The Business of Life with Dr King
Dr Ariel Rosita King brings on a variety of International guests from various countries, cultures, organisations, and businesses to talk about turning
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The Business of Life with Dr King
Mortiz Lembert: Your Model of the World Is Limiting Your Success More Than You Realise
What invisible forces are shaping your business decisions and limiting your success? In this eye-opening conversation with business coach and leadership developer Moritz Lambert, we dive deep into the concept of your "model of the world" – the unconscious framework that determines everything from your perceived options to your financial ceiling.
Lambert shares riveting case studies that demonstrate the hidden power of these mental models. There's the business owner who needed funding but avoided direct approaches to banks because he secretly believed he "wasn't a real businessman" despite running a multi-million-dollar company. Once this belief was exposed, he made 67 calls in one day, receiving funding on the final attempt after 66 rejections. Another client, an exceptionally skilled massage therapist with 35 years of experience, tripled his income simply by questioning his assumption about what he was "allowed" to charge.
Most compelling is the "money game" experiment where a struggling entrepreneur generated over $40,000 in just 35 minutes when challenged to focus solely on value creation without his usual mental constraints. As Lambert explains, these transformations happen when we bring our background assumptions to the foreground where we can examine them.
This conversation couldn't be more timely. With AI rapidly expanding into territories once thought exclusively human, many professionals face existential questions about their value and purpose. Lambert suggests our uniquely human advantage lies in our ability to distinguish these mental models and reinvent ourselves on demand – a skill that will only become more crucial in our rapidly changing world.
Connect with Moritz Lambert at moritzlambert.com or on LinkedIn and Instagram to learn more about breaking through your limiting mental models and discovering new possibilities for growth.
Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King
Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....
The Business of Life
Dr Ariella (Ariel) Rosita King
Original Song, "Teach Me to Live one Day At A Time"
written, guitar and vocals by Dr. Ariel Rosita King
Dr King Solutions (USA Office)
1629 K St, NW #300,
Washington, DC 20006, USA,
+1-202-827-9762
DrKingSolutons@gmail.com
DrKingSolutions.com
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Business of Life. Today we have a very special guest, Mr Moritz Lembert. Welcome.
Moritz Lembert:Thank you. Thank you, and, as you just asked me, I'm going to introduce myself a little so people have context before I start coming with the topic. I work as a business coach and leadership developer. So what I do is I work with individuals, primarily in the small business space but a small, anywhere between one to like 50 or 100 employees. But a small, anywhere between one to like 50 or 100 employees. And what I provide is coaching and leadership development for, usually, the owner or the ceo of the business.
Moritz Lembert:And you approached me to be on this podcast and I thought about, like what could be a great topic to talk and there are many great topics to talk about and I'm choosing one that I think is really relevant for people right now. And one of the reasons why I think it's so relevant is because I'm dealing with that with all my clients and I deal with that with people that I have conversations about the future with. And it's really key to also the question that we're experiencing right now, which is when AI can do all of it, like what are we left to do? And I think it's. I can see from the people that run bigger businesses that I talked to, like 100 employees worldwide and 200,000, they're all looking very afraid at this question because they can see like AI's capability are growing. They see the cost of labor and there's this question now that people have is like, what do I do when I don't have my job? Like, who am I being?
Dr King:Who am I?
Moritz Lembert:When suddenly, the meaning that I was attached to before, which was my job or what I was capable of, can be replaced in an instant. And so I thought it'd be a nice topic to talk about your model of the world, and I'm going to distinguish what a model of the world is and why it's interesting in this conversation. Is that good?
Dr King:Oh, I love that. I'm actually really looking forward. Let's dig in.
Moritz Lembert:Okay, perfect. So to start, I just wrote like before we hopped onto this conversation. I'm writing a newsletter every week. There are two episodes going out and it I wrote about why being unreasonable is something that's required for you to transform the results that you want to see in your business, and I speak primarily to business people. But if you're not into business, then apply to your own life, or if it's a personal topic that you're dealing with, then that's as relevant for that. What are reasons.
Moritz Lembert:What are reasons? What are opinions, what are beliefs? If you think of all the reasons for why something should be the way you think it should be, or if you're thinking about the reasons you have for doing something, when you track back a reason, you're going to find a building block of your model of the world. And what a model of the world is is basically, in very simple terms, it's all the experiences that you have, and the conclusions, the interpretations of those experiences build on your past, whatever your parents told you, whatever your school told you, whatever you experienced with your friends and the opinions of your friends.
Moritz Lembert:That's going to influence what you think is reasonable today, what you think is reasonable today, what you think is possible today, what you think you can do and can't do, and it builds a whole model of how the world works. That usually is not front and center for people, but it's really in the background and you could imagine it that everything I'm sharing right now you don't hear, but you only hear through your model of the world. So a model is two things. In a way, it's a filter for everything, but at the same time it's also a projector, so it goes in and out right? So whatever I'm saying comes through a filter and you're going to make sense of it again by projecting it into your screen of reality right.
Moritz Lembert:If we take the screen here, you can see like there's a screen and there's something in the screen. Take the screen here you can see like there's a screen and there's something in the screen. Now, what's in the screen is dependent on whatever process is running in the computer, right to make sense of the sensory input that it gets, which is right now me moving and talking, which is very similar to what happens in the human brain. Why is this relevant, like, why are we talking about a model of the world? Because this model, if undistinguished, totally controls what people do, what people have, what people feel, what people experience, and usually, for most human beings, it totally stays undistinguished. So you could say, whatever happened to you for everyday life, for most human beings, will be the determining factor for what will continue happening to you. So, whatever I experienced, the schooling that I have, what my parents told me, I don't distinguish. That it's just what I believe. It's just what I think. It's just my reasons, that I have my justifications that I have for action or not action, that I have my justifications that I have for action or not action and, given that I will continue doing the behavior that I have and the behavior, my action, is going to determine the results that I get. It's very straightforward in that sense. So I share a little story about model of the world in this point so it becomes more relatable for you.
Moritz Lembert:I had a coaching session this week with one of my clients and this individual he needs to make money right now. His business is in the need for a boost in revenue, and the first thing that we had to work on and it was prior to the session that we had this week was he needed funding. He needed an investment in the business to continue operations. Now, for a couple of weeks, he was doing stuff and actually a couple of months later, we were working together and it was reporting like I did this, I did that, I did this, I did that.
Moritz Lembert:And one thing that I noticed noticed was, if this is the most important thing, I'm not seeing it reflected in the actions that he's taking. He was doing like I don't know, spending more time on the marketing department, then dealing with this, then dealing with that, then dealing with this, and not directly approaching, hey, banks and institutions for saying, hey, we need money, here's your business plan, this is what you're going to get out of it. Can you help us? So after a couple conversations, what we got down to is he was working under the assumption that they wouldn't give him money anyways. Why? Because he was not money giving worthy. Why? Because he had a model of himself of being actually like somebody who just went it through. He's not a real businessman. Funny enough, the person has a business that generates multiple millions right, but he's not a real business person.
Moritz Lembert:Therefore, talking to the real business institutes is impossible for him.
Moritz Lembert:He can't do it, but he will never go all in on it. Why? Because they're not going to give him money anyways. In the moment that we put that part of his world view, his model of the world, to the forefront, he had a choice and he was like oh my God. And then we created the distinction that was called I don't know if it's appropriate, but I can say it anyways having balls of steel that's an expression, right. And then he took actions that only a balls out of steel person will do. And the same individual that was doing this and that and many other things. Suddenly what he did was he picked up the phone and one day he called 67 people to get funding from them. Now he got 66 no's and the 67th person said yes.
Moritz Lembert:In his prior model, this is something he would have never done, because after the third or fourth note, you just get confirmation for the model that you already have of yourself. You just know, like, hey, see, see, I knew it right. Like. Therefore, I'm focusing again on other things that maybe will work, maybe won't, but I I know this this for sure won't work. Now, same client.
Moritz Lembert:We have a conversation and he brings up the topic of saying like I think, for, for some of the outstanding payments I still have, I will get a side job. I will get a side job, um, and I'm like, okay, interesting, why? Yeah, because I, I want to have you know, like I want to pay off some of the outstanding payments. And, um, and I'm like, what? What side job? And he's telling me, like he gets 30 bucks an hour doing this, or he would get 30 bucks an hour doing that. I'm like, okay, and how many? Like part-time, 20 hours a week, okay, three days a week, okay.
Moritz Lembert:Now, when you take three days in your current business and your only focus is to make money, how much money would you make? I don't know, maybe I could make five grand, all right, interesting, but you're considering doing that, why? So, again, we are seeing his reference points. We're seeing like what he was growing up with, of like if you have money, you should get a job, you should do this, you should do that. Now, what I invited him into is playing a game and this is the short version I share with him what the game is. Basically. The game is the money game. You have 30 like, you have a fixed amount of time and your only goal is to make money. We had, at this point, 35 minutes left in a coaching session and I said okay, you have 35 minutes.
Moritz Lembert:Your only goal is to make money. As long as it's legal, you do that and we see and I went out of the room when I came back, he had made more than 40,000 US dollars in 35 minutes. Now, you could say what happened in that moment is we took away the reasons and the justifications of his old model of the world by putting him in a high pressure situation that only allowed for action because he didn't have time to think about it, he didn't have time to compare. And all of it why? Because he knew like he would have to declare how much money he made, and that's like a gaming mode. For some people it really works well. For others it won, depending on their model of the world. For him, it worked and he got himself out of his what he already knew into just pure action, and what he met was a new possibility. He's like, wow, I actually can make a huge amount of money if I focus on it. Now, that's not the model that he had growing up. That's not the surrounding that he had growing up. That's not the conversations he was in growing up. That's not the conversations he was in growing up.
Moritz Lembert:And when I'm talking about a model that you have. It is a set of conversations stored in your psyche about what the world is, what the world is not, what you are what you are not, who others are, who they are not. You are what you are, not who others are, who they are not, what is and is not possible. And those conversations usually just operate from the background without ever being distinguished in a human life. And why I'm talking about this is because my mission really is to help more people people get the ability to reinvent themselves on demand. Why? Because of exactly also the times that we're walking into. We're meeting more change than we ever have. We're on the verge of a technical revolution that we can't comprehend where it's going. A lot of change will happen. For most people we don't get a job and then 50 years work in the same job. My generation is doing like seven jobs by age 30, 35, oftentimes right.
Moritz Lembert:What you study most likely is not what you're going to end up in, so you have to reinvent yourself constantly, and reinvention only happens for people who either are forced to reinvent themselves, and that's when usually tragedy is happening, like somebody's passing away. You get an injury you like. Whatever dramatic events happen that can force you to reinvent yourself, or you can do the work that is, to uncover and to distinguish what's operating in your experience, what's part of the human operating system you have right now, and when you do that, you have a choice, and that's what I'm all about with what I do in my work. I think it's partially why you do this podcast here as well. It sounds like to me, and I think it's part of what makes us human, is this ability to actually reinvent and be really creative with whatever circumstances we're thrown into.
Dr King:I really love the example that you gave, and I also think of that crisis equals opportunity, you know, so, um, but what I really love is is that you have somebody who is one of the examples.
Dr King:Get the business person in all effect. Everybody around him sees him as a very good business person, even perhaps a successful business person, and when you scale, many people have difficulty with quote-unquote scaling, so this is not something that's unusual. But I think what I find so fascinating is what was in the back of his consciousness not necessarily in the forefront actually stopped him from doing what he can do, what he had done, what he was able to do only because of unknown, as you would say, unknown playing in the background, unknown thoughts about who he is and what he could do. But I find that absolutely fascinating because it's not just business, like you said, it's life. So then my question to you is how did you get started in understanding this and then building this for your clients? I think it's so interesting because I think it really helps in more than quote unquote just business, but life in general.
Dr King:Absolutely, absolutely so the how question I mean.
Moritz Lembert:I would lie if I would say that there is a great structured way that I go about it. It really isn't.
Moritz Lembert:I have a lot of training in my young body that allows me to distinguish it very fast, and what I listen for with a client is, you could say, the model of their world. So they come to me and they express what it is they want, and usually it is not what they already have right, it's something that's not being created. It's like the relationship they want, it's the business they want, it's the amount of money they want and they don't have it.
Moritz Lembert:That's the reason for them hiring you Now, just this morning I had a coaching session with an individual and that person expressed to me the kind of business that they would like. Now what I'm hearing and, of course, like the more training you get in that and the more you do this work, the more you hear. Really, my job is about listening more than it is about speaking or sharing. I listen for who is this person being, and there are clues in the language, there are clues in the tonality, there are clues in how this person comes across. Clues in how this person comes across and the. I believe there are more levels than tonality and and and language. Um, that we actually are, but often unconscious of that signal to me who this person's being is.
Moritz Lembert:Don't buy my product to. To summarize it, it's like don't buy my product, right, and then like why am I believing it? Because of things that person said about themselves, because of the usage of certain words like hard, hard, difficult, so much competition, right. So I already know this person is in in compare, in comparing mode all the time. Because of this, this person is doing that and they were doing it really successful and they have this amazing premium product. And who am I right?
Moritz Lembert:So that's something that I bring into the conversation and what happens is the person starts to it's like you're blind to something before that moment, to it's like you're blind to something before that moment now there is a question or I'm sharing something with you, that you start to get this background to the forefront and you start to see, like I'm constantly thinking in that circle and you get aware of, wow, I've been doing that yesterday, just now, I, I did this over the last, and you get present to the cycle of thinking that you've been in right.
Moritz Lembert:So in a sense, I do that through listening, through certain distinctions that I have. And then I ask my clients question. I share observations and I'm also training them in certain distinctions that help them to separate beliefs from facts, ideas from reality themselves from the content of their thought. And then we can go deeper and deeper, from saying like, okay, I want to change my business, to okay, I'm not my thoughts, I'm not my feelings, I'm way more than that. I'm actually somebody who can create the context for life at scale and I can be someone where the whole world can be transformed. That's like surface level to okay, how do you want to go?
Dr King:Yeah, I really love that and um, I think I'm going to start adopting this. I love it. Can I ask, can you give us, um, uh, we only have nine minutes, but still, nine minutes is a lot. Um, can you give us some other stories? The stories are so helpful. It could be about any client you have at any time, about anything. Thank you.
Moritz Lembert:Yeah, absolutely so. One of the stories I can share is it's again a money story, but I think it pays. Yeah, I had a conversation with a gentleman who works in an industry where there is an average of what you're allowed to charge, right, and it's about 90 bucks an hour. And we had a conversation and in the conversation he was sharing like, yeah, if he wants to make more money, he just needs to work more. If he wants to make more money, he just needs to work more. And like my way is I'm trained to listen for stuff like that because it tells you a lot, tells you a lot and I said why? And he's like, yeah, because you know you can't charge more than this. I'm like because that's who.
Moritz Lembert:Yeah, you know like I had two people who said my price was too high. I'm like, okay, great, now that's not evidence in the world of business in general, like it isn't evidence Two people telling you something is not evidence for something being the case. Now I continued asking him some questions. By the end of it, he's like this is really interesting. We got off the phone. I got an email. It he's like this is really interesting. He got off the phone, I got an email back from him saying like hey, can I hire you Right? Sure, let's have a conversation.
Moritz Lembert:Now the goal of our working together was for him to grow the business and we started to see all the assumptions that were part of his struggle. See, all the assumptions that were part of his struggle. Now he was making something about 30, 30-ish thousand a year with 35 years of experience in his profession 35 years. He was referred to as one of the best in the whole area that he was working and I don't know much competition to his level of skill in his industry. Now I'm thinking if I can give away the industry without sharing too much, yeah, I think I can, I think I can.
Moritz Lembert:So the industry is is is body work, massage, right. So you work on the body of somebody. He has a skill level that allows for, like he can read your body in ways that you, you, you don't understand. Like he told me about what happens when I eat certain things. He told me about, um, that I gotta to struggle with with having dry skin right, that I struggle with, like, if I don't move my body regularly, my, my joints get stiff. He knew this after 30 minutes of treatment, like. And he told me other things about my digestion which were all accurate. Okay. So same person, same person makes 30 grand a year, believing that he can't charge more than basically, like was 90 bucks, but for 90 minute sessions, so it's like 60 bucks an hour. Now, I started to challenge him around this and in six conversation he got to okay let's just test it.
Moritz Lembert:Let's just test it if my ideas is real. And he would go. And he would go to a client and say, like it's 150. And the client pays, it's 200 and the client pays 300, and the client pays 300 and the client pays. So now the same person sells packages for transformation, body transformation and internal transformation. Same person, and you could say it's marketing. But it didn't start by the marketing. It started by him questioning his model for reality. Same person, in a year, made 110 grand. 110 grand Now, without working a day more, without having more clients, without doing anything more, but simply by seeing.
Moritz Lembert:Wow, the assumptions that I have are just assumptions. They are not reality. And the way that I know if my price works is by asking people for the money. And if 10 people say, hey, sorry, like I'm not willing to pay, like I don't know 50 grand for this, you know, hey, I might have overshot to the audience that I'm not willing to pay, like I don't know 50 grand for this, you know, hey, I might have overshot to the audience that I'm talking to, but you don't know. Prior to that, there are a lot of things and if I take it into relationships that we already assume about our partner, like I already assume certain things about my wife. Oh, when I say that she will, but I never know. I never know.
Dr King:You wanted to ask something no, I, I just think that the story itself is is so telling, and what I really love about this story is the fact that it's the same person with the same experience doing the same thing, but when he gets back, changes because of his mindset, changes about what is his expertise worth yes and why is it worth it?
Dr King:and I think that he did not realize that you helped him as a, as a coach. You helped him to realize who he was, what his expertise was worth, and also these, these um comments or these things playing in the background that stopped him from being able to collect on his expertise. I think that's just amazing. And what's amazing to me, too, is that because he didn't know, understand his expertise, he didn't realize how much he's given to the client. That's an amazing person, absolutely so. It's both ways.
Dr King:Absolutely and that's really amazing. Can I ask? Our time is over. Could you please tell people how to get in touch with you?
Moritz Lembert:I hope it's okay that they can get in touch with you. Yes, thank you. I don't know if they see my name down there, but that's basically the name. You're going to find me on the internet. I have a website it's maritzlambertcom, or you can follow me on LinkedIn or Instagram, also maritz Lambert. I gotta like. If you find me on Facebook, don't follow me on Facebook. I move away from the platform at the minute, so you're not gonna find me there after April. Linkedin, instagram, my website. Those are the best places to go.
Dr King:I wanna thank you. What an absolutely delightful conversation and actually I'm not going to look more into this. So thank you for and to our audience. Thank you so much for being with us and remember, if I'm not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, when am I? If not now, then when? That's by the philosopher Hillel, and I've added if not me, then who? Thank you so much for joining us.