Meet Anthony Hochstetler

We were lucky to catch up with Anthony Hochstetler recently and have shared our conversation below.

Anthony, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I grew up on an Amish/Mennonite dairy farm where there were always projects that needed tending to. From as far back as I can remember as a child, I was responsible for daily chores like gathering eggs from the chicken coop or feeding the calves. Such a delightful way to grow up and learn the joy of feeling useful in the world.

Hard work has always been a very important element in the Amish/Mennonite culture. We were taught that each member of a family, group or community should contribute to their ability. I would say these lessons in discipline are all of the characteristics needed to be successful in business.

However, with my dad being the minister in our congregation and feeling restless and constrained in the Amish/Mennonite community, I left the Amish/Mennonite community to pursue my education at Temple university. You can take the boy off the farm, but those traits of hard work and discipline stayed with me.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

During my time at university I started cleaning homes to pay for college. I quickly needed help with my expanding customer list and recruited a few friends teaching them how to professionally clean customer homes. This is how Homeworks House Cleaning was born. My consistent focus has always been on delivering excellent customer service with expertly trained staff. Having someone clean your home is very personal and customers need to have complete comfort and trust in our employees. We are now celebrating our 25th year in business, a very important milestone. We currently have around 20 employees providing service to customers’ homes and a manager overseeing daily operations with scheduling staff, communicating with customers and all the variety of concerns that bubble up throughout the day. Many of our customers have been with us from the beginning when we started the company all those years ago and this is a testament to our long standing commitment to excellence.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

For me it started with having the courage to set out on my own into the unknown and leave all the comforts of my small religious farming community, that was a huge step. It felt a bit scary but also exciting to see a much broader world in all its complexities. I learned to reframe being anxious with being excited. The emotion physically feels the same but your brain interprets it completely differently. It’s a simple little trick in how to view any situation… I highly recommend it.

Secondly, never underestimate the value of hard work. Persistence and hard work will almost always outperform the competition. Remember, no one should need to come fix things for you and it’s up to each of us to create whatever success we are looking for. We live in a time when too many people are celebrating being a victim. No one owes you anything and it’s up to you to build the life, business and world you want to live in. Maybe everyone should have the opportunity to grow up on a farm.. Haha It changes the way you look at the world. Make yourself useful and find a purpose.

And the most important quality to a rewarding journey through this life is integrity, your character is your destiny. At the end of the day, you need to be happy within yourself and who you’ve become. I love the quote, “good and evil runs through the heart of every man (and woman)”. It’s up to us to make the right choices everyday to become a better person. Beautiful young people happen but a beautiful old person is a work of art. That is my hope to continue my journey through life.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

One of the most important books I’ve ever read was, “The Obstacle is the Way” by Ryan Holiday. This was my introduction on Stoicism and changed so much of my old way of thinking. It is packed with quotes from the accents to build resistance and strength. I love the practice of identifying and staying focused on the things we can control and letting go of everything else. One of the lessons it teaches is that by turning every obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger and tougher. Just like physically working out makes your body stronger, mentally working out builds your character and makes you more resilient to life’s ups and downs.

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