AMC Consulting

It is time to begin looking closer into a part of our economy and our society that has been forgotten and rarely highlighted for too long. For the past 18 months I have been involved in the birthing of a new non-profit organization. It wasn’t a smooth path, step by step, everything happening as one would hope or expect. It was more an on again – off again engagement.

Last week I accepted a driving role in the organization to help it collect funds utilizing modern methods as well as delivering the help it intents to provide to the business community. The full name of the organization is: “Citizen Soldier Business Recovery Foundation”, or CSBRF. The mission of the foundation is to help business owners in their time of need. These are not just any regular business owners who might have made a bad financial decision or failed in leading their company. These are….

Individuals who are business owners and freedom fighters in one person. How do you get to be these two things in one person, you ask? Well, first of all I hope we all agree that anybody serving in our military is fighting to protect and defend the freedoms we all enjoy every day. That makes all men and women in military uniform freedom fighters.

Some of them, actually about 55000, have served in the military on active duty for many years. When they retired or completed their commitment, they decided to remain available to serve our country. They signed up for the Reserves or National Guard. Up until 4 years ago, the current generation of these individuals could expect to train about 1 weekend per month and be ready to help when disasters strike, natural catastrophes require support, or in limited support roles for the military.

With the advent of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that situation changed dramatically. As more and more active duty units were send to these wars, it became clear that the rotations could only be maintained when reserve and guard units would also get involved. The required directives were crafted and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began to activate these units for combat duty.

Can you imagine going from being called a weekend warrior to being in the middle of a nasty war? Now, try to imagine you have served your duty in the military, signed up for the National Guard or Reserves, and began to develop your own business. After a few years you have employees, you have revenues and profits, you have products and services, and you have people who depend on your leadership.

Suddenly you receive a call, or letter, or both telling you to get ready for activation of your reserve or guard unit. You will go to a training camp immediately followed by deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq. For 9-15 months you will be away from home, away from your family, and away from your company.

That’s when you realize that you are a business owner and freedom fighter all in one person. The CSBRF foundation is using its funds to support the companies of these heroes. Dedicated consultants are dispatched to the companies of the citizen soldier business owners to help their organizations survive while they serve and protect the freedoms we all enjoy.

By helping these leaders keep their businesses alive, the foundation supports the local economy and maintains employment for those individuals working in these companies. All the support services of the foundation occur without cost to the citizen soldiers on deployment, or the company. The support can extent to post-deployment time as well, in case certain initiatives need to be completed. If you are gone from your own company for a year, it takes a little time to get back on track, get everything back under your control while you are trying to cope with all the impressions and burdens that you were exposed to while fighting a war.

Regardless of political views about the current wars, it should be clear that these citizen soldier business owners, deserve our support to keep their companies afloat, especially in these trying economic times.

We are working on creating an easy, online way to give donations to the CSBR Foundation, so the team and I can help the companies and the business owner freedom fighters survive.

Stay tuned. I’ll report soon about the developments and how to donate and support these unknown heroes. If you like to now more or donate by check contact us at

Axel Meierhoefer, AMC LLC,
420 Dogwood Drive,
Buellton, CA 93427,
Email: AM@Meierhoefer.net

This morning I received a message from Mac Anderson, founder of Simple Truths Inc., and organization in the business of encouragement and inspiration. I have been a subscriber to Mac’s service for some time and always find it interesting to see, read, and learn about the products and services he has to offer. Today’s situation was a little different…

I get a lot of messages via email from marketing gurus and organizations that try to sell me stuff. Often, I don’t even open them or just briefly glance at them. Some things I actually wait for, like Mac’s messages or the ones from Michael Angier and Christian Mickelsen.

Let’s start at the beginning: I have found, and I believe many of you might be able to relate, that we listen to certain things when we are actually in need. If things are going well and we are healthy, we don’t listen much to all the healthier eating and diet advertisements. When we feel good, we don’t pay much attention to the ads about new pills or pharmaceuticals. A similar thing applies when you are in business. When lots of projects and contracts are in the pipeline and you actually have a waiting list or can barely cover all the commitments you’ve made, you don’t pay much attention to all the messages about how to improve marketing, become more successful, and improve your situation.

When, on the other hand, money isn’t rolling in on a regular basis, prices keep increasing, and you begin to wonder how to make all the payments for the bills you know will come in at the end of the month, a certain level of desperation begins to set in. The movie “The Secret” provided a nice solution on a theoretical level for such circumstances. It basically said that there is a universal, natural law that governs what we receive.

It is called the “Law of Attraction”.

This law is supposedly followed by all the energies in the universe. When we think about all the things that could cause us to fail, from the little things like failing to find a parking spot in front of the store in the pouring rain, to the big things, like making enough revenue to pay the help and the bills, we will attract this negativity and the associated circumstances, and what we are afraid of will actually happen.

If, on the other hand, we think and believe in the good things in the world, keep our hopes up, channel our positive energy towards success even when things aren’t going perfectly, the universe and its’ Law of Attraction will bring those things closer to us that will actually allow us to reach our goals and succeed.

I have actually experienced this situation more than once, and its always amazing. I also admit that it isn’t always easy to keep a positive mind set and think the positive thoughts. Not too long ago I got into a situation where several projects all came to an end at the same time, and I began to wonder if I will have any new work any time soon.

Knowing that dwelling on the possibility of failure wouldn’t help, I began to activate my network, listen to what gurus in the field say and suggest, and worked very focused on developing new opportunities. Guess what – the universe listened and now we have a number of new projects in the pipeline that have me more excited than ever.

For anybody who has read what I preach for any length of time, you will know that I am always for letting others participate in achievements. In this case that means that my anxiety to run into trouble and its solution should be turned around into something positive. Mac Anderson couldn’t know that things had already turned into a very positive movement when he sent me his message this morning. I still watched what he had send me because one never knows when you need a solution in future desperate times.

More importantly, I was able to forward Mac’s movie to  a friend who’s daughter will have surgery this weekend, and to some other people who are currently struggling. That made me feel good because I have hope it will help them, and I believe it will make them feel good, because they will know that others care about them and their lives.

Whether your are in a bad situation or in the best place in your life right now, I like to encourage you to use the link below and watch the movie Mac sent to me. If it applies, use it to motivate yourself to get back up and keep moving forward. If it doesn’t currently fit, download it or save the link, so you have it when you need it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmfKlXMbTw4

Have a good weekend and let me know how this inspirational video has helped you.

Axel Meierhoefer, AMC LLC

Today I had the pleasure to attend another one of the regular tele-class-calls for the 6 figure coaching group I am a member of. Some of the things mentioned referred to a phenomenon I have experienced or heard others talk about in the past. Since there doesn’t seem to be a term for this phenomenon I could find, I invented one for it. I call it the Loneliness-Hole.

Let’s start at the beginning: I am still studying Otto Scharmer’s U-Theory and keep learning amazing things while gaining more and more clarity. I had planned to develop a new article about the parts I am currently studying. Maybe the universe observed me and brought what I was reading about and what I heard during the tele-class together to bring you today’s reflection.

Have you ever attended an event, participated in a class or course, bought yourself a guided home-study program and caught yourself not really achieving what you had hoped it would do for you? I have several times.

In most cases I enjoy the new people I get to encounter, the atmosphere focusing on the topic at hand for a few days. In case of regular classes or calls, I feel these scheduled events bring the mind back to a topic on a regular basis, although its’ harder to be in the subject over the phone than being in tune when I am physically present.

Regardless if the event has the purpose to sell something or really the goal to teach something new, it is almost always the start of a change process, not the end. It requires us to make a commitment to ourselves to use the positive vibe and energy we have when we leave and part ways with the group of like-minded people. During the drive or flight home we still feel this momentum and drive to move forward.

Some of us actually take action the next day trying to keep the flow going. Many have concentrated so hard on the topic for several days that they feel exhausted when they return into the known environment. It’s almost like a muscle ache after a marathon So what do we do? (and I am no better than anybody else)

We take a break from the topic or subject. We might call it reflection, but for the most part, it is taking a break, relaxing our mind, as well as our body. A few days later, when we find the binders, books, brochures, CD’s, DVD’s, and receipts from our trip, we are reminded that we actually had made a promise to ourselves. We wanted to take action and apply the great system we had heard and learned about.

This is when the Loneliness-Hole is opening up. While we were at the event, all the other folks we had gotten to know were with us. They had good ideas, they told us what they would do when they came home, they provided energy and momentum to us – where had they gone?

Often we try for some time to get going, but suddenly all the stuff we have and learned looks more like a mountain we need to climb. All the ideas we had are now countered with arguments why they might not work – and the energy we felt seems to have vanished.

Otto Scharmer talks about the power of Sensing. It is part of his theory. In a nutshell it looks and describes the process we go through when we calm down, focus on a topic or object, explore all its facets and aspects, and begin to understand its place, its function and how it fits into the bigger whole of the environment. Many scientists call this environment “The Field”.

What happens in the field is what will help anybody to get out of the Loneliness-Hole or avoid falling into the Loneliness-Hole in the first place. It requires the energizing of the heart to trigger a feeling. Like I described at the beginning, we know how it feels to by in synch with a group of likeminded people. We know how awesome it is to know that there is help, understanding, energy to spare, focus.

What we also find is that things seem to slow down. We can shed all the other things that seem to occupy our minds and our time normally. We can explore the details, and we can open up. This feeling is actually happening when we transition from thinking and sensing with our brain towards thinking and sensing with our heart.

We begin to resonate with the people around us. We see ourselves both as observers of the system as well as participants in it. We have all these ideas flowing out of us and the folks around us that seem unique, great, and helpful. We can really see and feel that the team/group and its innovations is greater than the sum of its parts. The experience is factual and emotional all at the same time.

That feeling is what we are missing when we fall into the Loneliness-Hole.

What can we do about it? You want to actually not only commit to steps, actions and change to yourself, but also to a group of people at the event or meeting, before it is over. Rather than trying to absorb the whole system, all the new ideas and opportunities, and execute them yourself, make a commitment to set up a regular event with a group of 5-7 people. This is similar to a master-mind group.

The best thing would be to have a facilitator who actually knows what the concept,  content or area of interest of the event or meeting was. That way such a facilitator or coach can help you find your way back to the energy and emotions that gave you so much drive and readiness for action. We are actually working on introducing these kinds of group-coaching and facilitation groups as a services because the energy and creativity that comes out of them is very amazing.

If you don’t have anybody who can act as a facilitator or group coach, you want to establish a rotation in your group so that one person takes the lead for one month at a time facilitating the conference calls. Yes, you can do this over the phone or Skype/Internet messenger. You don’t have to be in the same place.  The most important thing for such a group to be successful is to be able to bring the memories, feelings, goals and thoughts form the original event back into your mind and your heart.

If you practice this process, you will learn that you can begin to channel the field energy towards other things as well. One member of the group might go through and illness, a family member might have an accident and needs support to recover, someone might have to take a test or pass an exam. All these tings can benefit from the positive energy of thoughts that each group member can send to the affected person.

Learning how to find the energy, renew the emotions and good feelings, activate the field or keep it energized outside of the meetings and calls, is easier with a facilitator or a coach, but you can also do it yourself. Most importantly, setup the group and make the commitment while you are at the event, still in the training facility, during a project definition retreat, etc.

If you follow this process and make the commitment to the group, you will avoid ever again falling into the Loneliness-Hole.

That by itself is already a great improvement over most cases. The other great benefit of this process is the fact that you will actually get the full benefit of the event you attended and possibly spend considerable money on. And you will keep learning from the members of your group, bounce of some of your ideas, find solutions for things that didn’t work when you tried them, and most importantly, celebrate all the small and big wins you will encounter when you take action based on what you learned.

Let me know what your experiences are when applying this process to avoid falling into the Loneliness-Hole. In case you look for a group coach to facilitate a process like this or help you improve yourself, please let me know and we can develop fantastic groups to create both mind energy and heart energy.

Axel Meierhoefer, AMC LLC

Does this sound familiar to you? In many of my consultations and coaching sessions, I hear people say this exact thing. Some claim that they don’t have any time to change or add any more tasks to their already overflowing list. Others say they are so stressed out as it is that they don’t see how they can afford to pause without running the risk to miss a step, make a big mistake, or a project running into trouble.

Are you one of these individuals or a leader of a team in this situation? Are you maybe even a person who suffers from both, no time and loads of stress?

If so, let me thank you right away for taking some of your precious time to read this article.

In case you are not one of these people, but you know some or feel you could be pretty soon, I hope you will gain some perspective and motivation to reflect and maybe change what you are doing.

First of all, there is really no secret to time. It is something we all have the same amount of. Each day has 24 hours, a week has 7 days, an hour has 60 minutes (please don’t argue about other systems of measurement). We all work in a global system of time. What we can do is decide what to do with the time available to us. We can determine how much we want to use for sleep, knowing that that keeps us healthy and allows us to continue for prolonged periods of time.

The other thing we can do is determine what we do with the time we don’t sleep, play, or use for things other than what we consider work. You might say that most of this time is planned out by the organization you work for, and that is probably true. Question is: Does this have to be this way and is the process really optimized towards the goals you and your organization want to achieve?

The core question here is: Are you ‘Downloading’ or are you ‘Seeing’?

You might have heard it in school – or you might have never realized: of all the data that our sensors detect at any given time, only about 1% is actually used to make decisions or and recognized at any given time. Our brain can’t use all this information, so 99% is discarded.

The remaining 1% is used for decision making. Before we actually decide on anything, our brain does one other thing for us, unconsciously: it looks for similarities in our memory. If it finds them it suggests to apply the behavior or reaction we used in the past, thereby expediting the process very much. All that is very good and efficient, but it also means that a very small fraction of the opportunities in our lives receive real attention and reflection and cause us to possible do something new, react in a different way. This process of selection and referencing can be called ‘downloading’.

In our work life, especially in larger organizations, this downloading also determines what we do. If the pattern in the company is to keep your insights to yourself and not disclosing much info to the customers or the media, this behavior turns into a pattern that spreads through to organization like a virus. Departments don’t share, divisions don’t share, regional offices or even country offices all do their own thing. This increases stress for those in charge as you might never know what might lurk in the shadows and how it might hurt your own career. With nobody to talk to, you try to impress by doing as much as you can. I call this “face time”.

Nobody I know can do new, innovative, top level stuff all the time. So, how do we cope, still have lots of face time (and stress)? We structure the time we have available with many meetings and sessions. Most of these include minor updates and reports on activities, but for the most part, they are times to spend together in groups, providing attention. Those in charge see that you are doing things, that you must be important because you have tons of meetings to go to, and your schedule looks full to the point of bursting.

With that much on your plate, there is no room or time for change. If the organization is half-way successful, it even appears that there is no need for change. Is it fun? Did you achieve what you envisioned when you first got the job? Does it do all the tings for you that you know it could? Probably not, but it pays the bills – right? Who are you to change this machinery?

I recommend to change from “Downloading” to “Seeing” (terms developed by Otto Scharmer, 2007)

In a nutshell, Seeing means you can look at the situation, the process, the problem, the issue from the place of the observer as well as form the place of the participant. Ron Heifetz calls this process: Observing the play of life from the balcony of the opera house.

The important aspects to learn ‘Seeing” are:

• Identify the goals and the problem you intent to solve – similar to good research, you need to narrow down what you want to study, what the exact research question is, and which population to select to get usable results.
• Be open to discover the unexpected – Otto Scharmer writes about Charles Darwin, saying: “The father of modern evolutionary theory was known to keep a notebook with him to capture observations and data that contradicted his theories and expectations. He was well aware that the human mind tends to quickly forget what does not fit into familiar frameworks.” (Scharmer, 2007, p. 133) He calls the suspension of judgement the only thing that can allow us to open our minds and ourselves to the wonders of something new – beyond the patterns we are used to from Downloading
• Communicate and collaborate – When observing the reality (like from a balcony) and then reflecting upon it, ways to change become obvious. Discussing how the actions to achieve the changes can actually look like and what steps in a sequence can be will allow people to come along on the path of Seeing and actually become open to change.

For all three of these parts of successful ‘Seeing’, good leadership is required. Otto Scharmer had an interesting new view on this form of leadership. He states:

“The primary job of leadership, I have come to believe through my work with Edgar Schein, is to enhance the individual and systematic capacity to see, to deeply attend to the reality that people face and enact. Thus the leader’s real work is to help people discover the power of seeing and seeing together.” (Scharmer, 2007, p.136)

One part of the discovery of Seeing is for you to discover how you can best spend the time you actually have. It is equal for all of us – the difference is what you do with it, how you spend it and how careful you use it to do things that actually get you ahead, instead of Downloading the same old, same old and fill your day with face time.

The other part is to overcome your stress by being a good leader, communicating the discoveries of seeing and how they can enhance the life of everybody in the organization, or even everybody you touch. If you focus on discovering what you can do to achieve the overarching goals of your life, your family, and your organization,  you will not feel stressed or out of time, but energized, motivated, and driven. No longer will you experience work, but you will experience joy, energy, and satisfaction.

By learning how to move form Downloading to Seeing, you will learn to do what you are best at and what you enjoy most. You might learn that the job you are in is not the right one for you anymore. You might find new things that are better and more motivating for you. You will discover your passion – and when you do, nothing is work anymore, and everything is play, joy, and a step towards the achievement of the goals you set for yourself and your life.

Axel Meierhoefer, AMC LLC

When we have some time to take a breath, read a newspaper, watch a TV show, and relax, we find a continuation of what is common in the work place. A lot of what is presented and written about is describing how well - or not so well - others did, organizations did, sports teams did, - in a nutshell, how well they performed.

Every walk of life seems to be inundated with competition. We feel we constantly have to compete with others, show that we are worthy and that we deserve to advance based on our performance.

As you have seen in many articles and writings, I call myself a Performance Coach. When we say our motto is: “Helping other succeed”, or “Helping other help themselves achieve their goals and dreams”, we actually want to help them to improve their performance.

On first glace that seems to be pretty obvious and easy to understand. When we look into the meaning of the word performance, we can learn a number of things, but also get a little more confused. Here are some samples:

Kernerman’s English Multilingual Dictionary says performance = the doing of something.

Fair enough. We probably can all agree with that. The questions is: what is the something and how well is it done?

The Encyclopedia Britannica looks at the legal aspects and offers this explanation:

Performance in law, is the act of doing that which is required by a contract. The effect of successful performance is to discharge the person bound to do the act from any future contractual liability.
Each party to the contract is bound to perform promises according to the stipulated terms.

I guess that means: If you do what you promised in a contract, you performed as expected and are entitled to the compensation that was promised to you. Wouldn’t it be nice if things were that simple? You tell your boss what you are willing to do, and when you do it, you are good to go? In most cases that won’t work, because we all have come to understand that what was originally promised is seen as the minimum requirement and sets the basic expectation.

The first lesson to learn from is this: Don’t over-promise, so the foundation of the expectation regarding your performance isn’t too high. Then, over-deliver and surprise those who need to compensate you.

A word of caution: You want to find realistic values when applying this lesson. If you play low-ball and then blow everybody away by your final delivery, you run the risk of loosing trust. Give realistic figures, set realistic expectations, and then try everything you can to best them; that is the approach that will help you in the long run.

Back to the definitions: Webster’s Dictionary gives us these choices for the term:

Performance =

• the execution of an action 
• something accomplished 
• the fulfillment of a claim, promise, or request
• the action of representing a character in a play 
• a public presentation or exhibition  (a benefit performance)
• the ability to  perform
• the linguistic behavior of an individual

With all these version of performance in mind, we want to see if it always has to be competition.

I say = NO!

What we want to achieve is a way to act and do things in our way. That is the way we want to be known for, the way we are proud of, the way we acknowledge for ourselves, the honest way we are and we act. Remember the saying: “How you do something is how you do everything!”

Our performance should always be the best we can do. That requires to give our actions some thought – and don’t forget, what we say is an action too, so give that some thought as well.

The recent tendency to turn everything into a competition makes life and work appear as if someone has to loose for someone else to win, and naturally, the winner is always seen as the better performer.

In some cases when that argument of someone or something being better doesn’t necessarily apply, other reasons for awarding a winner to a competition are thought. You might recall the recent award of a huge contract by the US Air Force to the American company Northrop-Grumman. They have created a new tanker airplane for the military that won in 4 out of 5 critical performance areas. In addition it has the shorter take off distance with the same take off weight, meaning it can take off from shorter runways all around the world.

When our troops are involved in battle, they don’t always have the luxury of perfectly prepared airfields with never ending runways, so this point has global importance. Still, Boeing tried to make the argument that they should win the contract anyway, because some of the parts and work is going to be done by a company outside the United States, namely Airbus.

What does that mean for our initial question? Well, performance is not a matter of who wins the competition (assuming there even is one), but a matter of integrity. You don’t just want to perform to you highest level when others are watching (or judging, like about the tanker plane), but always. You want to be able to provide your best effort all the time, or the best of your team, and the best of your company.

Yes, you may not always win, but that is because others try their hardest too, and every once in a while their best is a little better than yours. Rather than finding reasons outside yourself, you want to look at what can be learned, and do better the next time around.

If you live and work in an environment where you can motivate others and yourself to always bring the best possible performance to the table, you will win the vast majority of situations. The effort and the integrity with which you perform it actually counts much more than the fact that you are the last one standing at the end of a competition.

Bottom line: performance is not always a competition, but it should always be a sign of your best effort, brought with honesty, integrity, and pried to those that ask for it. If you set your values and your attitude in this way, you will become very successful, and everybody around you will  love and respect you.

Try it, - you will see how good it feels!

Axel Meierhoefer, AMC LLC