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Profile

The Chief Inspiration Officer

Speaker, Coach, Author and former college athlete shows how to push beyond life’s many obstacles and challenges to get your life back.

Do you ever feel alone, isolated, and alienated ─ like an outsider looking in?" The son of a black father and white mother, Devin grew up in a mixed—and mixed up—world. His home life was chaotic, riddled with his parents’ drug use and unconventional ways of educating; dyslexia made academic learning a seemingly insurmountable challenge; and his identity was beyond confusing—was he black because he felt black or white because he looked white? Devin knew one thing: he needed to escape his environment and get into college, beyond which he believed the world would open up to him. Basketball was Devin’s ticket to a brighter future, and he attended Colgate on a full athletic scholarship. Despite his determination to get to college, however, he scraped through the next four years by doing the bare minimum. Realizing how many doors he had closed for himself was crushing. The day he graduated, he knew he had to change.  On that summer afternoon in 1991, he sat frozen with regret: he knew without a doubt that he had squandered his greatest opportunity—an education.

Devin spent the next ten years building a successful sales career before transitioning to a more fulfilling vocation: motivating people to reach their full potential.  An avid storyteller, Devin combines his impressive academic credentials with his speaking skills to connect with his audience. You'll leave his eye-opening talks confident that you can find a way out and reconnect with those who care about you. After years of feeling isolated because of his mixed race and dyslexia, Devin now helps others thrive in a fragmented world.

Devin speaks at schools, universities, corporations, associations, and organizations in a wide variety of disciplines to help others access their potential for change. He also discovered the pleasure of education for education’s sake, earning degrees and certificates from Cornell University, University of San Diego, Thunderbird School of Global Management, University of California, Berkeley, UCSD Rady School of Management, Anderson School of Management, and Southern New Hampshire University.

Devin lives in San Diego, CA with his wife and four daughters. His memoir, Contrast, is his gift back to those who are looking for some inspiration and passion to move forward, not look back.  A great life is measured by ones progress not perfection!

Contrast

In 1967, the Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage in America. Devin Hughes was born two years later to a black father and white mother who fled to Washington D.C. to escape the racism of the Deep South. Of course, bigotry still ran rampant, and light-skinned, green-eyed Devin felt its pull from both ends: strangers who didn’t know he was half-black and friends who didn’t care he was half-white. With questions of race and identity always cluttering his mind, Devin still found himself more consumed with his dysfunctional family life: a father who offered an alternative education in the form of “street life” and religious exploration, and a mother whose drug use zombified her for most of his childhood. Despite his parents’ flaws, they were Devin’s greatest believers. From his dad founding a neighborhood baseball team to his mom advocating for him in school, they taught Devin that anything imaginable was within reach, that their mistakes needn’t be his choices, and that his destiny was for greatness. Ultimately, Contrast: A Biracial Man’s Journey to Desegregate His Past isn’t a book about race; it’s a book about acceptance, perseverance, and love.