Strategist, Author, And Thought Leader Alex Brucekmann Reveals Secrets Of Next Level Entrepreneurs (#217)

[00:00:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth.

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Alex Bruekmann is an entrepreneur, author, executive coach, and board advisor. He built, scaled, exited companies, and led client projects across the world. His areas of expertise are strategy development, leadership development, and entrepreneurship. His passion lies in helping clients build profitable businesses rooted in purpose.

Alex speaks on the topics of international strategy and entrepreneurship. In his upcoming book, he presents a new framework called The Nine Elements of Organizational Identity, which helps people build better businesses.

Alex is a storyteller with an academic background in general management with degrees from EBS University in Germany, Universidad ORT in Uruguay, as well as certificates from INSEAD and Harvard Business School.

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast and he's back. We have our friend Alex back, who is no stranger to the Deep Wealth community. Alex has been on a number of episodes. In fact, Alex, I think this episode is gonna put you in the lead for the guest for the most number of episodes on the podcast. But Alex has been busy.

He has been incredibly busy, but up to some great things. We'll talk all about. His new book is coming out Secret of Next Level Entrepreneurs: 11 Powerful Lessons to Thrive in Business and Lead a Balanced Life. We're gonna talk all about that, and on the heels of that one, I'm not gonna let the cat outta the bag.

But another wonderful addition or surprise will be coming out later on after this. But Alex, welcome back. It's great to have you with us. And before we kick things off, we've had a lot of new members of the community, and so for their benefit, there's always a story behind the story. Alex, what's your story?

What got you to where you are today?

[00:03:19] Alex Brueckmann: Thanks for having me again. Excited to take the lead as the guest with the most appearances. Yeah, my story, hey, where do we even start? I think probably the most interesting piece in the context of my own entrepreneurial journey is, when I transitioned from Germany to Canada about three years ago, it's like almost exactly three years ago.

It was a bit of a crazy time. We all know what happened in March 2020. And yeah, that was certainly the icing on top of the cake with everything else that had happened during that time, like founding new business, moving to no continent, losing my father, and having my own child, the first child, all within a matter of a few months.

Emotionally speaking a very challenging time to put it mildly. And obviously when it came to business we all been through Covid. I don't need to explain what that meant. So yeah, those past three years, however, have been interesting because out of that challenging time ideas were born that led me to where I am now. which is really interesting because I never set out to become a two times published author, for example. These things just, I don't wanna say they just happened because that's not true. It's a lot of work to write a book and to publish it. But it's a journey that had its origins in spring 2020.

[00:04:36] Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, you know, there's always two sides to the coin, and our hearts always go out to people who really lost loved ones or businesses, or were just affected in such a negative way from the pandemic. The flip side though. The flip side, there's always new opportunities as tragic and as difficult as things can be.

The flip side is it's a new chapter, a new day, a new light, and you've certainly made the most of it. And Alex, let's not forget the summit, the online summit, I was absolutely honored to be a part of it. Proceeds were going to some wonderful charities that you had selected. You're continuing to make a difference and pay it forward.

And so let me do this because we're on the heels of the book release coming out, and who wouldn't wanna get to the next level? And you've come up once again I love your titles and they're tantalizing and they're teasing us and all kinds of great insights, but 11 powerful lessons that you're coming out with.

And I'm just curious, before we go into them behind the book, the story behind the story of the book, what had you come up with the idea? Did you just wake up one day and say, you know what, I'm gonna go in this direction? Or was it an evolution? What was it all?

[00:05:42] Alex Brueckmann: I was actually a bit of an accident to be fully transparent. As I said, I never set out to write a book. This book is, you mentioned the online summit, and at the back of the online summit, there were some ideas that I was like, yes, I have seen that this is a true issue for leaders in corporate but also for entrepreneurs.

And when I took a look at these topics, I felt that like over the past 15, 20 years since I've been doing what I do. I have never met a business leader that hasn't struggled with at least one of these topics. So the book is structured in three themes, leadership and culture, self-care, and some hard skills that we typically don't have as subject matter expertise, but they are out there and we need them at some point in time.

So that's how I stitched the book together. How these different topics came to life and. It's something that I don't wanna say, I woke up one day and I saw it, but it was not coming to me like over time it was more an epiphany. It was more like, that makes sense and that makes sense. And together it makes even more sense.

So when I started to think about how the red threat throughout the book could look like.

That's when I actually realized there is a book in this because, you can write everything into a book doesn't make sense for the target group that is always the guiding question, and in this case it was.

[00:07:05] Jeffrey Feldberg: And I know when going through the book we, you talk about your first theme here, you're talking about the three essential hard skills. Every business leader should master. One of them is my absolute favorite. For me, it just jumps off the page. I'm gonna hold that back a little bit and I'm gonna ask you a tough question.

It's almost like asking, you know when you have more than one child, which is your favorite child for the first theme though, where you have the three different hard skills is there wonder that stands out more for you, either personally or what you see in your coaching and your clientele that really can make a difference.

[00:07:36] Alex Brueckmann: What I definitely see is that the topic of strategic pricing is extremely difficult for most entrepreneurs. It is so difficult to know for sure what the price for a certain product or service should be, and in that chapter, we offer an approach, just a guideline developed by the most brilliant mind when it comes to strategic pricing.

Hammond Simon, who contributed the chapter. And what we also do we are not only talking about pricing as such, we bring it into this time of high inflation. So approaching pricing in times of high inflation from a strategic perspective can help protect your bottom line. Who doesn't want that if you lead a business?

And so this is probably the most tangible chapter among those three chapters in theme one. I wouldn't say it's the most important one, but it's certainly the most tangible one.

[00:08:27] Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. Now, Alex, full disclosure for me, that was a chapter that just jumped off the page for me because I know at Deep Wealth, and even in our community working with business owners, I mean as business owners, it's really a dichotomy and you can tell me if you find this as well. On the one hand, we are hard-charging Type A personalities will conquer the world, but oftentimes when it comes to putting a price for our service or for our goods, we get that imposter syndrome.

 Who am I to charge this? And maybe I should be like everyone else. And we tend to undercharge more than we should be charging the actual market value to our detriment. Now, is that just me, or are you seeing that as well? What would you say to that?

[00:09:07] Alex Brueckmann: I see that as well, especially when it comes to businesses that have been around for some time. They might not have raised their prices for 5, 6, 7 years. What that means is inflation has been chopping away or chipping away their profits without them even realizing it. And then on top comes the pandemic, a war in Ukraine, and the resulting energy price search, and a cost of living search.

So prices go through the roof and all of a sudden you're dealing with an 8% price increase, 9% price increase in raw materials in goods purchased. And that is just eating up your entire profit if you're unlucky. But Because you haven't had any experience over the past years of racing prices, you don't know how to approach it.

You don't know how to protect your bottom line and what to do about it. And that can easily throw a business under the bus.

[00:10:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely.

[00:10:02] Alex Brueckmann: Pricing is, it's not just a discipline within marketing, it is a discipline that can protect your business in these times of high inflation, for example. And if you are leading a business, the smaller the business is, the more important it is for you to understand the topic because there's just no one else there who does it for you. And if you then use it in a smart way it can at least ease the pain of inflation to a certain degree. You might not be able to convert and or translate all the cost increases into your pricing, but at least it helps you protect your bottom line to a certain degree.

[00:10:40] Jeffrey Feldberg: And Alex, for our listeners, I will have in the show notes, it'll be a link to the book where they're able to pick it up and go through it, and we're not gonna be able to do it justice. I mean, just on that one topic alone, that's not just an episode, that's a series, a podcast series of what to do there.

That's said though every episode, I like our listeners to walk away with at least one actionable item that they can do right after the episode's finish. So when it comes to pricing, strategic pricing, what can our listeners do or what do you think they should know? If you had to pick out some of the golden threads in there from that one chapter, what would you share with our listeners?

[00:11:16] Alex Brueckmann: Acknowledging that most people out there just don't know anything about pricing. I would just start at step number one,

Move from this is how much I pay for it and how much I put into it. Then I add X amount of percentage points on top of it, and that's my profit margin. That's cost-plus pricing.

If you're doing that, move away from it. It's the worst thing you can do because it has nothing to do with the real value of your product and service. And the same is true if you're just looking around. Like for example, you're a hairdresser and you look around what do the other hairdressers do in my, community?

And you price your product or your service based on what the competition charges. It's just nonsense. It has nothing to do with the value you provide it, it doesn't reflect your unique value. The uniqueness of your service and the value it creates for your customers. So if there's just one takeaway, embrace value-based pricing.

And it's actually way simpler than many people try to make it sound. It is just about understanding what are the different aspects or elements of your offering, and how do your clients value these elements related to the price of your product. It's something that if you make it really complicated it's something that, for example, car companies do before their models even hit the market, they know exactly how to price it. Why? Because they do something like conjoint measurement and where they realize every element from the interior to the sound of the door closes and God knows what they know exactly what it is that the customers value and how it relates to the price of the service or product.

So if you wanna do that for your business, just talk to your clients. Talk to their clients. And it's not about the value. It's not about them telling you what the product should, the price of the product should be. It's about understanding which factors in your offering is it that they truly value and how it relates to the price or that product.

[00:13:14] Jeffrey Feldberg: And Alex, that is not gold, that is platinum. And for our listeners, really play that back. Stop, rewind, hear what Alex is saying again. And to bring this point home, I'm gonna take a long story, make it very short. I'm gonna oversimplify it. Hopefully not too much. Alex and my e-learning company, the one that we had, the nine-figure deal with.

There were two different versions of the company, Embanet one, and then we created Embanet two to put Embanet one outta business. And to your point, Alex Embanet one, I had no idea what I was doing. I was right outta school. No experience. How did I put our pricing model together? Our business model, which we have a whole PDF on this, an ebook, why your business model sucks and what you can do about it.

My business model was the worst because I just did what everyone else was doing. And then I even lowered it a little bit more because I thought, hey, I'm a new guy out there. Let me get the business. Embanet two, we changed things around completely. And to your point, it was strategic with what we did, and we came up with what we call the holy Grail of business models.

When it came to the nine figure deal, I'll share that the vast majority of the nine figures was for Embanet two, not for Embanet one, largely because of the pricing model, the business model. And again, Alex, your point, and for the listeners, it didn't matter what it cost us to put our services together. What mattered was how painful of a problem we were solving and what that meant to the customer and what it was worth to them to take that pain away better than they could or anyone else could.

So you're spot on with that and again, that should be and could be an entire episode or series. All on its own, but so glad that it's in there. And as much as I'd love to stay on there, let's go on with theme number two, because here you came out with four hard-charging strategies, and I loved how you talked about leadership and thought leadership and cultures.

So for theme number two, big picture-wise, what's going on?

[00:15:06] Alex Brueckmann: This theme offers different perspectives on the role of leadership in times of upheaval, in times of disruption, and how it relates to building a culture in your business that not only embraces innovation and disruption and does something with it, but also at the same time creates a people-centered work culture that gives your employees more than just a salary or let's say the illusion of job security.

[00:15:38] Jeffrey Feldberg: So timely in terms of what's going on. And you know what? Even when circumstances change or the markets change, there's always cycles where we revisit that. So let me ask you this and again, each of those chapters, we could do a deep dive. Time doesn't permit us to do that. If you had to cherry-pick a few actionable strategies on the culture side and the one comment for you that I admire with what you did there, for a lot of people, culture doesn't show up in a spreadsheet.

It doesn't show up on an income statement or a balance sheet, but if we're honest about it, it drives everything.

[00:16:14] Alex Brueckmann: Yes.

[00:16:15] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so from that perspective, when you think about culture, and for our listeners who, again, if they can only do one thing with their culture, what should they be doing or what could they be doing from where you've been and what you've seen?

[00:16:26] Alex Brueckmann: Similar to the topic of pricing, I think we need to start at the beginning.

Culture is a term that is, that means a lot of different things to many people. And when we use the term culture, what we are really talking about is high-performance culture. And that is measurable in a spreadsheet. So we are not talking about table tennis in the lobby and free fruit for everyone.

That's not culture, and after work events, that's not culture. That's a manifestation of how you want people to behave, but culture is way more than that. Culture is what happens when no one watches.

Culture is, is everyone aware of what their role is in making the business successful and what they can contribute?

And that is something that you derive from the strategy that you give your business overarching, and how you then, as a leadership team or as an individual leader, translate it into your teams and that means, am I able to talk about the goals for the business in the language of the people that I'm addressing?

Do they realize how instrumental they are in bringing it to life? This is so motivational for people. If everyone understands in your business what they contribute to making into success, that unleashes so much power and unleashes so much creativity, and then allowing people to express that creativity in coming up with ideas so that it's top-down communication of this is the strategy, this is what you do. But creating a dialogue about what people see when they talk to customers when they are on the shop floor this is just a game changer. All of a sudden you create a flywheel where everyone is invested into the success of a company.

That's basically what we talk about when we talk about culture. The rest are perks.

That's something else.

[00:18:09] Jeffrey Feldberg: Well said, because you know what? In all the good times that we've had leading up to the pandemic and even partway through the pandemic, as crazy as it sounds, we really were taken off the right path, I feel, and were shown all these things that they glitzy and glamorous and they look terrific, particularly in the high tech industry.

But you're right, it's not culture. And let me ask you this, or not true culture, where are we getting it wrong as business owners? Because you hear time and time again, we do the right things. Perhaps you hear about a company, they have an offsite retreat. They have senior management, maybe some of the area leaders.

They're thinking of the culture. They have all the right intent come outta that weekend and everything is planned and they have the north star of where they're gonna be heading. But then after that, it just all falls apart and nothing happens. Nobody buys in or they take five steps back instead of five steps forward.

What's going on? Where are we missing the boat on that one?

[00:19:02] Alex Brueckmann: Oh my gosh, there are so many reasons why exactly that happens what you just described. I think one of the most prevalent reasons is that people talk about culture. They don't live it. They see it as something they have to do rather than something that is enabling success and, therefore should be woven into the fabric of the entire company.

As long as culture is a performative action, it doesn't really do anything. It needs to be something that is the basis for how you hire, how you set up incentive systems, how you pay your people, how you promote, how you bring in talent, how you serve your clients. Like everything is related to that topic of culture.

And if you build it from that perspective, it is a constant topic.

Everything that is a constant topic is front of mind. And when things are front of mind, people take them into consideration when they take decisions on a daily basis. If everything you care about is profit, people will care about profit because you will talk about it a lot.

If everything you care about is serving your customers in the best possible way, then this is what everyone has front of mind. And if culture plays an important role, it needs to be present as a topic in every conversation in every meeting. So the type of dialogues and the type of conversations that you have with your people changes from a purely commercial context.

For example, when profit is the only goal to, let's say, people-centric growth and sustainable profit, that is just something different. And when everyone in the business sees that you, as a business leader cares about these topics and that you really want to instill a culture that is, that goes beyond just profit.

That a culture that benefits people, planet, and your pockets, then you are on the right track because then everyone sees it. Everyone sees that you live it, and then they will see that you truly value it. And that's when people start to talk about these topics as well.

[00:21:12] Jeffrey Feldberg: And what's interesting, Alex, as you're saying that, you reminded me of a conversation I had just the other day with a business owner and for him and his company and the culture, which is very much in the positive way, what you're talking about he's turned it upside down. It's all about profits, but it's not his company's profits.

They ask, what can we do to increase the profits of our customers? To the point where he was sharing that when they're on a phone call or a meeting, one of their KPIs is not how much you talked, but what percentage of the time that you listened and they record everything, and then you go back in and you listen to what's going on and coming outta that, how do we help our customers and surprisingly, or not surprisingly, they've had their most profitable year themselves. Even though profit isn't front and center, their profit's not front and center for them, it's for the customers, and it's really embedded. It's a foundational principle in their culture and to your point, when you get it right, wow, does it work?

It's so powerful. And Alex, let me ask you this because, again, culture, we could just go on and on and talk about that. But what I liked of the order of the book because it really goes lockstep, at least for me, one after the other. And so from theme two, it's culture and theme three.

You're calling it self-care, but for me, here on the podcast, we have the F word, which is fun, but you use another F word. One of my other favorite F words fulfilling or fulfillment. And I know at Deep Wealth, one of our core beliefs, and it's in our culture, is all the zeros in the bank account, all the accolades, all the success that you have, it's nothing.

In fact, it's a failure if you're not fulfilled. And to see fulfillment from someone like yourself, smart guy, strategist, hardcore charging out there, making a difference in the business world. It was a pleasant surprise to see. So what's going on with theme three? Self-care the secret sauce for leading a fulfilling life and successful business.

[00:23:09] Alex Brueckmann: I think it's the most difficult part from any business leader balance your personal desires, the way you want to live with your responsibilities on the job. So I'll give you two examples. I've worked with global companies for a long time, and every leader that I work with tells me in one of the first sessions that we have that they feel they do not spend enough time with their kids or with their spouse, or with their friends, or with their hobbies.

[00:23:39] Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure.

[00:23:39] Alex Brueckmann: And you're like, why is that? And then they come up with all kinds of, let's say, through justifications, but they realize very soon because I just smile at them because I've heard it before, they realize very soon that they're just tricking themselves into believing that this is true.

And then we really dig into it, and then we ask ourselves.

So if you are spending more time with work and your colleagues and your spend with your family, what does that say?

And some of them say, this is my way of taking care of for the family. This is my way of providing for the kids. And I totally respect that. Money makes the work around. There are just expenses and the bigger your family, the more it costs.

It's just the way it is.

But then they, realize when I ask them questions such as what do your kids truly value about you as their parent. No one ever told me that it's the money that they bring home that doesn't even show up in the conversation,

And all of a sudden, they realize and they've realized it for a long time, because otherwise it wouldn't have come up in the conversation that their focus, for whichever reason, I'm not judging, I'm just observing for whichever reason, is on something that they think is important for the family.

But if you ask the family, they don't even value it.

So there is a massive alignment gap around what matters for them as a family unit.

So this is often the starting point, and where we end up in these discussions is they realize that they might have prioritized something that does not add to their personal fulfillment, let alone the fulfillment of the family.

As a result, they often switched lanes. I had leaders that I worked with that quit their jobs and took an individual contributor role afterward. They didn't wanna be leaders anymore because they realized that at least what they perceived was. to be a leader, they had to sacrifice too much of their quality time with their family.

Whether this is true or not, whether this is a limiting belief is on a totally different sheet of paper, but for them, it was the right decision at that point in time. And I think fulfillment comes in many different ways. It can come through work. Some of the most fulfilling moments that I had in my life were work-related.

So I'm not saying work cannot give you fulfillment. But to be honest, we are human beings and we need more than just that. And if we are conscious about it.

And really ask ourselves, what is it that fulfills me? This is already the first step. This awareness step can help you create the action that you need in order to achieve the fulfillment that you want. I have to be honest with you. I think Jeffrey, most people don't even dare to go there because they're afraid of what they're gonna find when they ask themselves these deep questions. That's why we avoid it.

[00:26:24] Jeffrey Feldberg: You're absolutely right. And in the spirit of transparency for all of us, and there's no judgment here if we're honest with ourselves, the answer we give ourselves, to your point, Alex, it may not be the one that we like. We may tell people, we may tell ourselves, well, I'm doing this for the family.

I am away long hours from the family because this is for them, this is their future. But to your point, if we look within perhaps the real answer as well I like it. I get enjoyment from it. And now we have some tough decisions to make because we're no longer a single unit. We're part of a family. And again, no judgments, no aspersions here.

There's no right or wrong. It's whatever it is, whatever it is for those people, but we have to decide what's gonna be in balance, what's in gonna be in alignment, all those tough things to your point. So how do we do that, Alex? For some people, they're saying, hey, no way I'm not gonna open up the Hep Pandora's box.

I'm probably not gonna like where it's going. And you know what, maybe things aren't the best. They could be better, but they also could be worse. I'll just leave it as is. Sounds too scary to me. What would you say to that listener?

[00:27:26] Alex Brueckmann: I'd rather regret going for something that I truly like or truly desire to have in my life and fail than not trying at all and regretting that for the rest of my life for a hundred percent sure that I will regret it.

And Then what I'm saying is when you realize at some point in time that all you care about is your family and all you do is work.

You can ask yourself for how many years or decades you can keep up that facade before it tears you down, or you have a different conversation with your family and ask herself, do we need the vacation home?

Do we need the third car? Just ask yourself a few things around how you spend money. All of a sudden you might realize that a lot of what you spend is something that you really don't need to be happy,

Or the other way around, you might realize that you totally hate being a parent, and as hard as it is sounds founding a family, becoming a parent is something that we often inherit as a value system from our parents or from society that feels that this is part of a woman's life is to become a mother and things like that. Now, if you are a parent already and you realize you really don't like being a parent, that's as unfortunate as it is. There are ways to living up to your true self while not neglecting your responsibility.

But the fact is that when you don't address these topics, and I'm not saying go to your kids and tell them you don't like them, you don't like to be a parent, and things like that. That's not what I'm saying. But there are ways to deal with these situations and to come up with strategies and tactics that help you through that time until your kids are grown up. Or let's say until they are at a certain age where they don't need you as much as they need you when they are small.

So there are ways to cope with situations that you can't just change just out of pure ethical reasons. You can't just change, but when you are not yet in that situation. I had a conversation with a woman last week just around that at an after work event where she was thinking about having kids, but I realized she was hesitant, and I asked her about her, why is she hesitant?

And she's like, I just don't see myself as a mom.

And allowing yourself to dig into these feelings and to dig into these thoughts can prevent you from living an extremely unhappy life. And, of course, this goes way beyond being an entrepreneur. This is relevant for everyone out there. I became a first time dad in my mid-forties.

I love my child above everything. I hate parenting. I'm not good at it. I struggle with it every day, but I'm challenging myself to learn and to get better, and to improve. Will I ever love parenting? I doubt it.

I love being a father. So I reach out for support for those things I'm not good at, and allow myself to be fully present and enjoy the moments.

Regardless of whether I like parenting or not, it's just a challenge and some things you just don't know before you really know before you're there. And those are, there are, you find them in all walks of life. You don't really know whether you will be a great people leader unless you are a people leader and you see whether you are messing everything up or whether people come to you and be like, Hey, this is super inspirational.

How much freedom you give us, how you lead us, how you mentor, coach, and nudge us where we need it. You just don't know unless you do. You can't just teach leadership. You have to lead in order to know whether it is for you or not.

[00:30:54] Jeffrey Feldberg: And Alex, firstly, thank you for your vulnerability and being so open with us. And I suspect you're not alone. I suspect you're probably in the majority. Most parents, if they're open and honest about it, will tell you there are certain aspects. It drives me nuts. I can't stand it, but rather not be doing it.

But to your point, Alex, we have the social programming where heaven forbid you should think that, oh, you're a bad father, you're a bad mother if you think those things. Absolutely not. And you spun out some more platinum, not gold, platinum out there of asking the right questions. And I love how you said as a family, maybe if we take one less trip a year, not gonna be the end of us. I can spend more time. And for our listeners, I would push you to do this. Imagine today, right now you got a phone call that you won the lottery, and you have an all expenses first class trip, private jet, luxury hotel, but you gotta leave tomorrow morning.

And in order to leave tomorrow morning, what are you dropping from your schedule today to make that happen? Because you gotta pack up, the family's gotta pack up. You have to get everything ready. And Alex, I suspect, it's the old saying, you wanna get something done, give it to the busy person for all of us, particularly business owners, founders, again, back to the type A personality, we're probably control freaks.

Doing way more than we should. And in that thought experiment of what would you drop today to make that trip tomorrow, they're probably the things you shouldn't be doing anyways. And maybe you can have it all in the sense of if you focus on what you're really good at on only the things that you should be doing, that's a strategy in and of itself.

Outsource, delegate, give it to other people to help out. Now you can have that blend of business, company, family all in one and hit it out of the park on all the fronts. And not to do it disjustice but we are, it will be a little bit of an injustice. We are not gonna have the time to go into all of it.

But at the very end, in the last chapter 11, four powerful mindset shifts to help you conquer love, overcome death and succeed in business. And Alex, I gotta tell you, I think you picked two small areas. Those areas just aren't big enough, each one is huge.

And again, we could just spend hours talking about that. But some actionable takeaways, some strategies in order to achieve that and to do that, what do you want our listeners to know when it comes to really knocking it outta the park in each one of those areas? Which is instrumental and huge.

[00:33:18] Alex Brueckmann: Especially in that whole area of self-care, self-transformation, whole person fulfillment. What I realized, this is nothing that you just know, and our educational systems really don't support that a lot. So we grow up not really in tune with who we are as a person, as what are the elements? 360 cents, who am I? And allowing yourself to just start to explore that will give you a competitive advantage when it comes to your business because all of a sudden you will realize what truly matters to you, and you will lead according to what truly matters to you. That will make you more fulfilled.

You will be a beacon of inspiration for the people around you. People will wanna work with you because of that, and it will pay off financially. It's as simple as that. Whereas someone who is chasing the money because they feel they want to invest in the housing market because it's a very hot market right now.

They have no emotional connection to that and you can imagine how long they will be in the business compared to those who are in the business because they love it. It's different. It's just different. So I never really thought about that unless until I wrote that book. But mindset can be more important than skill over the long run when it comes to success.

To me personally it's a blend of both knowing the hard skills that you have to learn in order to get that seat on that next table, and at the same time, approaching life intentionally to create a fulfilling life, not a, let's say, profitable life in a purely financial sense, is probably the best approach.

So If I were you, I would start reading chapter theme three before theme one. I should have put it as theme one in the book, most likely.

[00:35:02] Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, you know, it all blends together really nice. And as your talking, you remind me of that saying, particularly when it comes to talent. We hear that saying, hire for personality, train for skills. and you can take out the word personality, put in mindset to me, they're really one and the same. With that and the right mindset, being open, being curious to ask the right questions, ask the right questions, you wanna change your life, change the questions that you ask.

You're all spot on with that. And Alex, we could just go on with these different gems that put in the book that said, though, we need to start wrapping up. As the guest who's been on the most, you also have the privilege of asking the same question a few times, and you'll get a little creative on this one.

For the benefit of our new listeners, I'll ask that question. You've heard it before. Let's hear where you take us on this journey. And I'm as curious as probably you are of what that's gonna sound like. But here's the question. Let me set it up first. So remember the movie Back to the Future, and you have that magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time.

Well, the good news is it's tomorrow morning. You look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car curbside the doors open, it's waiting for you to hop on in. And Alex, you can now go to any part of your past. Alex, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time that's going to be. Alex, what are you gonna tell your younger self in terms of life wisdom or lessons, or, hey Alex, do this, but don't do that.

What does that sound like?

[00:36:29] Alex Brueckmann: I thought you would ask me to which point in the future I would go.

[00:36:32] Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, we can flip it. Alex, this is your question. You want to go to the future?

[00:36:36] Alex Brueckmann: I almost certainly would. I would love to see my son when he's 50 years old because I'm very unlikely that I will live that old to see that. But I would love to just meet him and see the man, or God knows the woman he became, and just see how he manages life because I think that is a true legacy that I can leave behind to help him live a life in the most fulfilling way. But if you ask me to go back in time to my younger self, I think I would probably go the time when I was, probably the year 1990, when I was 12, 13 years old, and I would just give myself a hug and be like, it's gonna be all right, dude. You don't have to be that angry.

[00:37:19] Jeffrey Feldberg: Great advice. And hey, since you took us there, let's finish. That's why I love what you tell your younger self. Your future self speaking to your son who's 50, give or take, what would you want your son to hear at that point in time from you as maybe a reminder or just a heads up or an insight?

[00:37:38] Alex Brueckmann: Based on the limited amount of years that I had already. This is hard to answer, to be honest. But I think if I see my current life as ending tomorrow and taking this as the full picture that I can give someone.

I would probably ask him whether he's playing as much with his children, if he has children as much as I played with him, because that's just what I enjoy so much is I would wanna know whether he enjoys it as much as I did enjoy playing with him when he was a small child.

[00:38:07] Jeffrey Feldberg: And as you say that, Alex, it reminds me it's our children that bring back out our inner child, and that really helps complete us as adults, and it takes a child and all the magic that they bring to do that.

Well, Alex, some terrific wisdom and insights, and for our listeners who wanna find out more, and I know you work with the movers and shakers out there in the business world, and the leaders and all these successful companies perhaps even want to become a client of yours or get some coaching or some consulting from you.

Where's the best place online for someone to reach out, have a conversation, and find you?

[00:38:42] Alex Brueckmann: Either on LinkedIn, I'm fairly active on LinkedIn, but obviously my website alexbrueckmann.com or alexstrategist.com if you want to avoid my surname, which is difficult to spell. That's where you find me. That's where I find a few ideas and ways you can start working with me.

But other than that, there is tons of free resources on the website, a block that I feed multiple times a week. Just enjoy reading the blog or the books.

[00:39:06] Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And for our listeners, this will be in the show notes. It'll be a point-and-click. So it's all there. And Alex, we're also timing this episode to come out right when the book launches the same day, the same week, if I'm not mistaken, from what you're sharing. So for our listeners as well.

We'll have a link to the book, and I encourage you. Go get Alex's book, Secret of Next Level Entrepreneurs: 11 Powerful Lessons to Thrive in business and Lead a Balanced life. And Alex, on that note, it's official. This is a wrap heartfelt. Thank you. You've shared your wisdom, lots of it, your insights.

You've been vulnerable with us, we could not ask for anymore. And as we'd like to say here at Deep Wealth, please continue to thrive and prosper and keep healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

[00:39:48] Alex Brueckmann: Thank you.

[00:39:49] Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me.

[00:39:52] Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions.

[00:40:02] Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity

[00:40:07] Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

[00:40:13] Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix.

[00:40:29] Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately.

[00:40:51] Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended.

[00:41:02] Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

[00:41:15] Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even.

[00:41:33] Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

[00:42:00] Kam H.: I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.

Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever.

[00:42:19] Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table?

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