Special Guest Expert - Clifford Starks: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Clifford Starks: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Here's the big question. How is it that most entrepreneurs hustle and are always busy and struggle to take just one step forward, only to fall two steps back they're dedicated, determined and driven, but only a few finally break through and win. This show uncovers those quantum leap patterns of highly successful people so you can simply model what they do and apply to your future success. That's the question. And the answers are right here. My name is Brigitta Hoeferle and this is The Success Patterns Show. And welcome, everyone. Happy Tuesday. This is The Success Patterns Show as we have it every Tuesday, 430 Eastern Time. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is the show where we put the do in learn do teach. My name is Brigitta Hoeferle, founder of the Success Pattern Movement and the CEO of the Center of NLP Neural Linguistic Programing. And this show is all about uncovering the patterns that brought our guest experts to success, no matter how you define success. You're going to find people on the show, guest experts on the show that are you're going to go. I have been working on where they are already. And there's a pattern. And I want to follow that pattern because success is all about modeling. That's one of the laws of NLP. As humans, we are hardwired to learn hands with hands on applications from living teachers. We're not here. I love to read, don't get me wrong, but we're not here to read books. And this is about getting in, getting in the trenches and learning from one another and adapting what has worked for other people really, really well. We're are grandmasters at work here. This is not a theoretician kind of gathering because they talk a good game. We're here starting to do already doing it and you're going to get tips on how to model the success for you that you want in your life because success is already yours. So let's roll up our sleeves. Mine's already rolled up. Stay tuned to the end because we have a gift for you, as we always do. And it's never the same gift we have. We have a fighter in the house and we're going to learn a little bit more about this incredible human being that is here with us today.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
His name is Clifford Starks. Now, as you know, I am German. The last name Stark is while his name is spelled Starks with an SSE. So it's plural, it means strength. And it's interesting because he's a former UFC fighter who's turned entrepreneur because he's helping others get their edge in life and business. And boy, if you can't learn it from a UFC fighter, you think they have great patterns. He's been fascinated with being the highest performer he could be, and in his pursuit, he has grown the passion to help others do the same. His current focus is helping entrepreneurs get their time back because in doing so, he feels that the world is a better place. And I know he doesn't do that by fighting. He does that by loving. Thank you, Clifford, for being here. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Clifford Starks:
Yeah, thank you for having me. And by the way, that intro is absolutely amazing. I was jamming in the background.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I love it. I love when we have guest experts that are jamming with us because we're jamming with you and we're here to learn from you and through you so. Clifford. Ufc Fighter. Are you a lover or are you a fighter? Which one is it?

Clifford Starks:
You know, I would have to say the answer is both. I'm a lover and I'm a fighter.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Now. I don't watch UFC fights. I heard they can get pretty intense.

Clifford Starks:
Yeah. You step into a cage and, you know, a guys tried to do the same thing you're trying to do to them.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So you already know the strategies that they're going to use on you. So you got to be, what, a step ahead of them.

Clifford Starks:
Yeah. The goal is, and I didn't realize how much the parallels were in fighting and entrepreneurship, but it's adapting. It's adapting second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So it's it's mixed martial arts, right? So there are many different strategies that you have in your on your black belt, if you will, if you would carry it on your black belt. Of course, you don't have it externally. You have it all internally. But so you have to be like literally and figuratively and actually on your toes to think already the next steps ahead of what might be coming. How does that translate into the work that you do now? Because yeah, UFC fighting might be in the past, but I think it's also what in your present and in the future.

Clifford Starks:
Yeah. You know it ultimately comes down to the habits. And I will tell you, entrepreneurship was actually the hardest thing I ever did. The reason it was fighting supposed to be hard. So people are telling you right away that it's going to be hard. So I'm ready for whatever people are going to tell me because I have something that I've practiced long enough and that's discipline. And I know we all have discipline. That's the truth. Either we're disciplined in doing the right things or we're disciplined in doing the wrong things. And it's not to judge anyone in any way. It's just to say you are disciplined in something. And when I became an entrepreneur, I actually got around the wrong entrepreneurs early on, you know, they were telling me how easy it was. They were telling me, Yeah, you can make six figures in 30 days. But not explaining the arts and the process. You can make six figures in 30 days, but you still have to go through putting in the reps yourself. You're not just going to get there because you're trying. That's like me telling an amateur fighter, Yeah, you can be in the UFC in 30 days, even though you've never trained a day in your life or never lifted a weight or never did a nutrition plan, you can get there.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
There is that I mean, if we stop the show right now, that nugget all in itself, because I was at the I was at the gym this morning and I, I like to do an extra. Like a plus one, maybe a plus one if it's really, really hard. Like this morning, I was like, This is hard. I'm going to do one more. And he get and he goes, Do you need my permission? I say, No, I'm just doing it right. So my personal trainer, so there was just so much richness in what you just said. And it's the promise that we're getting from the outer world. And you talked about the discipline. Is there ever or was there ever a time either being a fighter or being an entrepreneur where you felt like you were lacking the internal motivation or the external motivation? Talk to me about that.

Clifford Starks:
Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And you're going to be lacking sometimes. You know, you're going to be lacking that internal and you're going to be lacking that external. And the one thing that you have, your desires are very powerful when we use our desires to help us get to the goal, to help us get to that North Star. And so I've been really, really entrenched in focusing on what is it that I desire, like, why am I doing what I'm doing? There's an exercise called the Five Whys and going into, Why are you doing this? Well, why are you doing this piece and why are you doing this piece? Why and why? And it really goes into the deep richness of saying, I'm going to do this no matter what. And I saw the power of of being a fighter and I saw the power of being an entrepreneur. And yes, I scraped my knees. I fell down and I'm going to fall down again because that's life as well. You know, you're going to you're going to learn a lesson and you'll get to a level of mastery. But the funny thing is, when you get to mastery in a new level, there's something else always to master. There's always a new stage to master after that.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
The the you said you scraped your knee. I would probably argue you scraped more than a knee or just more than a scrape. Yeah. And and as entrepreneurs, we scrape our knees. We, you know, if we even get to that point. But some people, they're like three feet from gold. I had this conversation yesterday with a client, and then they stop. They're like, Oh, this is too hard. Or This is. I don't I don't have what it takes.

Clifford Starks:
Yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
How do you get what it takes?

Clifford Starks:
Great question. Perception is reality. If you see who you are and you want to be, you're already that person. Now you have to see who that person is on a day to day basis. So I say practice faith early and often, so you have it when you need it most. And oftentimes people are waiting for when they do need the faith or they're like, Oh, crap, I just ran into a wall. Now what do I do? Well, you practice it early and often, and that's where we were talking about in the beginning, the ability to adapt. Adaptability comes from having to adapt. So in life, if you just focus on, okay, I can adjust, I can adjust, I can adjust. Then you get to this mastery level of being able to adjust like it's second nature because it does become your second nature and it's about surrounding yourself with the people who are going to allow you to be the person that you were meant to be. And I say this is the people in the light and the people in the dark. Some people tell you not to be around toxic people or naysayers. I say go around it all but go around it when you have the strength to be around it, because you're going to get some people who are going to hate on you, who are going to say, you can't do this. We're not going to see the world the way that you see it, but you also get to practice. Do I have the commitment to be who I'm going to be and go through what I need to go through? And then also being able to go around those supporters who are going to lift us up and build us up and help us get our armor so that we can get ready for any situation that's in our way. And eventually, you know, you keep moving. You keep moving. Momentum is our best friend and also our worst enemy. And just like you said, three feet from gold. You know, if that person would have gotten just a little bit more, just a couple of inches more, they're exploding into something completely new and they're hungry for the next version of Mastery.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
How do you become hungry for that mastery? Because not everyone is that hungry because they're buying into their own limiting beliefs. And how do you stay hungry? Like, how do you like when you get into a fight or when when you started fighting, when you started becoming a fighter, there was a certain. Drive, probably like I'm going to do this, but there were probably times where you're like, I don't want to do this anymore.

Clifford Starks:
Yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And you still did it?

Clifford Starks:
Yeah. How? Our environment is our game changer. You know. I know, Tony. Tony Robbins talks about the law of proximity and saying, what you're around you're going to be more like. And I believe that that's a piece of it. What you're around, you're going to be more like, but you have to practice what they practice as well. If you're just around certain people and you're not practicing the things that they're doing, you're not going to get to where you want to go. Now, when I do talk about practicing practice, the things that they do to propel you to move forward. So there was this one, a Navy, Army, Navy SEAL. And he talks about making his bed and he would make his bed every single day because he knew that even if he had a crappy day, he would come home knowing, well, at least he did that one thing right. And that gave him the momentum. So whatever that one thing is for a person, because we are human beings having an experience, different things are going to work for different people. Go around these people and you'll see some of their patterns and ask yourself, How does this apply to me? How is this going to help my life? Because what people try to do is they try to mimic a person and say, oh, well, now I need to make my bed. And they really don't care about that. It doesn't fire them up. It doesn't give them any passion. Ask yourself, how do the patterns apply to me, not the actions that they're doing.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So how do you and I wonder if you are. If you have the same pattern of getting into, you know, when I say the zone, like get into that mindset before you speak to your clients or before you go on stage and and have a speaking engagement to back in the days when you before you went into a fight. There's a specific kind of mindset that I would assume you would go in. How do you get to that space, into that state of flow?

Clifford Starks:
Yeah, I actually have to get into this data flow specifically when I don't want to do certain things. So there's these here that I do not like to run even a little bit. My, my stomach literally sinks. I can feel my, my body getting ready to do these stab heels. I hate them with the fashion and I have to go into what I'm going to get. I have to go into that space. And when I see my hand getting raised, when I see the excitement, when I see the crowd cheering me on, when I see the victory, when I see the win. Now this is what gets people in trouble. This is the thing that gets people in trouble. Don't be attached to that process. Don't be attached to the goal. Be go fully into the desire. Fully into the desire. So I'm going to go 100% on those mountains. I don't really know what's going to happen for the goal. I just know that's what I do want and I'll learn something along the way. But I know as long as I'm not attached, I'm going to be better for the situation. And the reason I say better for the situation, because if I'm attached to the outcome and the outcome doesn't go my way, then in my head I'm like, Well, why am I even running hills completely diffuse yourself?

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So you're looking I love what you just said, and that's one of the laws of NLP. You're looking at the learnings because the Hill will always have learnings. The challenge will always have learnings if. We so choose to see the learnings or we can focus on the failures, right? I didn't do that. I didn't do this. I felt like this. Right? And then you go into looking at the at the other side of the coin, that's probably not going to support you looking at the learnings and keeping it internal rather than what you said, you know, don't don't make it on the cheering of the crowd because that's external.

Clifford Starks:
Yeah. Yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
What happened or what was the. I'm going to use the P word, the pivotal moment, the transition moment when Clifford said enough of the UFC fighting. I'm going to help humanity become. One person at a time become better. Was there a moment?

Clifford Starks:
What's so funny about that? I became a fighter and my coaches didn't even know this. This is the funny part. I wanted to have a platform to speak on and I didn't get to speak of the platform as much as I wanted to. My whole thing is we got to love each other. It's always been that. Now again, I will try and eat a whole elephant whole because that's kind of roll. Like I'm just like, let's give this a try. And as I went through the process, is that me?

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah, I think so.

Clifford Starks:
I don't know why it's doing that.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
It's opportunity calling.

Clifford Starks:
So I'm going through the process and. I, I make the shift from being a fighter, and the only reason I made the shift was because of my kid. I had my kid and I. I had this feeling I'm getting ready for a fight. I was training for the fight, and I'm in the back stage. And I have this feeling of terror, like absolute terror. And I'm like, Why am I feeling this way? The only other time I've ever felt complete terror. My grandfather passed away. I was five years old and I remember being so afraid of death like, Oh my goodness, this is going to happen. So it was that same feeling. And I'm like, I'm terrified to go into this this cage. I'm thinking, what's going on? And I knew my coach knew something was off, too. He didn't say it, but I'm like, I'm warming up the best that I can, doing my thing. And I go into the cage and I realize I'm afraid to get hurt. Like, I didn't want to get hurt because I was thinking about my child. I had to take care of my kid the next day. And so from that process, I had to make a change because the risk reward wasn't worth it. I wanted a platform to speak my message, but the risk reward just didn't make sense anymore. And when I went into entrepreneurship, it was on a Facebook Live and I'm like, I want to influence 1 billion people. And I was just like, Yeah. And again, when we talk about the learning lessons, holy crap, are you going to learn some some lessons to walk.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Through that.

Clifford Starks:
Process? Because I was ready I was legitimately ready to talk to one person at a time. Like when you talk about determination, we all have it in us. We all have determination in us. But it gets beaten out of us. It gets beaten out of us by the society and it gets beaten out of us by ourselves. And so we just like. I'm just going to be a lump in a log. No, don't do that. Go all in, go all in. You'll learn the lessons that you need to learn along the way. Because I've been meeting some of the most fascinating leaders and they have made my life so much easier. You don't have to speak to one at a time.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Well, I'm glad that someone taught you that lesson. That's good. That's really good. It'll save you a little bit of time. Trust me.

Clifford Starks:
A little bit.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And and. And I love the big, hairy, audacious goal, right? I mean, being a UFC fighter is already a pretty hairy, audacious goal.

Clifford Starks:
Yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
We're as humans, we're always looking for evidence. Right? What makes you a good fighter? If you beat enough other people, right. That makes you a champion because you beat enough other people. So it's always we're looking for evidence. When do you know which evidence appears that you know that you have what it takes, whatever it it means, like the goal that you want, the desired outcome that you that you're looking for. When do you know you have it?

Clifford Starks:
Yeah, I love that. So there's a saying perception is reality, right? And I'm always looking like, what is it that I want? And when I want something, I go after it and I have a measuring stick from there. At least I know where I'm at. Do I completely suck at it? Am I average at it? Am I good at it? I'm not great at it. Like that's the one thing that I will know. I'm probably not going to be great. I'm a great inspirer. I love to inspire. I inspire others and I inspire myself. That's one of my superpowers. But doing any activity or any thought process is going to take practice just as riding a bike. And I ask myself, is it worth it to me? Like is is the time and the energy that I'm going to have to take to make this new thing a reality worth it to me? And the truth is worth it means do I love the pieces that I love enough to go through the process? Because mastery, essentially it's a five year process for anything. Like if you really want to go into like any average individual or even below average individuals, I really believe this. If they go fully into something, they can master that thing in 3 to 5 years and figure out the lay of the land. But they got to ask themselves, is it worth it? You know, just as you ask, is it worth it? It's only worth it to me if I'm loving what I'm doing.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. And I love that. What does Cliff hurt? Not like at all. Like what really rubs you the wrong way?

Clifford Starks:
The thing that drives me absolutely insane. Bullying. I cannot stand bullying even a little bit. And it's funny because there's a there's a duality of it. Like, I can bully a bully. I can essentially bully a bully. And so, yeah, I got to catch myself.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
By looking at him.

Clifford Starks:
I got to catch myself and just say, like, okay, I can teach a lesson or and teaching a lesson. You can teach a lesson to a bully. I actually did. I had one guy who he was bullying one of my guys. I'm like, all right, we're going to spar. You know, I just I tried to let it go. I'm like, no, we're sparring. And so we ended up sparring. And I started pulling my punches. And for anyone who doesn't know, pulling a punch means you're not going all the way through to hurt. You're actually pulling your punch. So it's not hurting that person as much. And the reason I started pulling my punches is because he was running into everything. He was running into all of my punches, bleeding all over the ring. And I remember stopping it and I go, Look at what you did. Look at all of this blood. And he just started crying and telling me his story, telling me his story. And I was like, he he had a lot of baggage and a lot of pain that he was dealing with. And when I say I don't like bullying, it's because our internal stuff can become external. We can hurt so much inside that we're looking to hurt others outside. But that's not a way to handle something. It's not the way to handle it. And when we can really look within and say, What is it about me that's making me do these things? I'm so proud of this particular guy because he ended up doing the work. He ended up putting in the reps. And surprisingly enough, he was like, You know what? You were the only person who really cared about me and told me what was what. And I don't think I was the only one. I just think we need to hear it when we need to hear it. Timing's got to be right. Part of the game of life is getting the timing down, and I just feel I was in the right place at the right time to tell them the right message. And I actually had the ability to protect myself, because if I didn't, he would just hurt me, too.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Do you think that bullies are. Well, there's a self protection piece in that and that they're projecting their own internal. War that they're with themselves or quarrel, if you will, that's just turning outward because they that's their way of coping with the situation. Think there's there's some great work to be had just in that. Yeah. Especially nowadays.

Clifford Starks:
Yeah. 100% agree. It's it's getting like figuring out the internal and the external. And I always say it starts with the internal first. See, we're always looking at the external and it's no one's fault we're trained to look at the external and we see with our eyes. So we're seeing everything and go and this needs to be fixed. This needs to be fixed. This needs to be fixed. Fixed in here first before you fix without. Because just to be honest with everyone, we all have traumas, we all have them. And when you can have that acceptance of saying they're there, that's the beginning of the battle, and then you can actually start winning that battle and breaking those chains.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
A very I love this conversation, a very wise mentor like decades, like three decades ago said to me, work through the internal work. So the external works do the internal work. So the external works. What do you value most, Clifford?

Clifford Starks:
Oh, you amazing people. People are amazing. You know, we have so much potential. And what's super, super cool, because I do love to inspire. We sometimes sell yourself short, way too short. And when we get challenged in a healthy way, of course, to go to the edge and jump, we surprise not only ourselves, but we surprise everybody else. And that's so exciting to me.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
That's very exciting. I am excited with you now. I'm excited because you came bearing gifts.

Clifford Starks:
I did you bring. Yeah. Yeah. So for those who are on the success pattern show, if you message me that you were there and you saw this episode, I will give a clarity session. Now, I was only going to give three, but, you know, for the kind of audience that you have. Anyone who says that they were from the success pattern show. I got to I got to limit it for the month, though. It has to be within this month because that would get pretty crazy. Anyone who messages with it this month, I'll give you a crazy session.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Awesome. Oh, my gosh, guys. Make sure that a you follow Clifford on Facebook. So it's facebook.com slash Clifford Kelly FFO RD Dot Starks star KS dot the number three. So Facebook is Clifford dot Starks dot three. Make sure that you A follow Clifford and B, send him a message on messenger, on Facebook Messenger and say, hey, I saw you on the Success Pattern Show. I would love to have a clarity coaching session with you. Absolutely phenomenal. If you're watching the recording of this show, this is for the month of September and that is September 2022. Yeah, for for sure. Guys, get in touch with Clifford. Also, I want to share with you there is his his email is website Clifford Starks dot com. Make sure that you check out Clifford. Get in touch with him. What an incredible not just show that we had but the the passion that you have. Clifford For Humanity and that's coming from an ex UFC fighter. Clifford If you would have one last thing to share with our audience, what would it be?

Clifford Starks:
Yeah. There's always greatness in you. And the funniest thing if you're a high performer. It's more important to step back and look at the bigger picture, then leaning forward and putting out the fires.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Words. Well said. Great advice, Clifford. Thank you so much for being on the show, guys. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for sharing the love with everyone. It is up to you, up to me, up to Clifford to make this world a better place. It starts with me. It starts with you. One person at a time. Thank you for being here. Tune in again next week, Tuesday, same time, same place. Until then, I ten. Ciao, everyone.

Clifford Starks:
Thank you.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Thank you for tuning in to The Success Patterns Show at www.TheSuccessPatternsShow.com My name is Brigitta Hoeferle.

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