The Eagle and the Dragon

by Chris Duffin

  Unfortunately, this was one goal I would never realize. Not only did I fail to meet the 2,200-pound target, I “bombed out,” meaning that I didn’t complete enough successful lifts to be awarded a powerlifting total. To the outside observer, my performance looked like a disaster. To me, it was confirmation that retiring was the right choice, at the right time.

  Harnessing My Creativity—Sometimes to Extremes

  I’ve always enjoyed making things. It gives me a creative output and the satisfaction of using the things I create. While it’s not as high a priority as work, lifting, or family, it’s nonetheless important. Fabricating vehicles is an example of this drive. Another example is my approach to gym equipment. After Rudy and I opened what would become Kabuki Strength, I became frustrated by the quality of some of the equipment. It seemed to me that the manufacturers hadn’t thought through the ergonomics of the things they were building, meaning they were less effective than they should have been. I started to rebuild existing gear and make new pieces from scratch, before using myself as a guinea pig to test everything out. The quantity grew, to the extent that the gym was soon packed with custom equipment I had created. Meanwhile, I filled the garage space vacated by the closure of my home gym by turning it into a machine shop and using it to fabricate four-wheel-drive vehicles.

  I loved building things that would make my family’s life better. While this chapter opens with the story of me building a fence, that was a minor project in comparison with adding an entire story to our home. I secured the relevant permits and started the project one spring, when I knew I could expect good weather. Prior to undertaking this huge project, my only experience of home remodeling was the occasional door or window installation, along with a few other small projects. Adding an entire new story was on a different level: I started by cutting the entire roof off my house and disposing of it. As I stood in the middle of the house looking up, there was nothing between me and the sky.

  As I had done many times before, I put myself in a difficult spot on the assumption that I would find a way through. If I failed, my house would be without a roof when the rains started in the fall. I reinforced the joists, learned to plumb, did my own electrical work, and brought every element of the newly added floor up to code. The project took me all summer and I finished in the nick of time, just as the first fall rains began. In fact, the first rain arrived before I had finished sealing every part of the new roof, causing some damage to the ceiling on the main floor of the house. When the rain broke, I sealed all the corners with flashing and sealant to repel the rain, then added the siding and the roofing as quickly as I could. Although the construction of the new story was something of a seat-of-the-pants process, it was an incredible space. I added a master bedroom, master bathroom, and a nursery.

  Seeing My Legacy Reflected in the Eyes of My Children

  Two thousand and twelve saw the birth of my daughter. Since I became a parent, I have spent much more time reflecting on my life than I did previously. I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve had with anyone; they shaped me and gave me the opportunity to become who I am. Nonetheless, as I watched my children grow and compared their lives with the strange and crazy life I knew at a similar age, I was thankful they wouldn’t have to go through a similar childhood to mine. These reflections also gave me the impetus to think again about the life I was building. I had been through another transformation, and yet I still questioned myself. Is this really who I am? Is there more that I want to accomplish in this life? What is it that I truly love doing?

  I firmly believe that, while many people spend their time chasing—and sometimes accomplishing—goals, too few of us understand our underlying values. For this reason, we may set goals for ourselves that aren’t aligned with our true values and sense of identity. When we do this, even our accomplishments feel foreign. I understood that the element I loved the most about my work was mentoring people, encouraging them, and helping them achieve goals they had never previously imagined possible. I didn’t care all that much about airplane parts. I enjoyed working with people, supporting them as they pushed themselves into uncomfortable areas and discovered new capacities in themselves. I realized, too, that I naturally facilitated similar experiences at the gym. I loved coaching people more than I loved lifting. I loved watching a trainee succeed—through overcoming pain, winning a meet, or however else they defined success—more than I loved setting a world record.

  I wondered whether I wanted to become some kind of clinician and contemplated going back to school to become a kinesiologist, physical therapist, or chiropractor. I started attending clinical seminars to broaden my knowledge base. At the same time, I was puzzled over the state of my own body. I’d gone years without sustaining injuries, then within a period of a few years I needed multiple surgeries. Whenever I met a surgeon, they focused on the immediate issue and what it would take to correct it. I knew that there was a bigger picture, and that the many injuries I was suffering were interconnected.

  In my quest to understand both the field as a whole and my own body, I developed strong relationships with mentors in physical therapy, spine biomechanics, developmental kinesiology, and related disciplines. I attended numerous seminars and continuing education courses. When I understood what the lecturer was teaching, I usually discovered that I could explain it in a different way and often, a few days in, found myself delivering a mini-presentation on some of the material from the course. This journey led me to forge strong friendships with some of the top researchers and clinicians in the world.

  The work they were doing fascinated me, but I wanted to take it to a different place. Most of the clinical data was related to sedentary, nonathletic populations. I wanted to connect the dots and apply their insights outside the clinical realm in a way that anyone could use. This led me to start my own YouTube channel and produce coaching videos on the concepts I was studying as they related to movement under load.

  Lesson: Transformation

  Transformation rarely happens on its own. Typically, it’s triggered by some form of stimulus. Sometimes the stimulus is external. To really shape your life, however, you may need to generate your own stimulus. As you’ve seen in this chapter, I transformed my home environment, building an entire new story onto my home. I transformed my training environment, relocating my home gym to a four-thousand-square-foot facility and opening a commercial gym with Rudy. More than in any previous chapter, however, I also transformed my internal environment, by investigating the intricacies of my own mind and motivations, and by reassessing the way I was approaching my life. This kind of transformation doesn’t happen by accident. It only occurs through deliberate effort and self-reflection.

  As Shakespeare wrote, “This above all; to thine own self be true.” While Shakespeare’s conception of truth is not bound by time, it is contingent on a central pillar that is increasingly difficult to attain in today’s world—true self-understanding. We live in an individualistic world, where self-expression is supposedly prized, yet the forms that self-expression can take are heavily mediated by social pressures. If we switch on the television or walk past a billboard, we may receive the message that the way to be true to ourselves is to buy a new brand of aftershave or a car. It’s a shallow, curated form of individualism.

  No one else knows who you really are. Nor can they sell you a pill or a consumer good that will magically do the work for you. If you’re willing to pursue the path of active transformation, I urge you to seek out an honest understanding of your true self. In Bruce Lee’s words, “To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.”

  It’s scary to venture into unknown places, either internally or externally. We’re creatures of habit, who naturally seek to avoid the pain and difficulty that comes with embracing change. If you want to transform, however, you will need to fight that tendency day in and day out. I’ve done that by throwing myself into unstable and unpredictable situations, f
orcing myself to adapt and learn as I find a way through. I tore the roof off my house and put myself in a position where I needed to figure out how to rebuild it before the rainy season began. I took on a job only to discover that the owner was deliberately running the company into the ground, and instead of playing it safe and calling it quits, I decided to take ownership of the situation and do something about it. I choose to take ownership of my circumstances and mold the internal and external world to my will. I choose to leave my mark on this world.

  For me, shaping my environment and having a tangible impact on the world is a powerful, deeply satisfying driving force behind my choices. In business, in the weight room, and in every other aspect of my life, I love to walk into a situation and alter it for the better. I love helping people believe in themselves and achieve things they never thought possible. Over the period described in this chapter, I found myself doing this more and more. I supported people to step up and become more than they thought was possible.

  This process has an incredible impact in all aspects of a person’s life. When we go beyond the bounds of what we thought we could accomplish, we alter our self-perception, becoming more confident in all aspects of life. I’ve seen situations where a person takes responsibility for a difficult project at work, then decides to go back to school and study for a degree, or to pursue a dream that they always cherished, but never believed they could fulfill.

  All meaningful transformation is guided and sustained by our deepest convictions, whether we are aware of them or not. What do you truly value? Family? Adventure? Financial stability? Whatever it is, you can’t measure your success by the values of other people. Do you believe that you’ll be happy if you own a mansion and a fancy car? If so, dig a little deeper. What values will those things express?

  The fancy car and the house are symptoms of a deeper goal. I’m not here to reshape your morality or tell you what you should value, simply to ask “why?” Financial security and providing for your family are valid motivations behind your life choices. Or maybe you just love cars and houses. Whatever your reasons, however, understand that your decisions are rooted in deeper values, whether or not you are aware of them. The more clearly you understand those values, the more capable you will become of leveraging your efforts in an optimal way. My challenge to you is to dig deeper, and always to ask “why?”

  The true goal is meeting the values behind your achievements. When you realize this, you can take a step back and choose your path wisely, with full awareness. Start with your values and build goals that are a true extension of who you are; goals that bring deep satisfaction to the soul and leave the world a better place than you found it.

  If you’re contemplating change in your life, I want you to engage in the practice of Socratic self-examination and give to yourself the attention and effort that is too often wasted on fleeting things. Are you happy with the current state of your life and, if not, why not? What’s missing for you? What is it about your life that you find unacceptable right now? Keep asking that question and dive deeper. Do you think that having more money or a better job will take away the itch, or is there something more fundamental you need to express if you’re going to be happy with the way you spent your time on this planet? If you’re comfortable where you are, that’s fine. Not everyone wants to drive major change. But if you have a burning desire to leave your mark on this world, you must be painfully honest with yourself. You must look repeatedly for the gaps where you can become a better version of yourself.

  You’re not the same person as you were ten years ago, or twenty years ago. Throughout our lives we all change and evolve, whether we wish to or not. Only a few, however, make a deliberate choice to actively seek change. Transformation comes when we marry the desire for change with a strong sense of purpose and intent, and then we take action. I like to talk about gut-check leadership. If you truly need to make a change, you’ll feel it deep in your gut when you are confronted with a dilemma. Your stomach will begin to twist, and you’ll know that you can’t be right with yourself until you take action.

  Existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard called this phenomenon the “dizziness of freedom,” an inescapable confrontation between the present and future self. Even if you’re scared, your gut won’t let you escape from the need to jump, to make a change, and to become who you can be. Your gut will tell you what’s important. It will also tell you what’s not important.

  If you don’t feel a physical reaction in the face of major change, again, ask yourself why. Self-initiated change is an act of self-destruction, a willful aggression of the self. When faced with a potent choice, you should feel your heart pounding and your stomach rising toward your throat. If you’re apathetic and indifferent, what does that mean? Whenever you feel your gut twist, it’s an indication that there’s something for you to do: a conversation to have, a project to take on, a decision to make. Heed that signal and run toward it.

  Leaving the Corporate World in Pursuit of Purpose

  By luck or design, shifts in my work life coordinated with the birth of my children. Leaving the automotive company for the aerospace company coincided with the birth of my first child, Briley. Then, just as my first daughter, Coralie, entered the world, I left the aerospace company and moved to a firm that manufactured hydraulics and custom equipment. I decided to take the job because the owner was intending to build a leadership team that could grow the company to the next level, turning what was a regional firm into one that operated nationally and internationally. His plan was to build a team of highly skilled executives to oversee the transition, then sell the company either to his leadership team or to another buyer with provision for a management buyout.

  I played a role fleshing out the team and building the systems required to take the organization to the next level. For example, I led the company through ISO certification—a massive undertaking for a company of this size, especially one with no quality management system in place. It was an important step in ensuring the stability of our internal processes, as well as legitimizing our operation as an international supplier. I promoted an internal manager, Paul, to the role of quality manager, and worked with him to build systems, processes, and a culture of quality in an organization that was in desperate need of those enhancements.

  This process usually takes a few years to complete. When auditors review the first iteration, they typically provide feedback in the form of numerous “findings” that require follow-up work to ensure compliance. We completed our work in only nine months, and the audit resulted in zero findings. Throughout my years with this organization, I also undertook massive projects in process development, systems modernization, inventory management, and most importantly, the mentorship of other leaders. I won’t bore you with the details of those endeavors, however, except to say that the skills I learned during this phase of my career would serve me well in the massive undertaking that was yet to come.

  While I enjoyed the new challenges that came with the role, I was also defining my deeper values in life. When I left the aerospace manufacturing firm, I knew that I wanted an ownership stake in whatever I did next. My role with the hydraulics firm offered that possibility, but it didn’t feed my deeper hunger for meaning. I was realizing that my biggest priorities in life are my family and my children, and that I never want them to experience the stresses and strains that constituted my daily life growing up. Additionally, I was still driven by the determination to leave a mark on this world and discovering that one of the most profoundly satisfying ways I can do that is to teach people about strength.

  As my children began to grow, it became clear to me that I couldn’t sustain my existing pace. Something would have to give. I saw that a career as an executive, combined with running a gym, coaching, competing, and a little hobby time, was not compatible with being a present and engaged father. I was pushing too hard, in too many different directions, just as my wife said. Although I had made a name fo
r myself in the industry and was well compensated, I knew where my heart lay and which priorities I truly valued. Without a speck of doubt, I quit my career and devoted myself to building a legacy.

  Chapter Nine

  11. Legacy

  2015–2018 (Age Thirty-Eight to Forty-One), Portland, Oregon

  I wanted to complete my second elbow surgery before I left my job at the hydraulics firm and lost my health insurance. I went in for the procedure on a Monday and, with the medications, I was a little goofy and nauseous. I was knocked out for more than half a day, which was a disorienting experience. I wasn’t allowed to go into work or train for several days, so I decided to make the most of my free week.

  For some time, I had been considering a second tattoo. The Ouroboros reflected the purposeful reinvention that had become a major theme in my life, and I felt ready to make a statement that demonstrated my commitment to this path. The problem was that the design and placement I had in mind was a large undertaking that would mean approximately forty hours of needle time. A four-hour session is usually considered long, so forty hours of tattooing are typically broken down into ten or more sessions. With breaks for recovery, that amount of work can take as long as a year to complete.