Resources in this Episode

Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous. This is episode number 115 with the amazing Gert Olefs sharing his huge idea of World Peace 2035

Gert Olefs [0:14]
Hello, this is Gert Olefs, you are listening to Heart Sells! A podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy it.

Christine Schlonski [0:22]
I’m so excited to have Gert Olefs back on the show today. Please make sure you are sharing Heart Sells! Podcast. Share the message of World Peace 2035. You find all the information at https://christineschlonski.com/podcast, connect with Gert, support his mission because we all can make the world a better place with tiny things we do and obviously also with the big ones. But it all starts with us. Today we’re going to dive into the Star Track with him. Before we do that, a quick shout out to our wonderful listeners in Rochester, New York in the United States, as well as in Paris, France. Let’s dive in to Gert because he has lived in three different continents already in his life. He is the founder and CEO of World Peace 2035. He’s an author, a public speaker, a highly experienced corporate, and SME business professional, as well as an recruitment expert, and the global citizen. World Peace 2035 is the only nonprofit organization setting the daring and ambitious goal of reaching world peace with a due date 2035. After only 18 months of Facebook activity, World Peace 2035 already had more than 840,000 followers. They are adding more and more each day about a thousand every single day. They are about to reach the million mark the summer 2019. It’s probably about the same time this episode airs. I’m so super excited to have the conversation with Gert, and to really get inspired on how we all can take action. Remember, it all starts within hurt people hurt people, and happy people make people happy. If you already help your clients to be happier, to be more fulfilled, to be served in the very best way, because Heart Sells!, you’re already on a very good path, so keep going. Let’s dive in with Gert Olefs. Well, I am so excited to have you back on the show, Gert. Thank you so much for being here. I’m so excited to talk to you more about your wonderful mission, as well as what people can do to support their businesses, and having that is cultivating the lifestyle they really desire in combination with world peace.

Gert Olefs [3:10]
Well, I think our lifestyle has to, I’m gentle, when I say half has to it should be a must. It’s an absolute must, that we make our life sustainable. At the same time, I think that is a huge business opportunity. I think every business from the smallest to the largest, has to really convert into a fully sustainable business. Everybody talks about the circular economy, etc. But it will have to happen because we all talk about growing and growth is this magic concept. But we are only growing a non-sustainable system. This to me is going to lead to a disaster small or large. Climate change is just one element of that. But we have also resources, scarcity, reducing biodiversity, etc, etc. So I’m thinking, I’m a recruiter, and I’m a coach. I’m thinking either, how can I reduce my ecological footprint? When I have a recruitment project, do I need to physically see the candidates in terms of meeting one face to face in the pre-selection phase? Do I let them come to my office by a car that’s like for each project 10 people 12 people, I go to my office by car. While we have a fantastic Zoom possibility, for instance. I think everybody needs to think hard about how can I do things differently and sustainably. Why is sustainability so important? Well, first of all, otherwise, we’re going to not have any resources left in X number of time. But it is also a barrier to the rest of the world, the part of the world that has not reached to become rich also, because we would need five planets, an average Western European, if everybody of the world would live in, in the same way, we would need five times Earth, this is not possible. So we need to make it sustainable so that everybody can climb up to that same level because then it has become sustainable. It’s a very big challenge. I considered probably the biggest, but it’s a very essential challenge. And if you have children in the world, I for children, I have a responsibility to them, not just to take care of them personally, but to create a world in which they can flourish. And that will is peaceful or has to be peaceful and it has to be sustainable. So we all have a contribution to make. And I think there is a lot of potential for creative people, for people who really make that a priority to consider how can I do things differently.

Christine Schlonski [5:42]
Yeah, well, most business owners or entrepreneurs or people who become entrepreneurs, they do it because they want to do something they love. Then they set up on that journey, following their passion. Unfortunately, a lot of them do suffer from not knowing how to make sales in a way that feels aligned, that feels authentic, that feels true to their values. They kind of, what they don’t make the revenue they desire to make, or they need to make to make this business work. They might end up frustrated or burned out, even though they come from this place of giving. Giving them with supporting the world was their mission. Since you are on this huge mission, and you had the conversation with the men in the mirror and you’ve been on that path for over two decades now.

Gert Olefs [6:38]
On that path. Okay. The organization is only two years, not even —

Christine Schlonski [6:44]
Your personal development path. Right?

Gert Olefs [6:47]
Yeah, I started that more than 20 years ago.

Christine Schlonski [6:50]
Yes. What could you give people, let’s say somebody is struggling in their business, and there’s the saying, I really love I’ve heard years ago, it says, hurt people hurt people.

Gert Olefs [7:07]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [7:07]
And I added to the learner, and happy people make people happy. What could you tell an entrepreneur who is struggling right now, who loves what they do but it feels also heavy and difficult? How can they kind of turn their business around, in winning clients, serving clients and also making the money they desire to have the lifestyle they dream of, with having in mind, they can contribute so much more when they have a more financial reason?

Gert Olefs [7:42]
I think, as within so without, so what you have inside will reflect itself on the outside. I think the key to having this healthy foundation is this inner journey, is what I call it my speeches, the Star Track within is to know who you are, is to know what the why not the why of your business but the why of your existence, as I say. Why are you here? What is your mission? Because I can speak from experience, this goes very deep, and it connects you with someplace, I would say even outside of yourself, it comes from some somewhere really, really, really profound. When you can tap into that connectedness, you have almost a limitless, limitless source of energy, motivation, persistence, also very important. Tremendous self-confidence, I can really say I was already a confident person, but my today versus two, three years ago is already a big step in advance because I tap from this connectedness. That is for me, a very important one is the Star Track within. It is a journey. It’s not an easy journey. It’s not a 1-2-3 solution, 1-2-3 Solutions don’t exist. But it is true, to really ask yourself tough questions, I would strongly recommend being coached by a good coach. I’m coached, my book was, I had a book coach. The last four months I was coached by a very nice lady with whom I’m now going to work within will be 2035. So somebody who helps you to ask the difficult question, to find the answers to those difficult questions. But does that from a relationship of confidence and also confidentiality? So that you can then change yourself inside so that the outside can also change. It’s what you say, hurt people, hurt people. If you feel frustrated, if you are like tense, and irritated and frustrated, and — you will reflect that. I know that, when I started my business in recruitment, I just started with a table in my living room at the time, 15 years ago, and I started cold calling people. I know that my success rate of getting an appointment etc. was best when I was really calm. When I felt in a certain way. My voice was also different for them. I could hear the reactions were different on the other side. I learned this and this was just by also observing. I think the key is within yourself. Then of course, when you are in a business, you have to also ask yourself, “Is what I provide from a service perspective or a product perspective, is there a need for it? Does that bring solutions to the problems of other people?” Because that’s what selling is, you need to provide a solution, whatever it is, to a need. Identifying those needs very properly. Doing the business, you know, the SWOT analysis is the, which is also asking the hard questions also. What are the needs? Who are my competitors? What are they doing? What are the opportunities? What are the threats? A lot of reflection is necessary, I find. And then when I started with recruitment, it was because that’s was the part that I liked the most from my corporate career when I had to build my own teams in Asia, etc. I felt this is for me, this is where I, I like this, I am good at it. And I bring a number of strengths to the table. I think it also has to do with weakness. When I coach people, I say, I’m not only working on strengths, I’m especially working in the first phase on making sure that the weak link in the chain becomes strong. Because you can only strengthen the chain by strengthening the weakest link. And I think that might be also an answer to your listeners that are stuck. What is this weak link? Maybe you have somebody who gets discouraged very fast, he needs to, he makes two phone calls. And he hears a ‘No’ every time and then the motivation starts going down. No, you need to be able to hear 100 times ‘No’. You need to understand it’s a number, but that’s the truth. Maybe one of, when I came back from Asia, and that was 16 years ago, I got through a divorce, I had four small children, I had to start from scratch, I had 60 euros left in the bank account. No kidding. This was true. Of course, that in itself provides fire and all that. But I took something on that was we call it to do market surveys, but go knock on doors of everywhere in the country and ask people about products but also about for the European Union and all that and I came can ensure many fantastic individual homes. But the key point is, I knocked on doors maybe 10 times and maybe one out of 10 people said ‘Yes’, but once you know there is going to be a yes, one out of 10 times, the only thing you have to do is knock on doors 10 times. A lot of people stop at the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th time and they don’t come to 10th. They don’t even know how close you were to success because you give up.

Christine Schlonski [13:27]
Yeah, I love that. You’re so about action taking so you made a deadline on the mission to world peace. I’m always saying, “Stop just dreaming, act now.” Because you don’t put it into action. Nothing’s going to happen.

Gert Olefs [13:45]
Yes, absolutely. I say a dream without the action deadline is a fantasy. So know, you have to act. This is why, when I wrote my book, I already knew that my book was just the beginning, I needed to take action and action was in the form of starting this nonprofit. Then we have the Facebook page, the website and all that and starting to build a network. The beginning is never really easy, I think. You have people who step out of corporate life and go into a business and continue what they did in corporate life and they sometimes can just transition and start hitting the ground running. It happens. But most of the businesses have a difficult start, it’s not easy, you have an exponential curve, it has a long beginning tail that goes up slowly, slowly. Then at some point, it takes off. So you have to persist to get to that point of taking off and constantly wonder about what value do I bring? What is my unique value? Also for world peace, my advisory board in last, after the, when we met in LA, they corrected me. I was trying first of all to build a team and thought about this action and that action and they have some very good people in the advisory board said, “Gert, what is the unique value proposition that you have with World Peace 2035? What makes you unique?” and I said, “Peace with a due date.” I said, “Yes, that’s one of them. But that’s not enough, you’re not gonna get it off the ground if you keep focusing and think that you have everything covered by just that.” Then I go to the subtitle of my book, I have it here. It’s like, World Peace 2035, let’s achieve it together. I said, “The uniqueness that I see is that we bring people together, people in organizations.” You cannot believe how many people are working on peace or on other good causes. But many of them do it in a silo environment, just themselves. Now we need to bring all of that together. That’s what we are going to do, we’re going to start creating a world peace alliance. Don’t reinvent the wheel, use the existing wheels, but bring them together, we are going to be a facilitator coordinator, etc. But that’s true, the hard questioning of my advisory board members was not so pleasant. But it was also useful. Since that date, honestly, doors started to open and everything had started to flow because it was the right thing. What I did until that day before, I spent a lot of time and energy also on people and man it didn’t work. I didn’t understand why. That’s maybe a message to your listeners also. Sometimes you knock on the door and you try to open the door, by all means, possible and it doesn’t work. But maybe it’s not the right door.

Christine Schlonski [16:36]
Because when we come back is really like the question, is it the right door? Does it feel aligned? As you mentioned, in the first episode, having a coach or mentor can be so essential. They see the potential in you. They also can ask questions that you might not even have thought of.

Gert Olefs [16:55]
An advisor, I would say, I’m a key learner, I’m hungry for knowledge and new knowledge and I keep reading and listening and etc. Put yourself in environments where you can learn, take some risks. Don’t be too skeptical. Don’t let the little voices in your head, “You’re not gonna learn anything. They’re going to sell something to or try to sell something to you or whatever.” No, go with an open mind. Because you don’t know what opportunities are hiding behind all those barriers that you construct. That’s something that I had to learn also. For instance, where we met in LA, there I met, the second time I met him, but he’s an organizer of speaker’s bureau and the biggest one that this may be why you thought that was from Holland because he was from Holland. He brought me, at the beginning of December, in contact with a lady who’s now going to become my partner in one of the world peace activities that we’re going to do. She brought me in contact with this Nobel Peace Prize winner. If I would not have gone to that event, okay, I would never have met those people. I would be in another place. It is not only knocking on the right door but put yourself in environments where you can meet other people. Everybody has a story. Everybody is potentially a person who can help you with something they say, with something they do, with somebody they know and we live in phenomenal times, look at that, World Peace, almost 1 million followers. But just to give you a few more statistics, we have now reached a weekly reach with our posts, we post daily, and we reach now 220,000 people a week. That’s almost a million a month. So our peace message has already gone out or has been seen by 15 to 20 million people since we started. We live in extraordinary times in this perspective. 10 years ago would have been impossible. Go out there and learn to be hungry for knowledge because you never know also my recruitment business was a little bit because I bumped into a person at in some space or some event or so where we got to talk and say, etc., you never ever know. I was a lousy networker but because will piece is so much my passion and my mission. Now I’ve become a great networker. I’m yes, I’m probably good, I’m not a salesperson. But I think I can convince people

Christine Schlonski [19:36]
I think you don’t need to convince people I think you need to invite people to an idea in a convincing sound a little bit difficult and tough because they feel it inside. I would just give like a wild guest that nobody feels like peace not necessary. But to invite them to think of that idea, that world peace. Because I personally believe we are all one. We are all just energy. Like how you do one thing is how you do everything. If you fighting at home each and every day, if you are an unhappy person like it mirrors back to everywhere you go, you make those bad experiences.

Gert Olefs [20:23]
As we did it, so without.

Christine Schlonski [20:26]
When we say yes to ourselves, I mean, see what will evolve.

Gert Olefs [20:31]
But I think when you say we are energy, of course, you are already in a certain place when you say that, and when you feel that. And that’s of course, I would say the ultimate connection. And because energy is continuous, there are no borders. When you live from that perspective, which is part of my journey. I’m a Westerner, but I lived for almost 15 years in Asia. I’ve also lived in the Middle East. So I’ve lived in different cultures, different places. And of course, you change and you become from a linear person, you become I’m a circular person with no beginning and no end. The continuum of your energy, you’re connected. And that changes everything. Because then, the other is you and you are the other. And I think for salespeople or commercial people is how you stand in life. Don’t look at the competition as your enemy or look at the client as a must, you don’t must anything.

Christine Schlonski [21:28]
Yeah, I don’t, I personally don’t really believe in competition. Because each and every one of us, even though we’re all one, we’re all unique in the experiences. What we’ve learned and how we show up and how we talk and an act. So even though somebody might do the same thing, or name the thing, as you name it, it’s still a different experience. When I was still in sales and corporate, I always taught my team, somebody might buy from you and when I called them, they will run away or vice versa. You don’t know my experiences they have and connects and what doesn’t. So just be open to it. I think showing up and your full potential. We probably never know if we reach it or not. But striving for being the best person that you can, is just gonna make a huge difference.

Gert Olefs [22:25]
Well, it’s, this is a key sentence you just said, Christine. It’s also part of my short trajectory on world peace now is the people ask me, “What can we do?”, and now I can say the biggest contribution you can make is to become the best version of yourself in alignment with why you are here, with your purpose, your mission, etc. And it and this is the biggest contribution you can make. Which means everybody can make that contribution.

Christine Schlonski [22:55]
Yeah, it’s possible for it. That’s a very good point. That’s possible for everybody.

Gert Olefs [23:00]
It’s possible for — It’s the decision, the courage, the motivation, etc. One person can do it, the other person cannot. But I think if you are willing to, to ask those hard questions, if you’re willing to open up to a person who can help you, whether it’s a coach or any person who can accompany you on that journey, you will need different people in different phases. And if I look back, I also took classes. I’ve been, for instance, to a retreat with XXX. I don’t know if you know him. This was in 2000. Okay, so he was not known yet. He came to Hong Kong, I was living in Hong Kong at the time, and I spent two days with him in a small group, we were maybe 30 people maximum if you need to if you want to follow a retreat now you’re with thousands of people. This kind of people, teachers, they can learn, you can learn so much. It builds over time. You know, it builds over time.

Christine Schlonski [24:00]
Beautiful. Just one last question. I would be really interested. Because I always asked my guests, what’s the first thing you ever sold in your life?

Gert Olefs [24:13]
Oh, my God. That’s a tough one, Christine. Because I have to go back for a long time in my case.

Christine Schlonski [24:23]
Maybe give you some heads, like some people, so baseball cards or cookies or they paid.

Gert Olefs [24:29]
Yeah, okay.

Christine Schlonski [24:32]
Like, what’s the first thing that you saw that you got money for?

Gert Olefs [24:35]
Well, I think the first, well, that’s a good point now. It goes back to what I said in the earlier session or part of the session. We have heard the Three Kings, we have 6th of January is we call him, those are the three kings and the other three saints. I don’t know how you say it in English those people that saw the Star of Bethlehem and they went to to see Jesus. Then you go around, you knock, you ring the bells and then you sing a song, [singing]. In a class, I was 11, something I did and a classmate we wanted to have some pocket money and all that. We said, “Okay, we’re going to be brave.” So we dressed up as two kings, basically and we went around the neighborhood where we lived in Brussels, and we came home. I think after half a day going around, we each had the equivalent of two and a half euros. But we sang, we sang at the doors. We went into pubs, cafes, and we sang legally and then people gave us a little, sent him here and there. But we had this was my first sales experience that I can think of. The purest sales experience here.

Christine Schlonski [25:46]
Yeah. How did you feel when you brought home that money?

Gert Olefs [25:51]
Well, we were quite happy. We were happy that we did it, it was. I mean we were shy boys also, 11 years old. Something, I think the desire to make some pocket money was strong and stronger than the fear. We were quite pleased with ourselves, I think. It’s again, it’s a long time ago. But what I remember, it was probably the first time. You see, what you can do here is rooted in the past, in your year, let’s say six to 20. I think every salesperson, every person that you talk to in the audience should ask some very deep questions about what was it that kept you going at that time.

Christine Schlonski [26:35]
Yeah, it all comes down to passion. At the end of the day, love for something you do. I always say, “Sales is love” because you serve. If you have products and services, you’re just spreading your love

Gert Olefs [26:52]
Will serve is a very important word. I think that’s what we miss a lot in the world is serving is always much bigger than yourself, because you serve others. This is a dimension many of us have lost and the world has lost and the great joy and great fulfillment. I think also the great success lies in that, it’s when you serve others.

Christine Schlonski [27:12]
Yeah, what a phenomenal end of this wonderful episode. Thank you so much for being here, for spending time with us, for the inspiration and really for giving us the idea that we can all make a difference.

Gert Olefs [27:30]
We can.

Christine Schlonski [27:31]
And it starts within. So thank you so much for your time. Have a wonderful day.

Gert Olefs [27:36]
Welcome, Christine.

Christine Schlonski [27:36]
Thank you.

Gert Olefs [27:37]
Thank you. Bye, bye, everybody.

Christine Schlonski [27:40]
Well, I love the conversation with Gert Olefs and I love his big ambitious goal that he is selling to the world by World Peace 2035. What a beautiful mission and vision to have. It’s supporting every single one of us. So I hope you are inspired and you are motivated to have the conversation with a woman or the man in the mirror and really find your Star Track within. Hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ Find the podcast tap for the resources, the show notes, transcripts, and also for the social media handles to Gert Olefs so you can connect. You can follow his journey, you can cheer him on and you can just be part of it. Thank you so much for listening, for supporting this daring and ambitious goal of World Peace 2035 and you know, it all starts within. So just start with you feeling more amazing, feeling happier because happy people make people happy. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world. And I’m saying bye for now.