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With over 24 years of experience in sales, marketing and business development, Cesar provides mentoring, coaching and consultancy to ensure businesses and customer performance grows. Cesar offers integrated business solutions in all aspects of a business, including sales and marketing, IT, operational, financial and human resources. His focus is on consistency and understanding numbers, and he has a passion for identifying opportunities, uniquely positioning a brand and for delivering creative solutions and results. Cesar has a strong track record both in Australia and internationally, working with business owners to provide them with market insight, business strategy and improving the performance of their business.

 

In this episode, Jason and Cesar discuss:

  • Lessons learned from successes and challenges
  • The way we exercise our freedom in life
  • Understanding the self before decision-making

 

Key Takeaways:

  • Figure out your standards and stick to them, even if it costs your business. You need to understand what you’ll tolerate and what you won’t.
  • If you’re stagnating, explore why that is and how you might learn from it and how you might move beyond it. You can stay in stagnation or you can push for growth.
  • When you take the time to understand yourself (your emotions and your ego) first, and then put yourself in the other person’s shoes before making decisions and taking action, you’ll find better outcomes.

 

 

“If you can just understand where you're at, if you're not in the best shape, or if you're not in the best part of your day, why are you still trying to work or why are you still trying to talk with your loved ones? Take a day off for yourself. Go reflect, you know? Do something crazy, but do not spend much time with people because that's your learning time…you have to understand where this is coming from.” - Cesar Hasselmann

Connect with Cesar Hasselmann:

 

Connect with Steve and Jason:

 

Show notes by: Denice Salem

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

 

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Cesar Hasselmann - Emotion Before Action For Better Results

I have got a special guest with me, Cesar Hasselmann. Cesar is unique in a couple of different ways from a guest’s standpoint. One is he’s literally on the other side of the world now. I’m in my office in Baltimore, Maryland, US, and he’s in Australia. We are on Zoom and the very first thing he did was show me the sunset because it’s 5:30 AM where he is. I told him I got to see two sunsets. Cesar, thank you for being on the show and for showing me two sunrises.

Thank you. It’s my pleasure. As soon as I heard you have a window to have me on board, I was excited. I wish that I can add value for you all.

I appreciate that. Something tells me with our banter that we had that you are going to end up adding a lot of value to us. We start every episode of the show and we have 300-plus episodes in so far. We have asked the same question every single time. The question is this, just to get us in the right frame of mind. You said you wake up at 4:00 every morning, so you have already been up for an hour or an hour and a half or so. As you engage the day now and we engage one another now, what strikes you as something that you are grateful for?

It’s just the fact that you can walk and talk is supposed to be enough but everything that we have around us and understanding that your life is in good shape or you are going in the direction that you want to go or if you have exciting things to happen along the day. Even if they are not that much excited that you need to face it, the fact that you are going facing to fix, it’s already a blast.

Aside from that, I choose to live in a place where I do have koalas in front of me and a good view, so I’m blessed for waking up and being able to experience that every morning. I have a beautiful son too. It’s easy to wake up and say thank you. I have a little angel that every time I’m about to wake up, he comes to sniff on me and give me a kiss. Every morning is a blast. I call him my little angel in the morning. I believe that’s what makes me wake up and be happy for the day.

The other unique thing about this particular episode is the background noise of the animals and the birds waking up. I love that. Thank you for that.

Thank you.

We tend to get some guests or household names and people know and for some guests that’s not the case. For people that are reading who may not know who you are and that’s possible because you are on the other side of the world. I’d love to hear from you just a little bit of history. I did my reading on you and you have got a very interesting history and how you were brought up versus where you are now and those types of things. Would you mind taking a minute or two and telling our audience who the heck are you? Who is Cesar Hasselmann?

I am a simple person who has enjoyed my rides in life. I start at thirteen years old. My first DJ business by mistake was a friend of mine. My sister was having her birthday and suddenly the DJ didn’t show up. We run to my parents’ house. We got my parents’ gear. We put it in her party and we did a good job and because we were the oldest there, we got the kids to dance. We were full of energy and we ended up in that party with seven invites for different parties from the other parents.

Since then, from 13 to almost 16 or 17, we were doing parties. We arrived at a place where we have seven bands. We have DJs. We have all the fancy gear. In our grade, we are doing a search and history about Hitler. My friend, my best mate was affectionate with the history itself, so our DJ company was called KGB Sound Machines.

His mom engaged us and took us overseas to buy gear. Unfortunately, he got sick at 16 and he died at 18. His mom is still here. We talk. She’s a stepmom for me. When I was talking about my book with her because I put his name there. She was crying. I was asking her permission but anyway, I start from there and since then, I did a lot of things.

I opened my import/export in Brazil and distribution center, which became national. We have the President in my country who cut all the savings from the companies and the personnel with an excuse to pay the external debt, put the whole country broke and I was seventeen. We went through a lot of things there. I learned a lot of things then I went back to the workforce. I started to work for CCIL, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo group.

From there, I went to a marketing company. From that marketing company, we used to go for big companies then that’s a place where I found myself. From there, I left that group and opened my technology company, which was everything after SAP systems and subsystems, and from 3 people to 120 people working for me in less than 2 years then we became the second biggest nationally.

From there, I choose to come to Australia and we start life again. I start to help people to have access to people like me, business owners, and entrepreneurs. Having access to people like me to help them to grow their business. I start to teach people to make the business work for themselves. Not the other way around. That’s it.

I bet there’s a lot of in-between things there but I was taking notes as you were talking. I know we have got your book to talk about. I have got some specific questions for you based on what I read but based on what you said, I have got a couple of other questions. I have noticed over the years that business can be made very complicated or made very simple. A lot of the business techniques that we use at our company and that we even help our clients with tend to be the most simplistic types of things, whether it’s relationships or other things. Here’s where I’m going with the question. When you were thirteen, you didn’t plan on opening up a DJ business but it happened. I’m sure there were some successes and some challenges along the way. What types of things stick with you now that you learned then?

You are not supposed to want to have crap clients. I’m sorry.

No crap clients. Got it.

You need to get your standards properly. You need to understand what you take, what you want to take, and what you don’t want to deal with. That’s supposed to be based on your day-to-day no matter what. Even if that’s going to cost you an arm for a day. In the future, this is going to pay off so badly that you are never going to look back. The only conflict that I had with my best mate was we have some friends that they are very wealthy.

 

You need to get your standards properly. You need to understand what you take, what you want to take, and what you don't want to deal with.

One of them asked to do a party in a country house. The guy was putting balloons full of hemp inside it. It was a crazy party. Not for kids like my age at that stage but that was a party that we were happy to do it. That guy, even knowing that he was very wealthy, he’d never paid. It was a big journey. I have two DJs with me. We have two things. We combine almost 2 to 3 parties to be able to deliver his needs. He never pays and he told my business partner that he paid. It was a very inconvenient situation that you can only trust yourself and the respect that other has for you.

If you put that in a different way, in other situations when you are growing and when you are older, when you have a better business, a bigger business, is that one client that’s not good enough for you? I’m not saying that they are crap clients but they are not good enough for you. They take away your time for 3, 4, or 5 clients. Why are you going to have them?

You are making me think about when we started Rewire. One of the things that my partner and I decided on was and I don’t know that we said it the same way that you just did, no crap clients but we said no jerks. Even if they can write big checks, if they are jerks, we don’t want them. I think that that’s one of the best decisions we have ever made, so yes, I hear you loud and clear.

Can I give you another example?

Please.

My best client in Australia came from $900,000 for $15 million. He a 37 years old, and his life is awesome. It’s $1.8 million to $2 million net profit for the last 3 or 4 years, 3 to 4 month holidays every year. He has a brother. His brother is my client too for years. He has an electrical engineer in a civil electrical engineering company. He’s a good friend but he has his moments of crap way to think. The first time that I met with him was because his brother referred me to him. I went there in respect of my client because he declined the meeting twice, twenty minutes before the meeting. I know that this guy’s not organized and he doesn’t give a crap about the meeting.

I went to the meeting and I asked the guy five questions along the meeting, twenty minutes of coffee. Those hours took me to understand that his cashflow is six months ahead of his business. I told him, “You have this many people and this situation. How many projects do you have to come?” He told me, “Maybe these and these but nothing focus on results.” I said, “Do you know that until November to December if you do not move and get new projects, you are broke?”

Do you know those cats who are afraid of water? He said, “I have coaching. I have an accountant. I have people who know me for years. You are here for twenty minutes. You tell me that I’m going to get broken in six months. You are a piece of crap. You just want to get money. You are the coach that put people scared to get them on board.” I say, "I believe we need to go home. I paid for the coffee, don’t worry. I don’t believe we need to talk anymore. If I were you, pay attention to what I’m saying.” He said, "I pay attention to my family. I’m going to talk to my brother." I say, "Okay."

The next day his brother calls me. He says, "Do you like my brother?" I say, "He’s a piece of crap." "He calls me to ask me to fire you because you are a piece of crap," then we have a giggle. His brother says, “He was telling me all the history. I told him, ‘Try to check what Cesar told you. Try to check and if it’s wrong, it’s wrong. You already spent that.’”

He calls me two weeks later. Two weeks later, he said, “I believed I owe you an apology.” I said, “Why?” “I didn’t treat you well.” I said, “Why?” “I believe I step out of the boundary.” I said, “Why?” He said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.” I said, “It’s because I was right and you are wrong.” He said, “Maybe. I would like to invite you for coffee.” I say, “No coffee between me and you. I have this restaurant in the city. It’s the most expensive in Brisbane. If you want it, you can pay me for lunch. I like expensive wines. If you want to come, I’m going to be there but that’s your shot.”

He said, “I know what you are doing.” We booked that lunch. I got an $850 bottle of wine and arrived twenty minutes earlier. I was drinking the bottle of wine to leave him one glass at the end. My thing is he’s the brother of my best client. He looks like a good person under pressure that doesn’t know what to do. If he can eat his ego back and respect me, I can get him back. That’s what I did.

He arrived. It’s half a glass left for him. I said, “Thank you. Thanks for the lunch and the wine. Very nice wine.” I look at him, “You just have half bottle.” He said, “Do you want another glass?” I said, “Yes, give me another bottle.” Anyway, at the end of that thing, we have arrived at common sense that he needs help.

I told him, “You are a crap client and you have a crap personality. I don’t do clients like you. I don’t need to be there anymore in my stage of life but because you are the brother of my best client, I will do a thing. You pay me 25% of my fees. We go for $150,000. For the first project, we need to get this in two months. If we do that, we talk about what we are going to do because you are going to survive for three months more. You are going to have 9 to 10 months. It’s time enough for us to try to reorganize your life.” That’s what we have done. In one month and a half, we have $300,000. Years of relationship, from $2.7 million to almost $50 million, but he’s still a piece of crap but I love it.

You have this understanding and you love one another. That’s a great story. No crap clients but that’s a great example where you were able to turn it around. If he didn’t come around, then c’est la vie. It is what it is but he had some sense, it sounds like because of his brother. He came around and now it’s a good relationship. He’s benefiting from it. You are benefiting from it, so it works. It’s very good.

I can call his brother and talk about the crappy brother that he has and you go through some crap because he helps from one end and I can do my job for the other.

You are in an enviable situation. That works out good. You have got this book that you wrote, The Life Breakthrough. Why did you write a book? I have got a book myself and it took a long time. It’s a lot of work. Why did you go ahead and write a book? Secondarily, I want to dive into the topics of it a little bit.

TII 155 | Emotion Before Action

Once a year, I put all my clients together and I do a big workshop for them. In one of my workshops, we are giggling because everyone was realizing that their life is a much better place after Cesar, so they have a before and after Cesar shared by themselves. The husband and wife of my clients start to giggle and start saying, “Why don’t you spread this love around the planet? Why don’t you write a book or do something? We can be your showcase of what we have done and how our lives changed.” That stuck in my mind.

In the middle of the room, one of them said, "My life is simple. Every time that my husband arrived home and he was a little bit crappy out of his day, I asked him to walk backward back to the entrance, call you and then come back in the house." The other husband and wife that were there, they say, “I did the same thing.” That’s a common thing.

Since that speech, I need to put something out there. It took me two years and a half to write a book of almost 400 pages that was too deep, too complex, and just me going to understand that book, and then COVID hit. When I was about to launch, COVID hit it. I said, “It’s not about having the best life anymore. It’s about surviving. I need to rephrase or I need to rewrite my book.” While I was rewriting my book, I discovered that book is four books and this is the first one.

You have got three more on the way at least is what you are saying.

Altogether, it took almost six years for me to arrive here because I wrote a book in English but my mother tongue is Portuguese. To find the meaning without losing my personality and without giving to those people that made the book pleasant to read. I don’t want that. For me, my journey was more complicated because I want people to read and after that, they know a piece of me. If they talk to me, they go, "That’s Cesar talking." They can see that I’m talking anyway and say, "That’s his book." That’s what I want.

I hear what you are saying. Language is so important, especially when you are talking about nouns, verbs, and where they go and the emphasis on certain things. The manner in which you may write. If an English-speaking reader is reading that, they may read it differently. Getting that right is very difficult, so you spend a lot of time on that. It was initially 400 pages, now it’s 4 different books. If you were to pick out the main point of the first one here, The Life Breakthrough, what might be the main point of that book?

For me, the main point is the way that we exercise our freedom in life. I believe in my book, I touch on four steps that everyone passes in their lives. It’s cyclical that we don’t pay attention. In our life, we have time that we stagnate. The stagnation comes for a reason. Are you too comfortable or are you in a crap place? You stagnate. You cannot get away from it. You have good stagnation and bad stagnation.

Let’s start with the bad stagnation. From that, you start to learn things then you start to try to move and understand things and do something different because you are sick of being stagnated in a bad way. That’s the second step in our life. When you start to formulate things to get better. Then you start to learn how to do those things that you can see that connect with you and can take you to a better place.

Which is part of putting what your knowledge got in that phase in implementation mode. From here, you have the growth. That’s the place where you start to execute things and they start to get together and write and you start to fight with more passion. This is a cycle for you when you have babies. You want to go to school or go to university, that’s our cycle. Then when you have a relationship. Everything goes through those four steps.

When you got on the growth side, you have two options. You can keep pushing for growth or you can stagnate because you are happy where you at or you stagnate because you don’t know anything else to do then you go back to the search and implementation growth again. I believe this is the conclusion of this book. I just break it down as I did here to tell people that’s clarity. That makes people a little bit more clear about all those people’s life journeys and themselves and makes it easier for you to understand all these journeys. On the other side, I finished this book with those four steps because that will be a full book after that. Let’s just talk about that.

TII 155 | Emotion Before Action

Emotion Before Action: When you are on the growth side, you have two options: keep pushing for growth or stagnate because you're happy where you’re at.

 

As you described your steps, I have seen times in my own life, whether it’s relationships, a project, or a goal, the growth then the stagnation piece, and then what do you do? I think you are trying to help answer that question based on some of your observations in your own experiences. I know your book is very new. Where do people find it?

I can send it to you by mail.

You are very kind but I want to make sure our readers get it. By the time this episode drops, you will have links for us.

It got approved, so that’s the markup that you receive with all on the Google page that you can check and do everything. I just approved that.

Writing a book is no easy feat. You have done it. You did it. Congratulations. I can’t wait to get my hands on it and read it.

I would love to send you one and see your feedback about it. I will send you for key people to get some feedback to make the next printing better. If you want it, I will send you one.

It’d be an honor to do that. The book that I wrote was many years ago. I ended up revising it a few years ago and I had a lot of help in doing that. I depended so much on the different editors and people that went through it, so It’d be an honor to help you with that. I’d love to do that because it takes a lot of different eyes, hands, and suggestions to make it come to fruition. It’d be my honor to do that for sure.

Thank you. We will be honored to have you too. You will see some different things or some misspellings there but I choose to keep them because that’s me. I don’t have a perfect English. I’m not perfect.

I feel like we could talk for hours. You and I corresponded a little bit but we have just met. I already feel like we are friends. There’s something unique about you for sure and I think that we could talk for hours longer. The format of our show doesn’t dictate that. I will ask you this, is there anything that I haven’t specifically asked you about that if you had a voice in the world? Our show is a voice. We are not the largest voice out there but we are a voice. If you had something that I haven’t touched on yet or asked you yet that you wanted to get out there, what might that be?

I believe that if people understand their emotions and ego before they make an action or make a decision and try to put themselves in other people’s shoes before they go for it, they might be going to find better outcomes and results, and it will benefit them twice quicker than what they thought just because they try to understand their self first. Some people call this being kind to yourself.

 

If people understand their emotions before they take action, they might find better outcomes and better results that will benefit them twice quicker than they thought.

 

 

I believe being kind to yourself is a lot of other things surrounding it to be able to make that possible. If you can understand where you are, if you are not in the best shape, or if you are not on the best day of your day, why are you still trying to work or why are you still trying to talk with your loved ones? Take a day off for yourself. Go reflect, do something crazy but do not spend much time with people because that’s your learning time. That’s your body or mind saying, "Are we getting crazy?” It’s better to understand where is this from and try to make that better to be able to share what you don’t have at that stage. You can share love if you have enough for yourself.

That’s such a great place to end. Very profound. Good things. You have got books and your consultancy. I have a suspicion that people are going to want to reach out to you based on this conversation. How do people find you?

They can go to my website. I have a website. That’s CesarHasselmann.com. It’s still a work in progress because I was behind companies for my whole life. Now, I’m putting my name out there, so I’m still learning how to do it in the way that I feel comfortable with. Instagram. The best place to talk to me is LinkedIn because it’s the only one that I still manage.

Either LinkedIn or CesarHasselmann.com and it sounds like you are on Instagram too. That is wonderful. Thank you for your smile, the sunrise, and the different insights. I took a whole page’s worth of notes down here. I appreciate that. Until next time.

I appreciate it. Thank you for allowing this space for me and putting out there a little bit of love. It’s so hard and hassle, and trying to keep you alive and not finding an excuse to not share, it’s easy. Thank you for giving me that opportunity too.

Our pleasure. We will talk soon.

Talk to you soon. Thank you.

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The insights from Cesar. I enjoyed him. You are reading but the entire time this dude was smiling. It came through the vibe that I got from him was insightful in and of itself. I hope that that comes through. The relaxed manner in which he engages his life, advice, insights, and consultancy came through. DJ business at thirteen years old with the name of KGB Sound Machine, are you kidding me?

What he left us with, is that checking your emotions before your actions, putting yourself in other people’s shoes, and taking a break when necessary lead to better outcomes. That landed on me yet again. Even now, as I go engage in what’s next in my day, I’m going to take a breath, take a beat, and think about how my actions will affect other people and the different projects and the different meetings that I’m doing. Those are my insights, which were many from Cesar. Thank you, Cesar. As we end every episode of the show, it doesn’t much matter what my insights are, reader, but what were your insights?

 

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