, but you have to do it. You have to push that call button and over-communicate. A few key guys in my life pointed out this is what it will take. I actually like meetings. Coy Gibbs, may he rest in peace; he hated meetings because he sat in so many NFL meetings. One of the first things he said when I joined the team was, "We're not having any meetings." We would have them without him involved because I thought it was important to get on the same page. That was a big part of it. Whether it was a struggle or we had a great result, there were still things we needed to communicate about.

Lesson #3

The next one is, "Don't measure your success by the success of others." In sports or life, especially in racing, a lot of people can live or die on their results from that weekend. I struggled with that in my early years. If I got an eighth, I knew the week was going to be bad. The second I crossed the finish line, I was thinking, "I'm not going to sleep tonight, and tomorrow is going to suck. I have to get back and grind. I'll ride every day this week." I lived and died by that. I only won one race in 190-plus starts. What's crazy is I had a pretty successful career with many podiums and a race win. If I compare myself to those I raced the most, such as Ryan Dungey, Ryan Villopoto, Chad Reed, James Stewart, and those guys, I would be miserable because I'm terrible. That's the world of professional sports we live in. If you're not on the podium, then you're nothing. I had to teach myself and talk to mentors to realize this. "That fifth you got was sweet. You're the fifth-best guy in the world. You're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and good at what you do. You need to be okay with the fact that maybe you aren't the best in the world, but on any given day, you may have the chance to be. You need to give yourself the opportunity for that day to come." Ultimately, it did. There were a few races I probably could have and should have won, but I didn't. Today, I'm so happy to reflect on what I accomplished, but it's so hard when you're in it. It's hard to teach it. I help a few riders, and we talk often and reinforce that. As a racer, saying, "Just enjoy the moment," is almost impossible." They say, "I can't enjoy this. I'm so nervous I'm about to throw up," but you can't measure your success by someone else's. Even in business, private jets are flying all over the place. There's someone in a nicer car. You have to focus on your success and what success looks like. You have to be okay with what you've done. In professional sports, you may be friends with people in other professional sports. I live in Charlotte, so I'm friends with some NASCAR drivers. If you compare motocross success to NASCAR success you aren't going to have a great time. They all fly around in jets and make millions of dollars. 

Lesson #4

Number four is problem-solving. In racing, you're constantly trying to solve problems. Whether that's communication, as we talked about, trying to manage relationships amongst the team, trying to solve problems of the motorcycle such as, "Why did it break last weekend," or settings. It's literally ongoing every week. Then you're just trying to figure out where you can be better on the track or where you can be better here or there. We have Dartfish now, which fast-tracks you to figure out the problem, but then you have to figure out how to solve it. It might be, "Kenny is much faster than you through the whoops. He's getting you by six-tenths in that one section. How are we going to fix that?" Are you going to adjust the bike yourself? Are you going to come into them faster or exit the turn better? There are so many things. As you move forward in life, guess what? The problems get worse and more difficult. You aren't just trying to solve problems on the track or in a team. As you get paychecks every month, which is more than you ever thought you would make, you aren't just a racer. You have to solve some problems outside of racing, and guess what? You can't be as selfish because you aren't racing anymore. Now, it's about other people, your business, and your family. It only gets tougher. I sat down with Coy Gibbs in 2023 and told him I was done racing. In that talk, he gave me a life lesson, telling me, "Hey, just so you know, you have it pretty easy right now. You have one goal: to go fast on your motorcycle." He pointed outside and said, "Out there, it's much more difficult than here. You need to figure out what's happening, and let's get to work." I remember that, and now, as we sit here in 2024, a year removed from retirement, I raced all those years. Problem-solving, staying positive through the valleys, and not getting too high on the peaks is a big part of racing and life. 

Lesson #5

You can't do it alone. You need a great support system, whether family, friends, managers, or agents. A lot of people are against agents, but they have a place. It depends on where you are in your career, but you can't do it alone. I tried doing it alone early on. I thought, "I can keep grinding and doing this. Me, me, me." I learned very quickly that you can't. You need great people around you to make it happen. You can have as many people around you as you want, and the line of people wanting to be around is long. You have to pick and choose. I have a lot of people around me that I grew up with to this day. I never wanted it to be anyone else's fault that I didn't succeed. I never wanted anyone to speak for me. From a young age, I wanted that team or person to talk to me first in every meeting I attended because they were hiring me. There's a time when agents can take over but in that first meeting with a team, gear company, energy drink, or whoever, you speak for yourself. You must delegate, especially if you are trying to be the best at something. You need to trust that if someone can do something at 80% of what you believe you can, let them do it. It's going to free up some space. If you need to buy a car or a house or just get things done outside your focus, let someone else handle it. It took a lot of years for me to get to the point where I trusted people outside of my inner circle to do things for me. Now, in business, it's a huge part. I can't be the General Manager in my dealerships. I can't be in there selling motorcycles. I'm not a parts guy. When I want to get in there and do it, you have to know that you aren't as good as them. Two, you don't have the time. You can spend your time more wisely than running the parts counter. In business, that may be more important than as a racer because you're the one riding the motorcycle. Those are my five lessons and a good template to start. I'm freshly away from racing and still learning, but many things apply to my life and business.