By Chris Duffin

Hardship, Dreams, & Passion

Personally I’ve been blessed with many hardships and challenges in my life. Most people might look at adversity as negatives but it is truly a gift that gives you appreciation for what you have. This is so evident when you look around society today. Having that perspective forged in hardship is something not everyone has the opportunity to enjoy. Be thankful when hardship strikes because overcoming it will give you the strength necessary to achieve your dreams. Yes life can break you if you’re not strong enough but that is what makes overcoming life’s challenges all the more rewarding. The more adversity you experience and then overcome, the stronger you will be.

Many people dream big, but to achieve those dreams you also have to dream small. It is those small incremental steps every day that pave the way. To achieve this you must be consistent, but more importantly you must be passionate about the goals and life you want to live. Without that passion you will not maintain the consistency and often drudgery of all the small steps forward every day. The incremental and often unnoticeable self-improvement to make you capable of achieving those dreams gets muddled in to the simple ‘maintenance tasks’ of everyday life. That passion and consistency towards improving yourself, and stepping ever so closer to your goals, must remain the pillars of your life.

Living in comfort with everything taken care of is the dream of many, but it is simply death in disguise. If you are not striving and growing you are dying. Life is not about comfortably going through the day-to-day motions. It is to dream, to live, to express passion for what and whom you love. This is the Kabuki Warrior way to envision yourself as a warrior set out to see what you are truly capable of in life.

Because I am a doer and one who likes to live by example here is my life cliff notes along with links to a couple articles on my life. They do not delve much into my early upbringing, but I do hope to share this part of my life as the time becomes appropriate.

My Back Story

The short story is that I was born amongst a group of very intelligent but social flawed and highly independent people. This resulted in being raised in the Northern California Wilderness and later in some obscure regions of Eastern Oregon mountain and desert areas. Yes I said the wilderness, as in tents, tarp shelters, condemned houses, or even on top of logs lashed to the trees at one point to avoid the nearby rattlesnake dens. Sometimes we would have homes but they might have lacked plumbing and or electricity. I was the oldest of 3 sisters and 1 brother, but they were younger and don’t remember much of earlier more difficult years. By the time I graduated high school the majority of my life had been lived this way. With the exception of those high school years when we had some stability living in a doublewide mobile home. Although it had a little be desired and was burnt down by the fire department when we moved because it was inhabitable.

Hunting and foraging for food were normal parts of life activities. We learned about which mushrooms we could eat and how to prepare them. Knew that the best way to kill a porcupine was with a club. Not only did you have to be careful skinning them but had to do so immediately or they tasted horrible. In reality it wasn’t really difficult or challenging, just different than what most people would consider normal in this day and age. Showers had to be taken by filling gallon jugs with water and letting them sit on a rock in the sun. Then you would just hold them overhead upside down for your weekly shower. Or during the winter you could heat water on the woodstove and step out back in the cold to scrub down. As a family we were avid readers with constant trips to the library and by candlelight or flashlight when we were without electricity. There was some time spent in foster care when all of us kids were taken by the state for a period of time. But that wasn’t a positive experience at all and I much preferred our time in the mountains.

With this upbringing I was a bit socially awkward but I did begin excelling in school and sports by the time I reached high school. This combined with getting somewhat of a functional house around the same time helped me start overcoming my social and self-confidence issues as well. Although clean clothes and a shower really helped this process acclimating socially well.

This certainly could be played out as a sob story, and why I never achieved much in my life. Being left with all this baggage from my upbringing could be an easy excuse. It certainly left me with some demons in some areas to deal with, however it is not the story that defines me. The story that defines me is how I used those experiences to propel me going forward. This background story only made me stronger and gave me a broad range of experiences to provide perspective to life.

My story is the continued consistent efforts to live my dreams and do what I knew I was capable of. I went on to college while working full time, and beginning to struggle with some of those aforementioned demons. The family deteriorated when I removed myself those first two years at college. I am often applauded for the action I took when I found out the conditions at home. However, I have never thought of it outside of it was simply something a real man should take care of. And I believe any real man would do the same thing.

Even though I was working full time and going to school full time I ended up taking custody of my three sisters and raising them while I put myself though College. I refused to let any of this derail me, graduating early and buying my first house and opening my first business at 21, while beginning my career in manufacturing management. I continued to raise them while advancing in my professional career with the last one finally moving on well after I finished my MBA. The last 10 years I have been focused on company or division turnaround work often leading dramatic cultural change in organizations in the process as a seasoned corporate executive.

Today I live a life that seems nearly inconceivable from what I could have envisioned as a child. I have seen substantial success in my professional career, as Coach and Owner of Elite Performance Center, and have been a #1 ranked powerlifter in the world for 5 years. My wife, son, daughter, and the rest of my family are the most wonderful thing in the world to me.

Even given the success listed above it still goes without saying that I am challenging myself to be better every day. The day you stop doing this is the day you stop living and the day you begin dying. Be passionate about your life, never doubt yourself and never let up in the pursuit of your dreams!