This article was co-authored by Dr. Axel Meierhoefer 🏕️🔥
Today’s Career Pivot Playbook features Dr. Axel, the founder of the Ideal Wealth Grower, a former military pilot and executive who rebuilt his career around control, ownership, and long-term financial security.
His path did not follow a clean corporate ladder. It moved across military leadership, executive roles, academic work, consulting, and investing. At each stage, the same question kept surfacing. How do you apply what you know in the real world, and how do you build a future that does not rely on someone else’s system?
The pivot did not come from burnout or crisis. It came from noticing a gap… the ideas taught in classrooms rarely showed up in practice. Traditional financial advice did not work for people running businesses. Retirement plans assumed stable employment, not founders taking risks.
Instead of accepting those limits, he built alternatives. First through consulting. Then through investing. What started as a personal solution became something others asked for help with. The Ideal Wealth Grower grew from that demand.
This Playbook shows how leadership skills carry into investing, how service providers are managed like teams, how out-of-state real estate stays under your control, and why mindset matters just as much as the deal.
Dr. Axel uses Substack and podcasting to turn experience into trust, education, and income. One place to publish. One place to build community. Multiple ways for people to learn before they ever become clients.
This is not a story about quitting a job. It is about widening a career. Using what you already know. Building systems that work for your life, not the other way around.
If you are thinking about diversifying income, taking ownership of your financial future, or turning deep experience into a business, this Playbook shows what that looks like in real-world terms.
✨About Career Pivot Playbooks
A public archive of modern career blueprints…
Most careers no longer follow a straight line.
People pivot gradually.
They extend their work beyond institutions.
They combine roles, platforms, and income streams.
Career Pivot Playbooks is a weekly series curated by Katharine Gallagher documenting how professionals build resilient, future-ready careers by turning existing skills into income, often combining Substack with consulting, teaching, research, creative work, or business ownership.
The focus isn’t outcomes.
It’s about how careers are shaped in practice.
About Dr. Axel
Dr. Axel Meierhoefer works with people who want direct ownership over their financial decisions rather than delegated control. His focus is on practical investing structures that fit founders, operators, and professionals with complex income and time constraints.
On Substack, he breaks down how investments are evaluated, how risk is assessed, and how decisions are made when the asset is far from where you live. He writes about capital discipline, accountability across vendors, and the mental shift required to move from saver to investor. The work is grounded, experience-led, and designed to be applied.
You can follow his work here →
Dr. Axel reflects:
“Can you share a bit about your professional background and the path that led you to where you are today?”
I am originally from Germany and had an opportunity to participate in an exchange program with the US Air Force. That allowed me to fly F111 fighter jets for a US Air Force Squadron and be in a management role while the person I exchanged with took my job as the deputy commander of the Flight Training Academics school.
After 6+ years in the US, I retired from flying and was offered an executive job by a software company in Santa Barbara, CA. Everybody said I needed to have a graduate degree to have a long-term outlook on a career at my age (42 at the time).
I went to work during the day and school at night and ultimately finished with a PhD in leadership and organizational change.
“What sign, moment, or slow realization told you it was time to diversify, and what did you have to push through to actually act on it?”
I kept going to school for years and saw that the things I learned and liked did not get applied in real life in my job. In 2005 I decided to start my own consulting company while still going to school. That gave me the realization that there will not be any 401(k) plan or other program allowing me to retire at some point. So I founded a second company to use as an investment vehicle.
With my own company came the opportunity to apply what I learned at school, and the need for retirement planning opened the door to what I mainly do today.
I tried to go with the financial advisors we have all heard about, but they only told me the traditional stuff that did not work well for a guy with two startup-level companies.
I had to find my own path, and I did find it in turnley investing.
It was supposed to be just for my family and me, but I like to talk about things, and so more and more friends and family knew that I was doing real estate deals and asked if I could help them too.
That’s what Ideal Wealth Grower does, even though we have evolved and offer more than just real estate investing these days.
“Which skills or experiences from your previous career unexpectedly became an advantage in what you do now?”
When I started Ideal Wealth Grower, I found a book by Chris Clothier titled “Turnkey Revolution”. It has a lot of great advice in it, but the most important thing for me was to use what I know from leading both in the military and as an executive. You need to have self-confidence and look at those you pay as service providers.
I had seen it in the software company, and I experienced it every time I consulted on a project in my consulting company.
I translated that to all the service providers indeed for a real estate deal. You need:
Banks/lenders
Property management
Inspectors
Appraisers
Lawyers
Vendors for repairs
Real Estate agencies or Turnkey providers
So what became the equally important part of the Ideal Wealth Grower is the transformation of the mindset of a business owner and investor.
Yes, we look and help secure actual deals (Houses), but approaching it with the mindset of a leader and business owner is something all my clients learn as part of the mentoring program, besides investing.
“How did you decide where to build visibility or credibility (Substack or elsewhere), and what role does that platform play in your overall career or income mix?”
I decided that I wanted to have a place where all the content we create is housed and where we can build community.
That’s why Substack was perfect. As for people to learn and know about Ideal Wealth Grower and me, I use podcasting, both with my own show as well as being a guest on other people’s shows. I have probably done more than 200 interviews with my guests and been on about 100 shows as an expert guest.
That way, people learn about me and then often become clients
On Substack we now also offer programs for anybody who wants to get their money mindset in order to ultimately become an investor and become financially free. That’s why the email system, publication sites, podcast hosting, and live video are all really wonderful as support for the business.
“Who is your work really for, and what problem do you solve so well that people are willing to pay for it?”
I am not working for anybody except our clients. The problem we uniquely solve is the challenge to invest in real estate, have total control over what you bought, and still be able to have the properties in the locations where real estate performs the best.
The price you pay and the income (rent) you receive need to be in a great relationship, and that is often far away from where you live and work.
Our “Out-of-State Turnkey Investing Model” is what allows our clients to look for the performance of the asset.
“What turned out to be harder than you expected when you started… and what was easier than you imagined?”
The hardest is building engagement for me. When we have people in our programs, it is very easy. Getting them to explore what we offer and then join is very hard. It remains a challenge to this day.
“How have you found the journey? What advice/ strategies and tips would you give to others wanting to grow their audiences?”
I like the platform even though the frequent changes can be a bit annoying. I admit that I am not a great writer. Still, I come from a place of service. I want to help, serve, and support anybody willing to give a like, subscribe, comment, and maybe even join one of our programs.
Having all of it in one place is really nice, and the people I have connected with are the nicest people anywhere.
I suggest reviewing as many programs as you can, really in a lot of detail, and then deciding to join one that is really resonating. I have paid for a few that tried to apply a cookie-cutter approach, and it totally did not work. Whoever you work with, it requires a custom solution for you in your unique way.
“What nearly made you quit, and what actually kept you going?”
When I retired from my military service the work in the software company was related to what I knew from 22 years of service. When I started my consulting company I thought it would continue.
Very early on I was invited to come into a merger of Shering-Plough and Merk Pharma. They deliberately wanted people who had no idea about pharma and healthcare to look at strategic challenges with a fresh perspective.
I was a perfect candidate adn I offered a strategic solution that made me great money from 2 years. The challenge was that I felt inadequate adn like an imposter. I did not have the medical or scientific background that everybody I dealt with had. Each new project, the little devil on my shoulder was whispering:
“This time they will find out that you are not one of them…”
I wanted to avoid that and tried very hard to get out of that industry - and it kept coming back and giving me new work.
Ultimately, what helped me stop trying to escape was a very dear friend with German roots.
Her name is Paula and she asked me at one point how I had learned so much about all the aspects of running a pharma company.
I was perplexed and told her that I have tired to get out of Pharma and it kept pulling em back in but each time into an area or part of the industry I had not been in before and after doing that for 6 years I started to see how everything as connected and that it really was - stripped to the bare bones - similar to the military where success and failure is mainly dependent on the people and how they work as a team - not tech equipment or the smartest individual in the room.
“What other platforms, audiences, or income streams are part of your portfolio career… and how do they work together?”
There is a realization I had, luckily, early in my life as an entrepreneur:
You have to decide if you want to build a practice or a business. If it is a practice (as in most cases), you will suffer from a size disparity.
You would love to have companies like Bayer, PG&E, Medtronic, Boeing, or Boston Scientific as clients.
These big companies are used to work with other big companies and expect a full multi-departmental organization when they decide to fund projects.
The way I was able to get work with all the companies mentioned above is through collaborative relationships with platform providers.
There are companies in this world that offer Master Service Agreements to these large players to offer experts across a large number of fields quasi on demand.
If you become a junior partner to these MSA companies, you can get projects as part of these MSAs
So you are building your portfolio of expertise and clients much faster and more impressively using that route than on your own, in my experience.
“What advice would you give to someone considering a similar pivot or looking to monetize their skills in a more flexible way?”
That’s easy:
Find someone who has done it before and hire him/her as a coach/mentor
Don’t assume your skills will narrow your opportunities to something very specific and limited.
“Looking back, what’s one decision that changed everything — and what’s next for you?”
I think if the leader/owner of the software company had been a better leader and businessman, I probably would have never started my own company.
I have realized that I, as much as I love doing it, can’t serve every client 1x1 any longer. That’s why I am working on offering more programs that allow people to advance in their development adn knowledge and then graduate to tech 1x1 level.
As I am getting closer to retirement, those remaining 1x1 engagements will be fewer and hopefully more valuable for the client and me going forward.
Links & Resources
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameierhoefer/
https://www.youtube.com/@idealwealthgrower
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I’m Katharine — a future-focused career strategist helping professionals build income options and stay relevant as work evolves.
🙏 I appreciate you being here and supporting this growing archive… and thank you to all the creators who contribute, it’s such a pleasure to learn from them.
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🤔Is there a question you wish had been asked?
Drop it in the comments, and let’s keep the conversation going.
What a wonderful collaboration. Thank you, Katherine. I look forward to comments adn questions
Thank you Dr Axel for such an interesting, honest take with great insights offered. It's been a pleasure.