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Klaus Hilgers - old friend and “poker pal” - passes on
My friend Klaus Hilgers passed away on February 28th 2008.
Klaus was an internationally renowned public speaker and seminarist who delivered seminars to tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people all over the world, over the last 25 years. He was the best public speaker I’ve ever seen, and could put together a seminar overnight on just about any subject.
He told the story of going to deliver one seminar many years ago, but when he got there and started delivering the subject he’d been asked to deliver to a group of about 20 people, they were very uncommunicative and non-receptive to the material he was delivering. It only took him a minute to figure out that something was really, drastically wrong. He stopped in mid-thought, and got into communication with each member of the audience (this was his real skill), one at a time, and surveyed every member of the group that had gathered to hear him speak. He found out they were all there on threat of being fired if they didn’t attend–it was some Human Resources last-ditch attempt to correct the behavior of this particular group of employees. They were completely unreceptive to the material he had prepared, so he polled them to find out what they DID want to hear about, and delivered his seminar on that subject, completely off the cuff. I believe the subject they settled on was “How to Get Along With Others”. He got rave reviews from all of them at the end of the seminar when they filled out their survey sheets.
I first met Klaus in about 1995, through my group of poker pals when I lived in Clearwater, Florida. He was tremendously funny. He had many anecdotes about his travels all over the world, the people that he’d worked with, and the troubles they’d gotten into together.
Klaus and I wrote a book together in 1996, called “The Power of Agreements“, about the various methods anyone can use to create agreement with other people, in order to increase harmony among co-workers, or the members of any group. He really liked to help people get into communication with each other and resolve their problems; most of them, he said, just needed to discover the other guy’s viewpoint to realize how much they had in common. Like me, Klaus was a long-time Scientologist. Klaus will always have my enduring respect for the sheer volume of people to whom he had introduced the many technologies developed by Scientology’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard. Klaus could deliver seminars about the basics of organization, communication, ethics, or dozens of other subjects to people who had never heard of these things before, and be completely understandable–all seemingly without any effort on Klaus’s part.
The two things I liked most about Klaus were:
1) His completely genuine and unshakably positive attitude toward life. He didn’t just pretend to have a positive attitude, while secretly nursing some other viewpoint. There was nothing phony about it at all. He genuinely figured everything would work out, and it usually did. He would push things in the direction of positive outcomes, and most of the time they would arrive where he wanted them to go. It was nearly magical to watch.
An example: About ten years ago Klaus wanted to go see Eric Clapton perform in Tampa. We bought tickets, but when we arrived at the venue and found our seats, the sound quality was beyond abysmal with horrible echoes and distortion because of some curved walls bouncing the sound around, focused right on our seats. We sat there for about 30 seconds, then Klaus stood up and said, “Come with me!”. Five minutes later we wound up about 30 feet from Clapton, watching him perform and listening without any distortion of the sound. Klaus may have looked conservative and acted always the gentleman, but he was nearly always enthusiastic about what he was doing, and he always made things go right.
2) His complete lack of an ego. Despite being the center of attention on countless stages and podiums around the world, he would talk with anyone; he was completely approachable. He did not expect and never demanded any special treatment or rock star status; he was completely unassuming. His friends and poker pals were regular guys and gals; salesmen, dentists, writers, students — he asked of his friends only that they treat each other well and get along.
He loved the Grateful Dead — a passion I did not share with him although he managed to drag me to one of the last Grateful Dead concerts, a couple of months before Jerry Garcia died. Klaus commented during the concert on the fact that Jerry didn’t look too hot and wasn’t playing up to his normal high level. He kept trying to get me excited about the tapes he collected of the various Dead concerts and the nuances of Dead performances. I just didn’t “get” the Dead and we often laughed about it. He called it my “flaw” and I called it my “ability”.
Our Clearwater group of poker pals has since scattered to the four winds–I’ve learned that such groups do not last for long, and never for long enough. One of our former members (Doug) now sponsors infrequent games in Portland, and one (Dan) has a regular weekly game in LA. We have one former member now living in Kuwait (take a bow, Rami), and a few still in Clearwater who are inactive at poker. They know who they are….
I finally convinced Klaus early in the 21st Century that he needed a website for his company, Epoch Consultants. I made Klaus’s website for him, and have been hosting it for the last 6 or 7 years. People from all over the world, to whom Klaus had delivered a seminar, would find him on this site and communicate back to him about various subjects. He was always getting photos sent to him of people whom he had helped–random photos from Greece, Taiwan, or Russia appeared with regularity.
Klaus last called me a month or so ago, to show me a website in which he had been instrumental, that took a lot of the management technology developed by L. Ron Hubbard and made it possible for any company to apply it easily, online. The website had the capacity to make graphs and keep a record of the statistics for every post in an organization; an organizing board; the policies (hats) that each of the staff were to follow; a way to communicate to each other through this site, and dozens of other features. He was very excited about this new website’s capabilities and looking forward to seeing it in action for his clients. (It’s a beta site still in development or I would link to it here.)
It was Klaus’s mission in life to make things more harmonious, make things go right, and help other people learn and communicate. In my view anyway, that was his goal in life, and one that, with great enthusiasm, he fulfilled to the max.
His poker pals will miss him. The world will not be the same.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Hello Jere,
Thanks for this lovely comm about my dear friend Klaus. I translated and redesigned 2 of his books… we had a lot more we wanted to get done!
Talk soon…
ML,
Mary Jo
March 13th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Thank you for your homage to Klaus. I recently heard of his passing and was sad for us. Sad for those who knew him and loved him and for those who hadn’t had the opportunity to meet him as a friend or benefit from his amazing seminars.
I first met Klaus at a public speaking seminar 20 years ago which changed my life. A little over a year ago I took my 18 year old son to his seminar and it changed his life. The change was for different reasons but that was the beauty of Klaus. You might have been in a seminar with 20+ other people, but everyone got something very personal out of it which went beyond just public speaking.
I saw Klaus several months ago in Florida at our Church and he told me about the website you mentioned (the one still in beta testing). I hope that you help to get it launched. It seems fitting as he was so excited about it.
Thanks for the opportunity to write about a truly wonderful man.
March 21st, 2008 at 3:57 am
I was deeply saddened about hearing of Klaus’ passing. There are some people who truly make the world a better place by their being in it. Klaus was such a person.
I didn’t know him well–only had seen him a handful of times over the last 7 years, but when you meet him, you feel like you’ve known him forever and he leaves a lasting positive impression on you.
Without a doubt, Klaus was the finest speaker I’ve ever seen (I’ve seen Ziglar, Lowe, Dan Kennedy, and other “big” names) and after listening to him speak, you feel as though there’s nothing you can’t do…and you actually get value out of his talks.
He was every guy’s type of guy. A true gem.
Words can not adequately express all that he was to everyone he touched.
Warm regards to all who knew him.
March 23rd, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I was informed today that several hundred people showed up at the memorial service for Klaus Hilgers in Russia held a few days ago. Anyone having pictures of the service? If so, please send them to me.
March 24th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
My friend Dan from Los Angeles gave me a description of one of the memorial services held for Klaus — this one in Los Angeles. Kevin Wilson of Sterling was the MC of the service, and several of Klaus’s good friends from WISE, with whom Klaus had a long relationship, spoke very highly of him. More than 200 people filled the hall where they had the service in LA.
A song written by David Pomerantz was sung by Carolyn Percy.
Harvey Schmiedeke gave an emotional eulogy, and Klaus’s friend Tim Mantis read from my original post above, as well as a poem he had written.
Dan also said that there have been seven memorials for Klaus around the world, including services in Taiwan, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Clearwater and Los Angeles.
I wish I could have been there —
Jere
March 28th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Hi Jere. I worked for Sterling Management up until about 6 years ago, so I got to travel with Klaus for about 3 years to all of the seminars he gave for them, about one every 6 weeks. I remember him mentioning you many times.
Your original post here is really something! Such a poignant and accurate description of Klaus and his many amazing traits. (How cool that you would even include the link for the Grateful Dead’s site! Klaus would really appreciate that.) I wrote a letter to my friends at Sterling about Klaus, most of which I’ve included below. Thanks again for your lovely comm!
Best,
Tim Robbins
——————————————-
27 March 2008
Klaus will be greatly missed as a friend and teammate, and long remembered for his immeasurable contributions to Scientology, to Sterling’s staff and public, to his friends and family and to Mankind.
If you ask me what I remember best about him, it would be his sheer joy for the game of life and his love for continually creating it! Also, for anyone who ever met him, it was immediately evident that Klaus lived by the notion that, as Ron puts it, “The ability to assume or to grant (give, allow) beingness is probably the highest of human virtues”. In fact, Klaus took both aspects of that equation and elevated them to an art form. On the one hand exemplifying the very definition of personal competence, while also demonstrating how a tremendous level of love and caring for your fellows can easily be a fundamental part of who you ARE.
With just a smile or his warm, friendly greeting, maybe a few reassuring words, a little of that world class humor and so often simply by his presence, he always made you feel understood and appreciated, optimistic and energized all at once. To think that he accomplished this on a daily basis over so many years, with so many thousands of lucky people around the world–all the while introducing them to LRH tech–is nothing short of monumental!
I well remember his love of exotic food, and his elation over having just discovered some great new Chinese restaurant…sometimes the more out-of-the-way the better! And of course, his passion for great music, which never waned from his very first Grateful Dead concert at the old Fillmore East in New York City–a memory he recounted with much excitement on several occasions. And when he told it, with all of his characteristic zeal, I swear I could literally see some of the very sights he had seen and feel for myself that same excitement.
The first time I really got to know Klaus and his true character was September (1999, I think it was), at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. He had been giving another talk somewhere way up north the day before our seminar and was to meet up with us that night at our hotel. Around 10PM or so, when we learned he still had not checked in to his room we naturally grew a little concerned.
The next morning, with our event about to start and still no sign of Klaus, we began to wonder how best to proceed without him. Just as we had all but given up hope of his arriving, and with literally only minutes to spare, he comes bounding across the courtyard, headed for the meeting room with materials in hand, fully prepared to take the stage and deliver to the public!
Right before he went on he told us how his connecting flight the night before had been indefinitely delayed by summer storms in Raleigh or someplace. Not content to just wait it out and hope for the best, he managed to procure a rental car (which itself was supposed to have been “impossible” under the circumstances) and proceeded to drive ALL NIGHT to South Carolina, arriving that morning with time enough to spare to get spruced up and ready to go!
It was plain from listening to him that he never once considered he would not make it go right. I was also struck for the first time by a part of him that really pointed to the playful heart of this adventurous being: in spite of it all, it actually seemed he got a really big kick out of being challenged to such an extreme! And you could sure see how proud he was that he “beat the odds” in order to fulfill his obligation to the group and to his audience.
Somewhat astounded, and very relieved, I remember sharing a sort of unspoken knowingness with some of the others, on the satisfaction of realizing “Man! We have got ourselves a real teammate here!” His talk that day was of course stellar, as was every single one I ever had the good fortune of hearing.
It didn’t take long for me to know that his gifts and skill as a speaker were unparalleled. From his ability to engage the audience and make them completely comfortable, to helping them appreciate, understand and assimilate the knowledge he imparted. To think of how much he enriched the lives of all those attendees, and the friends and families they took that data home to still blows me away.
Over the next few years, as we got to know each other better, he would sometimes call to ask me (more like get me) to help him hash out certain details of some of his new seminar topics for the coming year. I wondered once, “Why is he asking me? I mean, I’m not a trained lecturer or anything”. Well, for two reasons, I now realize: he was spurring me to expand my reach; and he genuinely recognized and valued the quality of my input…even if I sometimes doubted it.
That was his nature: to always encourage and uplift, to insist that all those he came in contact with–all who were fortunate enough to get to know him, even a little–always took proper stock in their own worth and abilities and in the beauty and uniqueness of their own Beingness. “Of course you can do it” you could hear him thinking, “and you already know that. Now let’s get busy and create this game and have some fun together!”
What an honor it was to have the opportunity to work side-by-side with him. And what an inspiration. What a joy just getting to hang out with him. I’ll be looking forward to doing it again!
With love and sincere best wishes,
Tim Robbins
March 31st, 2008 at 10:20 am
My company had hired Klaus as a consultant. He was great and very interesting. I am sorry to hear about him passing. Can someone tell me what happened?
Thanks.
Greg
———-
Klaus was in remote Kazakhstan, near the Chinese border, giving a series of seminars in February, when he collapsed and was rushed to the local hospital. Doctors in Kazakhstan diagnosed and treated him for acute liver failure, but their capacity to both diagnose and treat was severely limited by language barriers and lack of proper equipment, drugs, etc. Within a few days, after a Herculean rescue effort to get him out of Kazakhstan and to a first-rate hospital, by his wife Peggy, his friend Nick (and Dan Mueller and Tim Mantis, and a ton of his other friends pitching in) Klaus was taken on a life-flight air transport (accompanied by qualified medical personnel) to Munich, Germany, where the doctors then diagnosed and treated him for kidney failure.
Despite everyone’s best efforts, Klaus passed away peacefully on February 28, 2008. He is survived by his wife Peggy and his son Eric.
Best,
Jere
March 31st, 2008 at 11:12 am
I don’t have the history with Klaus that the rest of you had. Actually I only met him twice and our time was brief. I was very impressed by him. He actually took the time to help me after a seminar on ways to help my 6 year old catch a baseball. I used his technique’s and it worked. His intelligence was obvious. His presence was very comforting and talking to him was like sitting with an old friend or trusted confidant. I will definitely miss him!
April 11th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Klaus was an extraordinary speaker, one of the best I’ve ever heard. He was a truly humble and brilliant man with the gift to talk about anything and the ability to keep the entire audience enthralled. He will be remembered for his wit and humor, as well as the “did you get one or two good ideas today?” that he always asked when we attended a seminar. He will be missed.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:31 am
We had the priveledge to meet Klaus at our first seminar in Hilton Head in August 2007. His knowledge and wit set a high stardard for the upcoming seminars we plan to attend. He taught our staff work ethics that each of them used in their home life as well. His humorous lectures kept us attentive and laughing throughout the entire seminar. He went above and beyond what we had ever expected! We had looked forward to seeing him in Atlanta this past Feburary and was sad to learn of his sudden illness. We are all deeply saddend by this great loss and our prayers are with his family and close friends during this time of trial. Although we only knew him a short time, he made us feel like we’d known him forever and he will greatly be missed.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Klaus and I met back in 1984 in a large health and raquet club in East Hanover, New Jeresy called Four Seasons. He and I both did consulting for the owner. We got along great and became friends. He and I spoke at many conventions at the same time in the United States and Canada and got to spend personal time together. He was a tremendous person with tremendous skills to help people maximize their success potential. The world of business will miss him, but I will miss him personally. He was great man.