Bio for Christian Höferle
Christian Höferle is a cultural consultant and mentor with his company, The Culture Mastery.
Based in Atlanta, Christian is German by passport, American by choice, and Bavarian at heart.
Episode highlight
Tune into this podcast to learn how German Christian Höferle unearthed valuable lessons from Americans to help people develop a deeper understanding of different cultures.
Links
Email: ch@TheCultureMastery.com
Website: https://theculturemastery.com/#contact
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/interculturaltrainerconsultant
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/christianhoeferle
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hoeferle
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCultureMastery/, https://www.facebook.com/TheCultureGuy/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theculturemastery/
Quotes
“If it doesn’t work, I didn’t fail; I learned what didn’t work, and I will course-correct.”
“There is nothing wrong in making mistakes, the only thing you could do wrong is staying stuck in your mistakes.”
Takeaways
Childhood incidents:
Christian grew up with little tolerance for people who complained about their lives, because he had understood that one needs to work hard for what one wants. This led him to become an entrepreneur later in life.
Groups you were born into:
Christian believes that all Germans continue to learn from the past demons of their country. His motivation behind working with cultures is to contribute to a cultural understanding, which in the past, Germans didn’t exhibit.
Groups you chose to belong to:
At 17, Christian went to Minnesota, USA and learned English. He was challenged with different ways of doing things, and it made him “aware that people do things differently around the world” which showed equal results.
Temperament and personality influences
Christian is “blunt to a fault” and not afraid of confrontation. He also has a short temper and can become impatient. However, he seeks harmony in personal and professional situations.
He claims that he is a dominant Knowledge personality type and values intelligence, logic, technological advancement, research development, competence, accuracy, and a big picture view.
A time I became aware that my way of doing things was cultural and specific to my cultural experience
As an exchange student, his host family took him to visit Nebraska, where they attended a loud, chaotic, celebratory church service, unlike the solemn ones he was used to. When he had a moment to speak with Tony, the host father, he commented that this was not how people should worship God. Tony reprimanded him saying he needed to respect how other people did things, even if it was different from how he did them. That day, Tony taught him an important life lesson about tolerance and inclusion.
More great insights from our guest!
Christian wants everyone to be comfortable with their vulnerability. Realizing that we all make mistakes in dealing with people from different cultures allows us to accept our imperfections, making our lives easier.
If you want to become more aware of your own biases and realize that it’s not wrong to have those, reach out to Christian!