In this insightful episode, Axel Meierhoefer, founder of Ideal Wealth Grower, challenges the perspective of US business owners on what coaching and mentoring are, and their true value for those who want to grow as leaders.
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, Hello once again and welcome to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And I am here with a another high demand coach. And that is the great Axl Meyer who for actual started off actually retired as an Air Force officer. He was telling me before the show, and maybe we’ll get to jump into it, but from Germany who had exchange here into the US, pretty cool stuff. But after retiring as an Air Force officer, he started his first company in 2005, focusing on consulting, he was helping organizations with employee skill development and program management. So he’s had a love for education for helping people help themselves to become successful. He’s also gone on to have some significant success, managing a seven figure real estate portfolio, and helping others to achieve their own real estate investing success as well. So, Axl, I’m so excited to have you on the show. Thanks for being here. I’d love to open up just with your story. Tell us a little bit about who you are, and how and why you got into coaching.
Axel Meierhoefer
Yeah, hi, Scott. Thanks for having me. So you mentioned a little bit already I was in Germany, at the time flying fighter jets for the German air force and got into testing the new equipment that was supposed to get integrated into the planes and the jets and the manufacturers of that equipment were pretty much all in the United States. And so the only way if you’re in this kind of bleeding edge testing kind of stuff is to go to actually to go to the company and get the training on how this stuff is supposed to happen to work and to be integrated so that everybody who flies these planes can actually use it from the manufacturer. So that meant my wife and I and our little daughter at the time came over to like the West Coast Bay area, as well as Texas and places like that every so often to order like, two, three period for like two to six weeks at a time. And out of that we realized, well, while that is really interesting and cool, but you don’t it’s it’s more like you’re on vacation, kind of and not really living in the country. So my wife and I said, Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a way to stay a little longer get to really experience the culture and stuff like that. And so I reached out within our German air force administration said, Is there such a thing? And they said, Oh, yeah, yeah, there is an aspen for a long time. It’s called an exchange program. And what that really means is you basically literally become a fully in golf member of the other service. So I gave my flight suits and my uniform and everything and became a US Air Force officer. With all the bells and whistles, I went through the training program to fly f1 elevens. Instead of the tornadoes, I used to fly. And the exchange was literally, the deputy commander of operations of a fighter wing in New Mexico, got my job, and I got his job, and so forth to that was supposed to be two to three years. And it was all great. And this is one of those unique opportunities, many, many war stories that I could tell nothing to do necessarily directly with coaching, except for the one thing, coaching and mentoring had a little bit of a role in that because the unit, the fighter wing that I was at, was very interested in that is kind of the purpose of the oil exchange, to learn how do Germans do stuff differently than we do in the US Air Force. And there were two core things that I think maybe was pointing out that people might be interested listening to us about it is the one thing is that in the US system, there is a book on a procedure and some sort of something in a binder for everything. And in the German system I grew up with, okay, we want to achieve something. And there’s 1000 different ways to do this. But we have the goal in mind and focus, and we want to go after that goal. Now, everybody might do it a little bit different. But that is the important thing. And why was that kind of eye opening to my US Air Force friends was the purpose of the planes, these f1 elevens that we were flying was to basically advance the goals of a war like in Iraq, it targets you know, make our troops safe, conquer the space that we needed to conquer and stuff like that. And the better you could do this in a flexible way the better it was. Right? And so my one anecdote I want to share real quick is when I asked the guys that I flew with they had relatively recently at that time come back from the first Iraq war, never lost one of their planes were really really very, very professionally said So how was this system applied when you were there? And they say said the first thing we did is throw away all the books in order and said okay, well, I guess that vindicates me because we don’t even create the bonus. Right so Okay, out of that basically the question then was okay, what happens at the end of this exchange, and I thought we would just go back to Germany and you and I will be talking me in Germany, you here in the US somewhere out. But what happened is that somebody said, Well, you have actually integrated yourself really well into this US base. And we would we are in the process politically, to build a flight training center in the United States, because it’s much easier to fly together with us colleagues in the United States where there’s way more space than in Europe where everything is so densely populated. And I said, so what does what do I have to do with that? And they said, Well, you showed some promise in program management. And so we selected you as the program manager for building this flight training center. And I said, Well, how long is it going to take they said, We’re guessing two to three years, it was five. So they lied to me, basically. Right. And so then I got so close at the end, when we opened up live trainings, and I was so close to my option date, they call it an option date, which means I got physically to a point where it was harder and harder to be able to do the flying because new pulling crazy, geez, anybody who has seen the second version of Top Gun, the newest Top Gun Maverick, you can see a little bit of how that is flying these planes. And they actually did a great job showing these seeds. And so showing the stress. So I was in my 40s, when I got to that point. And so I told you, before we started recording, I had the option, fly a desk or get out. And I decided to get out got recruited by a software company in Santa Barbara. So we moved there, got a permanent residency, Green Card stuff. And then in 2005, I started my own company, and I thought I would do kind of military related stuff. And it was totally not that way. I was more asked to help use my military training experience from these flight training center developments, to help other people outside of the military to get trained. And that’s, you know, training education, like you said, Scott, and mentoring, coaching, these things are all connected. And I personally, always say you can learn something, you can transfer knowledge, right, and you can go to college for that you can take classes or learning programs or elearning or stuff. But there’s a different quality when you want somebody not just to retain and maybe apply the knowledge but also change behavior. And that’s where coaching and mentoring comes in. And I’ve always been fascinated in it. And that’s where also idea with grower came in. Because I feel that it’s the best so far, I’ve had at least opportunity to really do a combination of coaching and mentoring to help people become successful in investing.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, fascinating. personating it as you’re explaining this, I would say like the stereotype, at least that I grow up with of German, you know, function is even from like civil law where there’s code for everything. And it just this very precise, very methodical, and to hear that that’s actually completely flipped. Especially when you you like see at least the depictions in the movies of like the US Mavericks, it’s like, you know, throw away the book all the time. fascinating to hear the differences in those two systems actually being the opposite of what I would anticipate. And and yeah, I mean, the the parallels that come in to the business world are there all the time, right? You know, you can, you can make policies, you can make protocols until you’re blue in the face. But ultimately, it’s the people that really move the organization forward.
Axel Meierhoefer
Yeah, absolutely. I would agree with that. And to your point about the precision and the organizational component to all these things, whether in the civilian world or the military world, but I would say is to have a really thorough understanding of whatever the subject matter is that you’re involved with. I used to say, and people used to accuse me in my flying times, especially during the test flying time that I knew the bits and bytes by their first name. That’s a level of excellence and mastery to strive for. But then the important component there is to say, okay, that’s my foundation. Now that I know and you apply this if you run a company or provides a service or that provides a product or that makes medicine or whatever it may be, there should be in my opinion, your foundation, you know, excuse the French, my you know, your shit as well as humanly possible. Yeah. And then based on that knowledge, you can see and decide what different avenues can you take. And then our topic around coaching and behavior and mentoring. And for me, it’s always a important combination between the two is okay, how do I do this in a way that engages other people? Whether I’m in a leadership role, I’m in a management role, I’m in an innovation role in a creator role. It’s one thing to know your stuff to know your procedure then and then be innovative to help the vision of the organization but you typically can do this all by yourself. Yeah. And be havior component, the emotional intelligence, the communication, intelligence, those are the things that I believe coaching and mentoring bring to the table. But if you don’t make the necessary effort to build this foundation, either the German way or the American way, but you have that foundation, then then you will struggle on both ends, because both are really, really big tasks, you know, as a personal goal and a personal task to say, Okay, how do I get to know as much as I can about the subject matter? And how can I actually also learn to bring the right engagement to the effort?
Scott Ritzheimer
I heard it said once that bad musicians are bad, because they don’t know the rules. And so they break all the rules, right? Good musicians are good, because they know the rules and they adhere to the rules. But great musicians are great, because they know the rules, they know when to break them. Right, exactly. And, and so yeah, I can, I can definitely see the the pattern that you’re drawing out now. So tell us a little bit about the work that you do that because Coaching and Mentoring can mean a lot of things for a lot of people, program management, skill development, these are big, big ideas, right? So tell us a little bit about who you tend to work with and how this shows up for them in the real world.
Axel Meierhoefer
Tthere are a couple of things to touch on the first one, I would say and to a later question that you promised to us, I will use that probably as the as one of the biggest secrets, if not the biggest one is that we live in this unfortunate environment in the English speaking, especially the United States word where the term coach, and then obviously the activity of coaching as two very, very, very, very different meanings. And I’m not just saying this, because I think I’m smart, I actually decided to get a PhD in that that was my study called internal and external coaching in business. But what I found in this study when I interviewed coaches, and I know that you do this in your podcast all the time is that when you ask people on the streets, or in business, which I’ve done many times, what does a coach do the first in most people’s mind, reaction is something like Cleveland is playing in the NBA Finals. And LeBron is basically there with the coach. And they have this little whiteboard, and somebody draws up the play that basically says, You go from here to here to here to here to get the ball to LeBron, he takes the shot, and the shot goes in and they win the fight it and what that guy drew on the little whiteboard is coaching. Right. And that is basically telling other people what to do in which way. That’s one way of coaching in sports. And then there is the other way of coaching and the one that I’m practicing together with mentoring is to help people discover a different way to accomplish their goals by changing their behavior. But it’s not me telling them this is what you need to do. And this is where LeBron has to be on the court. And this is when he needs the ball. And this is the shortest he’s doing. And if he is covered, then who is doing that is telling people what to do rather than let me ask you, Scott, or whoever else we’re talking to what you want to accomplish, and where are you currently struggling? And how can I help you discover ways to overcome these obstacles, take advantage of the opportunities, come up with a plan of action and then help you guide you along and hold you accountable to actually make it happen. Right. But in that scenario, I’m not telling you what to do you discover what you want to do and can do to accomplish your goals. And why I’m saying mentoring is such an important thing, in my view is, if you come to me for residential real estate investing, it would be probably a little bit funny, if not borderline ridiculous when I know and have studied this for 10 years to try to pull out of you what might be the right way. Right? Instead, what anything that has to do with that topic, I would be much better off and you would be much better off for me to share what I know. And now let’s put that in contrast to what you want to accomplish. So sharing my knowledge updated to right now what’s applicable is the mentoring part. And then finding out what you want to do in which behaviors and actions you might have to change and adjust and take to make it happen is the coaching part.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s excellent. And and what would you say some of the most important work that you do for your client?
Axel Meierhoefer
One of the things is, and I’ve actually written a little manual about that people can go to either wet gore.com forward slash free and download it for free. All we want is your email. So we can inundate you with our newsletter and stuff like podcast, what have you. But the bit one of the biggest things is to change people’s mindset in the context of investing and building a passive income portfolios to read each one I call a time freedom point, which is the point on the calendar somewhere in the future, where you no longer have to exchange your time for money, you don’t necessarily have to have a job anymore because you have enough passive income, which doesn’t mean you have to stop. At the time freedom point, you now have the freedom to make that decision on whether you want to work full time, half time, part time, you want to live your passion and not do that job anymore. That’s the freedom part of that time freedom point. And in the process, like you mentioned in the intro, develop a portfolio that is not just supporting you and your family, but generations to come. So that’s kind of like the mentoring part tell people how to do this and what strategies we have discovered. And the coaching part to your question is, a lot of people and I don’t fault anybody for that get inundated with certain myths in the media, like only rich people can invest in real estate, we have such dire times, nobody has money to do anything. Real Estate Investing only works on a massive scale, you have to have 10s of 1000s of dollars to even get started all those myths is what I try to help people to overcome, and then adopt with the mindset manual in hand, what I call a creative mindset. And this comes not from me, I didn’t invent it, Kris Krohn actually wrote a book about it. And allowed me to use that in our mindset manual in our approach. And that is, don’t be the victim. Don’t let the external world tell you, what you allowed and not allowed to do what is what is available to you in your life. Be the creator of your own future of your own path, and then listen to people who actually have the evidence of one of the different paths that can work. And I always when somebody comes and says Why shouldn’t I do apartment multifamily investments, I don’t want to say you should or you shouldn’t. But if you decide you want to do this, I can refer you to people who made that their foundation of excellent. If on the other hand, you decide you want to stay in the residential world, that’s where I made my foundation of excellence. So I hope that kind of gives you..
Scott Ritzheimer
I think that’s so important. And I think something you know, it kind of even zooming out from real estate, is that there’s the right you know, coach, mentor, consultant, there’s the right person to help you in the right place, right. It’s not a one size fits all thing. It’s not, it’s not even about good coach versus bad coach, it’s about the right coach versus the wrong coach. And I think that’s something that you’re really, you know, accurately drawing out is when you have someone who can come alongside and, you know, in your language, just to be clear, I think we’re more in the space of mentoring. But where people get it wrong is you know, they’re looking for someone to help them and they kind of go to their body and say, hey, you know, who helped you? And said, well, this person did, it’s kind of like going to someone and saying, Hey, what doctor did you go to and they went to this heart doctor, what you really need is a, you know, a foot doctor, right? Like, there’s there’s all these differences. But when we lump them into one general vague thing, like, Coach, I need a business coach, right? Someone told me I need a business coach, we lose that nuance, right? We lose the specificity of it. And then, you know, if it doesn’t go, well, we chalked it up to coaching being broken in some way, shape, or form rather than recognizing wouldn’t bring the right help in in the first place.
Axel Meierhoefer
Right, exactly what ended the question when somebody says and discovers that they believe they need a coach, or a business coach, or an executive coach or anything along those lines? And let’s say they came to me or to you, my first question would always be, what is the need? What is the thing that you say you are in need of not in the sense of the coach, but have you discovered that one of your behaviors doesn’t work? If you discover that something isn’t working quite the way you want it to work? And you try to find out? Why has somebody sent you lacking in a certain way? And tell me what that is? You know, and so, this, this declaration, I believe, I need a claw coach, as great as it is as an opening of the door. For me, it’s very important to say Okay, try in your own words to describe what kind of a change you are looking for what would be the ideal outcome at the end of any kind of engagement that you and I have with each other? So that I have an idea if what you just said, Scott, if what I can offer is actually a fit by then whether I take the example of okay, if you want to build a residential real estate portfolio, then I’m a fit. If you on the other hand, want to do multifamily or storage units or something else build a factory. I am not a fit, not because I can’t help you discover and develop the behaviors. But if it’s only behavior change and nothing else contraction, right, then that’s to your example, if you say I need somebody with a medical training, okay? But ultimately you want some specificity. Yeah, like the foot doctor versus the heart surgeon versus the oncologist or something like that. Right? Just talking all day long about how can you better engage the doctor, on the topic of medical advice, or medical engagement is one thing. And that’s why I fear when you say what is the right or the wrong coach, there is the purity. Like the international coaching Federation, for example, proposes the purity that everything that happens in coaching sessions in coaching, and development has to come from the coachee. That is a very pure way of looking at it from a conceptual perspective. My problem and I’m first to admit that I have a personal problem with that is that when we have conversation, we need to have something that we can anchor the conversation in, obviously, that would be in whatever topic or thing, word business company job you’re living. So if you have somebody who has basically no idea if you say, Okay, I’m a banker, and all day long, I’m struggling to do my banking job better, so I can become the branch manager. And I have no clue whatsoever, what what money is and how banking works and all of that, yes, I can help you discover behavior change. But the conversation will be so much richer, if I have something at least some sort of a foundation that I can empathize with you, I can actually connect with you. I can basically not just say, Tell me more, I can say Have you looked into this area? Have you looked into that area? And I can tell you a little bit when you and I don’t know if you were planning to ask that or not? When it comes to how do I actually get people to sign up for our program, whether they are business owners or individuals, it’s typically because I’m writing constantly and providing content in the platforms and in the places online, that cover certain topics that I believe I can contribute something to. So one would be in a platform called bigger pockets. It’s the largest in the world place where all people interested in real estate investing, congregate. And I write comments and forum posts and articles and all kinds of stuff. So obviously, these 2 million people that congregate there when they think okay, I I’ve always been wondering how this works, can I find somebody on the platform? Who can who can demonstrate that he or she has done it, and talks about it in a way that resonates with me, and then they fill out the little form on the website? Well, now we have a totally different entry to the first and arrange subsequent conversation. And if we’re talking business coaching and mentoring, I have studied this stuff. And I have a philosophy based on John Carter’s approach to, to change. Because that’s pretty much what we all live through in life, a certain circumstance of change, whether it’s a good change, because we got promoted, and we suddenly realize Holy shit, I was really good in management. Now I’m supposed to be a leader. Now, I’m not executing the strategies that some leader has given me. Now I’m supposed to come up with these strategies. Right? Right. So how do I do this? Right. And as soon as you start doubting yourself, then obviously you’re not as effective anymore as you were when you were managing, that’s when you need a coach to actually take this positive transition, and live into it and fill it with your capabilities. And I always say the first thing when we have that first conversation is, do you really think they would have promoted you if you don’t have the potential to actually make it? Right? Right. So let’s take that as our foundation. Now let’s find out right together. What does it take? Well, how can I do this? I found that to businesses, right? Because that’s what I mean, you know, a coaching is one thing is pulling out from people what they can and need to do to take advantage of opportunities, overcome obstacles and reach their goals. And mentoring is from a coach’s perspective, from a coaching business perspective, which are the areas where I can actually contribute something where the conversation is rich during the coaching session. Yeah. And not just okay, I’m applying a mechanism that I’ve learned in some coaching certification program, but I don’t really know what you’re struggling with contextually.
Scott Ritzheimer
So much good stuff in there. But I’m eager to hear and you’ve alluded to it already. So I’m ready to dive in. But what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret? What’s that one thing that you wish everybody out there listening today knew?
Axel Meierhoefer
I want to limit it to the United States are people living and having grown up and coming from the United States country. And that biggest secret is to realize that coaching is has nothing to do with the person that you ask to help you to provide you with the solution or the answer. You if you look at it, if coaching in and of itself, is helping you to discover the ads, it’s not drawing up the little play on the little mini whiteboard, and then get the ball to LeBron, you are the source of the answer. And for me, that’s the biggest secret if we could make this everybody understand, especially in business people listening, you have the answer, you may not have really looked at everything. And what you’re asking somebody, as a coach to help you with is to explore all these options, and then decide now that I can see them because we had this really meaningful, deep conversations. Now I can decide which one I want to take and make my own, and then have the coach in the secondary role, after the discovery to help you along and really start filling it with life, and which is oftentimes also very desired, especially in the business community, where we are super, super busy, is holding you accountable to really make the change, right. That’s why a secondary, quote unquote secret that I would say, if that’s allowed is you want your coach to have a concept on how you will be able to apply this change, not just to yourself, but also to the people that you engage if you do it in business. And I mentioned to you John Kotter leading change, or what I actually recommend to anybody listening, get that little book called our iceberg is melting, that talks about change in a really, really nice way. And that’s my philosophy. That’s how I help people to actually live into and execute on the change. There are 100 million other ways on how people can help others in coaching and mentoring, to afford to change but I believe as a secondary secret, you want to be able to ask your coach, okay, so if I discover my way, and now I need to make these changes, how will you help me make that happen? And I would say I get you the little book for free? You read it, and we talk about it, and then we actually execute?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, that’s a brilliant, brilliant question. Because I think one of the challenges that folks have is, how do you know who the right coach is? And I think that’s easily one of the best questions that I’ve heard to help filter that out, right? Because it’s not just Do I like you, right? And then of the kind of the pure sense of the coaching, it can be like, well, if all you’re gonna do is sit there and ask questions, I can I can, you know, I can bring in anybody, right? You can? Yeah, you can hire your dog, you know, but, but having the ability to put Well, to put flesh on the bones, right, to help you walk it out is what a great coach does. This is fascinating. All right. So last question that I have for you here. And that is that I know that, you know, as coaches, we have a knack for giving our very best time and energy to our clients. And kind of leaving it all on the table. But leaving, you know very little for us on the side. And I know this is especially an area that you focused on a lot. So I’d love for you to take off your your coach, mentor hat put on your CEO hat and tell us a little bit about what that next phase of growth looks like for you in your business.
Axel Meierhoefer
Well, in a very limited, nutshell, small nutshell, a quick answer would be working on scalability. But if you allow me to just expand a little tiny bit on that, I think if coaches are listening to us what you first have to ask yourself, Do I have a business or do I have a practice? And there is a good book about that called thought leadership by I think it’s Miko church, I know that that last name is church, I might butcher the first name. The point on that is if you discover in your coaching business, then every time when you say I have my calendar is full. I’m basically coaching as many people as I humanly can reasonably and still maintain quality. And you obviously say, well, there are many other people struggling to actually generate business. So I bring in other people equally trained with the same kind of fundamental understanding with that foundation we spoke about you were if you discover that your clients say yeah, but I want you Scott, for yeah, I hear you, but I really want you to be my coach or mentor both, then that is a good indication that you probably have a practice. Right? Because if it were a business, then you actually develop processes and says terms and procedures and stuff like that. And then ultimately, the goal would be that you can pull yourself out and your team is taking care of the business. So I had to admit to myself that I have a practice. And what that means is my best and most valuable contribution to the business is serving the client. And so to answer your question in a little bit more elaborate way is I’m getting an have already gotten people on my team who do pretty much everything else from you engage with Nadine, to set us up for the schedule, I have a guy who does the website as a marketing guy. And as we have, and I’m not claiming that I’m completely booked out or anything like that at this moment. But it fluctuates, because the need for coaching is initially very intense. And then it can moderate a little bit based on availability and where we are in the journey and stuff like that. But still, if I want to make as much of my time possible, available for coaching and mentoring, I need to grow the team and the team of support people who do everything else other than the coaching and mentoring. And that’s what I’m doing. But it also means when you admit that you have a practice that you can only, and I mean this in the in the nicest way, you can only accept so many patients. Right? Right. It’s very similar. And that’s why I use the term practice, if you are a dentist, and you really want to do the top notch work because it will be with these people for the rest of their life. Everybody will see the dental work when they smile, then it can be a five minute job. Right? It can be that you say okay, I need to get 15 people per hour through this practice on the tape on the chair, you have to make that as a conscious business decision to say okay, my sessions are always 45 minutes. And then the other 15 minutes of the hour is a little bit before and a little bit after we use all the gadgets, we can resume with transcript with recording with chat recording audio, video, everything, every session is given to it to the coachee or the mentee or their technology, but still needs to be an hour per person. And that means there’s only so many that you can do per week, per month per year. Right? And if you see that the demand is higher i My advice from a business development perspective is increase your rate. It’s kinda like what Elon Musk does with Tesla, right? Like he increased the prices for Tesla’s by 30% in the last 12 months, not because it takes him 30% more to make it. But people were waiting for more than a year. Right? So when you bring it up to a level where you eliminate certain people, then you can manage the waitlist. And I really believe coaches should be open to tell their clients Hey, sorry, I’m pretty full, I can put you on the waitlist it might take fill in the blanks amount of time before I can take you on. Right? If they really committed. And it’s not like a life and death urgency kind of thing. Then they will wait.
Scott Ritzheimer
Excellent. Alright, so I know there’s some folks listening, that are saying like, I absolutely love what you’ve said. They were the resonating with every bit of it. And they want to know how they can connect with you and learn more about your coaching, your mentoring, where can they find you? And how do they start?
Axel Meierhoefer
The easiest is if you go to idealwealthgrower.com. And I’m assuming you would put that into the show notes or something like that. If you wait about 37.5 seconds, there will be something popping up to say let’s get you the strategy session. So that would be one thing or you could sign up for the newsletter and I would find out about that. Or you can just write an email to [email protected] So and by the way, if you put idealwealthgrower.com in Google, we pretty much everywhere pop up all over the place. So there’s easy ways to get in touch with us.
Scott Ritzheimer
Excellent, fantastic. Well, Axel tremendous. I loved every minute of this conversation. There’s so much wisdom that you brought I so appreciate your willingness to share with with me and with the audience. For everyone listening. Thank you so much for spending your time with us. Your time and attention are the biggest honor that we could receive. So thanks for being here with us for this conversation. We look forward to seeing you next time. Take care
Contact Axel Meierhoefer
As a retired Air Force officer, Axel Meierhoefer started his first company in 2005, focusing on consulting, employee skill development and program management. He has always had a love for education and helping people help themselves become successful. He’s also gone on to have great success managing a 7 figure real-estate portfolio and helping achieve their own real-estate investing success.
You can learn more about Axel and his work at idealwealthgrower.com.