EXPERIENCE 40 | From Brazil With a Purpose with Betina Pflug, Founder of Wity Coaching

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. My guest today is Bettina Vlug. And Bettina is the founder and owner of Whitey Coaching. And Whitey has a broad mission and Bettina has encouraged me to have an introduction that says what problem are we trying to solve? What's the solution to that problem and how have your clients solve their problems? And so I'll just put it back to you Bettina. First of all, tell me about Whitey Coaching. The name I remember it stands in an acronym and then take me through that one, two, three introduction just for our audience. Okay, let's start with beauty coaching. That means wisdom important to you. That's my intention when I'm working with clients is to connect to the infinite wisdom that's available over there and just trying to channel and try to bring this in an easy way for them to understand that can really help them change your lives. So making the seemingly complex more simple? Yes. Okay. And the way they can digest, I can say. Yeah, fair enough. And the solution then is just to bring those big things into digestible pieces. And I guess how have your clients achieved that? It's really peculiar because each client has a specific need. The idea is to understand what they need at the moment, be the accountable partner during this journey and help them find a solution. I never want them to be dependent on me. I want to be a trainee will to teach them skills so they can apply in their business and if it's possible to keep teaching others. So I want them to be teachers in the future. That's my wish. Leave them stronger than you found them and not only stronger. Eager to help others in the same way. Yes, and power and with confidence that this work in their lives and if it works for them, maybe it can work for others so it's time to share. Yeah. Thank you. Maybe adapt the way they're teaching, but just keep sharing. That's the idea. Well, and I should mention that Bettina not only has been a friend for a while. We're also working together toward her being a local facilitator for us. And even coach advisor for the local think tank headquarters team. And so we've got a number of different connection points, but our actually relationship started maybe four or five years ago. I found you to be very interesting and compelling and invited you and your husband over to have dinner with us and some others. Yes, we met at the Ford shop. Ford Collins Chamber, remember I was part of the red carpet. Yes. This is an amazing resource for you as an entrepreneur. If you want to establish new networking and you're coming out of from out of town, you don't know anybody locally. The chamber locally here is really strong. I made amazing friends. I met a lot of business and made me feel prepared to start my business. So that was maybe three years ago? Five years ago. It was five years ago. I didn't realize I had been a member for so long. Yeah. Time flies. Shame on three. You're doing a good job. And how new were you in two Ford Collins at that time? I know. And let's talk about that story of moving your family here. Okay. We always wanted to have an international experience, experience new culture and learn from that. And we thought first to move to Canada, but Canada is to quote the second option was Australia. But we worked to get the visa for four years and they changed the laws recently and they couldn't approve our visa. So we said we have to find another way. My husband was working an international company at that time and we asked for a promotion to come here, come abroad to Australia. And the president of JBS here in the United States is the president of the Australian operation as well. So my husband did an interview and he said we have a position here in the United States if you're open to that. He said why not? Let's go. Yeah. It was better than waiting for two more years for our next chance in Australia or whatever. Yes. And I discovered that in four columns in Northern Colorado, amazing people live here. So I end up in a very good place. It's a very welcoming community and you spent most of your growing up life and life before that in Brazil and what part? In São Paulo. I'm from São Paulo. In the city? Yes. Gotcha. So coming here was so strange. No traffic. No body horny. It was so strange. So it was what? 10 million people or more? 17. 17 million people? Yes. A very urban environment for your family in that time too or are you facing fighting traffic all the time and things like that? Older time. I used to spend like five hours a day in the car. Oh wow. Yes. It's an hour and a half to commute every time and then plus I was always working in a commercial area. So it was visiting clients terrible. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like your life probably today has a lot of maybe more freedoms and more outdoor time I suspect than before. Of course. Sure. It's wonderful. So before we get too deep into your story, I actually want to talk about the Halos Relationship Intelligence and that's a course and certification program or workshop rather that we're going to be kind of co-sponsoring, bringing the creator of Halos his message to the US marketplace in some ways where they're very popular across Europe and South America. Talk to me about Halos and how it was that you became really drawn to that system and how it was that you felt inclined to help us share it with more people. Okay. Let me start with the relationship first. I was working at Accord Hotels in Brazil and Accord has selected a group of managers to train on disk. So they brought someone from the United States to Brazil to train us on how to use disk to be more efficient in the commercial area. And I found this tool amazing because I was able to understand why I was so driven to her goals and what did I need to do to adapt my speech to be able to sell better, to interact better with my stakeholders and to understand their needs and really work. I increased my sales and tremendously using this tool and I said I'm going to use this forever and I was investing in becoming a coach in Brazil I did a certification over there with one of the most known schools there. It's called Instituto Eco Social in Brazil and they have a division who works for nonprofits who trained people for nonprofits and I was doing this training to become a facilitator for nonprofits. And during this training I met Marco and Marco was attending to the training as well and I had a chance to speak with him and he was one of the people that created I think Instituto Eco Social. He's been a coach for 30 years. It's amazing the experience he has. And during coffee break, before coffee break I was in a class and I was trying to think what is my mission in life. What should I do? And when I went out for a coffee break I met Marco and Marco said you know what? I'm developing a tool to help others understand about themselves and interact and create teams. I said this is what I want to do for my life. I want to teach people about it and he said you know but I'm starting this. I'm not sure if it's ready, whenever it's ready you can contact me, maybe you can work in the future. I'm a zecotiff coach. I only work with zecotiffs and big companies at the moment but I'm developing this. I said that's cool. I grab his business card and stick it to my notebook and said one day I'm going to be able to hire this guy to be my coach. He's amazing. And when was this roughly? This was 2015 I think. Okay. So not too long before your travels led you to here. No. So keep going at the story please. After a while my husband was working for an international company called TNT, is a logistic company and they did the big acquisitions and in one of the acquisitions they decided to fire the CEO and all the directors and my husband was one of them. So he was almost four years unemployed. Oh wow. It was really hard and it's not easy to be unemployed in Brazil. No. I'm sure he was maybe the primary income owner because you were just building your coaching. Yes. It was really hard. I had a marketing company at that time. It was really hard and I remember Marco and I said, oh, this, this was, Marco is an amazing coach. Maybe he can train my husband to find a job. I don't know about how a coach can help but I called him and say, hey, Marco, I don't know if you remember me. We met at the Institute of Ecosocia. I really admire your work. Can you fix my husband? He said yes. No. He said no. I don't work with coach with executive directly, replace helping them find jobs but I'm really to grab a coffee with him and get you know him better. Maybe I can introduce him to another coach and they went for a coffee and because Marco was into developing this too, he was able to identify my husband's personality right away. And at that moment, he was consulting at JBS. He was implementing this methodology in JBS for all the directors and VPs of the company. And that led to ultimately the job here in the US or he went to work for JBS in Brazil and then transferred here. Yes. So he was coaching the president of JBS and the president of the new division they were building and they have identified that they needed a person with my husband's personality. Which is what? He's a brown. He's a brown. Oh yes. The guy who wants to understand all the correlations goes very deep in everything he does and plan very well. How do the different divisions of the business work together? We're the hang-ups and bottlenecks. So if you would, can you sketch out how those a bit for our listeners and I don't want to spend a ton of time on it, but just like, how is it different than disc, if you will? Because I know you have some training in that as well. And I think both of us respect disc for adding a lot of value to conversations as well. But you would probably say how else is a superior tool for most coaches and employers? I think it's very helpful for entrepreneurs because it really helps you understand yourself. What is your essence? What do you have inside? The native talents that you were born is different than the personality. The personality is developed after you interact with a lot of things, circumstances that happen in your life and how those identify your essence is really different. On his method, he says that normally we have at least two different essence and we develop what third one to bring a balance in our lives. And we move around those three essence, the archetypes, as I say. And this methodology identifies five types of archetypes. And you move on by plurality, I think Mark, it's better to explain that. Yeah, probably. And maybe I could even ship in, like, for listeners, like the Yin and Yang would be kind of your base archetype and then the other one that kind of pulls the other way. And then the third is maybe almost a shock absorber or a softening agent for those two as they're quarreling over you? Yes. And the suggestions that he normally gives is for whenever you're building a team is to have people with different type of archetypes that can help you balance the ones that you don't have. That's what we're trying to do here at local thing. And bring people that can add value with their skills that they have, with the native talents they have to be able to really build an ideal team for the environment that we have. Well, and young Alma here on my team is a brown blue, which is a very, very rare archetype and very useful, much like your husband in being an integrator of systems and being aware, but she's young Alma. And she hasn't learned a lot yet. She's very young and so coaching her along and to really utilizing her skills to help us is one of my main goals. Yeah, that's cool. And that's why I think the entrepreneurs can use this tool a lot because they can not only identify their personality, adapt the way they speak with their employees, but also build an effective team and develop the employees they have on their skills as well. Yeah, yeah. So tell me about the other types. So the brown is the integrator, blue is I think like the organizer kind of. Yes, the orange is the gold driven, the person who really make things happen. But is that the achiever ish or whatever? Yes, a narrow person that knows everything a little bit. Okay, yep, yep, yep. We have the white, that's the thinker, the person very connected to the values like you that is an innovative, like Steve job was one of them. Steve job was white and orange. Because he was both an idea guy and then very driven to actually achieve the ideas. Yes. And we have the green ones. Yes. If I may say the green ones are the ones really focused on people and a good example. If you guys watched the movie, Petch Adams, he was a green one. Okay. There is a part of the movie where everybody's learning is a doctor, very experienced that bring a lot of students and tell this woman is dying of diabetes, she has this and the woman starts to be very scary and at the end Petch Adams comes and say, Hey, what is your name? So that's an attitude of a green, a person that really cares about others and can sense everybody and greens are important in our society. And I if I remember right, I'm basically the same color as Marco, the founder of Hallows and it's a little bit of edge to white against green with the orange center. Yes. Is that right? Yes. And what are you? Do you remember? I'm a blue, I'm very organized. Okay. I'm a green as well and I have the orange to get things done. Right. Fair enough. I was just there for our listeners. Once you experience a Hallows report in yourself, more so for me than even when I have experienced disc reports or Myers-Briggs, everything made a little more sense. And so if you're a coach out there, if you're a leader of a business that wants to know more about how to understand and manage both yourself and the key relationships in your business, we have a seminar coming up. We'll put the registration in the show notes here. But it starts October 1st and it's a six consecutive Friday is beginning October 1st in the morning, 830 to 1230, but Tina and I will be co-facilitating in person with Marco joining from Brazil and in a hybrid format. So up to 20 in person and virtual registrations after we fill that out. So that's Hallows and a nutshell and what else would you have listeners know about the Hallows relationship method? Is there anything else that we've been up to? Yes, there is something very important. You can apply this to also for hiring. So you can send a test for your future candidate to fill it up and the report will come up with some suggestion questions for you to investigate how this person deal with this type of skills that they have. Right. Because there's kind of like a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde to each of these types as well. Or if you're using it in the right way, then these are your strengths, but overdone strengths are also known as weaknesses. Yes. And that's kind of recognized within these. And it's different for each person because it depends on the experiences they have and had in a future environment they leave. That's why it's so important to be cautious when you do an interview to really understand and choose the right person. Maybe spend a little more time, a little more money in choosing the right person and not doing the mistake of hiring someone that won't fit your team. Yeah, fair enough. And so that seems like at least one of the problems that you're trying to solve and in light of even the impact it's had on your life. I mean, Marco and Halos really helped pull a lever that allowed you to have this international experience that you'd been dreaming about. Yes, here I am. And so then therefore, I think one of your driving forces is to help Halos and Marco expand their presence here and, you know, beginning in Northern Colorado and around the country with more people utilizing this system. And so, yeah, that's one of my goals. Yeah, I appreciate that very much. And so let's just talk about, and I'm sorry, I practiced saying with, with the, yes, with the, and I said, a whitey, you know, whatever it is the way it is. But tell me about, um, whitey coaching and you've got a couple of different podcasts. You have both a heart for nonprofits, but also entrepreneurs and, and, uh, I think I'll be on your podcast one of these days. I don't know, maybe not on the ladies one, but tell me about, uh, about kind of your, what's a normal week in the life of Bettina look like? One of my mission, uh, is really help females to drive as entrepreneurs. I know how hard it is to be a foreigner in here in the United States. And I want to help other females to drive. That's why I created it with the woman podcast. And that's the type of clients that I normally help. Someone that, um, is married, has kids, is busy, doesn't trust on her potential to do something, but really have the wish to be independent. Yeah. Independent her ideas, in her profession, in her career and in making decisions. And sometimes they need a little push. Yeah. That's why it's important to figure out what are their values? What is the mission of this person and how can she be happy? That's the most important. What will make her happy? Some woman, they really want to have their own business, but they want, they don't want to let go the responsibility of taking care of the family, which means that they might not be able to spend 60 hours a week getting their business established, like sometimes entrepreneurs feel like they have to, but that doesn't allow it if you've got kids to pick up and doing this and that. Like just efficiency and systems building and just controlling the task chaos that goes along with that part of your special role. Yes, that's the idea for them to be five stars in all areas that they're live, that they want in their life, like being an awesome wife, being present in their kids' environment and supporting them in their studies and in their growth as well, because this is one of our roles, being a friend, being a daughter and being an entrepreneur, having five stars in all areas of this life, it is not easy if you're not organized. And if you're not attached to your values, you don't have a way to take quick decisions, so that's why I want to help those type of females to find the path. And so that's one of your areas of focus, are there other kind of key clients that you're looking for? I know that local think tank is on your target list of if I can help local, we can just help that many more people and that many more ladies be proud of it. What's it about local that's drawn you to this conversation? Helping entrepreneurs, because they really need tools to be more efficient. They want to do everything and sometimes it's not possible. So making a better planning, sticking to the plan, finding motivation, growing constantly, finding what are the skills that they are strong and what are the ones that they need to develop and what's the gap, what's the plan to get there and what's the person sometimes? Yes, if you're not capable to do it by yourself, what are the comfortable partners that are going to be part of this journey and how can you better interact with them? First of all, no their personality, try to interact better and do not have expectation but agreements with them. So I coach a lot of my clients to learn how to make agreements, to set up boundaries. So it's a long journey that I love doing together with some entrepreneurs. And so that's your other kind of main demographic is women of any sort, especially trying to crack about a successful path that allows them to be fully aware, fully a mom, fully a daughter, that kind of thing. And then also just really entrepreneurial organizations that are maybe achieving that next level of growth, whether it's a man or a woman that CEO needs some help to kind of set the vision. Yes, but I want to help females to be entrepreneurs, manage their personal life and be successful entrepreneurs as well. Yes, yes, the other kind of your two kind of thrusts, if you will. And then also Spanish speakers and even foreigners, right? We've started talking about doing a Spanish-speaking local think tank chapter, potentially in coordination with City of Fort Collins or Office of Economic Health, I forget. But like if we could serve that group because I don't speak Spanish and so I can't, but we know that the Spanish-speaking business community is very vibrant here in Northern Colorado and helping those people is certainly part of my heart as well. With my involvement as a Matthews house and things, anybody that I'm an underdog guy, as soon as a football game flips, the start quarterback of one team gets hurt, that I'm suddenly cheering for that team because now they're suddenly underdogs and whatever. And so that's part of my heart, tell me about that for you. So I started working for SBDC Small Better Development Center and they have a lot of Spanish speaker entrepreneurs that go there to find resources and I met Jose Luis over there, Jose Luis is the person who is working for the City of Fort Collins and he really ensured that there is a big group of Spanish speakers entrepreneurs that need help. So local thing thing has already struck a very well-known peer-to-peer advisory program and expanding this program for the Spanish speaker will be amazing. They really need help, they need to collaborate with each other and what a better way to learn with peers that speak the same language, that you feel comfortable talking to, that you can even be friends. And that's the idea of creating those chapters to speak Spanish. Yeah, I think that fits very well and one of the things we always say is we try to avoid conflicts of interest when we're building these groups because anything that would keep you from being authentic and vulnerable with the other members is perhaps something that would keep you from putting your real challenges on the table. And I think a language barrier sometimes is definitely something that would be challenging. Yes, sometimes they cannot express fully in English. For example, that's a problem that I was facing, I didn't have the whole vocabulary of a coaching environment and I needed to work on that. Sometimes they're very good on English with a vocabulary they use with their employees, with their clients. But to discuss other ideas, you don't have the words, so it's very complicated to express your ideas in another language. So feeling comfortable to be fully yourself in a meeting where you're going to receive advice and you can express yourself, that makes a huge difference. Yeah, yeah. And share that with me. I assume your first language is Portuguese and then Spanish and have you been an English speaker going way back? Did you get some English education like in your primary schooling and things? Or has that been much more recent? My second language is German, so I grew up my family from Germany. Four languages please. I studied German schools and I even speak German before English. I didn't like English before. I have to confess, but then I needed to learn. I have some family here in the United States and I came here to leave a little bit with my aunt and work here to develop my English and I went back to Brazil. I had a chance to bring a restaurant change, a franchise restaurant change to Brazil. And I needed to learn English to train everybody in Brazil. So I came here work for three months here to be prepared to open this franchise over there and I was the trainer in Brazil to train everybody. So it was important to know English so I put all the effort that I could and here I am. Well let's, can we, I want to go in the way back machine actually and hear more about that because that's a really interesting family background as well. I honestly didn't know anything about the German family background and things like that. So like tell me about your parents and like third grade for you and and a little bit about that backdrop because not all of that was in Sao Paulo sounds like. Yes, my family migrated from Europe to Brazil during the Second World War. But there was a big prejudice against Germans during the Second World War because of everything that was happening and my grandfather couldn't find a job in Brazil. So he started taking care of orchids from the rich people of Brazil in Sao Paulo. And he did this for his whole life. My father wanted to be a fitness professional. So my father opened two fitness centers and he was doing an amazing career but one period of his time he said you know what? I don't want to be an entrepreneur dealing with those teachers having problems. Because I want to grow orchids. And he gave the two fitness centers for my mom to manage and said you know I'm going to do orchids. Oh. Okay. Big shift. And he started selling orchids and he created a foundation called SOS orchids in Brazil and was very famous when he passed away in 2000 he had more than 200,000 orchids in our house. Whoa. He used to collect orchids and he did expositions here in New York all over Brazil. Oh my goodness. Like the king of orchids almost. Yes. Of the world almost or at least Brazil. Brazil at least. Yeah. It was amazing. And my mom was always side by side with him in his career as an entrepreneur. They used to have a camping place, a summer camp place for kids because all the kids that went to the fitness center didn't have anything to do during summer and winter. Sure. So they built this summer camp in 1977. Okay. My father asked me when I was studying to become a hotel manager. He said, see you're studying hotel manager. How about you running our summer camp? I said, but I'm only 19. He said, but you can do it. And that's what I did for six years. Oh wow. That's why I'm so involved in scouting right now because scouting is similar to what I used to do. Oh, that's so fun. I had no idea. You're like an onion except to smell better. But many layers to your story and I'm really enjoying that. But this is all in Brazil, right? And the summer camp and things, when was the German experience? So that was just, oh, because your family came from Germany, they spoke German in the home. Yes. And I wanted to still study hotel management. So when I finished high school, I went to Switzerland and started studying French because I used to study hotel management in Switzerland and you have to speak fluent German and French. So I was studying French there and my mom called me at that time. We didn't have cellar phones and she said, you know what, you were a pro, but the university here in Brazil, you have to come back. I was the first group, the first course of hotel management in Brazil that they had. I had an established university, but they wanted a new thing. So you transferred back then? Yeah, and then I went back. I didn't finish French and I studied hotel management in Brazil was my first college. And that was really your early career as well in addition to the summer camp. You became a hotel manager and whatever. Yes, I stayed in the food service industry for 15 years. Wow. So you have a love for food and cooking and things like that as well. Yes, that's why I wanted to know more about your truck and everything you did. Sure, yeah, fair enough, fair enough. That's one of my passions. Well, I've talked a lot of people out of opening a food truck business. So I've got that in my cap. So through the hotel season and then I guess that restaurant training thing was one of your first really international experiences from an employee standpoint and really tasting the United States for the first time. And what was that? Can you share? Yes. It was hooters. Oh, yeah, sure. It was very appealing to open a hooters in Brazil and I was hired by the master franchiser over there. Interesting. It was a team of five people. We came here to United States. We worked for three months here and then we went back to establish everything to find providers, to find the ideal spot to choose the hooter girls, to train them, to train the kitchen staff, everybody. I have to say, they do a good job. I haven't been to hooters in a long time, but you really always get good service there. It's clear that they take training very seriously and in Brazil it's really easy to find beautiful women, probably the staff of those restaurants. Yes. But it took us two years to open the first store. Oh, wow. Yes, to adapt the whole food and everything to create the same environment wasn't easy because the way we do food service in Brazil is totally different. And talk to me about that a little bit, like what were some of those distinctive differences that you recall? So the batter that we use on the chicken wings here, we needed to develop over there. The flour is not the same, a lot of testing to come up because importing was impossible. Right. The French fries as well. They didn't have all the French fries. We had to buy a bunch and freeze over there for at least six months. It was hard. Yeah, yeah. And it was very much a startup operation. It sounds like if there was just five of you and working in all these different systems and trainings and identifying real estate, was it a multi-location opening then? No, just in some part of the first store. Okay. Interesting. But finally the Hooter Girls doing the competition to find him and it was really hard. Yeah, I'm sure it sounds like a really, and you were 25 or something at this time or whatever. And so it was quite the eye opening experience. I'm sure you really got to see things from a ground level that became quite an operation. Yes. And then I noticed how important it is to have an administration background when you're running a business. That's why I decided to do an MBA. And since I wanted to develop my English, I did an MBA related to a university in Canada, the Rotman School. Okay. Yeah. And then back into service, I suppose. And I will fly over the career a little bit fast, but I know you worked with a lot of non-profits and you work really, I guess, a sales force, a CRM expert of sorts with a strong marketing capability when I probably the first met you as kind of was the place in your world that you were fulfilling. Talk to me about that transition, was that like right after the MBA? No, when I came here, I decided to work 100% with non-profits. I hired a coach myself. And it was really eye-opening when she said, here it's possible for you to work 100% with non-profit. She said, yes, I would love to do that. Because in Brazil, back in Brazil, I used to have a marketing company and we have amazing customers like Microsoft, Norteo, Brazil Telecom, IT companies was our target. Oh, wow. And I learned a lot and I wanted to give back. So one day of the week, I used to work for non-profit pro bono, teaching them what I learned with the tech companies. Interesting. So we jump right over the marketing company. But let's talk about that, did you, like when did you start the marketing company, was it just freelance, solar partnership, or did you have other clients or other employees and things working with all those big clients? We jumped to steps. Let me tell you a story that I think it would be very interesting for people who wants to look for a job. Yeah. Working for hooters, I decided to do an MBA to find another job and I got pregnant. Okay. And I said, oh my gosh, I'm going to do a need to find a job, but I'm five months old. My belly is so big, but I decided I really wanted to work in the food service industry. Okay. So I went to the biggest food service fair with my big belly. I visit all the stands all over all the, how do you call not stands? Yeah, like booths. Yeah. I visit all the booths and said, who is the director of the food service director of this company and grab all the business cars? And then after the show was finished, I did a business plan like a presentation on how do I perceive the food service industry compared to United States, how does industry can grow in Brazil and how could I add value to this company? So from all the booths, I chose 20 companies to approach. I called all of them and I said, I had the business car of the director of the area. And I, I scheduled a presentation, hey, I saw you all at the fair. I know you're doing an amazing work in the food industry. I have some thoughts to share. I think you can grow even faster. Can we schedule a meeting? And the guy said, why not? Yeah. And I did a presentation showing how the food service market working in United States compared to Brazil and how could I help? Yeah. And after that, I got hired and just by one or many of those 20, two of them or for me a job. Hey, you're a love your view. Can you come work with us? Okay. I did it. So when my daughter was born, she was two months old. I got the job of my dreams, which was working for a food, food industry. Oh, so you were, you were an employee of those companies part-time each or something like that. Nice job. That's a very, like, where do ideas like that come from? I'm a very creative person. I think maybe a little bit of white that I have in my personality, but it's a different way for you to find a job. Yeah. You know, if you really know that you want to work in a specific industry, going to a fair or show where all the pro, all the possible companies will be there approaching them, choose the company that you want to work for and do a plan to get this job. I actually, that's, I've become a hobbyist in terms of helping people that have become unemployed for longer than they wish, try to figure out maybe where they should point their pointer, not because I have any special training, but just because I've kind of had perseverance and been able to find myself with a really interesting job. And one of the, that's one of the main things I coach them on is, you know, make a list of the 20 or 30 companies in town that you'd really like to work for and they probably don't have positions open because you know what, the best companies rarely do. Make sure they have your resume. I'd recommend dropping it off in person even, make a splash, meet them somehow and just let them know that, hey, I'd kind of like a job for your company because I like what your company is all about and I also like to share, you know, flattery will get you everywhere with me and entrepreneurs and business owners are like that. Like those, those companies that knew that you were targeting them because, hey, you're somebody that I think I can add value to and I like what you're doing. Yes, that was the approach. I really like it and work and I teach my clients how to do that too. Yeah, so were you focused on kind of part-time momming and part-time marketing support still for those years? Or did you take a hiatus to raise the person? I delegated the, the momming thing to my mom. Oh, gotcha. That's awesome. I wanted to focus on my career that time and in Brazil it's very easy for you to have help. So we had nannies and I was really a workaholic. Yeah. And afterwards I perceived that that's not the ideal. Right. But it's one of the reasons you're driven to try to carve out an appropriate place for people to be a wife and mom and an entrepreneur. Yes, because I suffer a lot of after that noticing that I missed the best part of my kids. Yeah. So I'm going to help entrepreneurs not to miss this part but also start building their business. Yeah, fair enough. Both. Yeah, it's possible. It's not an either or decision and I think we'll see how the world evolves from here. But if people can create lives where they can work 10 or 20 hours a week and create enough value for their clients or customers or employers even that they can spend more time with family doing, exploring, thinking about new ideas, I don't think it would hurt us as a nation. So here is totally possible for you to be an entrepreneur and also have quality lifetime. Yeah. Yeah. So the girls are how far apart? Two years. Two years apart. Yeah. And so and how old were they then when you, is there more chapters to the story between, yes, let's have another one. Yes, I'm sorry. So my first child was born and I was working the food industry and changing for a multinational company and when my second daughter was born, I had to click, hey, maybe with this one, I should have more quality life. Let's be an entrepreneur and I started searching and I found someone that had a marketing company that was having some problems and she needed an investor and said, oh, that's my, that's my time. And I jump into it. We became partners. Oh, wow. And she had big customers, like I said, in the technology area and my baby was two months old. And I said, being an entrepreneur, I can still have time for her. So she came with me to my office and was amazing having her around and opening my business. And we were together for two years and I sold the company. Okay. You were partnered and then you both sold it, grew it, I presume. How big did you, how many team and we had 13 people? Wow. And we were organizing special events for Microsoft. Microsoft, it's really dedicated on relationship events, not advertising. So having a tight CRM, that's why where I started learning more about CRMs, the importance of getting to know who you're dealing with. Yeah. I actually just learned about a new company in Longmont. You might look into it at some point it's called contact mapping. And it's kind of a bolt-on to your CRM, but allows you to take a picture of that person, take notes at one stop, just their wife's name is Jill or whatever. And it's especially as an entrepreneur's database gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Having that data there is just so crucial. Yes, I agree. And for other team members, it's one thing for me to remember everything about everybody. But if we're going to have 3, 4, 5, 10 people around local think tanks someday, it can't just be me that knows that Bob likes to have Limoncello sparkling water when he comes in for his visits. Yeah, that's the idea. That's why I got interested in studying more about CRM. At that time, I did the Microsoft Dynamics Certification and I learned everything about the Microsoft environment. Actually, I was working for Microsoft, I should have. Another change? That's okay. Yes. It's very important to learn how to use CRM's in your benefit to be with you. 100%. And as you know, I'm not the most diligent, detailed person in the company or in the room, for sure. What would you say, can we have some CRM tips, free tips for those listening out there? As far as maybe either habits or best practices or when do you start, how big should your business be before you invest in building a CRM? Let's get into that just a little bit. It's important to start right away with a CRM, but you have to choose the right CRM for you. Okay. And you asked me why I decided to work with Salesforce. Yeah. It's because Salesforce is one of the most growing companies in this area. Sure. And it's important for you to keep up with what's changing. We'll just talk through the train, by the way. Don't worry. This is for college. Yeah. So, should be okay. Yes. Whenever you're choosing a CRM, it's important for you to understand that the world is changing. So artificial intelligence is coming. We have Alexa at our house. We have, I wrote, I don't know if you have this vacuum in at your house. And soon we're going to have our fridge, saying what we need to buy for groceries. So you have to be ready to evolve with technology. And some CRM companies doesn't have enough money to invest in innovation. And Salesforce has a huge team that really innovates. So if you land up with a platform that's always innovating, it's totally different. Because you don't have to ask them for updates, they will train you on what's new. Very enough. Okay. Salesforce has a platform called Essentials. Okay. That's for small entrepreneurs. It's pretty cheap. It's $25 a month. And integrates directly with your outlook and your Gmail account. So all the emails that you exchange with your clients and providers, stakeholders will be connected directly to your CRM. And 25 bucks, everybody can afford. You can start small, but you can grow from that. If you really grow big to e-commerce, there is a platform for e-commerce. If you want to build a community, you have a community. If you want to create a nonprofit that's totally possible, for nonprofit Salesforce is free. They give away a 10-free license for every 501 Citroen. Wow. And so is like you got into the Microsoft world in Dynamics and then I guess transitioned in Brazil to Salesforce, was that the next kind of key step in your journey? Compare Microsoft to Salesforce. Microsoft is really good for big companies who need to have an ERPS together. So when I came here and I decided to work 100% with nonprofits, I figured out that Salesforce has this arm inside the company that offered the best year-end for free for nonprofits. And how did you get paid for it, though? As a consultant, you get paid to personalize the environment for the nonprofits. Okay. So they pay you that kind of to set it up good or whatever, because I'll say Salesforce can't hardly pay you big commissions on selling zero dollar per month commitments from their nonprofits. But I guess if they grow and get bigger than they pay more and whatever, too. Yeah. It's so important. Big nonprofits like MS Society, Red Cross, Big nonprofits are using and small nonprofits are using as well and having amazing results. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about, so that was kind of your heart to serve the nonprofits through the Salesforce. And then talk to me about that transition to once again, I guess, pursuing your coaching ambitions and dreams because maybe that was in process of getting recertified in such early honor. Was it also on the side when we first met here in Fort Collins? Yes. One of my dreams is to create an accelerator for nonprofits. And for me to be able to do that, I have to hire five amazing people to work with me. I need someone that understands about financial, fundraising, program operation, volunteer management and technology. And I want to hire amazing and expensive people. For me to be able to do that, I have to really get into the business world and I decided to start working with entrepreneurs and build a career as a executive coach and build this as my philanthropy work. Hmm. That's fascinating. I'm going to keep helping nonprofits, but I don't want them to pay me. I want to have like a fun, uh, like, there's Hoffman Foundation almost that, uh, an accelerator for nonprofits. Interesting. Something you may consider is, is with your heart for nonprofits, you may be able to draw other people with a heart for nonprofits that you don't need to pay as much, but maybe just build a volunteer for us so you can do it sooner. Yeah, maybe, but I prefer to pay have the, the best ones and the service for free. That's fair. All right. Well, we'll talk about that more later. 10% of my income, I put it aside to create this foundation. I'm, I'm helping right now to nonprofits. Oh, wow. And the idea is to keep helping. I love that. I love that. So I guess it was just kind of a progression really to do the, the, with the, uh, flag. And do you do, do sales for stuff at all anymore? Yes. You can if you want to, but it's not kind of the, the card you lead with are the Salesforce ecosystem. I helped them navigate into the career because I really understand how it works. Yeah. And I use Salesforce for my CRM as well, and I can train any entrepreneur on how to implement sales for us and make good use of it. So if you're listening out there and you're either a nonprofit leader that knows you have some systems development, including a CRM to make work better or install, uh, you're an entrepreneur that's trying to find focus and that step by step progression to their dreams. Those are the people that would look you up. And how, how would they find you? On my website, I have a division for nonprofits is we to dot tech and that's not profits. Okay. Um, let's, uh, let's jump into the, uh, the meaty stuff of our, our standard format. We like to, uh, jump into faith family politics, um, and you can take your choice about how much to say on each. I'm really interested in your perspective on like Brazilian politics versus US and there's always a lot of drama in the Brazilian system, um, but, uh, recently much more so probably in the US. It's actually Brazil's in a real weird place right now, even, um, but talk to me about any of those things. We've already talked some about your family. We could talk a little bit more about that. My approach to politics is a little bit different. I'm investing a lot of time in nonprofits because I think civilians are doing an amazing job fulfilling for what the politicians are not doing. That's why I want to invest in nonprofits. And I see this, uh, coming more and more in Brazil and here that the population is trying to solve the problems that the government cannot do it. Yeah. And they are the people that I want to help. I don't want to bother about politicians and I'm not involved at all. Yeah. And I want to help them. There are a lot of initiatives in Brazil and I want to bring the knowledge of how they operate, um, nonprofits here in the United States to Brazil. That's my intention. The narrator will work here and have the intention to, uh, make it happen in Brazil as well. Very nice. I, uh, you know, I've been long involved with the Matthews house and, and the Matthews house founder. We just did an episode with her about three episodes ago. And that was really her heart as well is that, you know, what the, the government has kind of programs that are supposed to help with this, but they're not helping. And it's because people really need to have more relationship, uh, and, and the service heart rather than not that government employees don't most of them have a great heart, but there's impediments. There's a bureaucracy and barriers to building relationship and also lack of money. So how can they better fundraise with regular companies and delivery amazing programs here and in Brazil? Yeah. And build that was part of our vision there and still is, I think, is that, you know, the, the corporate partners that can really recognize the, the organizations that are making a difference, especially within, maybe the communities where they're hiring or where they're located and things like that. Those are the deeper pockets that can help to really power nonprofit causes and to integrate our impact. Yeah, entrepreneurs who are worried with all type of stakeholders, that's the most important part of it. We can call the best ones B-Corp, but I think some of them are not B-Corp, they're worried about their employees and the environment they're, they're established, everything. Yeah. B-Corp is something that you're also passionate about, I suppose. I certainly, it's on the three-year target list for local think tank to get that work done. I think we act like a B-Corp already, but, you know, there's work to do to certify that and make us, I guess, wear our values on our sleeves in that regard. So politics is, that's a pretty interesting angle on that anything else you'd like to say in that greater topic or just leave it right there and... I leave it right there. Fair enough. So, faith, we've never really had a faith conversation, I've no idea what your background is necessarily. If back German Lutherans usually in the old country, and so perhaps that would have carried forward, but then Catholics probably more, much more predominant around Brazil, is that so? Yes, the Protestants. Protestants? Yes, my family was a Protestant in Brazil, but my father was a yoga and meditation teacher. My grandmother was the person who brought yoga to Brazil a long time ago, like seven years ago. So, we study about different religions, spirituality, a lot in my family, and as being involved in scouting, scouting also, incentivize all the families to learn about different religions. And we did this in Brazil, me and my kids. We visit different type of religions, we understood how they... What the perspective is? Yes. And we have come up with our own beliefs, but what I really believe is in the light that everybody has inside us. That's why whenever I sign an email, I always say namaste. Okay. And the meaning of this word, if I may say it's the light in me, recognize the light in you. And I think this is a beautiful way to saying that I'm seeing God on you, and I'm touched by your light, and I hope you can see my light. Everybody has good intentions. Yeah. So... Hello fellow divine being. I see you. I listen. I hear you. You know, you're important to me, even if we don't cross paths again. Yes. That's the approach that I take to life, like seeing the light of everybody that I interact with. That's why I always sign namaste. Interesting. Fair enough. Thank you. Well, folks, because I do go to a Christian church, but I also do yoga. I also meditate, you know, and I like to say kind of like I see faith as being kind of a lot of the blurry lenses for everybody throughout history. It's hard to see exactly what those links are and stuff, but the reason there's so much resonance between various faiths and their perspective, and especially the wisdom words, is because they're seeing the same thing. There's not like a different God over in Middle East, and there is in India, and there is in Brazil, and there is in the West. It's just how do we perceive, and what is our awareness of what that creature, not creature, uncreated being, would have us do. So where do you, if you would, where do you come with in terms of like big bang or spontaneous life, things like that, or are we created beings in your perception? This is a hard question to answer. Well, no, it's like the hardest question. I truly believe in other lives that we're here in the earth to evolve, and the work is one of the tools that we have to evolve and be a better person. That's why we need to make good use of it, of this opportunity. I don't think we are here in a vocation, we're really here to work in ourselves to help others. Stewardship notion is kind of important. Yes. And keep growing. That's the intention. Fair enough. Okay. So, we've touched faith, we've touched politics, let's talk more about the family. I started asking how old the girls were when you moved to Brazil, and Beto is your husband? Yes. And so, tell me a little bit more, actually tell me the quick love story with Beto, if you would. When did this come about? We didn't even talk about dating or anything along the way. So I think this entrepreneur soul came such a long time ago, I was managing this summer camp, and I got involved with Amway, do you know the network marketing, and I met him in one of the meetings and felling off, say, that's it, that's the guy. Mom, I'm going to go marry this guy. Took a few months later on, we had a conversation during lunch, hey mom, we're going to move in. Oh gosh. And this week made 23 years that we moved in together. Oh, congratulations. Yes. It's nice. We just celebrated. That's very good. And are you married married? Yes. And how many years of marriage then? 20. 20. So, it took three years to be the timing right, or whatever. 21, actually. Yes. We got married 2000. And then how old are the girls now? Okay. And I'd like to have our guests do a one word description of their children, if they're willing. And name them first, or also, if you don't mind, or if you don't mind. No, they are amazing. And entrepreneurship is in my soul, so my goal is to teach him how to be entrepreneurs. Okay. And I started with them very early. So my youngest one is 14, and I thought her how to do doc city. So I hurled her in the app rover, and we're doing doc city. Oh my gosh, she's making so much more. That's awesome. And my oldest one, we decided to start on RBNB together. Okay. So we are renting our basement, and she's responsible for doing the advertisement, talking with clients, cleaning, and checking them in. So it's fun to see them working. Oh, that's great. So there are 14 and 16. They're studying a lot, other language, I think, understanding other cultures, and being able to communicate in different language is essential. That's why I'm trying to motivate them into this. And teaching them basic things so they can be entrepreneurs in the future. Yeah. What's their names, please? Tabata and Anita. Tabata and Anita, and which is a 16 year old Tabata? Yes. And are you willing for a one word description, or is that two small box for these girls? They are amazing. I think they really teach me a lot. I think Tabata will be an amazing, inspiring person to others. So inspirational, maybe? Yes. She's helping a lot of foreigners to the next change at this moment. She's very involved in scouting. So I think leading by example is making a huge difference. And that's why I'm trying to teach the other moms how important is just to be an amazing person. So your kids can be an amazing person. Fascinating. How about Anita? She loves cooking. Oh. She's amazing cooking, and she's a green. So learning about Halle's methodology helped me so much, because I couldn't find them the personalities and how I needed to connect with them. So my youngest one is a green. She really touched people. She's caring about them. And my oldest one is a brown. Yeah. She never finished things on time. That's awesome. Well, it's great. And what's Beto? Bet is a brown. Brown blue. Oh, yeah. We talked about that as well. So anything else we should talk about in your family? Sounds like it's been a fascinating journey, like going from being discriminated Germans in Brazil for your grandfather to being a famous orchid maker and all these things. And then your grandmother bringing yoga to Brazil, like what a impact your greater family has had. Do you have brother sisters as well? Yes, I have one sister in Australia and two brothers in Brazil. Okay. A younger older, where did you fall in the family? I'm in the middle. Yeah. Anything else about your family that would really be worthy of shout outs or comments? Or do you want to say hi to your mom or anything? Yes, she's amazing. I think after my father passed away, she's been my mom and my father and making a huge difference, filling up for him. It's huge. Yeah. She was very driven into business and she developed her emotional side, her green side after he passed away. And she's been an amazing person, inspiring, she's 75 and she can do better yoga than me. I'm pretty sure you can do better yoga than I can. That's pretty awesome. Well now is kind of the normal, low co-experienced segment. What is the craziest time, event, season, perhaps of your life, the story that you'd like to share from your history that comes to mind? I want to share something that happened here in the United States. As I mentioned to you, I'm helping nonprofits. One of the nonprofits that I'm helping is in Brazil, they have 650 animals waiting for adoption. And one of the biggest challenge for them is to re-adapt a dog in the family environment. So I decided to learn how to train a therapy dog, to be able to share this knowledge with them, how to train a dog that has problems to become a very mellow dog, to be able to be adopted. So I started in this journey learning how to train dogs for blind people, I attended as a volunteer and then I learned everything and I trained my own dog. I adopted her, she was full of problems and now she's an amazing dog. And while working as a therapy dog, with a therapy dog, I went to a nursery home on Christmas because I didn't want to be normal and just have a regular Christmas party. I wanted to be there with old people and it was really fun. I went to room by room and then there was a big meeting room with other people sitting around and I brought Bella to play with them. I had some treats in my hand. And two old ladies were playing with Bella with treats and one of them, one old lady was sitting next to me and she was smiling all the time, smiling and laughing about all the treats and I told her, do you want to give Bella treat as well? And she knocked her head like, yes. And then I give the treat to her. She ate the treats. Oh gosh. Oh my God. And I had a volunteer behind me and I looked at him. My hand was sold dirty. I couldn't put my hand in her mouth to take the treat and she ate the treat and then she stood up and went to the nurse. I said, oh my God, I'm in trouble. She's going to tell that I gave her the treat. And she asked for some water. I think the treat was too salty. Well, and they're very dry. I've eaten dog food before on a dare and it's hard to stomach very much of it. So we had the bad intention but have to be careful. So I learned my lesson. There you go. Yeah. All good deeds. No, no good deed goes unpunished is what my old bosses said that. I want to learn just a little bit about that. You trained yourself how to train a troubled dog into being a therapy dog. And did this in six months? Yes. Like, how did you learn how to do that? Attending as a volunteer, how to train dogs for blind people. Yeah. So I saw how they do for a train dogs for blind people. I said, let me try to adapt that and I figured it out. You have that seems like one of your superpowers is that anything that people do, you feel like you can learn how to do and perhaps teach it? Yes. That's what I said. I created the name wisdom for non-important to use. The wisdom is available there. It's just channeling, adapting and putting in practice. Yeah. And there's too much wisdom. That's my blog for next month is there's what I forget the title I've been working on. It's too much of any good thing is bad. There's so much wisdom in the world, so many different techniques for this, different techniques for that and it's almost overwhelming. So what is the wisdom that's important to me? Because I can't have all the wisdom important to me because I don't have enough space in my organization and my person. What's the stuff that's really going to be important to making my dreams come true? Yeah. That's the challenge. I don't teach anything that I haven't put in practice in my life. So if I can handle it, I think everyone else can handle. So I put in practice, if I'm teaching a diet, I put it in practice in myself. If I'm teaching how to train a therapy dog, I'm going to have a therapy dog. I'm treating to be a successful entrepreneur. I have to have, I have to be a successful entrepreneur. That's that's intention. Yeah, yeah. Well, and that flies directly in the face of that, those that can't do teach thing because you're basically proving that you can do it and then you're capable of teaching it. Yes. So I guess for sake of perpetuity, is there other things that we've glossed over that you're listening to? Our listeners should really know about witty, about halos, about being a Spanish-speaking entrepreneur in a white bread town. Is there just words of wisdom that you'd like to share for all entrepreneurs out there or listeners? I'm trying to put together a training called Happiness Journey. And the intention is to put everything that I learned so far in an app that could be very useful for anyone who is searching for wisdom. And I'm planning to launch this in six months, it will be called Happiness Journey. So I'm working on it. Everything that work with my clients, I'm going to put it on this app. I hope it will be helpful for many other people. And the idea is to launch in Spanish and English. With a lot of people sitting across from me, if I heard that they were going to launch this amazing app in six months, I'd be like, yeah, whatever. But I have no doubt that what we're seeing is there. Where are you going to receive an email? Come on, Kurtz, email list you're going to receive. Very good. Very good. Well, I'm excited for our next time together and I'm optimistic that we can continue to make a positive impact not only in the lives of each other, but more especially of all those who are trying to create a business or trying to be the best mom that can be, are trying to create the most impactful nonprofit organization that they can possibly do. And really for anybody that's got a dream and the willingness to go kick toward it, I think Bettina is a good inspiration that you can too. Yes. And my call to action will be for you to really research more about the certification we're doing together. I think this can be very helpful for you as an entrepreneur, a business owner, a coach, and go for it. Learn how can you understand better about yourself? How can you better interact with others? This will make a huge change in your life. I 100% agree. And as people have asked me over the years, what about local think tank? Is it that your members really get? And one of the big things is self-awareness. Like from other people shooting you straight in these chapter meetings, you can really become more aware. But if you have real tools using technology and research, you can shorten the distance on that journey by a lot. So I would echo that. Check it out. How does relationship certification we have coming up here at local? And Bettina, I'm honored always by your presence and thankful that you're willing to share some time with me and our listeners today. And just thanks and give a good Brazilian send-off in Portuguese, I guess, if you don't mind and then translate it for us, something a good buy kind of a thing in the US. Okay. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the local experience podcast. This is your host, Kurt Bear, and founder of the local think tank. If you or someone you know would be a great guest for our show, or if you'd like to learn more about our small business on our peer advisory chapters at local think tank, please visit our website at localthinktank.com or email us at connect at localthinktank.com. It's L-O-C-O-thinktank.com. If you've been enjoying this series, don't forget to subscribe, and we love great reviews on Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening, and don't forget, always keep it local.