Welcome to The Gold Collar Investor Podcast with your host, Pancham Gupta. This podcast is dedicated to helping the high paid professionals to break out of the Wall Street investments and create multiple income streams. Here’s your host, Pancham Gupta

Hi this is Tom Burns author of Why Doctors Don’t Get Rich. You’re listening to The Gold Collar Investor Podcast with Pancham Gupta.

Pancham Gupta  Welcome to The Gold Collar Investor Podcast This is your host, Pancham. Really appreciate you for tuning in today. I am super excited for the show today. Tony Robbins once said that success in life is 80% psychology and 20% mechanics. What you do does not matter if you are not in the right mindset. I’ve talked about this quote so many times and every single time I discuss mindset with someone on the show this quote comes to my mind. Understanding the ways psychology can work for you or against you will help you establish a healthier outlook and put you in the right mindset to execute your strategy. I have Paul Hopkins Berger on the show. In 2007, he achieved one of his lifelong goals by becoming only the 873rd person in history to swim the English Channel. The swim was firmed and included in the Discovery Channel documentary Human Body, Pushing the Limits, which was nominated for Emmy awards at the 2008 60th anniversary Emmy Awards. In 2008, he swam the channel again, becoming the only the 84th person in the history to swim it twice. In the same year, he became the oldest person known to represent Great Britain at open water swimming when he competed in two FIFA World Cup open water Grand Prix swims in Serbia and Mexico. Then in 2010, he completed his third crossing of the English Channel as part of a six person relay international team. So, without talking about him much. Let’s welcome Paul to the show. Paul, welcome to the show.

Paul Hopfensperger  Thank you very much.

Pancham Gupta  I am so excited for today’s show, and I know this is going to be great because we are going to dissect the elements of personal growth and mindset that you need to be successful. So, Paul, tell our listeners about your background and more importantly, the person behind that background.

Paul Hopfensperger  Okay, yeah, well, I live here in in England, where a little town called Bury St. Edmunds, which is around about 80 miles from London, so not too far from London. And my background was as a mechanical engineer. I studied Mechanical Engineering in Cambridge HD, which you probably heard of, but I went to college for the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, not Cambridge University.

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, you’re talking to the right crowd here. You’re an engineer. I’m an engineer. A lot of people listening are engineers. So yeah, there’s this close knit group. Go ahead. Sorry to get you,

Paul Hopfensperger  Yeah. No, I studied engineering. And just as I got to the end of my, towards the end of my studying, I did six years actually. And then as it got towards the end, CAD CAM was getting very big and programming of CAD, computer aided design and computer aided manufacture systems. And I got into the programming side of it. And after studying mechanical engineering for six years of being a design engineer for two years, I became a programmer on a totally different scale. It was working on police and magistrates courts, computer systems in the court systems. So, they went sideways on it via from I just love the early programming languages used to do Fortran, Pascal, Basic, C and just some C and all very early language back in the early 80s. there so yeah, it’s great fun. Yeah.

Pancham Gupta  Awesome. So, what are you like doing these days? So, what are your – inaudible – ? So, you did that engineering?

Paul Hopfensperger  Going back to 1987? They always say things don’t just happen. Things happen just in a year, Jim Roney say that 

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, I love that quote, yeah.

Paul Hopfensperger  I love it and it’s come through so many times. And what actually happened was I met a guy who had this badge on the side of his car saying Herbalife and I just happened to come home from work, and I made the I’m gonna say made the mistake, but it wasn’t a mistake. I made the mistake of saying what’s Herbalife and off he went not forgetting I’m like an engineer programmer, you know, earning great money. And he said to me, you know about Herbalife, and he recruited me into Herbalife, and I thought it was very exciting and I mainly signed up into it to actually get rid of him. He just wouldn’t stop talking about this Herbalife and this this was in April 1987. And because of that, I actually am qualified for a workshop in Chicago, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just telling people about this product and thinking, this was April 1987, I sold over $12,000 worth of this product. And I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just like a babbling idiot talking about this stuff. I got on an airplane went to Chicago. And on July 25, 1987, I walked into this room, and there was a guy called Larry Thompson talking on stage with this guy called Jim Rohn. And, wow, I sat there, and they blew me away. You know, they said things like, you know, for things to change, you’ve got to change for things to get better, you’ve got to get better. And I never heard anything like this before. And it was so exciting for me, you know, coming from a small town here in England. And in going to Chicago, and meeting this guy called Jim Ronan and everyone was excited. I was excited. And I was actually I didn’t even know what I was excited about. I was so excited to do though it was, it was a totally different concept from me, being an engineer, designing stuff and writing computer software. I got into that. And over the years, I always sold Herbalife and some other products, some other nutritional supplements, and various products. But also, I had my own computer company, I went into computers big time, I employed 10 people, and sold that in 2009 when everyone started doing computers, and pivoted my business, and then here I am now sort of doing nutritional supplements, herbal life, and motivational speaking for people. Yeah, so that’s what I do now. Yeah.

Pancham Gupta  That’s awesome. So, I actually, there’s so much to unpack there. I first of all, like, you know, I’ve listened to Jim Rohn’s tapes so many times that I feel that I’ve never met the guy, but I know about the guy a lot. But I really always feel like I wish I had seen him in person. And you’re the guy I’ve gone and met him with, you know, Larry Thompson, and that’s awesome. So

Paul Hopfensperger  that, Pancham. It was so exciting. And I didn’t appreciate it at the time was that with Herbalife, I sat in a room with Larry Thompson and Jim Rohn and Mark Hughes, the founder of Herbalife, every single month, for 3 years for a whole day, when we qualified for this workshop in Los Angeles in 1988. It was for two and a half days, two and a half days in a room with Jim Rohn. I took some good notes, you know, because I got to get the most I’m got to get the notes down. And I took great notes. And I still have them. I still have those very, very notes in front of me here as in getting this very book, which goes back to 1987. I have one in front of me here, you know, so yeah, and I didn’t appreciate it at the time.

Pancham Gupta  No, this is amazing. How many people were there in those 1988 workshop like this,  like a lot, thousands and thousands or is it hundreds?

Paul Hopfensperger  Thousands and thousands.  I just used to go out and speak to Jim Rohn. And I said to him, he said something about this, Jim. And I said, what did you mean by that? And this was afterwards, you know, and he said, oh, I meant sound design. So, you know, whatever it was I was talking about, but there was probably sometimes down to say 200 people in the room with him. Other times, we had a big event in Los Angeles, I’d imagine there’s probably two and a half thousand people in there then and anything in between. Some of these rooms are very small and we sat in there and they were like our friends and mentors, you know we didn’t realize how big it was gonna get at the time. So, it’s very exciting. Yeah,

Pancham Gupta  It is. It is amazing. So, Jim Rohn has had such a big impact on my life, even though I’ve never met a guy. So awesome. So, I know like you’ve written multiple books been just published one Amazon bestseller in multiple countries. Why don’t you talk about that. And I also want to get into your story about crossing the English Channel, right? Like you actually swam through? How many times did you do that?

Paul Hopfensperger  I’ve done three officially, I’ve done three swims crossing English Channel, and two of them where we go solos, and one was a relay. 

Pancham Gupta  Wow, 

Paul Hopfensperger  People say to me, well, a relay is the swim across the channel said, I said yes it is uh, you know, when people win an Olympic gold medal for being in a relay that didn’t say, well, you didn’t win one because it’s in a relay, you know, this relay was really tough. So, I’ve done two solos, and a relay,yeah.

Pancham Gupta  Amazing. So, I can’t even fathom like, you know, what might have gone through your mind when you first actually decided to do it and what people around you thought about your idea of actually doing it. So why don’t you tell us about how did you come up with this idea? When did you first decided and what were people thinking around you?

Paul Hopfensperger  Yeah, well, it was a funny story, but my mum put me in the very similar swimming club when I was at age four and a half. And I asked her once just before she died. You’re not numb because I was trying to get some notes down for my book. And I said, mum, why did you put me in the water? I said, you can’t even swim and she said, I wanted to give you something to do. And I wanted to keep you off the streets. I’ve often thought about that. I thought wow, you know what foresight she had to do that you know, it’s incredible. So, I’ve always been a swimmer gone up to about age 17 and we met this guy called Mike Shuck, his name said, I do apologize. His name was Mike Reed and Mike was the king of the channel, which is a phrase which I thought, well, what does that mean king of the channel. And he was the world record holder for the number of English Channel swims. This was when I was 17. So, they planted a seed there in my head that one day, I wanted to swim the English Channel, and I swam up to a very good standard. You know, in England, we have counties now counties, and more like your states, because we’re so small over here. So, I was county champion, county record holder, sent in the nationals. And I always, always had two goals. One was to swim for Great Britain, and one was to swim the English Channel. And I got to age 22, doing my engineering and doing all the stuff that I was doing. And I got to the stage where I thought I can’t do anymore, I’m gonna have to retire, I’m gonna have to retire. And I stopped swimming. And I started doing martial arts. I did martial arts for quite a few years. And in July 2006, my wife had become mayor of the town. We were looking at ways to raise money for charity, when you’re the mayor is not the same as in America, you’re the mayor, there’s more of a Chairman of the Council. And you’re the figurehead for the town, you probably seen on television, they wear red cloaks and pointy hats. And you know, it’s a very traditional English ceremonial duty. And I said, we need to raise money for charities, and I was thinking about it, didn’t know where we’re gonna go with it. And I sat down in early July 2006. And I saw a famous British comedian say, I’m going to assume he was gonna assume the channels, we watch this program. So, I watched the program, and he succeeded in serving the English Channel. My wife was down here where I am now. She was down here cooking our evening meal. And I just watched this program. And I thought, that’s how I’m going to raise money for charity. And I walked downstairs to see her. And I said, I’m going to swim the English Channel and said, right  your soup is ready, here it is, and I said, no, no, no, no, no, you don’t you didn’t hear me. You didn’t hear me. I said, I’m going to swim the English Channel. That way, she looked at me and she’d known me for like 11 years by then. And she said, oh, she knew I was serious. So, we sat down and worked out how I was gonna swim the English Channel.

Pancham Gupta  Wow, that’s, and you had not been swimming for whatever X number of years

Paul Hopfensperger  Over 11 year, never, hadn’t swum barely anything at all, yeah.

Pancham Gupta  Wow, so then when did you actually do it? This was July of 2006. 

Paul Hopfensperger  July 2006. And so, what I did was I looked at some statistics for swimming the channel, when I looked at what I found out was that more people had climbed Mount Everest than have ever swum the English Channel. I thought, wow, you know, you know, Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. There’s around 35, cross channel, ferries go diagonally across the channel. Every single day, these ferries from England, France, England, France, England, to France, backwards and forwards, this ferries are going through the and the water temperature at the height of English summer is around about 15 degrees centigrade, which is 59 degrees Fahrenheit. There’s more than 500 cargo ships, as well as the ferries going like this, you have cargo ships going backwards and forwards. It’s the busiest shipping route in the world. And then as I was about to tell my wife, you know, I’m going to swim the English Channel. There was a big, big thing, you know, to think of at the time, I didn’t know what I was going to do other than to just get in the pool and start swimming. 

Pancham Gupta  Right, exactly. 

Paul Hopfensperger  I had to swam, you know, so I had to think to myself, where am I gonna start from, you can only ever start from where you are, right now, when people make all these excuses, you can only say, this is where I am now and that’s where I need to be. So, what I need is a plan to get from here to here. And that’s what I set out doing. Yeah,

Pancham Gupta  This is so profound. I want to get back to this point, because -inaudible- relate this to people who are listening, but before that, when did you actually then do it? Like how long it took you to prepare and

Paul Hopfensperger  Okay, so I started getting in the pool in the August of 2006. And the very first thing you do is you book your channel swim. So, you have you have to have an import, you have to start at the end, you have to start from where you are. So, I booked a pilot boats take me across, and it cost about 3000 pounds was what nearly $4,000 you have to book this guy, and I booked it for July the 10th, 2007. So, I knew I had 11 months, I had 11 months to book this to actually prepare and train for this swim and to get myself fit and to learn the skills that I needed to actually get from here, which was 32 lengths in a swimming pool to PL July the 10th 2007 which is 14 hours swimming in 15 degree water you know so that’s what I had to work out the plan here.

Pancham Gupta  Amazing. And of course, you did it and you raise money for the charities So, let’s talk about the mindset. Did you have any negative thoughts about doing it after you said you were gonna do it? And what they’re people who were demotivating you to not do it and all those things?

Paul Hopfensperger  Absolutely on both those points. Yeah. So, the first thing about the mindset is when I started doing Herbalife and listening to Larry Thompson and Jim Rohn, Larry Thompson had a really good thing about putting into your mind a slide into your mental projector. So, what he said is he said, if you can watch a film, he said, Let’s sit down today and watch a film. And you’ve put on the television which film you’re going to watch. And when you sit and watch it, the wrong film comes on the television, he actually put that in my mind, he said, if the wrong film is on the television is because you’ve got the wrong film in the projector. I use that loads of times to actually visualize swimming from England to France. So, I always try and put in into my mental projector, I put in there, the right slide. So that I was always focused on walking up the beach in France on July the 10th 2007. If there’s any ever any other doubt came in, I had to make sure I had the right the wrong slider out, put the right slide in the air to actually visualize the swim. And so, visualization for me is huge. And I use it all the time to do stuff. When I had that vision in my mind, I thought over and over and over and over again, I pictured walking in the water, or pictures swimming along, I pictured the boat alongside me. And I pictured walking up alongside onto the beach in France. I did that over and over and over and over again. And once you do that, and your mind is focused on that, then nothing’s going to put you off because your mind doesn’t know the difference when you get in the water and start swimming. Your mind doesn’t know the difference between that and what you’ve already done. 100 times in your mind. Yeah. So that’s how I did it. Yeah, for the mindset.

Pancham Gupta  No, sorry, I try to stop you there. It’s such an amazing point. I’m so big on visualization. A lot of people ask me, how did I quit my job? And my answer is actually pretty similar to yours. It’s like I visualized it. Yeah, that I want to do it right. It’s, I had these golden handcuffs. And same thing you did, you know, you’re visualizing yourself every day on the beach, every day when you will ritualizing that you’re on the beach, walking into the water from France, and then swimming alongside the boat, and going to the other end, it just becomes your reality at some point. And that is such an amazing point. And that’s, I want to come back to this. Sorry, you continue, you’re talking about the second point. 

Paul Hopfensperger  The second point was the negative side of it. So, I’m in local politics, or counselors we call over here. So, at the time, I was a county council, which has been like a state senator, if you like in America, this is not as big as a state senator, but a county Council’s you know, pretty high up is that the next level is being in Parliament in the UK, house account counselors as an independent counselor, so I wasn’t in any political party, that you’re just me in there. And so, I had a lot of anti me, if you like, from the people who are in the political parties, because they number one, they don’t like the fact that you’re not in a party. And because they don’t really know how to have a go at you about anything. All I used to do was what people asked me to do as an elected politician, they had to do what the party tells them to do. And they didn’t like it, you know, so there’s a lot of nastiness here, you know, in in local politics and that. And so, one guy who was the mayor at the time, his friend gave me some money towards the cost of the swim, you know, it was GBP6000-7000, it costs you to swim the channel. Yeah. And he gave me some money. And there’s one guy said, you should, all I’m going to do is give him a pair of lead boots. You know, that was the nastiness of politics. That fired me up even more to succeed. When people do that, to me, it makes me want to succeed even more as something inside that does that, you know, it doesn’t put me off, it makes me want to do it even more, you know. So, yeah. So, I think you asked your original questions, nothing was going to put me off from swimming through England to France.

Pancham Gupta  Awesome, awesome. So now I want to go back to your point. You said, start from where you are, right, and also this visualization that you do. So, you know, someone who’s listening right now to this, they might have certain things in their life that they really want to achieve. They just feel stuck, they feel stuck, that they just can go get away from the treadmill of life that they are in today. And they want to get unstuck, right, and they want to create a life of their dreams. What advice would you have for them, who are in that mindset with COVID more people have actually gone into that stuck feeling, and they want to get unstuck, like, what advice would you have?

Paul Hopfensperger  Yeah, I mean, I think whatever you want to do in life, nothing is stopping you except for yourself. People like to actually be in this situation where they can complain about not be able to do this. And they’re not they can’t do this, because that’s where they are. And sometimes, you know, as a local politician by try and help people and give them the answer. And when you do that, they don’t like it. Because they got nothing to complain about, then. They like complaining, you know, so Jim Rohn will probably call the other people who we call, the other complainers you know, that’s right. That’s normal that they complain. But anybody can change their mindset. And anybody can achieve whatever is they want to achieve. I think the first thing is find a mentor, find a mentor. I didn’t know that at the time back in 1987. I wasn’t looking for a mentor. I found Jim Rohn and Larry Thompson. And those two people have always been my mentors. And I think the reason we’re sitting here today is because of meeting Kyle, who worked with Jim Rohn. And then now me and you are chatting. So, from that Herbalife sticker on the back in my car in 1987. Me and you are sitting here talking now.

Pancham Gupta  Exactly. 

Paul Hopfensperger  That’s faster. 

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, serendipity, you know?

Paul Hopfensperger  Yeah, absolutely. So, number one, find a mentor. And if they’re successful at what they do, then listen to what they do. You know, Jim Rohn said to me, first thing Mr. shelf, said to me was get this little book, The Richest Man in Babylon. And he said, you know, how many people got that book, The Richest Man in Babylon? Probably, you know, not many, you know, less than 5%? 

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, you said 5%.  Like, every single time he would go in a crowd and tell that it’s like six bucks, and it will change your life? Only 5% people will go and get it?

Paul Hopfensperger  Absolutely. Yes. I mean, why is that? That’s what he called mysteries of the mind, you know, mysteries of the mind. You know, why would only 5% go get that little book, The Richest Man in Babylon. So, the first thing I did was Jim Rohn said, get this book. I got the book, Richest Man in Babylon. I got it. still sitting on my shelf here, the same one I’ve had for years and years near very, very crinkled. And he also said, get this other book, Think and Grow Rich. He said, wouldn’t that fascinate you? Wouldn’t that actually get into your head and say, Think and Grow Rich Think and Grow Rich? Wow, that sounds good stuff. Thinking grow rich he said , you know what I did. I went got Thinking Grow Rich. Now when I got that there was no internet. I don’t even know how I even found it. I went everywhere trying to find outthink And Grow Rich. There it is sitting on my bookshelf behind me thinking grow rich. Know how many other people got that you know, less than 5%. So, you have to want to achieve, you have to want to achieve if you have anything you want to do anything in life you want to do, mine was I wanted to swim the channel. It took me a long time from age 17 to 43 to swim the channel, but I did it because I found a mentor. And he gave me the tools I needed to actually get there found a mentor, read the book. And he used to say listen to the tapes. How difficult is it to listen to a tape when you get in the car listen to the tape, so you know when now we’ve got everything’s on the internet now. It’s so easy. It’s so easy. And some of it is free. You can get some free stuff out in free as easy as that as Jim would say free is easy to get this stuff. Listen to it. A lot of my friends who got involved in Herbalife in 97, they all dropped out. I can’t even tell you who actually got the tapes that I was given the book from Larry Thompson, The Millionaire Training Tapes. They’re called by Larry Thompson. I’ve heard him tell you how many my team got that? They wouldn’t get them. They said, well, we don’t need them. We don’t need them. I must say yeah, but  listen, he’s telling you how to do it on these tapes as, no, we’re okay but we’re okay. And then they, they did it for three months and dropped out?  I’ve always tried to do what my mentors have told me to do. So, if you want to achieve anything, write it down and work out a plan from where you are right now to how you achieve it. And when you finished it, take it off the list. Take it off the list. Again, Jim Rohn is talking about flying to Madrid. He says find to get you all to go to Spain, little one of his goals. And that’s the wheels touch down in Madrid, he ticked it off the list. So, it’s great. ticking them off the list is great.

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, awesome. So, you know, I guess your answer, if I were to summarize it, you really think about what you want to do, find that mentor who has done it many times before you look up to and then do what he says if it is to get the books, get the books and read it and make your list from start where you are and where you want to be and see how you want to get there. It’s really simple and really powerful advice. I can’t tell you how simple it is, but it’s also how difficult it is. Yeah, it’s as Jim Rohn he was talking with Jim Rohn. And, you know, we can talk about him all day long. He used to say that you have to do things consistently an apple a day keeps the doctor away. So, an apple a day, it’s not 10 apples in one day in one apple a day, it’s not you eat 10 apples after 10 days, on a single day, that won’t be it. And it’s there you gonna say that would keep you healthy so It’s an apple a day.

Paul Hopfensperger  Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And John Maxwell said something about the law of the lid, I got this out in case you wanted to hear this, because I love this.  This is the first thing I did when I was training with John Maxwell. And he has something called the law of the lid. And he says, your business cannot go past your lid of your current leadership skills. But you can raise the lid with training and your skills, and your business will grow with it. Your Business cannot grow past your current lid of your current leadership skills. So that’s what I’m saying about finding your mentors. There’s all these people sitting out there through COVID. And everyone sat indoors, what an amazing time it was to actually raise your lid. What an amazing time it was and that’s what I did. So, number one is I finished my training with John Maxwell. Number two, I joined Carl’s inner circle. And mail these fabulous people, including you, obviously. But you have to go out there and do it. Put one foot in front of the other and start on that journey. You see, you have to make that first step. That’s the important bit, isn’t it?

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, I want to talk about the book that I’m honored to be part of, as you know, as you’ve been the co-author, tell us what is that book about? Why did you choose to do it? And then I also want to talk to you about one specific failure that you can speak to that set you up for later success in life.

Paul Hopfensperger  Yeah, great. Well, I mean, the book was called Bringing Value, Solving Problems and Leaving a Legacy. When Kyle originally mentioned about this book, I thought bringing value solving problems, and leaving a legacy. And I thought, well, assuming the channel is actually I can put that into the book. And so, I started with solving problems. So, solving problems. So how do you get in a swimming pool and swim 32 lengths, you know, 40 lengths, or 50 days, I’ve got up to about 180 lengths in a swimming pool, a swimming pool is warm, I knew I was gonna have to get into the sea. So, I thought, I’m going to explain in the book how I solved the problem of going from swimming in the pool, to swimming in the sea. And that involves getting in Sea, with a pair of Speedo trunks having goggles on December the 26th 2006, I had to solve that problem how to get from being in a swimming pool into the sea was going to do sort of distributor channel. So, a long story short on that one, I swam one mile against the tide for 35 minutes in six degrees water. So, I think six degrees is about 49 Fahrenheit and in America around about, you know, really cold, it was really cold. And I got in our water. And it was the most, it was like someone had checked me into naked into a bath of ice while an elephant standing on my head. That’s what it felt like. And I remember feeling like that. So, I thought I need to put that into the book. So eventually, I swam that one mile in freezing cold water. And that was a solving a problem, a part of the book. And the next part of it was swimming to France. So eventually we got through to that. And bringing value to people is now because of that book. I’m sitting here now talking to you. And hopefully people around the world something I’m going to say tonight, I’m sure some of the stuff that you’re going to say is going to resonate with people. And this kind of make them want to achieve something they’ve always wanted to do. So yeah, I’ve spoken to people now around the world. And I think when I when I lose about 60 odd countries now I’ve spoken to people around the world. And hopefully that’s bringing some value to them. So, bringing value solving problems, and leaving a legacy, that book and how I achieve that plus everyone else’s in that book, including your great story, which I’ve read as well obviously as a fabulous story that’s leaving a legacy that that book is invaluable to people as it is leaving a legacy that mean you can leave behind after we’ve gone, and people can actually read through all those chapters. And it covers such a vast array of different industries as yours in the financial industry. And there’s Kyle’s with marketing mind is speaking on here that there’s Mitchy’s story. I love Mitchy story Michyi Purdue’s story. And you know, there’s some great stories in there. And anyone can get that book for in England is GBP8.75 or GBP8.65 which is for sure about $8-$9 as well, $8-$9 for that information.

Pancham Gupta  Yeah, we’ll put the link in the show notes for the book. So, guess about a specific failure that you can speak of that sets you up for later success.

Paul Hopfensperger  Yeah, you will laugh when I say this, but I was on a call with Mark Cole from John Maxwell team. Yeah, he’s the CEO, John Maxwell team and I was on a call with him. And he was talking about being a serial quitter. Serial quitter. You know, people always saying don’t quit, don’t quit, don’t quit. And he was telling us how being a serial quitter can actually help you in life? And I said, yes. I said, yes. I said, the first time that I’ve always wanted to be the mayor of our town, always wanted to be the mayor of our town. And I got to be deputy mayor in 2005, 2006. And because of all this nastiness I was telling you about, I decided, I’ve had enough of this, and I quit, I quit.  Because I quit, my wife became Mayor and because my wife was married to raise money for charity, and I ended up swimming the English Channel, which is one of my lifelong dreams. So, because I failed being the mayor, it led to me swimming the channel. And we’ve raised, as you said earlier, about around about sixteen thousand and half pounds and that’s over $20,000 for two local charities here, we raise that money. And over the years, I’m going to give this another go. And in 2019, 2020, I became deputy mayor again of this town. And again, it got really nasty, it got so bad this time is so bad. I held the balance of power, because it was equal political party, like we call them labor conservative, you have labor as Democrats, conservative is Republican. I was independent, equal me I held the balance of power. And the abuse I got was intolerable. And so, it came to light early last year, and I was really, really had enough. And I quit. And because of that, I ended up writing my book, and writing the book, becoming a number one bestselling author, finishing my John Maxwell team training. And again, I’m on here tonight with you, because I quit. Sometimes things are not right for you. They’re just not right for and there’s nothing wrong with quitting. If it’s affecting your mental health, and it was affecting my mental health. It really got so bad. I can’t tell you how bad it was. Because of that. Here I am now, number one bestselling author. And as of where are we three weeks ago now, number one, bestselling music artists. And that’s because I quit from being Deputy Mayor twice. Right two big failures, on my list I always want to be Mayor. I haven’t written it off yet. But you know, I’ve had I’ve had two goals now got close. But yeah, I quit.

Pancham Gupta   A very powerful, very powerful. Thank you for sharing that Paul. Great. So, I want to move on to the second part of the show, which I called taking the leap round. We’ll be back after this message… If you are an accredited investor and have been thinking about putting your money to work for you, then I have good news for you. I have created an investor club, which I call The Gold Collar Investor Club, I will be putting together investing opportunities exclusively for the group. These are the opportunities where I have done the due diligence for you, and we’ll be investing my own money alongside you. If you are interested, please sign up on thegoldcollarinvestor.com/club, I repeat, thegoldcollarinvestor.com/club. I will reach out to schedule a 30 minute phone conversation to discuss your investing goals. Once you sign up, this can be a good opportunity to diversify and take some chips of the hands of Wall Street to produce some passive income. And in case you were wondering, what is an accredited investor, accredited investor is someone who has earned more than $200,000 as filing single or more than $300,000 filing jointly for last two years. Another way to qualify as an accredited investor is if your total net worth is more than $1 million, excluding your personal home. It includes your stocks for one case, IRAs, cars, etc. Just not the equity in your personal home. If this is you, I would highly encourage you to sign up…So Paul, I ask these three questions to every guest on my show when I talk about mindset. And my first question for you is what is one book that took your journey to the next level and had the most impact in your life, other than your own book?

Paul Hopfensperger  Yeah. No, I actually think I’ve got two and I’ve already mentioned them. You know, Jim Rohn said about The Richest Man in Babylon check out this little book Richest Man in Babylon and I have never been a great reader. Never been a great reader. At school, we have some good English literature, which is all about reading books, we have English language, learning the English language in English literature about reading books. And I’ve got a U in English literature, which means ungraded. When Jim Rohn moments said to me, get this little bit book, Richest Man in Babylon, I got the book and I read it, I read it. And I thought, wow, 10% of all I earn is mine to keep. He said these little things. What he basically said was given from your 100% of your salary, give 10% charity 10% is yours to invest and 10% is yours to do with what you want to innovate to invest your life little guy who built the little boy who repaired the wagon, you know, bought the wagon, and repaired it, and then he sold it. But 10% of your everything that you earn is yours to keep? Well, no one ever told me that no one ever told me this stuff about investing 10%. You know, I used to get 20 pounds a week from work. I used to spend 20 pounds a week, you know, no one said to me or anything about saving 10% You know? So, this this book was, yeah, it’s a very small book. And then in Babylon, and this incredible book, and Thinking Grow Rich made me realize about the mindset about Think and Grow Rich. So, you can think yourself to be it to being rich. And there’s some really heavy stuff in some of it is even more. This is a bit heavy, you know, but Napoleon Hill wrote this book, and he interviewed the other 20 plus years, and he and interviewed people like Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison near these people, he interviewed these people, and worked out how they succeeded and put it in a book.

Pancham Gupta  Exactly. Amazing. It’s amazing. That book, I’ve read it multiple times.

Paul Hopfensperger  Absolutely yeah. But when you when you start reading those type of books, anything I need more, I need more information. Yeah, you know, my, my own personal development library behind me now, it’s got lots of books in it. And again, as Jim said, you know, are smart enough to buy I need to be smart enough to read them all, now you know, because I’ve got, like, if you’re gonna get this book, got to get this book got to get this book. And I haven’t read them all yet. But they’re there for me. And every, every night before I go to bed, even if I’m really tired, I sit there for 10,15, 20 minutes and just read the book before I go to bed. So, it’s really those two without the start of it. Yeah, without a doubt.

Pancham Gupta  Great. Thank you for sharing that. So, my second question for you is, are you working on anything that is bringing you outside of your comfort zone? If so, what is it?

Paul Hopfensperger  Yeah. So, as you know, we just worked with an incredible guy called Roy Smoothe as an international music producer and we just produced this song, which, which is using what was in my book, you know, in the book just keeps showing until you get to France, we turn it into a song. He liked that. And he’s now come back to me again. And we’re now working on more songs. Yeah, so I’ve always loved music. I used to play in a band as a kid, you know, we had we had a band and always want to do certain type of music. Roy’s is actually doing this mix of personal development and speaking and turning it into music and, and I feel quite uncomfortable with it if you like, but I’m trusting him. But it doesn’t feel right to do that type of music for me, but I’m now starting to enjoy it. And we’re on our second track now. So yeah, what’s the space on that one?

Pancham Gupta  

Absolutely. How can people get the first one if they want and get it? 

Paul Hopfensperger  

Yeah, so my first song, I don’t know if my name is on screen or not, but it is paulhopfensperger.com, it says www.paulhopfensperger.com and on there, we have a little shop on there, and they can download the song is 79 pence in English. And if they buy it, I also send them a free digital copy of the chapter from my book. Just keep swimming until you get to France.

Pancham Gupta  Awesome. Yeah, no, that’s great. We are going to put that in our show notes. So don’t worry about it. So, my last question for you is , this is amazing. actually, you know, I’ve never thought of being music. This is awesome.

Paul Hopfensperger  Elon said something he said why not do it all, see it all, have it all. You got to stay here till you go what else you’re going to do? I took that to heart, you know.  I like my swimming politicians, you know, my business speaking to, speaking to you, music, you know, do it all,  see it all or have it all you got to stay here to go. What else are you going to do? You know, I always think that one.

Pancham Gupta  Awesome, awesome. So, my last question for you, Paul, is how do you like to give back to community? 

Paul Hopfensperger  Yeah, well, the first thing is, I’ve always raised money for charity, always. And I love doing something and be able to give money to a charity and similar channel 16 and a half thousand pounds. I don’t know if you’ve heard of something called Round Table. It’s the I think it’s an international organization now but something from the age of 18 to 40 you can be In Round Table. All we did was raise money for charity or community active community service. Whenever I sell some Herbalife products I always give a donation for every single sale to the Herbalife nutritional Foundation, which is giving children around the world good nutrition. So, I always like to give is something I’ve been brought up to do by my parents, and I love doing that. And perhaps the biggest thing though, is being a local politician. We have three levels of politician here we have the town council where your mayor’s when I sit here, and then we have West Suffolk Council Suffolk. I’m still a sitting West Suffolk counselor, and we have a county council and as a West Suffolk counselor, we are helping people with their daily lives. See, we you know, there’s people having problems as we said, with COVID, there’s people having mental problems, and it’s our job to help those people in whatever way we can, whether it’s helping them get their dustbin, empty the trash can what you call them in here, we call them dustbins. So, we get right from that to having the grass cut and everything that’s what we do as local politicians. So, it’s always giving back. It’s for nothing else, then actually enjoy it. They love doing it. So yeah.

Pancham Gupta  Great. Well, thank you, Paul. This has been awesome really. Thanks for sharing your background, your story, story about going through so many different things in your life and swimming the English Channel and, and the mindset. So, if people want to reach out, connect with you, how can they do that? 

Paul Hopfensperger  Yeah, well, I have an email address, which is mail m a i l@paulhopfensperger.com  And I’m sure you’ll tell them how to spell out again. Absolutely. We’re going to put it in the show notes. Yeah, my website paulhopfensperger.com , as we just mentioned, and yeah, happy to connect. Yeah.

Pancham Gupta  Great. Thank you for your time, Paul.

Paul Hopfensperger  Thank you for inviting me because I’ve really enjoyed it. And it’s been an absolute honor to be on here with you Pancham.

Pancham Gupta  Thank you, Paul. I hope you are as motivated as I am about the you know getting things done and achieving the things that you want in life after listening to Paul’s story. I hope you learned something from it. Thank you for listening. I really appreciate you for tuning in. If you have questions, email me at p@thegoldcollarinvestor.com.  This is Pancham signing off. Until next time, take care.

Thank you for listening to The Gold Collar Investor Podcast. If you love what you’ve heard and you want more of Pancham Gupta, visit us at www.thegoldcollar investor.com and follow us on Facebook @thegoldcollarinvestor. The information on this podcast are opinions. As always, please consult your own financial team before investing.