Monique Lindner takes us on her journey of growing up in Germany, working every waking hour to support her family starting at age 13, despite gender discrimination, bullying and living with chronic diseases. She explains how, at age 19, she ultimately collapsed and was pronounced clinically dead for 25 seconds. She shares the out of body experience and the life reflections that prompted. After a number of dismal years in the corporate world, enduring more severe health problems, and the horrific trauma of being raped by her physical therapist, she began a massive life transition. Monique explains her decision to quit her corporate job, start traveling the world full-time and begin transforming her trauma, hardship, and adversity into power. She shares her travel adventures, including biking the World’s Most Dangerous Road, swimming with Caimans, and having an anaconda wrapped around her legs in the Amazon. After getting robbed of her entire life savings in Vietnam, she explains how, with $40 to her name, she subsisted on one bowl of oatmeal per day, for 6 weeks, as she bartered her skills to bootstrap the business that she runs today coaching CEOs and high achieving business leaders. She then dives into her area of expertise and explains “Peak Performance”, “Human Optimization”, and how to use her T.I.M.E method to dramatically improve productivity and results. She also explains her concepts of “Slowing down to speed up”, “lifestyle optimization” and shares the most effective leverage points her clients have used to increase revenue while decreasing work hours and reducing stress, anxiety and overwhelm. FULL SHOW NOTES AVAILABLE AT www.TheMaverickShow.com
Episode #55: Peak Performance, Swimming with Caimans, and Transforming Trauma into Power with Monique Lindner
Episode Summary
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What You'll Learn
- Techniques for turning trauma, hardship, and adversity into power.
- Techniques for peak performance and lifestyle optimization.
- How to come back after losing everything and bootstrap a business through bartering.
Links From the Episode
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Download Monique’s Free Guide: “5 Steps To a Bulletproof Morning Routine for Busy Leaders”
Book Your Free Performance Audit with Monique
(Use the Code “MAVERICK” to get a $250 Discount if you decide to become one of Monique’s private clients)
Watch Monique’s TedX talk on “The Power of Resiliency”
THE #1 BOOK MONIQUE RECOMMENDS
CONFERENCE THAT MATT AND MONIQUE ATTENDED
CHARITY THAT MONIQUE SUPPORTS
THE PERSON WITH WHOM MONIQUE WOULD MOST LIKE TO HAVE DINNER
PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS THAT MONIQUE RECOMMENDS
- Newsfeed Eradicator for Facebook
- The 10-Minute Planner
LOCATION WHERE THE INTERVIEW TOOK PLACE
OTHER PLACES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
TOP 3 FAVORITE TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
TOP BUCKET LIST TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
CONTACT MONIQUE
- Monique’s Website
- Monique’s Personal Facebook
- Monique’s Facebook Group for High Performing Entrepreneurs
Time Stamped Show Notes
[4:08] GROWING UP IN EAST GERMANY
- Monique explains East German History and Culture
- She explains the work ethic, community dynamic, and entrepreneurial spirit
- She explains the seclusion and limiting beliefs she grew up with
- Confronting age and gender discrimination
- Starting to work at age 13 and working every day for 6 years to support her family
[17:16] COLLAPSING AND BEING CLINICALLY DEAD FOR 25 SECONDS
- Having an epileptic seizure and dying for 25 seconds
- Monique explains her vivid out of body experience
- She explains her life reflections and lessons from the experience
[22:35] SURVIVING EXTREME TRAUMA AND STARTING A RADICAL TRANSFORMATION PROCESS
- Continuing to overwork herself for another 5 years
- Developing a crippling spine injury that prevented her ability to walk
- Being fired from her job
- Being raped by her physical therapist while unable to walk
- Being unable to find support from friends or recourse from the police
- Seeking out holistic therapy
- Hiding her inability to walk in order to get another job
- Reflecting on life and contemplating radical transformation strategies
- Breaking down her life progress plan and breaking it down into mini action steps
- Deciding to leave the corporate world forever.
[32:31] QUITTING HER CORPORATE JOB TO START TRAVELING THE WORLD
- The mindset shift that led to her total shift in her life path
- The emotional breakdown in an airport that was her key transitionary moment
- Deciding to move to Thailand to become a scuba diving instructor
- Bartering her marketing skills to get free scuba diving lessons and certification
- Moving to Australia to work for a year
- Using her savings to travel through South America for 7 months
- Hiking and Trekking for 3,000 kilometers.
[38:04] MONIQUE’S ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AMERICA
- The Inca Trail trek to Machu Picchu in Peru
- The Cano Cristales (River of 5 Colors) in Colombia
- Mountain biking the World’s Most Dangerous Road in Bolivia
- Taking a bus on the old “death road” to get into the Amazon Jungle
- Swimming with pink dolphins and caimans in the Amazon
- Having an Anaconda around her legs
[53:32] RE-LOCATING TO VIETNAM, GETTING ROBBED, AND STARTING A BUSINESS
- Moving to Vietnam to take a marketing manager position
- Getting robbed of all her money
- Subsisting on one bowl of oatmeal a day for 6 weeks
- Starting a business working from 6 pm to 2 am every day after work
- Bootstrapping her business with $0 by bartering her skills
[1:03:00] HIGH PERFORMANCE AND HUMAN OPTIMIZATION
- “Slowing down to speed up”
- Achieving flow states and prioritizing the highest impact activities
- Explaining her T.I.M.E method
- Time Management Techniques using an 80/20 and a 95/5 framework
- Explaining “Impactful Leadership”
- Explaining “Mind-hacking”
- Energy conservation and repelling toxicity
[1:10:29] BODY-MIND-SPIRIT ALIGNMENT AND “LIFESTYLE OPTIMIZATION”
- Monique’s path to understanding Body-Mind-Spirit Alignment
- Developing a scientific (as opposed to a “woo woo”) approach
- How she works with her clients on their Body-Mind-Spirit Alignment
- The mindset shift for “lifestyle optimization”
- The importance of living your dream life in the present
- The leverage points that have created the biggest impact on her clients
[1:19:52] SOCIAL IMPACT AND AFFECTING POSITIVE CHANGE IN THE WORLD
- Volunteering with elephants every weekend
- Doing anti-sex-trafficking advocacy work in Thailand
- Donating a portion of her revenue to “Daughter’s Rising”
[1:27:08] THE LIGHTNING ROUND
- The #1 Book Monique recommends
- The top 2 Productivity Tools Monique recommends
- The Advice Monique would give to her 18-year-old-self.
- The Person with whom Monique would most like to have dinner
- Monique’s Top 3 Favorite Travel Destinations
- Monique’s Top 3 Bucket List Experiences
[1:33:40] CONTACT MONIQUE
- Get Monique’s Guide: “5 Step to a Perfect Morning Routine for Busy Leaders”
- Check Out Monique’s Website
- Follow Monique on Facebook
- Join Monique’s Entrepreneur Productivity Facebook Group
About the Guest
Monique Lindner
Monique Lindner is a high performance and human optimization specialist, TedX speaker, and location-independent entrepreneur. Her clients range from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies like Apple. She works with individual CEOs and business leaders as well as teams of up to 160 people in helping them to optimizes systems, processes, mindset, and productivity to achieve massive impact. Monique has helped her clients cut up to 50% of working hours, double and triple their revenue, and significantly reduce stress, anxiety and overwhelm while building unbreakable confidence and resilience. With her unique T.I.M.E. METHOD and her motto ‘Slow Down to Speed Up’, she is on a mission to help high achieving business owners take back control of their time and energy. Monique has built her business with a complete location-independent infrastructure, and has been traveling the world full time for over 5 years and has been to 44 countries. Monique is also a survivor of four chronic diseases, sexual violence, mental abuse, and bullying. She has spent years transforming trauma, adversity, and hardship into personal growth, and transforming pain into power. Today Monique is committed to helping other survivors of trauma, sexual violence, and chronic diseases to become the strongest, most confident and most empowered versions of themselves by building resiliency, self-love, and an invincible will to live.
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