Meet Christian Durfee

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christian Durfee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Christian, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?

Growing up, I came from a household of teachers. I always had the urge to dive into entrepreneurship, however, I was unsure where to start and how turn an idea into fruition. The thought of telling my friends and others about my business ideas was so frightening and brought a lot of poor cofidence and self-esteem.

To boost my confidence up, I started listening to entrepreneurial podcasts and making an effort to meet local entrepreneurs, especially my peers. Being a part of a community full of builders and creators going through the same self-doubts really helped me to take the leap and put myself out there.

After “officially” going “public” with my idea, I was terrified that I would lose any social credit about myself, especially being a junior in high school, sewing bow ties…not necessarily a “popular” thing to do as a 17 year old male. Sure, there was some negative comments or laughs, however, I found a lot of support from others that I wouldn’t have thought of. By putting myself out there and showing I was brave (even when I wasn’t feeling brave), made me a person that people admired through the risks I was taking.

Those risks bloomed into success and taught me experience along the way that I would have never achieved by being quiet. In turn, the lessons helped me boost my true confidence by giving me opportunities that I was once scared of. I was able to accomplish tasks and hardships to prepare me to confidently handle any situations that might come my way in the future. The main lesson through all of it is: you never know until you try. Confidence and self-esteem is a made-up flight or flight by our brains to protect us from negative experiences. However, negative experiences is what shapes and teaches us to become 1% better each day. Without negative, there’s no positive. No ying yang. If you played a sport and won every single time, you wouldn’t need to practice or get better (which sounds great), but when the time comes where you play an opponent who has a different strategy from others you’ve played in the past, you’re going to lose – and that lose will teach you to combat that strategy for next time.

I still struggle with confidence and self-esteem every day, but, the way I approach it now is very different: I see everyone as human beings knowing that everyone struggles with confidence, some are just good at finding ways to hide it. We’re all just people on a rock, floating in space, trying to figure out stuff each day. Everyone goes through the same emotions as you, instead of trying to be better than someone to boost your confidence, realize that we’re all the same and by you believing in yourself, you’re giving someone hope. That’s where true confidence is. So, puff your chest out and know that you got this, you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t ready.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I’m Christian Durfee, founder & CEO of InvestLink Social.

I’ve been a serial entrepreneur most of my life starting in early high school. Entrepreneurship always interested me by finding a common problem I and others deal with, finding a solution, building that solution, and helping people with their daily lives.

I created InvestLink Social with my incredible team after I had a successful exit with my health & wellness startup I operated in college. InvestLink Social was born from the idea that there’s so many fantastic founders out there but a lot of them struggle on this journey for a multitude of reasons, especially financially. Many aren’t aware of raising money for their startup, or have seen a popular TV show, and think to spam investors. We come in to offer a free platform where entrepreneurs network and connect with other entrepreneurs + have the ability to talk to actively deploying investors to support them on their journey to being the next Facebook. We’re a global platform with 10+ countries and investors with over $400m in assets. We have actively daily users who are looking to connect with you.

If you’re an entrepreneur looking to connect with investors, advisors, mentors, sales opportunities, and more, all for free, head to www.investlinksocial.com

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Relationship building, mental toughness, and the openess to learning. Many think that entrepreneurship is about measurable knowledge (I.E., how good are you at marketing, how many pieces of content can you create, do you know how to code an app), but the trick is about “who you know, not what you know”. Knowing the right people and creating a personal relationship with them is a cheat code. So many in this industry have had a helping hand, they want to pass that helping hand along to you. If you can meet the right person, care about them as another person and create a friendship, are open to them sharing their experience and you taking that as constructive feedback, and being mentally tough when things aren’t going the right way, you’ll have it made.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

I’ve been very fortunate enough to have a circle of great people who have been where I am before. Not only are they fantastic mentors and advisors, they are also personal friends. They’re people who I would do anything for and know they would do anything for me.

It’s so important to find your tribe and circle, but, also knowing when people are trying to take advantage of you/giving you poor help. It’s important to know their character and mash well with them. Don’t go into a professional relationship from a professional angle, go into a professional relationship with a personal angle. Get to know them first – would they be someone you’d love to grab a beer with? Travel the world with? If yes or no, that’s your answer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.investlinksocial.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-durfee/