Simplify to Amplify:

Less Complexity, Better Results

Hi!

I am Andrew Lawless, Investor, Founder of The High Performance Consultant Academy.

My mission is to beat the system and create the freedom to be yourself.

I accomplish that by transforming business consultants into high-performing entrepreneurs who can overcome common challenges, such as:

• Feast-and-famine cycles,
• Revenue plateaus,
• Chronic stress and overwork.

This is as much about healthy scaling operations as it is about simplifying and streamlining income for long-term financial security.

I am known for my ability to simplify systems without oversimplifying.

As a result, my client discover easier and better ways to:

• Generate a stable cash flow to ensure that personal finances are secure.
• Create customer success with high standards of service as they grow.
• Exceed client expectations without overwhelming personal time.

My immutable laws are to:

• Always work hard and are nice to people.
• Always make decisions with positive cash flow in mind.
• Always eliminate stress by eradicating its root cause.
• Never work with jerks or energy suckers.
• Always exercise total client orientation. Everybody is a client.

These are based on values I have developed in the last 20 years of coaching, training, and developing thought leaders in Fortune 10 and 500 companies, solo entrepreneurs, small business owners, and even Special Forces and FBI Agents.

A little-known fact about me is that I once worked as a bodyguard for martial arts actor Jean Claude Van Damme. But only for a day. But that's the pivotal moment I developed my 'never work with jerks' rule.

Around the same time, I was also the first journalist in Germany to interview Bill Gates for a major publication, the German edition of Forbes magazine.

Bill told me to stop writing and focus on multimedia CD-ROMs. Why not follow a billionaire's advice, right? We all know what happened: The internet ruled and I went broke. That's when I decided to always make decisions with positive cash flow in mind.

I took what I developed for multimedia and created a computer show with it. My mission was to educate my fellow Germans about computers and why it was important for them to know them. No one thought tech was a big thing.

I called it Dig-IT, a wordplay to convey the idea of 'digging tech' and being 'digital.' The show was considered to be very well produced, but, and I quote: "There is no market for it. Ever."

So. I decided to leave Germany and immigrate to the United States. Working for the parent company of Scientific American, I led the development of the first website for Scientific American. After all, we now had these super-fast 56.6 baud modems.

That work led me to a then-merging industry called localization, which is now mainstream in software development, but not then. I remember a panel of journalists ridiculing me because I once suggested that this industry would create billionaires. And then, a decade or so later my friend, Liz Elting, did, and made it on the Forbes list of 50 richest self-made women - as the founder of a localization company.

I was also good at what I was doing, but went a different route. Far less lucrative as it turned out - but I felt I could make a bigger difference in the world and joined the World Bank to empower the world's poorest people.

I learned two things from that experience:

1. Large organizations can become very busy serving themselves first. That's when I fully embraced the idea of Total Client Orientation. 

2. My true gift is finding simple solutions that work - as evidenced by my ability to get a few bottles of red wine at 8 AM in Dubai.

In my defense, I was ending all-nighter at the World Bank/IMF Annual Meeting and needed to be medicated.

Then two things happened at the same time. In the aftermath of 9/11 the FBI wanted to pick my brain about streamlining translations and the World Bank needed a consultant to help them build translation operations in multiple countries, such as Argentina, Cameroon, China, Jamaica, Mozambique, and Russia.

So, I left what would be my last corporate job and became a consultant to both organizations. Talking about a smooth transition. 

But one day, I was sitting in my hotel in Yaounde, Cameroon unsuccessfully trying to communicate with my family on Yahoo Messenger. Already separated from my first wife, I then and there made my decision to spend more time home.

Long story short. Got married again in Washington, DC to a girl from Ireland. Moved to Galway, Ireland in 2017, relocated the whole family to Austin, TX in 2020 in the midst of the COVID lockdowns. and founded the High Performance Consultant Academy.

Yes, there's much more to it.

Stay tuned as I update this page - I am currently planning to acquire a company...