Special Guest Expert – Christian Höferle (transcribed by Sonix)

Announcer: Welcome to The MIND BODY BUSINESS Show. The three keys to your success is just moments away. Here’s your host Brian Kelly.

Brian Kelly: Hello everyone and welcome, welcome, welcome to The MIND BODY BUSINESS Show! We have a phenomenal show lined up for you tonight. This gentleman has talents beyond talent. And he has international talent, which is part of what I love about doing this show is I get to meet people that have been from all over the world. He currently resides here in the United States for those of you watching internationally. Amazing, amazing gentleman. Interviewed his wife some time ago. This is a power couple. A power couple. They’re both independent entrepreneurs doing their own businesses and they’re intertwining what they are, their experiences together for each business. It’s amazing. I can’t wait to dig in. Before we do that – The MIND BODY BUSINESS Show. What is that all about? Well, in my now fifty-four years of circling the sun on this planet. I’ve been I’ve been looking and very curious about how people become successful. And I got to the point where I realized that I should start focusing only on those who are successful, not those so much that are unsuccessful. Yes, you can learn from the unsuccessful. I get that. But when you focus on the successful, you can find out what makes them tick, what makes them so successful. And what I found where there were patterns that developed as I learned, and talked to, and was mentored by, and coached by, successful entrepreneur after successful entrepreneur. And our guest that’s coming on is no different, Christian Höferle is no different. And the cool thing is there were patterns. And I thought, “Oh my gosh. So, if I follow these patterns then potentially I guess I could become successful too.” And that’s exactly all you have to do. I love it. It’s called modeling success. And what is modeling is just a fancy word for copy. And it’s ok to copy. It’s funny as young kids we’re told not to copy because we’re not supposed to cheat (signals air quotes) and we still shouldn’t cheat. Right? As adults though, to get ahead in life it’s ok to copy, especially if you’re doing it with a mentor who’s actually giving you all of the secrets. And what that’s part of this show is what it’s all about, is to give you the secrets to success. They’re not really secrets, it’s just combining certain things in a certain pattern, in a recipe, to get you to that point of success. So, it all starts with the foundation which is your mind, your mind set. And the beautiful thing is, is our guest expert tonight is an NLP expert himself. Neurolinguistic programming. And I can think of no better way and quicker way to successfully reprogram your mind to serve you better than using neurolinguistic programming. And so, both Christian and myself and Christian’s wife who actually runs an entire NLP Academy, expert beyond expert. We all use NLP on a daily basis for our betterment, and for our clients, and for our families. It’s amazing. And that’s mind. Body. What is that about? Well, I found that most successful people keep their body in fine tune, in fine shape. And I think you’ll find that Christian and his wife and even his entire family do the same thing. We’re going to ask him a question about that later on. And the cool thing is to operate at a peak level of performance. There’s there’s the name of the company Reach Your Peak. That’s where that comes from. Reach your peak level of performance. To reach that, you need to have all three of these categories completely mastered. So, in the body sense, that’s where you want to exercise on a regular basis, to keep your body, to keep all the joints lubricated, to keep the blood pumping to… just, it gives you better health. And nutrition is a huge part of that. So, with body it’s both exercise and nutrition, feed yourself clean food. No processed foods. And that is what the successful people do. They take care of their bodies. And then, we then segway into business. Business. What is that? There are multi-facets to business and a successful business. And that’s mastering sales, marketing, scaling, team building, the list goes on and on. And the thing is, is when you get to a point of mastery of all three of these primary areas, then you are operating at a what I like to call a peak level of performance. Just like all of these successful entrepreneurs that I’ve associated myself with. And that’s it. It’s really simple in concept. And it just takes discipline, and grit, and determination, to continue down the path. Now you have the recipe, and we’re going to dig a little bit deeper into that recipe in certain areas. Not all three, maybe all three. Who knows? We’ll see how it goes. It’s a pretty organic show. And one of the things I learned long ago was, one of my mentors. I talk about mentors a lot. This was going back, I don’t recall exactly how many years, eight to ten, maybe longer. I was flown out to the east coast, I’m from the west coast, to discuss a potential business deal. And I was in the office of the CEO of a company who owned it, multi-millionaire at the time. And I remember at one point during our discussion, I don’t even remember which day it was, one or two. I just remember this one moment, I was sitting on his couch in his office, had corner office of course, a nice spacious spacious office, bigger than most people’s apartments. It was beautiful. And I remember he’s he’s standing up, talking to me while I’m sitting on the couch and he says, “Brian, if people only did just this one (signals one) thing. If they just did this one thing, they would all be rich.” And I’m like, “Ok, I’m ready. Give it to me. What is it?” And at that moment, he kind of coyly turned back, walked back toward the other wall directly in front of me, behind him. And went to a cabinet. And it was a floor to ceiling (emphasizes height) cabinet large, with double doors. He grabbed both handles and pulled the doors open. And what was inside was similar very similar (points behind him) to what you see behind me, which was shelf after shelf, after shelf of books. And I’m very curious and now he goes, “That’s it. All they need to do is read.” And we’re talking like personal development, business books, self-help, mindset books everything that serves you. It wasn’t filled with fiction, Dr. Seuss, and things like that, which are fine if you want to relax. That’s fine but that’s what… the point was, read books that will empower you. I said I made a huge mistake at that moment because, I made a decision. Which Christian knows well about decisions and limiting beliefs. And reads a studies those limiting beliefs. I made the wrong decision at that moment and I decided to ignore that advice. Crazy, right? From a multimillionaire standing in front of me, telling me that this is the key to the kingdom, right here. All you have to do is read these books. I said, “It can’t be that simple. It had to be harder. It can’t be that easy.” That’s that’s what I’m thinking. Thankfully, many years later I then ran into another gentleman who then became my mentor, another mentor. I ended up working with this gentleman side by side, shoulder to shoulder, for several years. I spoke on his stage, helped train his students. We had a great relationship. Still do this day. And I just remember one time I saw him walking around in his house and he had some headphones on. I said, “Like, what are you doing?” And he’s like, “Yeah, man. I’m just I’m listening to a book.” I said, “What? You’re listening to a book?” He says, “Yeah.” “So, how do you do that?” So, he told me. “Ok. This sounds pretty cool.” Up to that point it had been years. I had not read a single book not one, not one, for years. And I thought, let me give that a try. And so, when I listened I said, “Oh my gosh. This is a whole new world. I love this. I can absorb this. I don’t get bored. I don’t get tired.” Because when I’m reading, that just happens. And so, we all have different modes that we learn in. As Christian knows very well about from his NLP experience. And that was mine. I’m more auditory than visual in this case and I absorb the information. Beautiful thing is, I can listen to it anywhere. I don’t even have to be looking at it. I can be walking. I don’t have to walk and look at a book and then trip over a rock or something. I can continue to concentrate on what’s going on. So, I do this all the time in my car. What else am I going to do? Listen to music? Which is fine, but how productive is that? Look at all that time that you could be spending in a productive environment. And that’s what I did. And I started listening to book after book, after book. I became a voracious reader that way. And the beautiful thing with this application called Audible. You can use this on your phone. Many of you already know about it is, you can tap a little icon that is a bookmark symbol. And what that does is it literally stores that place in time in that book that you are listening, and you can go back to it at any time you want and go (snaps fingers) fast forward right to it. Just that one click and you’re there. And I thought, “This is brilliant!” Because how many people will reread entire books to get those few little snippets that they get out of this monster book. Right? A lot of them are storytelling and they get to a point and the story supports the point, but when you’ve read it once you really don’t need to read the whole thing again. This is awesome. Well then, I found out I can play these on the web anytime I want. I can log into my Audible account and play them back. So, with all that. That is about what we’re going to do in a little segment I appropriately call Bookmarks.

Announcer: Bookmarks. Born to read. Bookmarks. Ready, steady, read! Bookmarks. Brought to you by ReachYourPeakLibrary.com.

Brian Kelly: (Begins slide) Yeah, there you see it beside me ReachYourPeakLibrary.com. And by the way, for those of you that are watching with us live or recorded, or even listening. Just write down notes. Take down ReachYourPeakLibrary.com as a note. In other words, stay with us. And then go visit after the show. All of these resources. I know Christian has a couple to share as well. So, you don’t want to miss out on Christian more than anything. He is the focus of this show as always is the case. My guests are the focus of the show. Yes, I will get to him very soon. I know you’re saying, “Well when are you going to stop yakking Brian? So, that’s ok. ReachYourPeakLibrary this real quickly, briefly, is a website that I created specifically, primarily, and solely, for you. The viewer, the audience. It is for you, the entrepreneur, for you, the one that’s curious about either becoming an entrepreneur or increasing your level of success as an entrepreneur. And what I did is I started compiling a list of all the books that I had been reading and I put them in one place. And these are not every book I’ve listened to to be clear, its only those that had a positive impact on me, personally. Either through business or helping me further myself as a person. Most of it has a business flair to it as you can kind of see through the titles scrolling up, for those of you that are viewing. And what I want to do is just segway over and actually play one specific bookmark from a book I’ve recently read called, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker. Many of you have heard of him. For those of you that haven’t, you definitely want to pick up this book. It is an amazing book. I have worn out that bookmark button on the app for this. So, I’m going to play a little snippet. It’s actually T. Harv Eker himself that is narrating this book. And it’s just a little over a minute in length. But go ahead and listen in, take notes, and then right when it’s done, we will bring on our Guest Expert. So, go ahead get those pens and paper ready. Here we go.

T. Harv Eker: Our income can only grow to the extent that you do. Have you noticed how some people have a lot of money and then lose it? Or see excellent opportunity, start well, but then go sour on them? Now you know the real cause. On the other side it looks like bad luck, a downturn in the economy, a lousy partner, whatever. On the inside however, it’s another matter. That’s why, if you come into big money when you’re not ready for it on the inside, your wealth will be short lived, and the chances are you will lose it. The vast majority of people simply do not have the internal capacity to create and hold onto large amounts of money and success, and the increased challenges that go with money and success. That, my friends is the primary reason they don’t have much money. A perfect example is lottery winners. Research has shown again and again that regardless of the size of their winnings, most lottery winners eventually return to their original financial state. The amount they can comfortably handle. On the other hand, the opposite occurs for self-made millionaires. Notice, that when self-made millionaires lose their money, they usually have it back within a relatively short time.

Brian Kelly: Isn’t that amazing? It’s so true. I’ve heard this story many times. How folks that win the lottery are typically not ready and they usually self-sabotage, and spend it, and blow it all, in a very short period of time. And it’s really sad. And really, the only thing that was necessary for them was to basically change their mindset. And that’s what a lot of this book… of course you can see on screen Secrets of the Millionaire Mind. And for those of you that aren’t really all of that familiar with the fact that the mind is basically the cornerstone of everything you’ve done. Everything where you are today is a hundred percent on you. It’s your responsibility. It’s no one else’s. No one else caused you to be where you are. And that may sound a little strict, but it is the truth. The only person responsible for you being where you are at, right now, is you. And it’s all due to what’s up here in this noggin (points to head) with our gray matter. And that’s the good news. The good news is we can alter our own course. We have the ability to control our own lives. We have the ability to give ourselves an amazing life, amazing relationships, amazing businesses, amazing experiences. It’s all what we do up here. And that’s why I’m so excited to bring on our next guest because this gentleman knows how to effect people’s minds in a positive way. And the cool thing is, is we just as NLP practitioners, we direct people and you are the ones that are doing the so-called work. You just follow directions and magical things happen. Before we go in too deep with that, let’s bring on our special Guest Expert.

Announcer: It’s time for the Guest Expert Spotlight. Savvy. Skillful. Professional. Adept. Trained. Big-league. Qualified.

Brian Kelly: And there he is ladies and gentlemen, Christian Höferle. I hope I’m pronouncing that better than I did your wife’s name earlier. How are you doing my buddy?

Christian Höferle: I’m doing excellent. Thank you for having me on. And yes, you pronounced my name better.

Brian Kelly: Oh, good!

Christian Höferle: Because my name’s not my wife’s name. Yay!

Brian Kelly: (laughs). Yes. And that’s one thing I love about you. We were talking about this right before the show. Christian has a wonderful sense of humor. And it’s very similar to mine. That’s probably why I think it’s so wonderful, it may not be funny if I think it’s funny, but I enjoy people that have a sense of humor. Life’s too short to be serious all the time. I tell that to my kids. I literally tell them there are times to be serious, and I tell them those times aren’t very often. You just have fun. So, what I’d like to do first is just introduce you appropriately and just basically tell them a little bit about you, what you provided to me Christian. And then we’ll jump into digging in deeper to your wonderful mind and how you got where you are today. Does that sound cool?

Christian Höferle: Awesome.

Brian Kelly: All right. As the owner and founder of The Culture Mastery, Christian is a cross-cultural business consultant who has extensive experience in working with multinational companies. This is a cool thing. It’s multinational. He’s German by birth, American by choice, and Bavarian at heart. He’s a veritable melting pot in his own. Christian is a fan of building bridges and not enthusiastic about walls. He’s a cultural consultant, trainer, facilitator, and coach. He’s also, as I mentioned earlier an NLP master practitioner and through his company, he helps people in closing the gaps between their home culture and the target culture they are working with. So, basically people who are transitioning from one location to another, Christian also hosts The Culture Guy podcast, a web radio series addressing the needs and interests of global professionals. But wait there’s more. His mission is to lead people to a better understanding of cultures so they can work at their peak and in peace with each other. I like that word peak. I don’t know why. His goal is to create peace by helping people from different cultures understand each other better. This is really cool stuff. When companies work internationally and expand outside their home markets, their employees, they need to be effective in collaborating with people from cultures which are foreign to them. So, it comes down to communication. They need to be able to sell and market to customers with unfamiliar consumption preferences. Isn’t this interesting? Beyond the language barriers global professionals are confronted with, different behaviors and ways of doing business. And failing to communicate, manage, inspire, and lead, across cultural differences is a huge risk for these companies. And the lack of cultural competence can be a bottom line relevant issue. This is- I’m getting excited. I can’t wait to dig into this. Christian has helped in relocating and training individuals, families, and teams, from all over the world. Companies he’s worked with include, Volkswagen, Bridgestone, Recaro, Aircraft Seating, ZF, oh that was Recaro Aircraft Seating, Plastic Omnium, Evonik, Alcoa, Siemens, and let me get this right, Wacker Chemie? Is that good?

Christian Höferle: Yup!

Brian Kelly: All right! I got it! I practiced that. No, I didn’t (laughs). I got a little tip from Christian before the show, how to pronounce that I don’t know if I got it right or not. Prior to moving to the U.S. Christian worked for international companies like Entertainment Media, Bertelsmann, and Viacom, where he served in different leadership positions. Yes! There’s a lot of information there and I really thought it did justice for me to read the entire thing to the guests because I saw a lot, a lot of incredible value there because of the new to me, this is a new arena for me. Is the international and I never would have thought about the cultural barriers and those things having impact on companies that are spanning across their home boundaries. And so, that’s what’s really intriguing to me. Before we go in and dive in and finally let Christian talk because Brian’s talking way too much already. I wanted to let you all know that if you stay with us to the very end you will have the opportunity to win a five-night vacation stay at a five-star (signals five) luxury resort in Mexico. That is all compliments of my buddy Jason Ness and his partner that our head of PowerTexting.com. His partner Ronda. PowerTexting.com. Amazing company. Amazing individuals that run it and they are the ones providing that vacation for you so, stand to the end for that information. Don’t want to miss that because it’s free and it’s legit. It’s legit. They’re phenomenal resorts that they are sending people to. Finally. Mr. Höferle. I’m going to keep practicing that. That was a great intro bio that you wrote. And I truly enjoyed reading it and I was wondering if we could dig a little deeper and actually find out a little bit more about you, under the hood so to speak. As far as like when you get up out of bed every morning, your feet hit the ground and then from that point forward, as an entrepreneur it takes motivation, it takes drive, it takes persistence. But at that moment and as you go through your day, being an entrepreneur isn’t all easy as so many people think it is. What is… what do you find that really drives you and motivates you when your feet hit the ground and you’re ready to take on the day?

Christian Höferle: Well, thank you for bringing me on. Thank you for using the materials I’ve provided to introduce myself (laughs). And I’ll have to admit I find this sometimes a little difficult to present myself in a media ready manner without being a true salesy or too geeky. Finding that balance is not always my my strong suit. What drives me? What gets me? Well what gets me out of bed is the alarm clock. What keeps me moving is momentum. I think the what I found for myself and I’m a recovering procrastinator. I need a lot of energy behind me to actually get me moving but once I’m an object in ocean I stay in motion. So, I need momentum and in a business sense. I create my own momentum if I generate leads, if I convert leads, if I win over clients, and keep clients, and have them send me their money so I can solve their problems. That’s what business is, right? I provide a solution for a problem that they have. And if I do that successfully, if I recognize their problems, if they if I do the right job for them to find me as the best solution for their problem, that all creates momentum, and that’s what keeps me going.

Brian Kelly: Fantastic. And that’s for every entrepreneur that helps, we have momentum when you’re getting leads and you’re closing deals and ultimately helping people. Because to a person everyone I’ve interviewed, and I know you’re no different because of your NLP background. It truly comes down to our desire to serve and help others. And that’s what really drives success. When you get down to it, it’s not so much you know being money centric. Even though money is extremely important. So, I don’t want anyone to misunderstand that, that money is definitely very important. Because the more money that people like Christian makes, the more money that I make, than the more people we can serve. So, we can scale our business and serve and help more people. And so, it’s a beautiful beautiful cycle if you will. Now, if we go down dig a little… oh go ahead.

Christian Höferle: Excuse me to jump in on this.

Brian Kelly: No, go ahead.

Christian Höferle: To me money is a side product of providing the excellent service. Yes, I’m sure. I want the money. My services are not free. My time is too valuable to just simply give it away all the time. I choose if I want to give it away. And that sure does happen once in a while if I see the cause and the value in giving it for free. But in a business context, my services are now free. So, money is a byproduct of providing that service. But the gratification, the momentum that I generate for myself is not money it, it’s the happiness derived from successful service delivery from having solved a problem. From seeing a happy client.

Brian Kelly: Absolutely, yeah. And you said it perfectly. You’ve said it perfectly. And I had to make a comment on the opening part about being geeky because I’m geeky too. And you know what? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being geeky because it’s I’m learning that geeky people are taking over the world. And another cool thing… (Christian motions Star Trek reference, Brian laughs) I love it. Live long and prosper. But real… a quick side note is… we were just talking earlier. We’re going to be going on another smooth jazz cruise, my wife and I very soon. And there are the top-notch musicians are on these cruises. And the last one we went on we learned that these incredible superstars in our eyes they’re on stage you know they’re traveling the world, they’re playing everywhere. Everybody knows their name who enjoy smooth jazz. They’re very very famous to them. They see themselves as the high school geeky band member. Isn’t that neat? It’s interesting how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive them. And I just… that was such a great lesson to me as like, just be who you are. It doesn’t matter because other people… it’s wherever you’re at. Whether people perceive you are as is never what you think. And that’s awesome. So, we dig deeper and I love the fact that you have an NLP background, a master practitioner, can’t get much higher. And when it comes to positive mindsets because it’s very important to keep going forward. We’re all human, right? We all have negative emotions. They do come up. There’s no- I don’t know of a way to prevent them from coming, but when it comes to maintaining though, a positive, productive, and successful mindset, is there something you personally do on a regular basis to help you sustain that?

Christian Höferle: Well for me it was creating habits that support me. And I am the first to admit that for a long long time in my adult life I had habits that were not supportive. And becoming aware of them was a journey that I embarked not a minute too soon. Sometimes I tell myself when I’m in a dark place that I should have started sooner but at least I did start that journey. And I have to credit my wife because without her I probably would have still debated whether I should be changing something about my habits. And a lot had to do… and this is this is really coincidental. This is not set up. A lot of it had to do with the book of which you played an excerpt earlier. It was Harv Eker’s book that my wife had read. And if you read the book you will find information about events that T. Harv Eker and his company are putting up live events. And at some point, we went to one of those live events. And that was life altering not because it was one of those seminars that get you all fired up and then you change your life forever. No. Usually that’s not what happens. You go to a seminar and you’re fired up and then you go dip down into your regular old habits. Right on the Monday after you return from the seminar. However, it sparked something in me. It sparked that desire to get rid of the non-supportive habits, actually to become aware of them and changing those hab- replacing those habits those negative habits with supportive habits is what keeps me going. And what I continue doing. I’m not a cured person, I’m not the monk with all the wisdom of the world sitting on top of the mountain and humming all day. No, I’m not that person. I’m still working on some of that crap that I have in the baggage, but the process has been good. And I see the results ever since. And again, as I said at the beginning it created the momentum I see. Oh! This works. If I replace this crap with this good stuff, then good things happen. Ok! Let’s keep doing that. So, I think it’s habits.

Brian Kelly: I love your authenticity about that. The thing I always think of it’s like what if… what if we were able to actually achieve the highest level of success that we could ever imagine? What would there be to look forward to after that?

Christian Höferle: The next level because there is no perfection.

Brian Kelly: But what if there… Yeah that’s where I was… You got it. You you’re going right there. See there is no such thing as perfection. And the beautiful thing about life and the way we’ve been designed is that we never will reach perfection. It’s not going to happen, not on this earth anyway. And what a boring life it would be if we did. In my personal humble opinion. Right? What do you have to look forward to? Well I’ve achieved everything. Now what do I do? I just spread my perfection dust (pretends to sprinkle dust) all over the place and look at me. Yeah. No. That’s not… That would not be fun. So, I love it. There’s always joy in the struggle. We may not know it at the moment but the second we get past it. Isn’t that a glorious time? You look back and go, “Man! I got past that. That means I get back. I can get past more next time.” It gets exciting.

Christian Höferle: I agree. And having that awareness because you can I would argue you can have all… you can have this awareness only if you’ve been through that process. Sometimes if you’re- If you reach a level of personal enlightenment, sometimes you’ll have those moments, they may only be split seconds where you go through some negative stuff you, you’re on the on the downhill and the rollercoaster and it’s not pleasant. Where you in that moment I realized, “Ok. This is a this is a process. I’ll get through this.” And I am learning at this very moments of being in that moment may not always be easy but we’ve been there just like a year and a half ago. When we were we were buying a new house in Atlanta. We moved to Atlanta and we were waiting on closing the sale. And there were so many obstacles in our way. A lot of it had to do with unresolved financing and whatnot. And we were living out of a suitcase from Airbnb to Airbnb. The whole family of four and it sucked. It was not, it was not a desirable situation to be in. And I found myself in that moment thinking, “Ok. this sucks and it’ll be brighter after that tunnel. It’s in the tunnel right now and I don’t see the light at the end of it currently. I know it’s there and I will see it, and this is this is only temporary.” And… I was… I caught myself thinking like, “Ok, this is good. I can channel the previous experience and make the present one bearable.”

Brian Kelly: Yeah and you said the key is becoming being aware. There’s two keys is being aware of it happening (signals one) and number two (signals two) is having the tools to overcome it. And that’s it. It’s a real simple recipe and given the background of NLP we have the tools. We have everything we need in our tool belt I like to say. With neurolinguistic programming. I tend to say NLP real fast and sometimes people don’t understand what I’m saying. Not everyone has heard of it, which that in itself is a travesty. We need to get the word out about this amazing science of excellence. I love it. Oh, so we talked about the books. We were discussing books. You mentioned T. Harv Eker. So, I know I at least know you’ve read one book (laughs). Well maybe, and I’m joking of course. But would you consider yourself to be an avid reader? And if so, what kind of what book might you be reading at the moment? For books some people read several at the same time.

Christian Höferle: Yeah,I can’t read several. I can read…. I cannot read more than one book at a time, that totally gets me confused. I used to be a more avid reader of books. I’m an avid reader of content. I read a lot of articles in my field. A lot of the science or interpretation of current science happens not in books necessarily but in articles in subject matter publications, so I read a lot of that. It was… I put it on my vision board. As I’m looking at my screen behind that screen is my vision board for 2019 and I put on there. Read four relevant books. I have yet to define what relevant is, but I will… I know it when I see it. So, for me reading a book per quarter now is already something to strive for because I spend so much time reading other stuff. So, yes. I’ve read a few books, two or three. What I just started reading this week is a book called How to Write Copy That Sells by Ray Edwards (presents book to camera). So, this is something that I want to get better at. Writing better copy. I write copy that sells. So, it has nothing to do with the field of my work. However, it has everything to do with presenting my work in a way that people grasp it quickly and take action in contacting me to help them solve the problem. I put put down a pile of other books that I found interesting if you want me to hold them to the camera. I could do that.

Brian Kelly: Let’s read them altogether (laughs).

Christian Höferle: Yeah. I have a German one (brings book to camera) you want me to read it in German?

Brian Kelly: Oh, yes! (laughs)

Christian Höferle: This one says… I’ll translate this. This means do Germans and Americans understand each other? (Brian laughs) This is an older book written by a gentleman actually written in German by an American.

Brian Kelly: Wow.

Christian Höferle: So that would be like me writing a book in English. So, he wrote it in German.

Brian Kelly: Oh, wow.

Christian Höferle: Nope not bad at all by John Otto Magee. So, since I’m in the German American context every day. This was a book I thought I should know.

Brian Kelly: Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Höferle: I saw it on your library and it’s probably over quoted and overstated how good this book is (Showcases new book). I would still recommend it. Simon Sinek. Start With Why. If you don’t know why you’re doing it, why bother. And then those two here would be books that I recommend to most of my clients (holds two new books up). The one in black, Global Dexterity is written by a gentleman that I would now call a friend. Professor Andy Molinsky. He teaches at Brandeis University in Boston. Really good book about adjusting behaviors across cultures. And this here is The Culture Map by Erin Meyer. A lady from Minnesota who teaches at INSEAD University in Paris. Also great book, contemporary science presented in a way that’s not too geeky. If you want to learn about how to cross cultures. And one of my pet peeves, one of my personal interests since I am an immigrant to the United States. I thought it would be a good idea to know about the immigration experience as it has evolved over the years on this continent. And immigration began long before this country was actually a nation. So, the book 1491 is also a couple of years old. Written by Charles Mann is an excellent if you want to know about the first contact between the native peoples of North America or the Americas in general with those from Europe. And it’s called 1491 because it describes what we know historically about the Americas before the quote unquote (uses air quotes) Colombian discovery. Which, I’m going to go on a soapbox here which tells you that I’m not a big fan of Columbus Day as a holiday because the people of the Americas who have been living here for tens of thousand years (Brian laughs) they didn’t need discovering, they already knew that they existed.

Brian Kelly: True true.

Christian Höferle: I digress.

Brian Kelly: Hey, and one of the things that you mentioned quite… your first book, How to Write Copy That Sells. This is just something we do. I see Jason Nast is watching. He is the ultimate connector of people. He’s doing it in the comment section as we’re talking, connecting Elliot Siegel. Siegel, who I have met once to come on the show. And the thing I wanted to help with you is, How to Write Copy That Sells is I had an amazing Guest Expert on the show several weeks back by the name of Carlos Redlich. And I would highly recommend you get in touch with that young man.

Christian Höferle: Okay.

Brian Kelly: He’s going places in copywriting. That’s what he does. He’s a copywriting expert. So that way…

Christian Höferle: Nice.

Brian Kelly: You get one on one help with him. He’s working with Jeff Fagan and a couple of others. And they’ve put together this interesting mastermind group that meets it at mansions in various areas of the country, just about every month. And I mentioned Jeff Fagan because he is a very close friend of T. Harv Eker. Has known him since they were both sixteen years old, and worked with them, helped build one of his first businesses. So, really cool how all of these connections just kind of intertwine. And Carlos and I actually shared the stage on a fitness at fitness workshop. We each spoke at one of those, that’s where I first met him. And I was like, “Man I like this kid. He’s full of energy.” So, I’d highly recommend not just you, anybody listening, watching. Definitely check out Carlos Redlich for a look for his copywriting expertise if you need that in your business. So, we did a little bit of mind which I wonder if this is on purpose. We talked about reading as well. Let’s shift over to a body question. And I think I know the answer to this, but I want everybody else to hear it from you and that is, how important to you Christian is physical fitness? For you as a personal life and for your business life? How important do you define fitness?

Christian Höferle: Well that is a habit that I also had to replace in recent years because it used to be not important to me at all. because I thought, “Eh, what the heck. When I get to it I will. Maybe hop on a bike and maybe read the manual of that that elliptical.” And it showed in my physical appearance (both laugh). It was… there were a lot of things contributing to that. So, we moved to when I say we, my family, my wife, and our then only daughter. Now we have two. We moved from Germany to the United States in two thousand four and I quit smoking in two thousand one. And I had been I would say a heavy smoker for probably twenty years, eighteen years. And so, I quit smoking which automatically means you replaced something else that you put in your mouth with the cigarette. So, you replace the cigarette with something else you put in your mouth. Typically it’s food, which quickly shows in your waistline. So, that’s what happened to me. And then we moved from Germany to the US which means that I really indulge in all these healthy food products that the United States throw at you (Brian laughs) in every corner, at every interstate, that I go, “Ooh. Another fried thing. Oh, lovely.” Oh, and we live in the south east where about every other food is fried and it’s so yummy. So, I did not pay attention to that at all. And I ballooned a little. And yeah. I don’t know what what made the shift but at some point, I decided I’m done with this and I’m going to do something about it. And I did not set a weight loss goal or something like that. One of my teachers told me weight loss is the best business proposition ever because weight loss implies that you have lost something that you’re trying to find again. That’s why a weight loss products have the best repeat business. So, I try to shy away from that terminology. So, I wanted to shed pounds. I wanted to donate excess weight to the universe. I wanted to get rid of the muffin top. And it was not necessarily I need to weigh a certain weight, or I need to… I don’t know. There was not a numerical goal to it. It was just I want to feel better about myself. And just like everything else it needed to become a habit. I used to schlep myself to the gym and just the mere thought of entering the gym was weighing me down. Like, “Ugh. I don’t want to go there but I should and it’s probably better if I did and…” At that time, I discovered NLP. And my NLP instructor in our practitioner course helped me reframe that process of entering the gym. And because I quickly learned that the sight of the gym and the building of the doors was a visual anchor that instilled a negative emotion. So, I replaced that negative anchor with a positive one. One of success. Long story I don’t want to go through anchoring and on anchoring, re-entering. The result was that I was able to replace the process of going to the gym with a positive emotion and create a habit of making it a regular occurrence. So now, we work out I’d say at least three times a week. Sometimes it’s more. And just today we went at… ten? Ten or eleven AM. Even though we worked out the night before at five. So, I was still sore from last night when I entered the gym this morning. And I really didn’t want to go. However, firing off my success anchor was like Ok (snaps fingers). I got this. I will do it. And I felt better afterwards because I know I feel better afterwards every time. So, long story short. Fitness plays now an important role for my business success because if what did the old Roman say? Mens Sana In Corpore Sano or something like that. My Latin is a little rusty. So, a sane mind and a healthy body. If my body is not healthy my mind cannot be, and I need my mind to be successful at work.

Brian Kelly: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. I often say and I didn’t say it today at the onset of the show, but I always say the mind and body, they are a team. And more importantly, the mind and body are your team. And as with any team goes, you’re only as strong as your weakest player. And if one of them is not pulling their weight so to speak, no pun intended. Then both, the entire scene the collective team which is you. You in general are suffering. And so, fantastic. And congratulations on kicking smoking. That’s a big one. A lot of people struggle with that and good on you for getting past that. No judgement for anyone that’s smoking today it’s just it’s a difficult addiction. I’ve seen to rid oneself of. My dad used to smoke many years ago. He doesn’t hasn’t for decades. So, it’s a big thing. It’s good. So congrats.

Christian Höferle: They say there is nothing easier than smoking, I’ve done it seventeen times. And I went through that. And I would say to be an ex-smoker is like an alcoholic who’s dry. My chimney is now cold, and I still know that there is a chimney. So, I while I have no craving whatsoever to relapse and yet I’ve seen other people that quit smoking and they were cold for… their chimney was cold for years. They something triggered their relapse and I know I’m… it will be a mindfulness exercise until my last breath.

Brian Kelly: Yeah. And I love that your example about the gym and how you used an NLP and anchoring to better your life. And that’s just one example. And that’s a great real world example that people can actually kind of get their brain around and recognize. They may not know what anchoring means and that’s ok and just know it’s a process that takes minutes. Not days, not hours, not months, not years. You’re not laying on a couch. It’s a process that takes minutes. And if you’re an NLP Master Practitioner as Christian is, it may be even seconds to instill that anchor so you can later fire it off when he needs it. And then we need to re-amplify and re-juice our anchors now and then. It’s something I instill in my fitness clients. They install positive anchors once a week and they recharge them. And so, they can fire them off when it’s time just like you were saying to go hit the exercise floor. Wherever that may be. Whether it’s at a gym, in the home. My goodness, time is flying. I’m having fun. I hope everyone out there is having fun. I hope you are too Christian. This is a lot of fun.

Christian Höferle: Yes.

Brian Kelly: Yes. You know in business and in life things can come up that cause trepidation, resistance, hesitation, and this other more strong word that starts with the letter F. And no, it’s not the one many of you are thinking of right now but it’s fear (laughs). And I’m curious on a more serious note Christian, going through your entrepreneurial life maybe your personal life. What would you say is right now would be something that constitutes your greatest fear? And then, how do you go about managing that fear?

Christian Höferle: I’ve been confronted with that question and in many many moments in my life and especially in those self-development seasons that I went through, breakthrough experiences that we had. where I had by myself. And the bottom line for me is that the biggest fear is not being able to provide. This may be a very archaic, masculine, thing. The fear of keeping together what is important to me, which in this case is my wife and my children and our family. And the roof over our head and the daily daily needs we have. If… I think that will be my biggest fear to not provide food, safety, shelter. If you look at the pyramid of needs. That Maslow defined, right? I’m sure most of you are familiar with the Maslow Pyramid of Needs, human needs. At the bottom there is food, shelter, safety. If that will be my ultimate now to not be able to provide that.

Brian Kelly: You know I think we were separated at birth and your twin brother. Brother by another mother because…

Christian Höferle: Yeah look it. The jacket, beard (touches beard).

Brian Kelly: The resemblance just too uncanny. I think I popped out a little bit before you did. Like years before but somehow, we became twins (laughs). But that sounded like me talking. It was like listening to the mirror. I think if you can do that. Mirror mirror on the wall, right? Really related to that. And it’s for everyone. It could be different, something different fear. The cool thing is again, we have tools to overcome those fears. To help us act in spite of them. And we go through processes. I know Christian has as well through eradicating or basically re-deciding. Yeah removing the root cause of five major negative emotions from your subconscious and fear is one of those. And going through that process was in a word liberating for me, personally. Things I started doing things I never did before because the resistance and hesitation to do so was completely gone. It was just like okay it’s good for me. I just say yes. I don’t have the money? I don’t care. I’m saying yes, it’s good for me. There’s no hesitation, no resistance. If it’s good for me. The answer is yes, I’ll figure out the rest later. Just like you said, you just said something about… I wrote it down. That you weren’t even sure… Oh you said you were going to read more relevant books. And at that time, you didn’t even know what those books were going to be. A perfect example. You’re just moving forward. You’re acting. There’s no paralysis by analysis, right? “Well if I don’t know what I’m going to read I can’t make it a goal.” Well yes you can. Just go. Just go. Set the thing in motion and go. So, a perfect example of someone who utilizes NLP…

Christian Höferle: Hey if you don’t like the book that you started reading then put it down and choose another one (laughs). I didn’t answer it. I just realized, I didn’t answer your question about how do you manage the fear. And this may sound hokey and self-development talk and motivational speaker blah blah. However I know it for… I know to be true for me and myself and my immediate environment. Fear, I learned is an abstract concept. Fear is the anticipation of pain. You anticipate pain to happen in the future. However, none of us can predict the future. At least I cannot, if you know somebody who can please send them my way. So, anticipating pain is nonsense because none of us I would assume can predict the future so, therefore fear is a liar. Telling me something will happen that will be painful. No. That’s a mind freak that is in imagination. If you can practice to state president be in the moment and be your best at every given moment of your life, then fear is only that little chip on your shoulder that gets quieter and quieter.

Brian Kelly: That’s right. It’s all made up. It’s an emotion that we as humans make up and that’s the beautiful thing about it. That it is created by our minds and why that is beautiful is because that is what neurolinguistic programming is all about. I’ve never talked so much about neurolinguistic programming on any show ever than this one. I’m actually enjoying it a lot. Just because it is that impactful. It is that amazing. It’s not woo woo. It’s real science that works and it works quick. It is fast. So, if you are watching or listening and you’ve never really gone down that path. Maybe you’ve heard of it. I’ve heard so many say, “Ah. I’ve heard of it.” And they think they know it by saying I’ve heard of it. It’s like well, if you haven’t really experienced it find a practitioner and go through a breakthrough session. And then you’ll say, “Oh my gosh. This is amazing.” And then you may decide that you want to become a practitioner and become certified. And it can be done by literally anyone. It’s amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Ok. There’s one question I have to get out to and this is in the arena of business because so many people in business are struggling in this area. And it’s the lifeblood of all of our businesses and that is the area of marketing. If you’re not good at marketing and I say this in generalities, not you Christian. If you’re not good in marketing or if you haven’t found somebody to be a team member who’s good in marketing then your business is going to struggle and struggle mightily. Unfortunately, many companies when they have when they go through downsizing, they will get rid of the marketing department before they will get rid of the worker bees who are the ones putting the widgets together. Well, that’s a that’s a recipe for disaster. So, to put it back in a positive sense. I was just curious how you Christian, how do you personally go about marketing your business successfully? What has been your most successful form of marketing to date? Maybe we’ll go with that.

Christian Höferle: Usually… When you read my bio in the beginning and you commented on it and said, “Oh, this this is an arena that is fairly new to me. Global business, across cultures, cultural competence. And that is the nature of my game, has been for the past decade. That many of my clients before they engage with me don’t even know that they have a particular problem. Or they believe it to be a small problem that can be neglected until they find out that when you become more culture savvy than a lot of other things in your business, life, fall into place. If you do global business. So, for me the the goal of marketing has been from the get-go to educate the market. Which is different than if I sell Kleenex because everybody knows what that… what problem that thing solves. So, I have to explain to the market out there that they have a problem. So, I have to solve the problem first (laughs) before I can market the solution. And what has helped me was content marketing. Because I started this business on a shoestring budget. I didn’t have a chunk of money sitting around in the beginning when I started this business. Say, “Oh, I’m going to spend x amount of thousands of dollars on marketing.” I didn’t have that. I didn’t… it was not in the plan. So, I used the tools that were readily available to me. And those are… I come from the media world, so I know how to create content. I think I know how to write. I taught myself how to write in a foreign language or English in this case. So, I’m creating… I have been creating content around my work, showing my expertise, my subject level subject matter knowledge, and spreading that content using social media. So, I started this business about ten years and change ago. This was when social media marketing was just I would say still in its infancy. And I used LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and all the others that you heard of and probably use yourself to spread the message. And to this day the most return on investment that I found doing that was through LinkedIn. I really have to admit that. I thought Facebook would be the breadwinner in this rail. And yup there is a Facebook logo (points to screen) there it is. Yes Facebook is helpful. It is another digital shingle out there in front of my… my virtual building. However, LinkedIn for me was so far the highest ROI.

Brian Kelly: Interesting. That’s great to hear. For those of you watching, listening, maybe on the podcast later when it’s recorded. I hope you’re taking notes for all the books he showed and talked about. He did say them out loud so you can go back and listen, and or listen to it now and write that down. Write down these notes and take notes because LinkedIn. So, he wrote- Christian wrote articles in his sphere of influence, in his area of expertise, that helped people become aware, companies become aware of the need that they didn’t even know they had. Which is awesome.

Christian Höferle: Right.

Brian Kelly: That’s the neat thing about LinkedIn though. For your specific case it’s definitely… It sounds like it’s the right theater anyway because that’s a B2B. It’s more of people who are in business that are on LinkedIn. Facebook is a little bit more of a social environment even though there are there is a lot of business activity there. And Twitter’s probably down at the bottom when it comes to is it business relatable in proportion to social interaction, I would say.

Christian Höferle: Yeah, I would still argue that you need all of those because they all create a digital footprint. They create the social proof that you exist. If you can you could tell the whole world how great you are. If somebody else tells you how great you are that carries a lot more weight. If you’re the only the prophet in your own land, you’ll bark up a tree the largest. However, if you have thousands of people saying, “Hey, that dude is awesome. You need to talk to Brian Kelly because mind, body, business.” Then that becomes a social proof, and this is what social media has helped me do. I would not discount any of them. They all serve a different pro… purpose. However, in combination they have helped me build my brand.

Brian Kelly: That’s fantastic and I appreciate you sharing that. I use the term I call carpet bomb marketing. Where this show is being repurposed instantly. And the second we go live it’s on nine different platforms. Live, right now. Streaming live to multiple Facebook pages and profiles. YouTube, a couple of channels and some other off the beaten path life streaming avenues. In addition to the fact that it was instantly shared to everything you just talked about. To more Facebook, to LinkedIn, to Twitter, and two email lists that I also have. Instantly using automation tools and that’s my form of carpet bomb marketing as the plane flies by it’s just hitting anything and everything. It’s with a purpose. It’s not just blind blowing stuff out, it’s with a purpose to certain pages. But yeah, I completely agree with that. It was just interesting that LinkedIn was the one that bubbled up to the top. And I’m hearing that more and more. That’s why it interested and intrigued me. Is LinkedIn is gaining more and more prominence when it comes to the arena of marketing in itself and getting the word out. And that’s good to hear. LinkedIn is a solid social media platform for many reasons. My goodness. Oh my gosh, we’re already at the end of the hour so we need to first real quick before everybody leaves, because nobody is going to leave is discuss this one very important thing and that is, the trip (Sponsorship slide shown). The free five-night vacation stay at a five-star luxury resort in Mexico (laughs). And you can’t see him on screen and Christian is acting like he’s texting the… he’s going to win it on his own show. I love it. So, you can either go to ReachYourPeakLLC.com/vacation. ReachYourPeakLLC.com/vacation and you’ll see an opt in form at the very top. Or simply text the word PEAK, P-E-A-K to the number 6-6-1-5-3-5-1-6-2-4. Again, that’s the word PEAK, P-E-A-K to 6-6-1-5-3-5-1-6-2-4. Do that right now, while we are live so I can monitor it because we do have just a few minutes left. Hang with us because I do have one final really deep, heavy hitting, earth shattering, question to ask Christian. And it’s a question that I’ve literally asked every past guest, so I hope your wife did not ruin the surprise (laughs). The thing is, is it’s not really earth shattering. It’s not a high-pressure question in the sense of that it’s really because the only the only correct answer is yours Christian. There can be no one else’s. It’s unique to each individual. So, there is no wrong answer. You can’t you can’t get it wrong. You cannot fail this test and it’s not a test. And so, it’s a question that I like to bring up because it it means something different to so many different people. And to date, not a single person has said the exact same answer as one prior on this show, for what it means to them. So, are you ready? No?

Christian Höferle: Shoot at me!

Brian Kelly: (laughs). All right. Ok. So, we’ll get serious because I truly want to know what it means to you. And so here it is. Christian, how do you define success?

Christian Höferle: To me success is reaching the goals that I set for myself. Success… If I expand on the definition. Success would be overshooting those goals. And also, success is to in the end, when all the business and financial transactions are done. Success to me is inner peace. To be at peace with myself knowing that I did my best. That I was impeccable with my word. That I did not assume anything and that I did not make it about myself. Those were The Four Agreements (signals four) by the Miguel Ruiz. If I’m at peace in the end, then I know I’ve achieved what I set out to achieve and that is to me the ultimate litmus test for success.

Brian Kelly: Phenomenal and true to form. Unlike every other one prior to you and just as phenomenal. I love this. I’m going to compile a book with all of the responses. And I was I was like, “Oh he’s he’s quoting the four agreements.” I could tell Don Miguel Ruiz as you were saying it. Being impeccable with my word. What a phenomenal book! Oh, my goodness. It’s a short read. Anyone, everyone, watching and listening if you had not read it. Even if you have, read it again. My mentor and his wife read it every single year as what they do in the beginning the year. It’s pretty awesome thing to do. Inner peace did my best. Overshooting your goals. All of that is absolute pure gold and I appreciate that. What I want to make sure people have the ability to do Christian is- Well first, I wanted to say you have a gift to give. You have been so wonderful in doing so and actually offering something. So, what I wanted to do is bring up your page that you referred to. And have you say a few words about it so folks can take action.

Christian Höferle: (The Culture Mastery Website on display) Yay! Well here you see the the bottom of our home page of our company. So, you see the company is called The Culture Mastery. The word mastery that you used earlier like, “Yeah. He’s using that word. I love it!” So, he placed the anchor for the end of the show. So, the name of our business is The Culture Mastery. So, we help people master themselves and others across cultures. And if you choose to give us your name and your email, we’re going to promise to spam you until the end of your days. No, we won’t (Brian laughs). We will actually send you… (laughs). We’ll send you a series of automated e-mails and each of them contains nuggets of wisdom that we collected or that we have the rights to do so that’s not only content that we created but also those of our partners. And it will help you get started on your journey to cultural mastery. You will… We don’t send emails out too often, so you won’t be getting something from me or from our team every day. But in the beginning when you sign up there’ll be a series of six emails, and those will come in a matter of two weeks for your reading pleasure. And it will also give you the opportunity to schedule a free consultation. So, as I said earlier, I choose to give my time away to selected people. So, if you are serious about this. If you’re committed to mastering your cultural competency then I will take out time of my day and have a Zoom or phone or FaceTime call with you and see where where your pain points are and how we can make them go away.

Brian Kelly: Fantastic. Thank you so much for that. And so, the website for that for those of you that may not be able to see it is TheCultureMastery.com. You just go to TheCultureMastery.com and then up on the top you see it says, “Our Story.” Put your mouse over that and then click on the word “Contact.” And that’s where you- how you get to the screen we’re showing right now with the opt in form and everything that Christian just described. Thank you so much for that. That is amazing. And the best way to connect with you? What would that be? Would it be Facebook, would it be through this website? What is your preferred method of being contacted?

Christian Höferle: Well my marketing department would say yeah, the website is number one. Sure! Go to the website please. That’s how you get all the contact information you need. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, even in that sequence. And e-mail. E-mail works. I’m old school. I’m… you- We’re not too far apart. We’re twins removed a little bit (Brian laughs) but I’m pushing fifty-two. So, I’m still…

Brian Kelly: All right.

Christian Höferle: I’m still on e-mail or text works too. E-mail is a little… there’s a little more substance to it. So, yes. Use all this: website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail.

Brian Kelly: And then on LinkedIn what would they search for?

Christian Höferle: My name. Just you see my name is as it pops up in the lower edge there (Brian laughs). Magically… Look for my name. Christian Höferle. And you will find me. If… you know what. With your permission I’ll post the link to.

Brian Kelly: Absolutely

Christian Höferle: My profile in the comments section. Under this livestream later on. So, you’ll finally be looking for that name and or you look for The Culture Guy which is my nickname. So, you’ll find me on Facebook using the nickname The Culture Guy. That always works. There’s multiple ways to find me.

Brian Kelly: All right. And if you have any issue getting a hold of Christian by all means just reach out to me personally and I will connect you with him. And I’ll make sure that he’s ready for that.

Christian Höferle: Thank You.

Brian Kelly: Connection to occur. Well cool. Well that’s about… We’ve gone way over my normal time and that’s great. That’s the beautiful thing about this. This venue is you know, I have seen and worked with other others that are on radio stations and they must shut it off at a specific time because you know the station is running multiple shows and they have commercials and things. The beautiful thing with this is, we could go all night. So, I think we should just go another another hour. Oh good, Brigitta is helping out with LinkedIn Christian Höferle. Good. And no, I’m just kidding (Christian silently clapping). We’re going to close it up here tonight. And Christian, thank you my friend. I so appreciate you coming on, spending a full hour plus (Christian puts palms together and bows) with not just me but with all the wonderful people who’ve been watching and commenting. You know Jason Nast has been on, your wife, Elliot Siegel, and Roger Gallegos came on, Rick… They just goes on and on. It’s awesome. So, I want to appreciate you as well as (Christian claps and gives thumbs up) those that you have watched the show that listened. Listen for it on podcast. It’s coming out very very soon and fantastic show. Appreciate it. Look forward to the next show. Coming up one week from today we have a show every single week. Another amazing Guest Expert coming on. So, be sure to tune in then. Until next time, have a blessed blessed evening. And Christian (Christian waves goodbye) you do the same my friend. And let’s…

Christian Höferle: Had a good time.

Brian Kelly: Great great evening (salutes). All right. Thanks so much (Christian bows). Bye bye now.

Announcer: Thank you for watching and listening. This has been the MIND BODY BUSINESS Show with Brian Kelly.

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