Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #146 Chris Duffin

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's podcast is with the mad scientist, Chris Duffin. Chris is a guy that I've been following for years in the strength community. He is doing some really cool shit outside of strength. He also has an incredible backstory, which he goes into really deep detail in his book, The Eagle and the Dragon. Just a phenomenal podcast. We had to do this one on Zencaster because he's out in Portland and I'm traveling less with the ceremony of pregnancy going on right now but still a great

Starting point is 00:00:32 podcast we dive deep into his book his backstory what he's doing in business and which records he's planning to break in strength at the end of this podcast, which will blow your mind. And you can follow all that March 19th. So we moved this one up ahead of some of the other podcasts coming out. Lo Siento, if you've been waiting to hear your own podcast, but this one's great. Check it out. Also visit kingsboo.com. Leave me your email address and I will send you one, only one newsletter per month with everything that I'm into. I know I'm off social media, so it's a great way we can stay connected. And of course, we've got the inner circle there. So if you want to work with me privately one-on-one, we can start the coaching process there. Outside of that, we've got some great sponsors today on the show. Today's episode is brought

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Starting point is 00:05:20 the full profile of what you can get out of cannabis and it's phenomenal. So check that out at onefarm.com slash Kyle, and you're going to get 15% off everything in the store. Thank you guys for tuning in and enjoy the show. All right, we're rocking and rolling. Chris Duffin, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Looking forward to chatting, my friend. This is the first time I've done a Zencaster interview in probably a year. Well, dang. Sorry I couldn't get down to do something locally, but travel right now is pretty challenging for me. Yeah, I get it. And my wife's pregnant right now with her second one, so I'm trying to travel less myself. Well, congratulations on that, man.

Starting point is 00:06:03 Yeah, thank you, brother. You got any kids? I got three of them. Oh, there you go. You're in the throes. You're in the thick of it. Yep. How old are they? They are 11, seven and two. Oh, wow. That's good spacing. It is a good spread. Very cool. Well, you sent me out your book, The Eagle and the Dragon, which is phenomenal. I've been diving into it. Not quite finished with it yet, so definitely want to dive into that. I think I've kind of run in similar circles as you. Obviously, I'm not a powerlifter, but friends in the community like Mark Bell, Jesse Burdick. I've heard your name quite a bit coming up as somebody that'd be great for the podcast. So I'm happy that you're here with us today. Yeah, yeah. So let's dive in like we do with everybody. Tell us about growing up.

Starting point is 00:06:57 I know you've got quite a few stories you can get into. You grew up in a very particular part of California, which is funny for most people who experience California, they think of the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, or Southern California, LA, Anaheim, San Diego, that kind of stuff, Disneyland. And where you grew up was, I guess people, it's even different from NorCal. It is NorCal, but it's not the Bay. It's its own world. It's still different. Yeah. It's, uh, it's actually, they call it the state of Jefferson somewhere up there. They start this, uh, you know, they've been trying to succeed since like, I don't know, 60 years ago, but yeah, it's a different country. It's, it's remote, it's wild.

Starting point is 00:07:40 And, um, and, uh, yeah, so I started, you know, growing know, growing up actually not too far out of the Bay area, just north of that in, in Sonoma County. And my, my parents, they were like super intelligent, well-read. My mom was going to school to be a chemical engineer. You know, my dad was a member of Mensa and just, but my mom did not want to be like a part of society today. Now, given this is like, you know, mid seventies and they're kind of in this, you know, uh, hippie mentality coming out of the sixties and still kind of living that definitely in that, area right and so that's

Starting point is 00:08:27 exactly what my mom decided to do and we as a very young age ended up living in the mountains and my mom just wanted to create a lifestyle separate from you know the current world um society and she had her reasons for that but it uh i i lived a very when i say poor it's not like when you see you know poor people today where you know they still have you know a a smartphone uh you know maybe at the kids still have a gaming system whatever it is but like this is a family so it was a family of seven living in the mountains on less than five thousand dollars a year that means you know like my if i had shoes my toes were sticking out the side we were you know we lived in tents we lived in condemned homes or buildings uh we lived in tents, we lived in condemned homes or buildings. Uh, we lived in just absolute

Starting point is 00:09:28 poverty. We're talking like, if I wanted to take a bath, there was times of, you got to go down to the stream with a jug of water and fill it, take it up, sit it on a rock in the sun all day long. And then you could dump it over your, over your head to, to bathe yourself. uh one of the one of the striking stories kind of start the book with it is uh around six years old we were living you know in the mountains and there was a lot of rattlesnake dens around so our bedding we had beams lashed into the trees and that's where we slept at night is climbing up there and these makeshift tree forts, essentially. And the rattlesnakes were all over the place. So I was being taught at six years old how to catch a live rattlesnake with my hands, how to hold it and kill it. And you're sitting

Starting point is 00:10:23 there like staring, like literally staring death down the throat. Because if you don't know what to do, you freak out, you make any mistake, you are going to die. But I had to learn those skills because that is the environment that I lived in. Now, kind of tied to that is there's the other side of the environment and that's the human environment and people that are like living in the woods or outside of you know society are trying to hide usually there's a reason so there's a lot of stories of dealing with uh had to deal with murderers i'd deal with a serial killer, human trafficking. Me and my siblings were taken by the state for a while, obviously, for the conditions that we

Starting point is 00:11:13 were living in. And that's what my early childhood life was like. And this is the first half of the book. I call it The Eagle because I literally have two giant eagles tattooed on me, one across my stomach and one across my back. And I had this done at 20 years old. And each eagle has a shackle on its ankle and it's that shackle kind of winds down and wraps and then connects to my ankle and there's a shackle there and the meaning behind it is you're not a product you're not defined by your environment or the things that happen to you but really you can you can take and fly to whatever heights you want in life. At the end of the day, the only thing holding you back is yourself. And so that first half of the book is really about separating one's identity from those things that happened to us. And we

Starting point is 00:12:18 see this happen a lot in society today where people, you ask them who they are and they'll tell you, well, this is the way I am because my parents were alcoholics or, Hey, I'm like going to the gym. And it's like, I'm the guy with a bad back. I can't do certain things and I'm going to be like this. I'm going to be in pain the rest of my life. Like, and you see people creating these definitions and defining themselves by things that are outside of their control. And yeah, those things are going to have an influence on you. If you've had some traumatic events in your life, I've certainly had them myself, it's going to influence you. But at the end of the day, the definition of oneself is not what happened to you, but your responses and your actions to those events. So we take this story of my youth a

Starting point is 00:13:13 little bit further. And that's exactly kind of what I started doing. So I ended up in Kara State for a while. Parents ended up getting us back. We ended up in Eastern Oregon, desert country, desert and mountains. My parents in Northern California, you can kind of guess we were living in the mountains because my mom was growing commercial weed for a living or attempting to when not getting busted by the police because it was quite illegal then, not so much now. And decided to stay out of the drug trade when we got to Oregon because they didn't want to lose the kids again. But we were doing logging, mining, things of that nature that could get us out and away from everything.

Starting point is 00:14:04 I'd be in some like remote Eastern Oregon school with like three kids in my class, but I started growing, you know, getting, getting a little older and taking kind of responsibility for myself, getting involved in athletics and academics. And by the time, you know, I got through to high school, we were living in a little bit larger community. And my stepfather, who was the father of my three sisters and the man that raised me, he won a disability settlement and was able to put a little bit of money down on a mobile home. So I had a stable place to live all through high school. Now, when I say mobile home, people probably have a little bit of a misconception of what that is. This one didn't have doors on the

Starting point is 00:14:51 inside. The windows barely closed. There was no kitchen. We had to frame up some two-by-fours and throw some fixtures in. And for just to give an example, the fire department burnt it down when we moved out because it was unlivable. But for us, it was pretty amazing. We had running water, electricity, bedrooms, and some stability through high school. But I was working through high school, you know, trying to come up with extra money for the family, but involved in athletics and, and, and school, obviously, ended up graduating as Valid Victorian and a state level athlete, and had my choice of where to go for school, and ended up picking just a straight academic school because that was the best. I got a full ride scholarship. And so I took off to go to school and things got rapidly worse at home. And I wasn't communicating at home much because anytime I'd call home, even though I was at school, I was working and had income, I would have to kick money back to the family. And I

Starting point is 00:16:04 was trying to honestly avoid that and just kind of figure myself out at the time. Those things that you do when you're of college age, right? Yeah. And, uh, like I said, things got worse. I ended up having to take custody of my, my, my three sisters one at a time and start raising each of them through their teenage years into adulthood, which I did while I finished my degrees and was starting my career, working on my MBA, all those sorts of things. I had my sisters in the background that I was taking care of and getting them kind of motivated and pointed in the right direction so that they could get moving with their life in a positive fashion. And that is kind of that first half of the book kind of culminating

Starting point is 00:16:53 later as I achieve what we would call the American dream, right? I'm living in a house with a white picket fence. I've got a couple of kids. By this point, I advanced my career to an executive level. So I was coming in and doing company turnarounds for aerospace companies, automotive manufacturing, high tech. I'd come in and either fix a division of a company or get it prepped and ready and sold. And so I was pretty well sought after for what I did. And it's a pretty broad scope, like, you know, going from living homeless, growing up homeless with like absolutely nothing, not being the best at, you know, social interactions and all those things because of my limited interaction with most

Starting point is 00:17:47 of society growing up to now becoming this corporate executive leader, living my life and doing all these things. It was, it's a pretty big shift kind of walking from one space to the other. And that's the first, that's the first that's the first half of the book let's unpack some of that i know uh oh yeah i lifted weights and all that somewhere in there too i forget i always forget about that you started getting strong no doubt i started getting strong yeah um talk about i mean if you if you will i know it's i know it's hard and you express yourself uh pretty vulnerably in your book. But talk about what exactly was going on

Starting point is 00:18:26 where you had to take your sisters and raise them yourself. Yeah, there's a few pieces I can't really get into because of the depth of some things. But my mother ended up having a mental breakdown, and she took off to Montana. And my stepfather had been in a mental decline for a number of years. He was, I'll put it bluntly, batshit crazy. So for example, one of my sisters was 13 years old. This is central Oregon. There's over a foot of ground on the snow in the winter. He kicks her out with no resources, nothing besides the clothes on her back to go figure things out because he thought she stole his favorite cereal bowl.

Starting point is 00:19:19 Wow. And so my siblings basically ended up living on the streets and not good things because trying to figure out how to do that as a teen or a preteen is a little challenging. And that's where I had to take a step in. the oldest I took custody of immediately, because that was the example I just gave there. My youngest sister actually had a friend's house that she had gone and was staying there and wanted to continue living there. The state didn't know, thought he was still, you know, had her. So it was all, I guess, legal. And then my middle sister was actually in Juvie at the time. So I raised my oldest sister in this town called Klamath Falls, where I went to, where I'd gone to college. And it was, I was 21 years old, I think, when I adopted her. But for 21 years old, I was fairly mature, we'll say.

Starting point is 00:20:30 I owned my own house. I owned my own business that I run on the weekends. I was working as a manager in a window and door manufacturing facility. I had 100 employees with three supervisors working under me, managing a third of this really large manufacturing plant. And so I took her in. And then as soon as my second sister got out of juvie, I took custody of her as well. And then a couple years after that, well, when my father passed away, and then the year following, my stepfather passed away. And so as soon as father passed away and then the year following my stepfather passed away. And so as soon as he passed away, my youngest sister either was going to become a ward of the state, even though she had this family that was taking care of her. There was no longer that smoke screen. So that's when I ended up taking custody of her as well and raising her through, you know, that 15 to 19 year time frame of uh you know of uh of childhood

Starting point is 00:21:28 or early adulthood yeah that's that's definitely a lot i mean there's there's no doubt right from the opening pages of your book i think it's a very clear yet the reader has a very clear understanding this is not how most people were brought up. But talk about, I guess, some of these, you know, there's a reframe that people can use. I've brought it up on this podcast before with one of my teachers, Anahata, who does a conscious relationships workshop. And she has you look back at your greatest teachers. And your greatest teachers are often the people who taught you not just the best things in life on how to live and what to do correctly, but the things to not do. And that becomes your greatest

Starting point is 00:22:08 teacher as you reframe everything that you learn from them. You witness them as a teacher, not just something, some shit that happened to you. I guess unpack some of the themes that you go over because you talk about fear really early on. And I think it was your stepfather that taught you how to deal with rattlesnakes. I know we spoke about it briefly here today, but how did these themes impact you? Because at six years old, because of your environment, you're now starting to witness the world in a different way that some people don't get to in their entire lives. Yeah. So that's something I really tried to focus on this book. I didn't want it to be a book about me. I wanted it to be a book that people could use the lessons and themes and what I learned in this broad scope of life. And we haven't covered all of it yet, by the way.

Starting point is 00:23:00 So we've only covered half of it. There's a lot more to this, to the story yet to yet to come, but yeah, overcoming fear and not just overcoming fear, but using it appropriately. So I did have a lot of introspection, I guess, through my life and every chapter in the book is wrapped around these themes. And, and yeah, one of the big powerful themes of that first half of the book is, is, is fear and being able to manage and control it. So for the, for the snake, you know, I've got this snake in my hand and you can't just be like, fear can be a powerful thing, but it can, that can be a useful force. And it could also be really detrimental if we don't handle it well. So overcoming fear doesn't mean like not being fearless. Being fearless leads to recklessness.

Starting point is 00:23:53 The way, the best way to overcome fear is to, is one to, to practice and adapt, adapt to it. So in incremental steps, just like when we go to the gym. You don't just walk into the gym and squat 500 pounds. You've got to build your tolerance for those types of things. And the other side of it is having a plan, like knowing specifically what I'm going to do in this situation, how I'm going to handle it, those things that are going to give you that confidence and control. And that's exactly what I had to do with this snake in my hand,

Starting point is 00:24:29 is I knew exactly how to manage it. I knew how to control it. And while my heart may be beating in my chest, I could manage this and safely. The best way to actually handle this snake is to be in that state and not in this fearless state, but also not letting fear overcome oneself. And a bigger picture in life is more about like fear and stress. So a lot of times as humans, we're sinking this point of comfort. And I mentioned, you know, coming into the gym and squatting 500 pounds.

Starting point is 00:25:17 So, let's take this like lifting weights, for example. Lifting weights is a physical stressor to the body. And when we stress ourselves, this is the human condition, we adapt to that and we become stronger and better versions of ourselves. So the same thing happens with those other areas of strength in our life, mental, emotional, or even spiritual. if we lack exposure we're going to get what happens if we quit going to the gym we start getting soft we start the process of atrophy which is a longward downward spiral towards leading towards death at some point right i'm over exaggerating but i'm not this is this is. This is fact. So my thesis is essentially,

Starting point is 00:26:08 you need to have fear in your life. You need to be in the practice of finding those things that twist up in your gut and give you that anxiety, that fear, also mixed with excitement. And that's your signal. That's your signal to not avoid it, to not run away from it, but to turn directly towards it and move in that direction because that is going to allow you the greatest opportunity for growth,

Starting point is 00:26:40 which is the greatest opportunity for life. And so it's not just understanding that these negative things that could happen in your life maybe aren't necessarily bad, but also that at some point we need to actually purposely find and chase those things if we've come to that chair of comfort and we're sitting there and we don't have that in our life right now. And it could be anything. You know, it's very early, you know, we're both a bit older, but, you know, think back when you're younger and you're like, you know, out there trying to find a relationship. And it's like this mixture.

Starting point is 00:27:17 You see this, you know, that person that becomes your partner. And, you know, initially, as you start progressing in that relationship, you've got anxiety, you've got fear, but you've got excitement too. And you've got that mixture. This is what drives you forward and creates beautiful things in your life. It could be this job that you're scared of. It could be a big project that is coming at work that they don't know who it's going to go to. It could be any sort of thing. It could be going back to school or getting out and chasing your true business idea or some project that you want to do. And that is such an important lesson that I think gets lost because we live in this world of curated and cultivated comfort at our fingertips every day. We're consumers of comfort and content and not really driving ourselves and our life and pushing

Starting point is 00:28:18 ourselves forward, finding that gap of fear and unknown in your life and stepping right into it. Sorry, I went on a little bit of a tangent there. No, I love it. I love it. It reminds me of the Native American wisdom of the buffalo. You know, when the storm comes, they all group together and go head first into the storm because they know it's the fastest way through it as opposed to trying to outrun the storm. And it seems like from a young age, you've been going

Starting point is 00:28:45 head on into that, which is certainly a different way of living than most. Yeah. And that's a good timeframe to shift because I hit the conclusion of the first half of the book, which was me living that American dream. And I'm sitting there and yeah, I had challenging work doing what I was doing, but every day I felt like taking an ice pick and stabbing myself in the eye. I was bored out of my mind and I was sitting around. I'm like, look at this. I finally proved everyone that this mountain man from the sticks could become a successful member, contributive member of society. And I looked around and I go, but whose dream was this? Was this mine? Is this where I want to be? And that's when I started the second path,

Starting point is 00:29:48 the second half of the book, which is also defined in another tattoo, which is the first one. It's one tattoo. It took me like 40 hours, covers most of my right leg and my torso, front and back. And the second one is another 40-hour tattoo, and it's just a dragon, this giant Ouroboros. And the face covers my chest, and it wraps around my shoulders and my back and my arms and inside my arms and comes back around. And its tail is sitting in its own mouth, and he's devouring his tail. And that sounds a bit macabre or grim or what have you, but there's a lot of mythology around this. And there's a number of terms for the Ouroboros, which is the purposeful reinvention of oneself, the consuming of the old,

Starting point is 00:30:52 the shedding of that skin and becoming a new and better version by devouring the old. And so I was sitting there in my late 30s. Actually, the process started probably in my earlier 30s of thinking about this stuff. And I'm like, I love leadership. I love being able to be able to take people. And that's what I did is I changed cultures in companies. Yeah, there was business processes I put in place and a lot of technical stuff. But at the end of the day, people don't realize that everything, everything is accomplished through people. People are the jet fuel that's going to propel you forward in life.

Starting point is 00:31:43 Your relationships, your personal life, your business life. It doesn't matter where it's at, but it's really important that you invest in those people. I'm getting off on a tangent again. Really important that you invest in people and the people that matter for you in your life. And that's going to create so much. And so that's what I enjoyed about the work that I did. I didn't care about making airplane parts or car parts or whatever it was we were making. It was getting people to achieve more than they thought possible of themselves. Having them find that realization and seeing the impact it had across their entire life as they became more engaged in their work, which led to more engagement

Starting point is 00:32:33 in their own life, their family, all these sorts of things. And that, I loved it, but I felt I had so much more to give. Like I said, I left out the lifting side of things. But I started lifting around 1988. And early 2000s, started making my own gym on the side of running businesses. And that was an outlet for my coaching. I had like a 9,000 square foot training facility as a side project. Because I wanted to be the best lifter that I could possibly be. And to do that, I knew I had to have the right people around me. And so I created that on purpose around me. But in the process, I started meeting a lot of, as I chased human performance,

Starting point is 00:33:41 I started building this network of knowing the best people in the world for different pieces of research or knowledge. You can see it on the advisory board on our website if you want to go take a look. But they're the best of the best in any discipline. They're personal friends. I lecture with them. I got to the point where I was lecturing with them. And I really wanted to take these messages around movement and strength and having that being a healing thing in life and not a positive thing in life and not a detrimental thing. And I looked at my life and I said, you know, this is the path that I want to go. This is how I can have the biggest impact on the world that I think I can with my skills and my passion, which is to help people grow and achieve beyond what they think possible. And so I got up and I walked away from this career that I was paid really well at,

Starting point is 00:34:39 sought after for what I did, very secure to put my entire life savings and everything on the line to start up my own business and became an entrepreneur. I hate the word entrepreneur though, but I have to have four businesses in my portfolio now. So I have to admit that, okay, technically I am. But and at the same time, I had to make a lot of personal choices in my life as well. So we're talking about the other side of it. If you're going to invest yourself in people that are going to be that you truly believe in and are also going to reciprocally help your life there's a point of you've got to cut out the individuals that are not that way and we're not talking about just cutting out people that are not yes people like there you need people in your life that are going to challenge you but it's for a common purpose they They understand the purpose, the end goal, and it's not just to be a negative draw on energy. And so I had to cut some longstanding relationships. One of those was

Starting point is 00:35:56 my wife. And so it was a really challenging time in my life. I actually walked away from competitive powerlifting, uh, at that time as well, because I, I even reframed from my lifting what I wanted out of my lifting. I wanted to inspire greatness. I wanted to be creative with, uh, hopefully we can get into this discussion around values and stuff here in a little bit, but with how I express my values in life into my lifting and also create a platform where I could draw in awareness and money for charitable causes and things that I believe in.

Starting point is 00:36:38 And so I started doing exhibition lifting and essentially retailered my whole life so within five years time frame luckily i i am remarried i have a third uh third kid now as i mentioned earlier and and i'm just so happy despite all the you know the pressures of running multiple businesses going the startup round. But in five years or less than five years, because this is a pretty regular thing, we're essentially in every single major professional sport out there. Dominate like the last few years, nine of the 10 or nine of the 10 teams that compete in the World series and MLB, their customers and clients of ours for, uh,

Starting point is 00:37:27 you want to list colleges. Every championship team is a customer. We have like 500 different colleges that we work with. Like I said, huge portion, probably 75% of MLB. We're in the NBA. We're in the NFL.

Starting point is 00:37:40 Uh, we're in the NHL, uh, tour to France, Olympic training center uses our stuff tons of uh throwing athletes that compete around the world use our products that we've become an industry standard for what we do in in the work that we do in that period of time because of that passion and understanding and so it's it's awesome to see to see what I hope to be a part of and

Starting point is 00:38:08 create coming to fruition. And really, that was the impetus of the book is my business is all focused on the physical nature of how to have you strength as a tool to become a better version of yourself. And I wanted to help people on the other aspects, the mental, emotional, and be able to put some practical tools and lessons in place and give people the questions that they need to ask themselves to truly know what they value in life, how to create goals that are aligned with it and execute a plan that will allow them to live that life. And that's the Ouroboros, the purposeful reinvention of oneself. I absolutely love that. So you had, obviously, the impetus that you have made it by all standards. I recommend this documentary to a lot of people, but the documentary I Am is really fascinating. It's with the director of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, Liar Liar, all this stuff. He gets to the top of Hollywood. He's got a $33 million home. It's the third one he's bought in Beverly Hills.

Starting point is 00:39:26 And he realizes he's not happy. So he sets out upon the world to see what drives happiness, who has the most peace, what are the cultures, the traditions, the people on this planet who actually do have that. And I think a lot of people get to a successful point in their life and they look around and they're like, what's this all for? So that is a great place to start from. Sometimes we don't make significant changes until there's a crisis, but that crisis or rock bottom is different for different people. And that certainly can be the case for a lot of people who

Starting point is 00:39:55 have quote unquote made it to then have a review of their life and say, this is not what the fuck I want to do with every day of my life for the rest of my life. Yeah, that is a perfect example I'd love to dig into, actually, Kyle, if you don't mind. Yeah, please do. So we are told so much about what we should want in this world. And like I said, I mentioned the words like curated and cultivated earlier. It really is like we're set. We all need to be individuals. And here, here's a great perfume and a great set of clothing that matches your – and this individualism is not real.

Starting point is 00:40:43 Like it's all on the exterior. So like, let's talk about his $33 million home that he just bought. In the, in the, that world of, this is why I hate the word entrepreneur is because there's so much of this push in the entrepreneur world or with these business coaches that are out there in the entrepreneur world saying, you need to go out there, you need to chase so you can get your, your mansion and your, and your fast cars. And, and, and don't be, you know, don't be thinking anything negative of, about those. If you want those things, there's nothing wrong with it. And I agree, there is nothing wrong with that. There's no morality. There should be no morality attached to,

Starting point is 00:41:23 you know, what our individual desires in life are. And I definitely walk that line in my book by teaching people to ask the right questions that get there, but not actually define what you want. And what you've got to start with, and this is why I brought up silly, but your why, your really fundamental understanding of your values in life. And this is a hard, hard thing for some people to get to, but you can't just start jumping to the end goals. I want a mansion. I want this. The whole bucket list thing, there's another approach. People are looking, what about the Joneses? Well, the people around me have this.

Starting point is 00:42:14 I need this. I need that. And the question is, why do you want those things? Why do you want those? Because understanding that, you'll get to what are the underlying values in your life. And you've got to start there before you start looking at goals, because they can be really detrimental. So I'll use a couple things that would be goals that would drive me to wanting a mansion, potentially. That would be, I love accomplishment. I love recognition, like being respected and known for the good work that I've done.

Starting point is 00:42:57 I love, like I said, the accomplishment side of things. Those are some of my values. Now I've got some other ones as well. There's about like seven core values that i have and uh those could definitely be expressed through having these really fine wonderful things but what about what if it's another value uh one of mine happens to be security which is a really heavy one for me and something that kind of held me back from a long time from taking the step into this, the unknown like I did a few years ago. But again, I've got

Starting point is 00:43:33 accomplishment kind of rolling against me as well, pushing against me on the other side. But if security was my main driver, I could also say, I want a mansion and I want a fancy car out front or garage full of fancy cars, whatever you want. Anyway, because once I've got those things, then my underlying subconscious would maybe know that if I've achieved that, I'm definitely at a secure place in my life. I'm going to be able to take care of myself. I'm going to be able to take care of myself. I'm going to be able to take care of my family and maybe create something that's long lasting for my family as well. But if I don't know that value, I could over leverage myself and stretch myself because my goal is to have that mansion.

Starting point is 00:44:22 So I put everything on the line and get stretched to the absolute minimum, get that mansion. And what have I done? I've created the exact environment opposite of what my underlying value is. I'm stressed out. I'm insecure all the time because I'm worried about being able to pay the bills. And I put it to the absolute minimum. I've got no wiggle room. And that is the quintessential storyline of demonstrating why knowing your values first work. So just like knowing my values around being able to want people to succeed and basically the coaching side of that, that's how I was able to express that and enjoy the work that I did before. But there's other ways to express that same thing. And if we understand

Starting point is 00:45:15 that, when you create this life vision or whatever it is that you've got, you may say, I want to be an actor. Well, why do you want to be an actor? You may end up finding, if I understood my values, there's actually several different ways that I actually could live my life and achieve and live those values without going down the actor path if I find that, one, I suck as an actor and I'm just never going to make it, or it's highly freaking competitive. I've been living in LA trying to bust it for 20 years. And I still don't have it moving. And it's like, well, that's my only plan.

Starting point is 00:45:51 So I guess I'm going to live life failing. Well, there's other avenues. And you'll never know what those other avenues are unless you ask those questions and dig really, really deep. And it's not an easy process. It sounds like very theoretical. I can just get in there and hammer that out. But pulling back layer after layer after layer to really understand what is driving you is an incredibly essential task. And it's a hard task, but it's going to really make a big

Starting point is 00:46:26 difference on your life if you can do it. Because from there, now you can start establishing goals that will realize those values. And that creates a laser-like focus in your life, to create and accomplish so much because now you know, what can I cut out? What do I not have to do? What do I not have to chase? What shiny thing entering my vision that I could go down a path chasing for a couple of years has no value to my long-term vision and plan. This creates a life that people go, how the hell are you able to accomplish and move forward so much things? And it's, you're not doing more. You're not, no one's got more than 24 hours in a day. This is how you create that environment and that type

Starting point is 00:47:21 of success with this, you know, laser focus with towards living the way that you want to live. I love it, brother. That's beautifully stated. Talk a little bit about how you came to understand, like, where was the, I know you've had a lot of time in nature. You've had a reflective mind. You talked a bit about the conversations that your parents and step-parents and friends would have around politics and religion and spirituality. I guess, what was the impetus? Was it just hard shit coming up in life, or was there a meditation practice or exposure to plant medicines? I mean, is there anything that got you to a point where you've really started to dive into

Starting point is 00:48:06 what are the values? Why does the why matter? It's not something that most people just stumble upon. And obviously, I haven't made it to the second half of your book yet, but I just wonder if there was something that occurred that was really the driving force for you to take a hard look within.

Starting point is 00:48:23 Yeah, that's a good question. And I think there are definitely some things when I think back now on my life. So one of the things, my father was a Buddhist. And he had gone and spent, I think, a couple years in the monasteries in the mountains in Tibet. He was a hardcore Buddhist and he came back and he was always involved. And when I would go to visit him, you know, we would go out to meditation sessions. So at a very early age, I had a lot of experience spending time, you know, in my mind, being able to learn meditation practices from some skilled people on the Eastern medicine side, or I wouldn't say Eastern medicine, but Eastern philosophy.

Starting point is 00:49:13 And I think that definitely helped that as well as also just the massive amount of time reading and being separated from technology. Sounds silly. My wife loves to laugh at me because I have these huge gaps of like, in my people like, oh, what about these movies? I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. They're like, everybody's seen that. You were alive then.

Starting point is 00:49:37 I'm like, yeah, that was in a 10-year block that I had no exposure whatsoever to anything that was going on in the world. So I think that environment helped lead to those things. And it definitely, there's, I've always been drawn to, I'm a perfectionist. Like I always believe that we can be better. And this is a statement that just resounds through our organization because I say it all the time, which is there is always more. And this is a framework of how we look at everything. So something I've ingrained in my organizations is we know we want to find this like North Star direction that we're heading with any project or the company. And we're always taking a step towards it, but you can never actually get there. So it's this process type

Starting point is 00:50:43 mentality that we're trying to find perfection. We know that we're never going to find it, but everything that we do, we're constantly trying to push to be better and to be a little closer to it. And these are things I just picked up through the years. Actually, a lot of philosophical type stuff is in this range. And the same thing, like there's Simon Sinek's book about the wise, I can't remember the title of the book right now. My business partners read it, but I was doing this about 20 years ago, late nineties, because this was a Japanese philosophy that I'd integrated into my leadership disciplines from the industrial side. So I did a lot of research and understanding of some different philosophy,

Starting point is 00:51:33 philosophy, but it was related to like industry. But I started thinking about life that way. And that one was the five whys. And it was a process for understanding root cause problems in a systematic fashion. And so it's funny, but literally many of my philosophies in life are pulled from this industrial sector. But a lot of it is Japanese-based or themed philosophy because it came out of Japan in the post-war period as they really ramped up their manufacturing and figured out the things that worked. And again, that continuous improvement mindset, all of that really just fits well in my life. And I use that as a framework for business, but I was using it as a framework for how I managed people and how I managed cultures. And I started seeing this huge impact. I mean, I took this aerospace company, for example, that came in, it was about ready to

Starting point is 00:52:39 shutter its doors. It was going to lose its contract with Boeing. They were going to go bankrupt. 150 people were going to lose their jobs, plus all the subcontractors that worked for us as well. They were the worst performer as far as quality and delivery. Maybe not the worst, but they were not at acceptable rates. So abysmal quality and delivery. And financials, they weren't making money, which makes Boeing worried. And so that's what they were going to lose the contract for. And so I went to work and it was about changing the culture. And just by changing the culture, in a matter of three years, the company was the number one performer in the world to Boeing Corporation for quality and delivery

Starting point is 00:53:27 and was financially profitable. Seeing that type of stuff and being immersed in it and seeing how it changes people, I started using as kind of coaching philosophies with the people, the, the leaders, the other leaders from different organizations that I mentored and things of that nature and started putting in place in my life through the years. That's a prime example of seeing what that can do to change a huge amount of people and deliver results that impacted their life. Yeah, that's incredible. What does, Is that where you got Kabuki from? It is, in a sense. That's a totally random story of how it got started, which was just a college

Starting point is 00:54:17 nickname because there used to be this wrestler named The Great Kabuki. And I used to be a pretty good wrestler in high school. People in college knew that. And he would drink this green stuff and spit it out. And, uh, I might've drank in, you know, uh,

Starting point is 00:54:35 green enhanced, uh, alcoholic beverages a time or two in college. And, uh, that's where the nickname came from. But then I started putting it in place and, and that's what really stuck because like we call the,

Starting point is 00:54:48 we've got the Kabuki is a mask, right? It's a mask that we put on. Well, it's for theater, but you can also tie, if you do enough research, you'll find that it's also tied to, you know, putting the samurai mask on before going to battle. And if you start looking at a lot of

Starting point is 00:55:08 different religions, or not religions, ethnic backgrounds, social backgrounds going way back, you'll see when people went to war, there was always in all of these, and we see it today in sports, like just the putting a face paint on and things like that. But it's this either a mask or painting of the face or these dancing rituals. And it's all this preparation for, you know, this normal person that is, you know, a father, a member of a tribe, a just this individual now has to go to battle and do these things that are atrocious, do these things that are outside of their norm to be able to protect, again, their family, their tribe, their community. And so they've got to become somebody that they're not in this process. And so we've got the Kabuki mask and it's actually a rendition of my

Starting point is 00:56:07 face in a squat. So we call it our squat face. And it's all about, we'll provide you the tools and the methodology, but you got to bring that third factor, which is your game day face, the mental side of it. We can't give that to you. I can write about it. I can speak about it. But at the end of the day, the person that's bringing that to the table is you. And that's the trifecta that's going to bring change, the right tools, the right methodology, and that mental aspect. So we call it get your squat face on, but it's get your game day face on. It's, you know, become that other version of yourself to step up and do a performance or go to battle or any of these sorts of things. And I think that just really stuck well with me. And so

Starting point is 00:56:59 we've kept that as the cornerstone and created the business name around that. But it was totally random where the name came from to start with, honestly. I love that. Absolutely love that. Talk a bit about how strength, you know, getting, I know what drew you to strength is something that's drawn me to strength and a lot of other people is this, this knowing that as I build myself and make myself stronger, that this starts to leach out into all areas of my life and all aspects from mental, emotional to even the spiritual. I don't think many people have that understanding when they look at somebody with a larger frame or, you know. No, they almost think the opposite.

Starting point is 00:57:38 They almost think the opposite, right? And I'm definitely following that stereotype category and I love breaking it because it's like just yesterday I had somebody that has no clue, some young 20-year-old on my Instagram, like making some comments basically along the lines that I was not intelligent. I'm like, just makes me laugh because like, okay. He's like, yeah, you the mad scientist. I'm like, oh, thank you.

Starting point is 00:58:02 Did you Google Chris Duffer Scientific Achievement Award and find the awards I've got? Like, that's cool, man. Thank you. But we don't, you know, I talked about identity and how stress really kind of defines and creates that. But at the same time, you don't know what it is. You don't know who you are as a person, except when you're testing yourself. And I'm giving that a bit of a pause to sink in, because that is, you could have been a hero or done amazing things 20 years ago. But if you haven't been in the

Starting point is 00:58:46 practice, just like if you haven't been in the gym, you're going to get soft. And when you go to test yourself, you're going to find out I'm soft. Soft can be a lot of things, but it's getting in, let's say CrossFit, you're getting in and doing a WOD, you got a time. That could be, time means nothing. Did I give it my all? Did I really push myself? No one knows, but you know deep down in your heart where you fell out. did you and and that really tells you who am i right now today in this world we never know unless we're in that process of testing ourselves and that's that's what i love about that and what has always kept me drawn to it is is just something inexplicable about that feeling and sensation. And you know what?

Starting point is 00:59:50 In every workout, you do know there is always more. And that's what keeps driving you back again and again, right? So it's a process of self-discovery and a means. And yeah, it is tied 100% to those other aspects. I mean, this dates back to early Greek philosophy with Socrates. A lot of people kind of miss, like in today's world, like it's really, anybody that's a bigger person, and this is, there's research backing this, is thought to be less intelligent when I think that you've got to be strong in all these aspects. And you really can't unless you're testing all those areas and trying to push all those areas

Starting point is 01:00:32 forward. But strength, again, is relative. It doesn't mean that you need to be big and strong. Like whatever your physical culture side is, it could be endurance running. I don't care. Test yourself. Find yourself. And that's a lot more than physical in nature. Yeah, no doubt about it. And people aren't going to get it unless they go do it.

Starting point is 01:01:01 Yeah, you don't get it sitting on the sidelines. No doubt about that. You don't. Yeah. You don't get it sitting on the sidelines. No doubt about that. You don't know. You got to be the one that steps up to the plate and, and discover it. And I, I,

Starting point is 01:01:13 you know, I don't have any magical words to try to explain it to nobody that somebody else that hasn't, you know, had that, that deep attachment to physical culture in their life and seeing how it sways both your spiritual nature that and there's tons of research showing uh the impacts on mental and emotional well-being like massive amount uh around that actually one of the it can be tied to the crisis and that we're

Starting point is 01:01:38 seeing in the world today around mental well-being uh is due to this lack of physical culture in our life. And it's kind of interesting seeing because there's so many people that are really highly involved in it. And if you're in your community and you kind of just watch it, you think it's the biggest thing and everybody does it. But it's a dichotomy in the world today where people are going towards extremes. Like there's so much information out there on fitness that was never available. You can do things now that people never realized were possible, and people are pushing those

Starting point is 01:02:13 extremes and accomplishing it. But then we still have this vast majority of the population is getting really unhealthy. Body weights are climbing, heart disease and cancer are going up, diabetes is going up, and mental health is on the decline tied exactly to it. Yeah, I think about that a lot. My buddy Aaron Alexander, he finished a really good book that talked, and it even broke down the science of posture. And I know that's something that, you know, Jordan Peterson's talked about before, but there are things we can do that, that really do not only make us feel better in the moment, but make us feel better long-term. And there are things that really expand and open up the body and help us get stronger in those

Starting point is 01:02:59 postures. And a lot of that comes with training under load. And I don't know that there's many good replacements for that. There isn't. It comes down to the basic human thing. You have to have stress to get adaptation. So the people that want to, you know, promote these low stress environments for, you know, seeing success, it fundamentally doesn't work. Like we have to have load, some sort of intensity that is going to challenge you. Without that, we do not see adaptation. I love it, brother. Well, where can people find you online and where can people get your book?

Starting point is 01:03:46 Well, the book is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can get it on Audible as well. Paperback, e-book, hardcover, any of those. You can get the hardcover on our site. If you order from Kabuki Strength, it's a signed hardcover. But I don't care. Get it wherever you want to want to go. Uh, there is an option that allows you to get it for free, uh, via my, my personal website,

Starting point is 01:04:12 Christopher Duffin.com C H R I S T O P H E R D U F F I N. Um, if you sign up for a new audible membership that you'll get my book and another book for free. Kind of cool. But again, whatever you want to do. There's links to my websites there. So Kabuki Strength is, that's our strength training. Very unique novel items that improve biomechanics under load. We reduce injury rates while increasing the training effect. And so that's

Starting point is 01:04:47 kabukistrength.com. Barefoot athletics is a human to ground interface. So shoes, minimalist shoes, and then toe socks and things of those nature to really improve foot mechanics, which is a really misunderstood and important topic. And then build fast formulas, performance supplements. So those are, you can find it all on ChristopherDuffin.com. Social media, the two places I really interact at are Instagram and LinkedIn. If you just type in Chris Duffin, I'm sure I'll pop up. But my LinkedIn handle is mad underscore scientist underscore Duffin.

Starting point is 01:05:30 So those are all great ways to get a hold of me and you can follow along. So what I'm doing right now, Kyle, we didn't talk about this, but I set this plan. We got like three minutes. Yeah. No, no. Go for it. Okay. So I set this plan in place four years ago when I exited competitive powerlifting. I said, I want to do what I want to do. And I'm going to chase some crazy ass goals. And the primary, I made a list of them,

Starting point is 01:06:01 but the big one was to be the first person in the world, only person in the world, to squat and deadlift 1,000 pounds for reps, let alone nobody's done both singularly. So there's people that specialize in one or the other, about five or six on each side that have done it, but nobody has been able to do both. And so I did the deadlift. I did a thousand pound, thousand one pounds for almost three reps, uh, three years ago. It's still the standing Guinness world record for the most weight ever sumo deadlifted. And this March in San Diego, March 19th at the, uh, San Diego convention center, I will be squatting a thousand pounds, uh, planning somewhere between three to five repetitions to, to finalize this. I call it grand goals, a little play on word words, but, uh, it's chasing these big, gnarly, scary things in your life that excite you. And, uh, so this is

Starting point is 01:07:02 a great way that grand has dual meaning. So that and the thousand pound load. So this is, you know, that's part of the inspiration side of things of trying to do it. It's also a huge learning experience for me. Every time I do this, I advance my knowledge on pulling together like all the research and different ideas and things with the you know this elite group of researchers that I work with and really putting it into practice in an environment where I have to figure it out and the body is not and there's such an incredible amount of stress that that I learn it really fast what works what doesn't how to how to modify it those sorts of things and that's where a lot of our philosophy comes out of is those moments like that and learn it really fast, what works, what doesn't, how to modify it, those sorts of things. And

Starting point is 01:07:45 that's where a lot of our philosophy comes out of is those moments like that and what happens in the real world. And this time, our charity is the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. So my business partner, his grandson had to battle that last year. And so he, his grandson is trying to raise $50,000 for the leukemia and lymphoma society. So on the Kabuki strength website, you can buy the grand goals shirts. A hundred percent of proceeds are going towards the leukemia and lymphoma society. And you can also just donate directly, I think on that same uh that same that same page as well so um the process is being documented and thrown up on my social media channels so that you know each week's lifting and all that stuff if you want to follow on social media it's there uh and there is a

Starting point is 01:08:35 feature-length documentary being filmed on the whole process that'll probably come out next year that's fucking incredible definitely happy we went three minutes over that's that's i always forget to talk about the lifting stuff i don't know why because i'm like it is like it i don't know i just never think it's that impressive and then i'm like oh yeah that is what i do and nobody else does it so yeah damn impressive i, I just worked my way back to using 315 for reps on back squats. So I'm working my way up to a 500 pound squat and definitely just for a single, I'll be happy with that. But that's beautiful work, brother.

Starting point is 01:09:16 It's exciting to watch you and follow you. And I'd love to learn more from you. I'd love to have you out here on it for a seminar down the road. Yeah, let's plan on making that happen. I I've talked with the folks that on it through the years and, uh, I've just never, it's never come up time timing wise. So, uh, we can make that happen for sure. Okay. Chris, thank you so much, brother. Thank you for joining us. And we'll link to all that in the show notes for everybody. So you don't have to write it down and, uh, yeah, man, we'll be watching. We'll be watching

Starting point is 01:09:45 in March. Thank you so much. Appreciate the time today. Alrighty. Have a good one, brother. Thank you guys for listening to today's show with my dude, Chris Duffin. Be on the lookout. You can follow him online March 19th to see him set this incredible record where he plans to do multiple reps with a thousand pounds on squat. He's already done multiple reps with a thousand pounds on deadlift, and he will become the first human, no doubt, ever in recorded history to do both. Pretty exceptional guy. Check his book out. We'll link to it in the show notes from Amazon, and we'll see you next week.

Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #146 Chris Duffin

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