In this concise "6 questions in 7 minutes" interview, Professor Pete Alexander talks with Alexander Trost, a German‑born, Singapore‑based leadership advisor. Trost shares his personal motto of serenity, his mission to help people experience bliss, and his belief that sustainable behavior change is hard but can be eased through new perspectives. He emphasizes that business is fundamentally about people, citing Simon Sinek, Theodore Roosevelt, and Richard Branson to illustrate that caring for people drives business success. Trost introduces his proprietary "3 C’s of leadership" – Character (core values), Compass (direction‑setting rather than micromanaging), and Coach (listening, asking powerful questions, and developing talent). He argues that a coaching mindset is more effective than a directive one. Trost also recounts his first job, highlighting how following his gut feeling—treated as a personal compass—led to a fulfilling career start. The conversation ends with a brief mention of his LinkedIn profile and website (advisor.com).
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
Yeah, hi Pete. First of all, thanks for having me on your show. It's a real pleasurable honor. I'm Alexander Trost, originally from Germany, but living since more than 2 decades in Asia now, mostly in Singapore. And I live by the personal motto that serenity is the true source of life energy. And I'm driven by the mission to make a positive difference in the lives of people and organizations by intentionally being different. What do I mean by that? I want to help people to live life with more bliss, ideally live a life they don't need a leave from, by giving them different perspective, maybe thoughts they have never thought about, and just helping them to look at things differently. I strongly believe that people are generally good and want to change. I have just realized that sustainable behavior change is so, so difficult and frustrates a lot of people. So I want to help to make this journey a more pleasant one.
Well, Alexander, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Question number 2: What is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry?
Yeah, what makes me always smile is when I see the smile in people's faces with this light bulb, when they then say, "Oh wow, I have never looked at it that way." And you can literally feel how a lot of weight comes off their shoulders and how all these tight knots are untying. What makes me laugh sometimes is when I see how serious people take themselves. But I always try to help them by saying, "It's never about the situation, it's always about our reaction." And once we can look at situations with some some more humor and maybe even laugh about ourselves, everything just becomes so much easier. Mm-hmm.
And when people see that you laugh at yourself, you become more approachable, am I right?
Ja, definitely. It's great.
Question number 3, I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
Ja, great book, great question. And I listened in some of your podcasts before, and I think most of your guests go eventually to the people chapter. And I shall be no different. I just maybe want to approach it a little bit different by starting with a quote from Simon Sinek, who says, "You cannot understand business if you don't understand people." And I would actually go a step further and say, actually, there is no real business. Everything is about people because everything in your business is done by people. Every single business transaction is done by people. Even if it's automated, those systems are maintained by people. So I would say that there is no real leading business, but leading people is the serious business. And once as a leader you make everything around people, your business will flourish, I would almost say automatically. And there are some other famous people who have nice fitting quotes, like for instance, I think it was Theodore Roosevelt who said that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Or Sir Richard Branson saying, take care of your people and they will take care of your business.
Those are both great quotes as well. I love them. Question number 4, other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
Yeah, in line with what I said just now, I would first remind them that maybe you're not really a business leader, but a people leader. Yeah, so really make it all about the people. And then I might introduce in my, my very own model, the 3 C's of leadership, because I believe at the end of the day, everything in leadership boils down to 3 roles. Which I coined as the 3 C's: the character, the compass, and the coach. So I strongly believe as a leader, firstly, you have to work on your character much more than on your personality. Make sure that you have great core values, that you know about them, and that every day you bring you back to those values, what you stand for. Secondly, translate those values into guiding principles, principles that guide you, that make you congruent, and that make you very authentic as a person. Secondly, be a compass rather than a navigation system. I think a lot of leaders tend to navigate people, to micromanage them, to tell them every single step, whereas a compass just shows the direction and then lets people take their own way. And only once they are lost, they might look at the compass again, how they are doing. And last but not least, be a coach. I think very often leaders think they have to have all the answers, they have to constantly give advice, but if you have a coaching mindset as a leader, I think you are much, much stronger, which means Firstly, listen, listen with empathy, listen to really understand rather than to reply. Secondly, ask the right questions. As Voltaire said, "Don't judge a man by his answers, but rather by his questions." And last but not least, really invest a lot of time in people to find out their individual talent and deploy the people according to their talent. And I think this is where coaches are really great in. And I strongly believe that those difficult employees became difficult over time because maybe they have not been well enough coached.
I think that's very insightful. And that coaching mindset is so important than so many managers who think that they have to be very directive to their people. But if they can coach them, they tend to support them more strongly and help those people who work for them learn on their own and be able to grow exponentially. Would you agree?
Exactly.
That's great. Question number 5: What other business leaders like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
Uh, actually quite a few. Uh, so if it's okay with you, I would get back to you on that.
No problem.
I'm—
no problem with that. Question number 6: Please tell me about your first job.
Yeah, my first job was actually as an in-house consultant, but maybe what I would like to share is not so much about the job itself, but how I got there, because in my whole life I had only one interview. I sent out only one resume and practically directly from university I went into that job and all my friends are saying, are you crazy? You have to check your market value, you have to compare, you have to look at other companies, but I just felt everything was so great with that company, how I I was treated, the offer they made, and it just felt good. And I was listening to my gut feeling rather than to my mind. And it turned out to be great. And I never looked back. And I think we are too often comparing things and thinking the grass is greener on the other side. And with this, we never become really happy because we always think, oh, should I have gone there? Should I have done that? And even if I looked at 2, 3 other companies, I might still have asked, did I make the right choice? So I think the gut feeling is sometimes a very great compass and navigator. And if you listen to this a bit more often and just do what feels right and then stick to the decision and go for it, this helped for me quite a lot. And that was a great experience which I had right with my first job.
Oh, I like that. It's a great story. Thank you so much for sharing it. And Alexander, thank you so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
My pleasure. I mean, I'm on LinkedIn, Alexander Trost. I have a website, advisor.com. Um, yeah, that's basically it, I think.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Get hundreds of amazing business insights from previous guest episodes on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening.
