In this episode of #TBNE Rob chats with High-Performance Coach Dr. Carla Fowler, Founder, and CEO of Thaxa. We get into some key topics like: 1. Brutal Focus 2. What are the Drivers? 3. The Don’t Reality And Dr. Carla Fowler drops gems like 90/90/90 and tips on how to build momentum. As a special for all #TBNE listeners, Dr. Carla Fowler is offering a free download for your listeners as a resource on how to think about looking for and choosing a coach and how to avoid common mistakes. The 8 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Choosing a Coach (and how to avoid them!) use this link to get your FREE download: https://www.thaxa.com/p/the-bear-necessities-of-entrepreneurship Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
In this episode of #TBNE Rob chats with High-Performance Coach Dr. Carla Fowler, Founder, and CEO of Thaxa. We get into some key topics like:
And Dr. Carla Fowler drops gems like 90/90/90 and tips on how to build momentum.
As a special for all #TBNE listeners, Dr. Carla Fowler is offering a free download for your listeners as a resource on how to think about looking for and choosing a coach and how to avoid common mistakes.
The 8 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Choosing a Coach (and how to avoid them!) use this link to get your FREE download: https://www.thaxa.com/p/the-bear-necessities-of-entrepreneurship
Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
Connect with Dr. Carla Fowler:
Connect with Rob:
Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com
Creative Director: Maxim Sokolov, www.maximsokolov.com
Selling is evolving, are you? Humantic AI is a Buyer Intelligence platform for revenue teams. If you are interested in learning more about Humantic AI use Rob’s referral link https://app.humantic.ai/login/?referral_code=robnapoli
Special offer for #BearNation listeners interested in trying Brilliantly Warm (https://www.brilliantly.co/), use this 10% off discount code WELCOME10.
We have teamed up with Phin, a social impact company, to give back for each episode to the communities that we serve. To learn more or get involved with Phin for your company, visit: https://www.phinforgood.com/
EP 91_Dr. Carla Fowler
00:00:07:11 - 00:00:39:13
Rob Napoli
How we doing, everybody? We're back again for another episode of the Bare Necessities podcast. I'm your host, Rob Napoli, and today I have Dr. Carla Fowler, who is M.D., Ph.D., an elite executive coach. And for the last decade she has been you know, I like this, a secret weapon for scores of CEOs, entrepreneurs and other senior leaders. The unique approach combines research and performance science with timeless best practices to help top performance level up and achieve their goals.
00:00:39:13 - 00:00:43:01
Rob Napoli
Dr. Carla Fowler, thank you so much for joining the pod today. How you doing today?
00:00:43:13 - 00:00:45:15
Dr. Carla Fowler
Rob I'm doing great. This is going to be fun.
00:00:46:06 - 00:01:07:12
Rob Napoli
I love it. Well, I'm excited to have you here. And I have two first question is based on the prep show and the original first question. So let's go to the original one first. How the fuck does a medical doctor become an executive lead executive coach? Why did you leave the medical profession and decide to be a coach?
00:01:08:12 - 00:01:38:01
Dr. Carla Fowler
That's such a great question because there was definitely it was not a popular decision and I think there is definitely a lot of wtf going on. I mean, I think something to just know about me is that, you know, you've got this lifetime. I knew you need a job, you need to be able to support yourself. I've always been a person who wanted to do stuff I was interested in, and it turns out like what I've always been really interested in is I like doing challenging things.
00:01:38:01 - 00:02:11:00
Dr. Carla Fowler
I like learning things. I have always been really interested in people, like even, you know, in elementary school, like I think I was busy looking around like how people do stuff. Like if some kid was popular, why are they popular? Like what? What is it? What are the dynamics at play? And, you know, not in a very sophisticated way as a fifth grader, but, you know, but and running experiments, you know, And I think that I liked math and science and I liked solving problems.
00:02:11:00 - 00:02:32:24
Dr. Carla Fowler
And so ultimately, this is sort of how I ultimately got into doing an M.D. and a Ph.D. and it was a great program. It it was funded. So I didn't have any debt. And I got to learn for like ten years. And then ultimately, I was studying to be a surgeon. I was in residency. So think like Gray's Anatomy is I mean, not quite like that.
00:02:33:02 - 00:02:55:20
Dr. Carla Fowler
And none of us were as beautiful and we all were like, under slept and smelled bad. Like, you know, it's just it's not a very romantic actuality, but, you know, I think one of the things that I did learn about medicine, I really found it meaningful to work with patients and help people. But also there are a lot of constraints in the profession.
00:02:56:17 - 00:03:19:21
Dr. Carla Fowler
You kind of get one thing in life if you're going to be a surgeon and and you also have to think about like, where are your greatest strengths? And I think for me, one of the things I learned was that I loved thinking about performance. That's part of how I got into surgery in the first place, was it's a bunch of people who really like to think about the performance of their craft, you know, how do you level that up?
00:03:20:03 - 00:03:40:07
Dr. Carla Fowler
But I felt like on the human systems part of it, it was not as high performing as it could have been. Like there's just a lot of work to be done on the systems overtaxed. And ultimately, I think I wanted more autonomy. And so I jumped off the boat and kind of went into the entrepreneurship of saying, how do I focus on performance?
00:03:40:07 - 00:03:52:22
Dr. Carla Fowler
How do I help people with it? Like not to go be an academic? How do you like help people with it and how can I build my own thing? That was really exciting to me and also scared as shit.
00:03:52:22 - 00:04:27:06
Rob Napoli
I mean, usually, usually the most impactful things should scare you to some degree, you know? So what? We're going to come back to that. But in this kind of theme as we were talking, pretty shocking, you know, prepping for this. You mentioned that you're a digital nomad and you're currently up and I think Wyoming and then moving out to Maine in the summer, you know, when you were, you know, as a as a doctor, if you're becoming a surgeon, you had been pretty tied to one place, The hospital you're at when you decided to become an entrepreneur.
00:04:28:07 - 00:04:55:05
Rob Napoli
Why why did you also decide to become a digital nomad? I mean, was there was that like hand in hand? Was that something that just kind of like you decided later that you wanted to explore and now that you're free, like tell me a little bit about like that idea. Did you, like, leave trying to become a surgeon and, you know, when the highly probably highest sought after kind of like positions around just one be crazy and start an entrepreneur or start your own business.
00:04:55:05 - 00:05:02:03
Rob Napoli
I mean I consider it to be a digital nomad and travel. What was that like or what was that decision making process for you?
00:05:02:03 - 00:05:20:03
Dr. Carla Fowler
So this is a both. I have the personal story about it, but I love this because it also kind of ties in with some stuff that we were talking about, which is this idea of like, what are high performing habits? Like how do you how do you be more productive? How do you be more successful however you want to put it?
00:05:20:11 - 00:05:51:21
Dr. Carla Fowler
And I think one of the most important questions is progressively asking yourself, what is wtf dyw. You got to ask yourself what the fuck do you want? What do you want? And before you can start using your time better, before you can start like leveling up your results. I think one of the most important questions is to ask yourself what do I actually want?
00:05:51:21 - 00:06:19:11
Dr. Carla Fowler
And I think that was part of what provoked leaving surgery and leaving medicine was this realization that I had always been a person who wanted to. I love sports, I love being athletic. I had a partner. I wanted to spend time with him and have and have a relationship. I wanted to have work that was really engaging, and I think I was adding up the equation and realizing that that wasn't going to work in the profession I had chosen.
00:06:20:05 - 00:06:50:15
Dr. Carla Fowler
And but then you say, okay, so even in asking myself, what do I want that work to look like before I'd even realize that maybe I wanted to be location independent, I knew that I wanted to have some time independent, like to think about how I built the schedules and the work, how I thought about that. And and so, you know, the digital nomad thing I think was something I wanted ultimately, I didn't know exact when that was going to happen.
00:06:51:04 - 00:07:09:20
Dr. Carla Fowler
I think I knew that it would be easier to establish myself in a community like face to face, really build that trust and a reputation. And so that's where I started. Like I had an office in Seattle, I saw people in person, but I always had that in the back of my mind. I want us to be able to travel.
00:07:09:20 - 00:07:28:20
Dr. Carla Fowler
I want to be able to live in some different places. And because I had some specificity about that, I was able to take some remote clients early to kind of just get a sense and start to troubleshoot that process. Like, how do you work with someone on Zoom in a way that makes them not just like Glaze over?
00:07:30:15 - 00:07:51:23
Dr. Carla Fowler
How do you, you know, what are the platforms you needed to systems you need? And and then when the pandemic started in 2020, because in my mind, I had it that this was this was a plan I was going to be building towards. I mean, it was a moment where it was like, this is the moment, like nobody wants to see you in person.
00:07:52:05 - 00:08:04:08
Dr. Carla Fowler
No one wants to come to downtown Seattle. I don't know if you remember, but Seattle was one of the ground zero was in the U.S. like, now's your moment. People are going to get a chance to try this and it's going to be great and you're going to make it great.
00:08:04:21 - 00:08:24:12
Rob Napoli
So I love that. I mean, I think to go back to that question of like, what do you want? And I think many of us don't know how to answer that question, that being honest, I know there's a lot of things I want, but there's kind of like the what do you want there? There's the question of what are you willing to work for?
00:08:25:07 - 00:08:48:12
Rob Napoli
Right? And so when you when you're kind of like saying, I think everything starts with that question, I think that's a really hard thing to ask yourself. So for somebody who does this for a living, if if you're talking to a leader or CEO or something and you're having to ask that question, how does that normally get received and how do you kind of coach them into fathers out there listening?
00:08:48:12 - 00:09:05:06
Rob Napoli
I'm sure people are saying, Oh, that makes sense. What do I want? And then like you guys, that deep, like dark call is like, what do I actually want? So how do you kind of coach do that or how, how do you know what's going to be some practical tips on thinking about what do you want versus what are you willing to work for?
00:09:05:12 - 00:09:38:10
Dr. Carla Fowler
It's a great question, and I think that when you what you want is less that it's hard and more that there are some predictable things that get in the way of us asking the question, kind of like the speed bumps. So I think one of the things is but to answer your specific question, I think we often get blocked by when we think about the work that we haven't even really been explicit about what might be the work.
00:09:38:22 - 00:10:02:04
Dr. Carla Fowler
And I think the first place to go is to try and get really specific about what you think you want separate from the work, because often we think like, Oh well, I might want that, but I have no idea how to get there. And so that can be a reason. Sometimes you think, well, that would be a lot of work, but we haven't actually defined like we have it as this like big gray cloud.
00:10:02:12 - 00:10:23:00
Dr. Carla Fowler
We haven't actually said, Well, what work would it really be or what might it look like if I actually give myself a longer timeline like me? Sometimes we think about, well, if I want that by next year. Oh, goodness. That is that's going to take a lot hours. But what if I said I want to build a ten year plan to get to that?
00:10:23:16 - 00:10:31:19
Dr. Carla Fowler
Suddenly that might look like a small amount of compounding every day, like a smaller thing. But it might not actually be that hard.
00:10:32:10 - 00:10:54:00
Rob Napoli
And so you bring up a couple of things there. Right. And and kind of detaching from the work a little bit. And I talk about this on other episodes of my podcast that there are kind of two types of people. There are those that work to live, meaning their passions lie outside of the job they do. They have a skill, they know how to leverage it.
00:10:54:09 - 00:11:11:01
Rob Napoli
They're happy to go to their 9 to 5 in the works that they have. You know, they can travel, they can have a family, they can be involved in other societies, organizations. Right. There's there's a lot of people out there that have the kind of work to live mentality and their passions is outside. And then there's the other subset which I follow.
00:11:11:01 - 00:11:25:15
Rob Napoli
And so it sounds like you fall into it, just like your work is your passion and at times is hard to decipher. Oh, what is a work and what is that? Right? And like, I don't know. There are some days where I might play to my working and my not working. Like when I get to do this podcast.
00:11:25:15 - 00:11:45:00
Rob Napoli
For example, I started this with a very simple reasoning of of there's so much bullshit out there. We'll get to some advice about high performing habits here in a minute. Right. There's a ton of bullshit out there and I wanted a place where I could talk with entrepreneurs about the real size called the Bare Necessities. Want to get the song stuck in your head?
00:11:45:00 - 00:12:03:24
Rob Napoli
And too, it's like we talk about things that and everything's linear and not everything is exciting. And so I kind of I bring that up as like the work for Passionate. You talk about kind of bracing, and I think that's really hard for people to do, is to break out what our passions, what our work, what are they good at.
00:12:03:24 - 00:12:21:15
Rob Napoli
I think taking that step back and kind of detaching yourself from the job and asking yourself those questions and then putting a plan and figuring out where does the job fit and what is the passion today, and what is this society, what does this society work out? I think that's a really helpful way for a lot of people to just sit with themselves for a second.
00:12:21:15 - 00:12:27:15
Rob Napoli
And I would even recommend like grabbing a cup of tea or a cup of coffee and having that conversation with yourself and writing it out.
00:12:28:05 - 00:12:51:16
Dr. Carla Fowler
Yes, I love that you said writing it out because it it can seem like this extra, maybe unnecessary step. But the process of trying to put something in words definitely tells you how much clarity you have. And the other thing I love about like have a cup of coffee, make it fun, like, you know, put on your favorite music, something that puts you in a good mood.
00:12:52:19 - 00:13:13:09
Dr. Carla Fowler
It doesn't have to be like deeply dark and serious. And here's the other thing. You don't have to, like, get it right. In fact, what we want is this evolving thing and but I find that I call this like looping or like the spiral graph. Did you ever like, are you familiar with this? Biograph? Was that around for you?
00:13:13:10 - 00:13:15:05
Dr. Carla Fowler
When I was a kid, it was around.
00:13:15:05 - 00:13:23:23
Rob Napoli
I am familiar with that. I just had done that in that that age group that I understand. Okay. Probably a lot of a lot that Michelle and I like. Right. Well.
00:13:24:11 - 00:13:45:15
Dr. Carla Fowler
I know that's why I'm like, okay, so this Biograph, you know, there's little like stenciled tools that you can pin one part of it down. And then you take a pen and you run it around a bunch of times. You create this pretty floral design because it shifts just a little bit every loop that you make. And this is what I recommend to deal with the challenge of the what of the what do I want?
00:13:45:16 - 00:14:10:14
Dr. Carla Fowler
It's there. If you ask yourself that question progressively over time, number one, we get more clarity and it's okay if what you thought six months ago, you now are like, well, that's actually not quite right. Or maybe you actually like started to go after it and that actually gave you data that you're like, Oh, actually, you know, I don't know.
00:14:10:14 - 00:14:34:02
Dr. Carla Fowler
I thought I wanted to do like a bunch of blogging for my business. Turns out I hate writing like, I don't know. But the point is, you learn things once you sort of state something and say, maybe it's this, and then you go live and you work and you embody that and it teaches you things and then you get a better idea and you over time.
00:14:34:12 - 00:14:39:18
Dr. Carla Fowler
And I think it's important to not think you have to get it on there. Like first go.
00:14:40:10 - 00:15:05:02
Rob Napoli
I think that's I mean, I think so many of us don't understand that, that this is a living artifact, right? This is something that changes like we change as humans, like you learn and you grow. And, you know, I think I kind of started this podcast, but I haven't really so I co-founded a company called Haptic Group back in 2019 with a good friend of mine, so Duckhorn as a sales and service business.
00:15:05:02 - 00:15:29:17
Rob Napoli
And we sold in February of 2022, but we knew this was kind of done summer of 2021. I was like, takes time for like, Oh, that's like the process agreements. Evaluating about a second. I told myself I'm like, some are for 2021 till 2023 that I want to be a consultant and a coach and spend 18 months figure out what I didn't get and didn't want.
00:15:29:17 - 00:15:54:02
Rob Napoli
And I actually built for the use of this podcast. I had a rise of coaching as a website and I was just wrapping up at come and I had a bunch of courses that were going to be launched, but a bunch of things like the whole traditional coaching business. Then I realized I didn't fucking want it after I spent three grand to build all these things and shoot content and get all this stuff done, I realized that's not what I wanted in life, right?
00:15:54:02 - 00:16:11:12
Rob Napoli
And I think that, that that's okay. Like, I first I was like, Man, that kind of sucks at the same. Like, now I learned, I know with conviction what doesn't work for me and what does I think that so many of us have. And that's why I ask the question again. It's like, what do you want? But like, what are you willing to work for or work at?
00:16:12:03 - 00:16:30:17
Rob Napoli
Because there's a big difference about putting action to talk. Yeah, so I want to get into that with you. You know, when we talk about high performing habits we see out there in the world a bunch of bullshit, right? To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to get them at 5am You have to do this like now you don't.
00:16:30:18 - 00:16:48:06
Rob Napoli
If you're a fucking night owl, do not get up at 5am Like if you're a creative person at night, you're not going to be able to biologically change your body to be a morning person. That's probably not possible, so you don't have to fucking do it. So I'm going to cut out. I know what I got out of that tangent, but there's a lot out there.
00:16:48:06 - 00:17:05:11
Rob Napoli
So when we talk about high performing, to have high performing habits, where do we start? You know, we've already talked about sitting down with ourselves and asking that question and writing it out, right? So we got those two things, but let's get into some other things. So how do we start then? I want to get into how do we create habits, right?
00:17:05:11 - 00:17:12:08
Rob Napoli
Like, it's great to talk about these things, but these are the actions to set up habits, which is a whole other thing. So how so? Where do we start?
00:17:13:05 - 00:17:37:23
Dr. Carla Fowler
So I agree with you that there's a lot of performance to get kind of mixed up with the productivity movement or like, Oh, you have to X, Y, and Z, or what's the system? This system will just do it for you. And I really steer away from that. It's a little too prescriptive, as you point out. It doesn't work for everybody, like getting up at 5 a.m. if you're Night Owl is not not going to be the best way to use your energy.
00:17:38:10 - 00:17:58:16
Dr. Carla Fowler
And so I often really start from some fundamental principles, and that's what I love about performance science is I think it is less prescriptive and thus it is much more adaptable for each person. And so when I coach individuals, I love it because I can say we can look at the principle together and say, What does this mean for you as a person?
00:17:58:16 - 00:18:15:17
Dr. Carla Fowler
And how could you get the most out of this principle based on your habits? So we talked about the first thing, which I call brutal focus, and it's more or less we got to ask, What do you want? Like if you want high performance, the first thing you have to say is, well, high performance at what? Like what?
00:18:16:02 - 00:18:37:05
Dr. Carla Fowler
What explicitly does that success look like for you? So we talked about that. I think the second piece of that that becomes really important for how we use time. And I think when we often are talking about habits or productivity, what we're saying is like, how do I get more of what I want out of my time and maybe even how do I enjoy that time better?
00:18:37:17 - 00:19:01:19
Dr. Carla Fowler
So this point of you're saying, what do you really want to work for? Well, some of that has to do with how much you can enjoy that experience of doing the work. And it could be the same work, but doing it in one place or in one way, you just hate it. Like you're like, This job sucks. But if you were actually able to do it in a different way, you might actually really enjoy it.
00:19:02:09 - 00:19:24:17
Dr. Carla Fowler
So I think so the second piece of brutal focus is we really have to ask ourselves, okay, given that that's the thing I want, what do I actually think are the big drivers towards that? And this is one of the places where we can eliminate a lot of this stuff for the noise that you just brought up, like the to be a successful entrepreneur getting up at 5 a.m. has nothing to do with it.
00:19:25:08 - 00:19:48:10
Dr. Carla Fowler
Now, whether or not you are there, I would say there's two big pieces of entrepreneurship. There's making stuff and there's selling stuff and you need to do both. And so like often the drivers are, have you created value? It's a service or it's product, something that people actually do want? And then are you actively finding ways to connect with who wants it?
00:19:48:21 - 00:20:16:19
Dr. Carla Fowler
And maybe is it scalable? But so like those are just some examples of when we start to say no, what are the real drivers not? Did I have my green smoothie this morning? Not, not even like social media. Social media can be a tool, but it's a great example of something that can suck a lot of people's time but is not actually isn't driving anything for them.
00:20:17:06 - 00:20:35:20
Dr. Carla Fowler
So I like to ask this question what is most important? Because then we can start to actually say, what should I be doing with my own time? Like, But anyway, so that's I think that is the second thing that I always start with, because if we can get it right, it makes everything go better.
00:20:38:23 - 00:20:57:23
Rob Napoli
Before we get into it. What is the third things I want? I want a like the idea of like listing of things and theories. So here have the first and second. I'm not clear that my OCD on that allowed me to end this podcast without giving a third. But before I come to that, right, you have two things I want to go down that we're going to do this thing first.
00:20:59:00 - 00:21:25:04
Rob Napoli
So I really like this. You talk about performance science, you're talking about adaptability. And number two is kind of one of those drivers of thinking about your journey and your path to this. What what happened to you or where was the moment in time that you realized that what you were doing in your drivers didn't match up? Right?
00:21:25:05 - 00:21:38:18
Rob Napoli
Like the work that you were doing, the time that you're spending and your drivers? When did you realize that those didn't really quite match up in your life? Was that a moment? Was it a combination of experiences? Do you remember that time?
00:21:39:18 - 00:21:44:07
Dr. Carla Fowler
Is this like before I went into coaching or during that kind of entrepreneurship journey? Either?
00:21:44:23 - 00:22:01:02
Rob Napoli
Yeah, yeah. Really? Like, do you remember those moments? I mean, and can you kind of share maybe a personal anecdote of how because I think it's really interesting coaching these things for, for many people, a coach going through it is also like part of the coaching. Yeah. So just kind of like for you, what, where did that hit home?
00:22:01:02 - 00:22:01:20
Rob Napoli
Where did that?
00:22:03:08 - 00:22:03:17
Dr. Carla Fowler
So I.
00:22:03:17 - 00:22:14:13
Rob Napoli
Don't mind. Yeah, I do. Like I could still remember the day. So yeah, I would love to just kind of hear yours. Like where, when did you sit down and realize your drivers didn't match up to your time and value?
00:22:14:13 - 00:22:35:12
Dr. Carla Fowler
Yes. So I have a great story from residency and I think this is this is part of part of making that switch. Is that I, I think I had I had a thought of like what it meant to me to be a doctor and what was important for that. I also have personal values around like being a team player like that.
00:22:35:12 - 00:22:53:18
Dr. Carla Fowler
When there's a team effort that, you know, you've got to make sure that the team is performing well. And if that means you need to take on some more stuff, you just take on some more stuff, right? You get the job done. And I think one of the challenges in medicine is just staffing is very stressed for time.
00:22:53:21 - 00:23:17:00
Dr. Carla Fowler
And and I think I saw it as a human system. And so for me, one of the challenges as a resident, as you know, there's sort of the 80 hour work rule to try and protect sleep and make sure that residents are well rested enough to perform well. And the challenge is you're always getting docked on your hours.
00:23:17:00 - 00:23:42:18
Dr. Carla Fowler
You always have to turn in your hours. And I found that it took more hours than that to do the job well. So for me, doing the job well meant, I don't know. You got to go check on like that patient who you haven't seen all day. And maybe it's because things were actually they were copacetic, you know, like nothing major was happening, but, you know, I'd stop by and see him on my way out and I'm already running late.
00:23:42:18 - 00:24:03:08
Dr. Carla Fowler
Right? You know, it's like 8 p.m., maybe 830. And but I was like, you've got to go check on them. Or like, if somehow the notes hadn't gotten in for your team, sometimes you have multiple residents on a team or whatever. Like if you notice a patient's missing a note while you sit down and you do that note because it needs to get done.
00:24:04:19 - 00:24:25:13
Dr. Carla Fowler
And I think one of the challenges is that we're, you know, like you there are lots of people who help you and who are involved. There are nurses therapies, there are case managers. This hospital runs because we have these amazing people who are all participating and working really hard for your health. I think I had a challenge of that.
00:24:27:00 - 00:24:49:12
Dr. Carla Fowler
I was spending too much time doing things that were of value to me, but that you, you would not survive if you continued to try and do them. And you have to be very focused. Doesn't mean providing bad care, but it means the care looks different then I think our idealized version of the care that is my story.
00:24:49:12 - 00:24:54:24
Dr. Carla Fowler
And I was like, There is not enough hours in the day, like to make this sustainable.
00:24:55:19 - 00:25:18:15
Rob Napoli
Yeah, You start realizing when, you know, even when I started my business, you start realizing where things need to be done and where how much time is spent on things that don't deliver the value you want to deliver but still need to get done. And you got to figure out is sustainable. Can it be outsourced? How does this work?
00:25:18:21 - 00:25:47:04
Rob Napoli
Yes. AT Sometimes it's those things that you realize, Oh, this glorious thing that I thought that I wanted to be a doctor or to be a surgeon. It's this much time of the actual impact that I want to make. And 90% of this and that to me, doesn't make sense. And that for so many people, I think if they get into a role they don't know, they don't realize that, and then they don't know how to get out of it or they don't want to get out of it or they complain about it and they don't optimize for it.
00:25:47:21 - 00:26:14:19
Rob Napoli
And I think that is such a big thing to look at is just understanding how to make that work. Like, can you can you effectively make yourself change the way you go through that process to optimize your time? Is it that your values and your drivers are completely misaligned and what you thought was a really sexy, beautiful, gorgeous role for you that had all the levers is actually very unsexy and uncool that happens to all of us out there, I think.
00:26:14:19 - 00:26:23:17
Rob Napoli
Yeah, you know, I got into marketing because of Don Draper and Mad Men only realized I was advertising and not marketing, you know.
00:26:23:17 - 00:26:48:21
Dr. Carla Fowler
That's a good that's a good story. And sometimes you can't believe the reality, right? I think I think another principle of like kind of high performance, like how to think about this is I have the thing, don't play reality. So for me, what that meant was, no, like this is actually what it will be to be a surgeon and, and like, you can provide good care.
00:26:48:21 - 00:27:10:19
Dr. Carla Fowler
It's just what that looks like is not what you thought it looks like. And I think I looked at that and I was like, Nah, I can't outsmart this. This isn't I can't outsource it, you know, like, I can't change that. And that's a reality. I shouldn't be, nor should I sink more costs into the Senate. Like the seven years of residency.
00:27:10:19 - 00:27:34:20
Dr. Carla Fowler
So I stopped after one year. But there's other stuff that actually we can change, and we often think like, I don't have any influence. I don't have influence, but we have a lot more agency to shape something. So like I know you were giving you sample before the show about like where you like to do your work and that some like where, what location you pick has a huge impact.
00:27:35:04 - 00:28:02:01
Dr. Carla Fowler
And so for you doing a job where you have some flexibility about where you can go work as something you have had some influence over. And so I, I often call this like the 1090, 90, ten where I think we often think we have 10% influence and 90% of things are like out of our influence. But I think it's actually the reverse, which is we have a lot more influence than we think we do.
00:28:03:08 - 00:28:18:14
Rob Napoli
And I think that I love that you share that because I think so many of us are afraid to leverage that influence by even just asking the question and only asking the question to yourself, but to, you know, if you're sitting out there and you're listening and you're not a business owner and you're like, well, how do I make that work for me?
00:28:18:14 - 00:28:37:10
Rob Napoli
Well, ask your boss, ask for that time off, ask for that thing, like we're going to you know, we're going to at my my wife's phone is paid for by our company and we're going to Mexico. And I was like, Yeah, I have my Mexico's included in my plan. They said, Well, I don't know about mine is like, Why don't you just ask your boss?
00:28:37:10 - 00:28:57:12
Rob Napoli
Well, I don't want to feel like I'm abusing the work. Fine. I was like that. But like they offered to take your phone over after saying mine. They offered do all these things for you. Knowing that if you ever left, that you would get to keep your light and break and just ask, Hey, do we have Internet? Do we have free texting and calling in Mexico so that I can have my phone on the Internet to split up from the group?
00:28:57:12 - 00:29:22:07
Rob Napoli
I have an ability to make a call and it was like for her, it was like an existential thing to ask the question. And it's like they gave you that phone for a reason. They know that you're going to do all these things in your lives, and that's that 9010, ten, 98, ten, 90, 90, ten thing is like she probably has 94% influence on that decision and asking would have been no issue but for her internally, she fought against that.
00:29:23:01 - 00:29:46:03
Rob Napoli
And I think so many of us are afraid to ask out there and say, look, you have more influence than you think you need it. You need to not be afraid. And when you do that, though, that's what I think the problem is, is that we're afraid to hear now and I grew up in sales like, you know, and now it's a good thing for me because closer to yes, you have to be not afraid to ask, but also understand that no, as a reasonable answer.
00:29:46:08 - 00:30:05:23
Rob Napoli
I think we're so we're getting to a point where we just like we only ask if we think they're going to say yes and we've lost this. We have such fear of rejection that it's hard. I think that's what made it makes coaching virtually even harder at times is like you know that that that that disconnect. But yeah I love this reality that the 1090 9010.
00:30:05:23 - 00:30:33:18
Rob Napoli
I think that for many of us, the people out there listening today that's going to be hit home for sure. So I want to kind of get into something you mentioned earlier around kind of productivity, and we talked about productivity versus performance and we're talking about habits. Right. And there's prescription productivity and there's all these things when it actually comes to high performing habits.
00:30:34:05 - 00:31:02:13
Rob Napoli
Right. And putting that into it, obviously, we're not going to you can probably do a whole like 50 pad session on how to create high performing habits. Right. But what are as we're trying to build habits, what are some maybe tips, tricks or tools tangibly that we can take away that if you're sitting out there listening like I really want to become better at X, Y, Z, or I want to start creating some better habits, where can they start?
00:31:02:13 - 00:31:09:09
Rob Napoli
What are some tips, tricks and tools that you have is like some good places to start without, you know, on their own.
00:31:10:14 - 00:31:31:14
Dr. Carla Fowler
So I think a great place to start is let's just assume you identified something you think you might want. And I hedge that just because, again, you don't have to be 100% sure, but pick something. Pick the thing you feel most excited about like that. You just have that kind of gut of like, Oh, yeah, I want that.
00:31:31:14 - 00:31:53:19
Dr. Carla Fowler
Like, maybe it's I want to be I want to be healthier. I want to exercise more in 2023 or whatever it is, or I want to, you know, I want to really invest in my sales this year, but like, pick something like that. And then the thing that I think is most important, I just call this the 90, 90, 90 methodology for building momentum.
00:31:54:06 - 00:32:20:07
Dr. Carla Fowler
And it's meant to basically get rid of a lot of the blockers that make it hard to form a habit. So I say you pick the area and then the most important thing is you start working on something. Now if you can pick something that you're like, Oh yeah, I know that I could make more sales calls. Let's just say then you already sort of know what the thing is.
00:32:20:14 - 00:32:44:08
Dr. Carla Fowler
Sometimes we don't start because we don't know, like, I want this thing, but I do not know how to influence that. And that's when I say great. What you get to get started on is learn something about it. So it could be think of three people, you know, who seem to like, know something about this or are successful in this area and like set up coffee with them.
00:32:44:19 - 00:33:01:15
Dr. Carla Fowler
It could be, Hey, there's that book sitting on my bookshelf that I've been meaning to read and take some ideas out of it. That's a good way to start. Like, and I'm not even saying you have to sit down and read the whole book. I'm saying I'm going to read 20 minutes a day before I go to bed, right?
00:33:01:15 - 00:33:26:24
Dr. Carla Fowler
So make it manageable. Often things that occur in chunks of 30 minutes or less, so make it small. This is totally from tiny habits, by the way, which is a great book on habit formation. If people are interested. B.J. Fogg, I think is the author. But make it small. So and it's okay if you don't know because then you the job to get started is to say how can I know something about this?
00:33:27:12 - 00:33:52:08
Dr. Carla Fowler
And so the first part of the 90, 90, 90 is that 90% of people don't get started. So we find a way to get started, even if it's I got to learn about this thing before I even know what I would do to impact it. So the second piece of the 90, 90, 90 is that once 90% of people, well, 10% of people start, and then after that, 90% of people don't keep going.
00:33:53:02 - 00:34:14:07
Dr. Carla Fowler
And so like if you're still learning lag and you need to keep learning like keep going on that, find a new book or ask for a recommendation of someone else you might meet with to talk about it or interview a couple of providers who you might contract to help you with something, but maybe you identify some really clear steps like those strike me as good things.
00:34:14:07 - 00:34:39:17
Dr. Carla Fowler
I could do those. Then it's like, okay, how do I keep going and do a little bit that might compound towards what I want. So then the key thing is that notice I'm not saying like, don't train, improve it, just try and do it and like get the satisfaction, reward yourself for like I did it because the third 90, that is where we get to improving what we're doing.
00:34:40:02 - 00:35:01:20
Dr. Carla Fowler
But the problem is we often train start improving things that we're doing like right away, and that just kills our fire. It's like hitting the brakes every time, you know, you're trying to drive down the road and like hitting the brakes 20 times before you hit the next block. It just kind of kills our natural fire. And so I always say, break it up into three steps.
00:35:02:01 - 00:35:26:15
Dr. Carla Fowler
Get going. Don't just like make sure you keep working on the thing, keep it in front of your focus, know front of mind. And then once you've kind of really got into the sense of you understand this thing you're working on like you're doing and you know how to get yourself to do it, that's moment when you can start to say, Are there any changes I'd make to that?
00:35:27:03 - 00:35:54:02
Dr. Carla Fowler
Like now that I've had maybe a month or more of just doing the thing, that small, impactful thing, what might I change? But I like to keep it small because I'm the most important thing I think is maintaining our momentum on something like when you're on a sailboat, as long as water is flowing over the rudder, you can steer the boat the moment it like stops.
00:35:54:08 - 00:35:55:15
Dr. Carla Fowler
You can't steer it anywhere.
00:35:57:06 - 00:36:17:19
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I love that you very eloquently stated what I tell people. I always talk about like goal markers in the sand, like keeping it small, putting in the sand so that you can like them. The mountain. You pull it out of the sand and you take that gold marker and you put the next one right. Like for many of us, the best example is like losing weight, right?
00:36:17:21 - 00:36:38:08
Rob Napoli
Put things in the future tense Since I'm going to lose £30 in the year of 2023, that's a big goal versus like, I'm going to lose £5 in January, I'm going to lose £10 in February. Right. If I put these small goals and you put it in the current tense like I'm going to do, you're more likely to put that time, energy and effort into doing it right.
00:36:38:21 - 00:36:56:19
Rob Napoli
It's always like, I'll put in goal markers in the sand as you're climbing the mountain, because guess what? There's always going to be any of that decline, right? Once you kind of create that that consistency. But to stop thinking too big, I think too many people put these big goals and try to manifest it and people that manifest the things they want manifest.
00:36:56:19 - 00:37:21:09
Rob Napoli
I think I want to say manifest small in a negative way. They manifest realistic things and they go about putting action to that. Yes, manifestation happens. And I say this about luck or luck happens when opportunity means preparation and. Right. We all need a little bit of luck. Definitely in life. Yeah, but you create luck. And those that seem to be lucky, putting themselves in position always be successful because they're putting into action.
00:37:21:09 - 00:37:38:01
Rob Napoli
They're not just sitting around waiting on the couch for the money to drop their. Yeah, they may go be playing a lottery, but they're working three jobs to the house of a lot and they're putting good out. So I love this idea of make it small and make it manageable because that I think for many people is so hard.
00:37:38:01 - 00:37:51:23
Rob Napoli
We want to change. And I love that you brought this up. Everyone wants to improve shape before they figure out what it is that they're doing wrong. It's like I'm going to improve this. I mean, that was like we've really, really answered that. That's kind of working. Well, why don't you figure out what it is that's wrong first?
00:37:52:08 - 00:38:13:23
Dr. Carla Fowler
Yeah, well, also it creates confusion. And like, when we when we lose clarity, our motivation also generally drops because we're like, well, why is going back to what you said, what are you willing to work for? I actually think that we're willing to work for a lot more than we think we are. If we feel like we have clarity that it's actually going to get us what we want.
00:38:14:06 - 00:38:48:24
Dr. Carla Fowler
Now, sometimes you're right. You learn that you don't want to do it like you're like as coaching webinars. I don't I'm actually just not interested and that's great. Don't believe that. But often we, we, we wonder whether the work is worth it, not that we don't like the work. And so this is where don't create confusion before you like have some momentum you know, before you've actually had some time to gather by doing to like run the experiment and really kind of see how it feels as you build some self-efficacy.
00:38:49:08 - 00:39:05:17
Dr. Carla Fowler
I think we like being good at things. And so while it takes a little while to be good at the first habit, you decide to do so, give yourself a little time before you put yourself in that uncertain position of trying to do something harder or different than that.
00:39:05:17 - 00:39:32:00
Rob Napoli
I, I resonate with that so much. That's taking some notes, as you're saying that because it hits it hits home. Right. And just the fact that we need to I think it comes down to a little bit that everyone's looking for a silver bullet, right? That magic bullet when there isn't one. It's I mean, it is it's you and it's putting action.
00:39:32:00 - 00:40:03:04
Rob Napoli
And I think that if you take anything from this to create habit and and high performing habits, you need to first take action. Right? Action on what I want. What am I willing to work for, what I'm excited about and then learn, take the first step, learn, learn more. I think that is such an amazing thing to think about and when we sit back and put that as in perspective, the shit gets easier.
00:40:03:12 - 00:40:17:08
Rob Napoli
We make this shit harder than it needs to be. In my opinion. But at the same point, that's because it's hard for us as humans to look in the mirror and have that conversation with ourselves, plain and simple, you see.
00:40:18:06 - 00:40:45:21
Dr. Carla Fowler
Oh, and yeah. And, and I think part of that challenge is we as human beings like our evolutionary biology, we want to mimic other people, whether it's wanting what they might want or doing the stuff they're doing to get it or even to just wanting to feel as successful as other people look. So but we don't have a lot of insight into actually like each other situations.
00:40:46:05 - 00:41:08:20
Dr. Carla Fowler
And, and there's just a lot of that that I just finally gets in the way of starting managing to not stop. And then like giving yourself space to run learning loops to spiral graph, right? Like to keep things moving a little bit at a time. And the truth is, and going back to something we said much earlier, this idea of like, well, what if you gave yourself ten years?
00:41:09:21 - 00:41:18:11
Dr. Carla Fowler
You know, what? If you looked over a longer timeline and let yourself compound on something rather than try and figure out how you were going to do it by Q2? Yeah.
00:41:18:24 - 00:41:43:23
Rob Napoli
And I think that it's scary to that to we think and I think the pressure of life is so fleeting and things have to happen today. Today, today we live in a microwave economy that it's like give yourself ten years, throw out two years, you know, put your head down for a six months learning something and letting this photograph happen to see like when you left your head up in six months, what actually is going to be happening around you and how far you've come.
00:41:44:15 - 00:42:04:23
Rob Napoli
I think we're so stuck on the microwave economy that we forget to kind of put that in perspective. So I love I love that like they got what you could accomplish. Life is life short, but there's also some longevity to it. And you, as a human, have this amazing opportunity to experience so much of it in our time here on Earth.
00:42:04:23 - 00:42:07:01
Rob Napoli
And so we need to make the most of those experiences.
00:42:08:08 - 00:42:11:03
Dr. Carla Fowler
I love it.
00:42:11:03 - 00:42:19:11
Rob Napoli
So I know we're kind of getting close to time here and I appreciate it. So, you know, we never really talked about this, but your company is called How Do you Pronounce It?
00:42:19:11 - 00:42:21:00
Dr. Carla Fowler
That's FactSet.
00:42:21:14 - 00:42:34:21
Rob Napoli
That's okay. That's the executive coaching, which, you know, I love that you found of this. And I guess it feels like it's not that long ago, but it's been over ten years now. Right.
00:42:34:22 - 00:42:38:14
Dr. Carla Fowler
And in February, I will have my ten year anniversary.
00:42:38:14 - 00:42:59:14
Rob Napoli
Yeah, that is so as you you know, you started this and I love going back to kind of your story of, you know, your passion for performing science and kind of through the fields of strategy, productivity and the psychology intersect. So if you had to take out the last ten years of going through this and running your own business as an entrepreneur, you know what?
00:42:59:16 - 00:43:25:14
Rob Napoli
What is one what's the one key lesson or key learning that has kept you motivated ten years? You know, we talked we talked a lot about depth, you know, the moments you had as as a resident to not to becoming an entrepreneur. So ten years later, as you're about to, you know, when this episode comes out, you'll be right before you celebrate your ten year anniversary with your business.
00:43:25:22 - 00:43:36:03
Rob Napoli
You know, what's kept you going? What's kept that passion and that fire in those drivers aligned to your values for you, What's what's kind of a key takeaway. They would look at those last ten years.
00:43:37:23 - 00:44:02:13
Dr. Carla Fowler
I think a key takeaway one is I keep betting on myself and that it's interesting leaving medicine. There's actually a lot of things that prepared me to coach that transferred from medicine and also how I think about problems from the science that I did, but really like I had, I did not have business training, I had none of that.
00:44:02:13 - 00:44:32:09
Dr. Carla Fowler
And so it was really going into in some ways a really different world. And a lot of people were like, well, why you think you're going to be able to do that? And I think one of the things is that I come back to I feel good about betting on myself and that is very different from saying that I know how to do things all the time or that things aren't new or they aren't scary, but that I know I've always been a person who.
00:44:32:09 - 00:44:53:03
Dr. Carla Fowler
If you give me enough time that I have a very steep curve, but I have a slower starting curve than many people. In fact, I think I have this funny story like from residency when I think halfway through or maybe two thirds of the way through, my chief resident was like, she's like, you're an MD, PhD. Like, you're not just an M.D. And I was like, Yes.
00:44:53:10 - 00:45:11:09
Dr. Carla Fowler
And she's like, That's why you ask all those questions. She's like, You're trying to understand the system. And I'm like, Yes, because I, I want to be able to do things independently and not have to ask you questions, you know, all the time. And so I'm trying to figure out how it works, but it takes me a while.
00:45:11:15 - 00:45:38:17
Dr. Carla Fowler
Like my my download is it takes a while, and then I can do a lot of stuff with it. Then I move very quickly. So I think that's that is one piece. But I think I think the other piece is just giving myself that time. So really it's the second ten years when I'm having more conversations, I'm creating more visibility.
00:45:38:17 - 00:46:05:22
Dr. Carla Fowler
I didn't actually do very much social media anything for the first ten years, but I gave myself time to learn how to sell, how to like, pitch and talk about my business and the problems that I was trying to solve for people and just to allow yourself some time to become good at something and to create strategies that don't require that you be good at something right away.
00:46:06:05 - 00:46:25:08
Dr. Carla Fowler
So you can plan your business plan. You can do this to say how, like what's what's a curve that will compound that I know I will get better at, but that it doesn't I don't need to I don't get just one chance, basically. And so those are some of my takeaways.
00:46:25:08 - 00:46:50:16
Rob Napoli
I think I love that. And, you know, betting on yourself, I'm a huge proponent that I'll always better myself. But but it also comes back to the 1990. 90, right. 90% of people don't start making that keep going. And 80% try to prove like you've given yourself time to be part of that 10% in each one of those buckets and say if you give yourself the time to do these things, it will happen.
00:46:50:16 - 00:47:09:01
Rob Napoli
Success doesn't happen overnight. And it's through those lessons that you feel more confident going into the next ten years. And I think every major key business owner in this world and this is why I started this podcast, making things look sexy. It's an overnight success, but no one saw the 7 to 10 years behind the scenes to be successful when the time came.
00:47:09:01 - 00:47:24:09
Rob Napoli
So I appreciate you kind of sharing and highlighting that. I had a lot of fun and I could spend hours with you on this call. Thank you. Where can people find you? Where can they get in touch if they want to learn more about you, what you're doing, or potentially hiring you for something.
00:47:25:03 - 00:48:01:09
Dr. Carla Fowler
So a great place if you're just kind of interested in performance science, a great place to follow me is LinkedIn. So whenever I'm having conversations and each one's a little different and we cover different principles, so I'm Karla Fowler on LinkedIn, and so that's a good place to follow me. And then if you're interested in coaching more specifically, my website is, it thaxa.com, t h a x a and you can there's a lot of great ethics up there, but there's also you can message me through the site and I'm always interested in finding my next great client.
00:48:01:09 - 00:48:08:10
Dr. Carla Fowler
And so if that's a conversation that would be helpful, we can set up some time to talk more about it, what that might look like.
00:48:09:08 - 00:48:29:13
Rob Napoli
Awesome, I’ll make sure to drop all those links in the show notes, the website, the LinkedIn. I'll also even add in and they're starting to get going on Twitter. So add in your Twitter handle in there as well. So if you'd like to connect with Karla, all the links, easy to click on Highlight. Thank you so much for joining us here today.
00:48:29:13 - 00:48:30:22
Rob Napoli
I appreciate having you on the show.
00:48:31:05 - 00:48:33:03
Dr. Carla Fowler
Awesome. Thanks, Rob. It was a pleasure.
00:48:33:21 - 00:48:41:06
Rob Napoli
You bet. Bear Nation once again, thank you for tuning in. Until next time, stay well and rise up. Yeah.