The Four Buckets Of Performance With Dr. Carla Fowler

Yeah, great question. Well, one of the first obvious things that comes to mind is like for the past 4 years, my husband and I have been digital nomading around. So we've been living in different places of the United States. And of course, like I'm, I'm running my coaching practice. It's all life as usual. This isn't like vacationing lots of spots, although that's fun too, but really getting to just be in different places, see different landscapes, ecosystems. Get to do the sports that are good to do in that place. Like, I'm in Tucson, Arizona right now, and this is total road cycle heaven. We tried the mountain biking, we hit a couple cacti, and then we're like, oh yeah, nope, we might not be mountain bikers here, but we can ride on the roads. So that's just kind of a fun and interesting experience that often, you know, with Zoom, we don't know where anyone is. And so, you know, that's my experience over the past 4 years, and it's been super interesting.

Wow. I, I love that. And so what was the inspiration? I'm sure there's some people that are listening to this going, wow, digital nomad. I've heard of that, or I've thought of that, or maybe they've never, you know, even been acquainted with that sort of term or, or the, the idea behind it. But give us the origin story if you could around how you became digital nomads.

Yeah. Well, this is a great story and, and it's interesting, right? Like when you partner with someone for life, like part of what happens is there's a merging of dreams. And I don't know that myself, I had a dream about like doing lots of travel or living lots of places. But I think my husband had a little more of that bug. But one of the really interesting things, so, you know, in my background, I had one almost whole, what feels like a career path of being in medicine, which with a few exceptions is a very location-dependent career, right? You need to like see people in person. And ultimately about 12 years ago pivoted into something that I started as a location-dependent thing. I started a coaching I met with people in person. I did very much enjoy that. But one of the interesting things about moving into that realm was it was suddenly opening up the possibility that I might not need to be in one place all the time. And my husband was an entrepreneur. He already had sort of location freedom. And the origin is that we started to talk about it, that it would be really interesting, like what a wild adventure that, you know, technology enables these days. And then it really, so it was on on our how could we get there list and thinking about what were the steps we'd have to take. Well, then you can fast forward to like the pandemic, 2020. We were living in a high-rise building in Seattle, which was sort of one of the like ground zeros where we first had like a, like a big cohort of patients. And we're like, this is not fun. Like we're, we're like, you know, quarantining, just like staying in our apartment and we're really far from a lot of the stuff we love, like wilderness and— We also were like, this is the moment. Like, this really sucks, everything that is happening. And also it is a time when suddenly what is normalized is a remote interaction. And so we just, we took the opportunity when it came and we started, I think we, where did we go first? We did a trial in Taos and we said, well, let's just, let's just try it. We'll just get a short-term rental. We did a couple months and we'll just see how we feel about it. And we did that trial. We hiked all the peaks like around and, you know, did our work like normal, but, um, just found it was a total kick and an adventure and, and a dose of novelty. And so we came back to Seattle, packed up our apartment, sold a bunch of stuff, and we were off. We moved 14 times in 18 months in the first year.

I was just going to ask you about that. That's so funny. All right.

We went to Big Sky, we went to like the Mammoth Lakes area. Gosh, we went to Driggs, Idaho. A lot of stuff in the West, um, kind of mountain towny. But we definitely realized that that ratio of moving to staying was a lot of packing for the benefit. So we've since like kind of, we've settled down into it. So now we're like 4 or 5 or 6 months in a place and then, then a move. So we actually get to kind of settle down, really experience something before we go somewhere else.

Yeah,

that's the story.

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Yeah.

In fact, a very similar experience that my wife and I have been on, which I'll share in a moment. Yeah. I mean, you have to simplify quite a bit to do that too, right? You can't carry around a house on your back.

No. Well, both those things are really true. You brought up like sort of the agility or the adaptiveness, because I think one of the things, and this is very related to probably some of the topics we'll touch on today, are that we can, particularly high-performing people, but like we love to have control as human beings. And when we can be in one place—

Can I just interject a, you think? Or maybe insert a duh or something.

Yeah, totally. I am, by the way, I'm the queen of like obvious statements. And part of that is—

No, no.

It actually, no, but it's so important. I actually relish saying really obvious things.

I'm just like, people, when you say, when you say to people, you know, aren't we a little bit like, you know, control freaks? And people look at you like, no, what are you, what are you talking about?

Yeah.

Not me.

No, never. But We love that sense of control. And if you are like even half good at things, then what that means is you can go through your environment and you could start optimizing things. And you could say, well, I have my, you know, whatever my special this, or like, here's how we always do, you know, dinner, or here's how I like to do my workout, or here's even how I like my meeting schedule. Or they're just all these things that we start to optimize. And that is absolutely a piece of performance, right?

Or this is my favorite pillow.

Yes. This is my favorite pen. Everyone listening, I am holding up a G2 Pilot, like, pen, right? Like, you know, but we get things like this. My favorite notebook.

Smooth ball, like, really nice even ink flow. Yeah. And I'm a lefty, so pens mean a lot to me because most of them suck from a lefty's perspective, you know? And I, and I'll drag my hand across the page, so I always have ink on my palm or something like that. So pen. Yeah. That doesn't leak all over you.

Yeah, exactly. Like, we, we get these preferences, and having preferences is one of the joys in life. It also can start to narrow our worlds. And so one of the really interesting experiences for me, I was like, for the past 12 years, I have been building my coaching practice. And so if you figure maybe, I guess, gosh, like 5 years ago, we like took the show on the road. There were all sorts of things you have to sort. And one of the interesting things is when we're thinking about performance, we have to know and trust in ourselves about how we're going to perform when the conditions are not ideal. And I think we've all gotten like kind of a crash course in this over, I mean, I think many people would say much longer than the past 5 years. Like if you include some recessions and different things like operating in unideal conditions. And so it forced me to say, what are you going to do if the internet's patchy? You now have an entirely Zoom-based business. Like, And you might be in Driggs, Idaho, and there's a big snowstorm. And, or like in Tucson, for example, we get monsoons in the summer that can knock out the power. Last summer, the power went out for like probably like 36 hours or something. And so you suddenly have to ask yourself, well, I wanna perform at a high level, but also how am I gonna deal with these hiccups? Some of that is like the grace with which you approach it. Some of it is very execution, like what's your backup? And some of it is just philosophically or strategically understanding what is most important about what I'm doing and can I still deliver that as opposed to getting so far down into the weeds of like tweaking and optimizing every little thing. And I think this is an interesting, just perhaps general commentary on how, like how one could have an exercise how one can create experiences in one's life that help you practice, practice being adaptable or practice being resilient where you don't have the control over everything. Um, that's sort of my story or my experience of this. Everything from, you know, like, wow, that snowplow outside is really loud. Like we don't have that in Seattle, but yeah.

Do you find that there's practice in the letting go of things as well? Because as I was listening to you, I was thinking, gosh, we have so many preferences. Yes, we're in many ways so, so attached to control, safety, in other words, to this.

Yes.

You know, what is familiar and what is secure and what is known and all that kind of thing. And then you go through a pandemic and we realize, you know, there's so much that we lack any control over, of course, as though that's, you know, there should be another one, insert duh right here. It's like, because these things are so obvious. And yet when you look at the way we live, you know, like Look at other people as you and I both do in, in on the research side and, and working with, like we spend a lot of time working with leaders and teams in organizations. So we get kind of embedded in there to, to look at how people behave and what their habits are and, and whatnot. And, and so, yeah, so we, we absolutely lean into control, but we also are very attached to our preferences. So as you say, you know, my favorite pen, I said my, my favorite pillow or the quiet or the lack of the quiet, you know, like Any number of things. So, um, this nomadic, this digital nomadic existence, has it helped you to let go of some of those preferences that sort of the weight of, of all of that stuff that we want to kind of take with us, you know, mentally, not just the physical stuff, but the mental stuff as well?

Yeah, absolutely. And I actually, it's, it's been sort of 2 things. So, or actually let's say maybe 3 things. And this is great because this, this, we are, we are getting into like how I think about performance science, which is, so I run a coaching practice. We really focus on performance science as a way or methodology or framework for like, how do you approach the challenges you're facing in your work or in your life? How, what are ways to like think about it where it's not just like, I have to do better or somehow work harder, which often isn't super useful. But often when I'm thinking about how, and we can talk more formally about how I break this down, but there are often different buckets we can go to to say, what's a way I could approach this challenge? So you just brought up the challenge of like, okay, I'm moving all over the place. Things don't always work the way I think they will. I might be about to log on with someone who, you know, you want to do a great job for and you're like, oh man, like, not like the internet is super patchy. So how do you deal with that? And you brought up this point of like letting go. And I think that is one of the pieces of like what are mindsets we can have. So one bucket of performance really is about like what is our psychology about it? What are some mindsets that help us like kind of have the grace to roll with the punches, for example? But another way to think about it, so flip away from letting it go. And another bucket that I think a lot about with performance is you could say it's what are we focused on or what is our strategy? And simply put, a lot of strategy is just saying, have you clearly defined what you're aiming at? And do you actually know, like, what's important that you're going to focus your resources towards? This can be money, this can be time, attention, like where your team is focused. But that in a nutshell is what is strategy. And it is like, what are all the stuff you're not going to do? What are all those things? Because there will be way more of those. So one way you could think about this experience of having to be resilient, of not having things all set up the way you want, Is it helps you, uh, start to think about, well, what was actually most important for the coaching experience, right? Like, so if I wanna have impact and help a, a really great leader who is dealing with some challenges, what is actually most important? And yes, I should have a great online experience for that. You know, I should, like, there are lots of things one builds to optimize a practice. And yet, if you simplified it and said, but what is the core of how, like, we could have a dialogue that is of value to them? And it's like, well, a phone will do that. You can do that on the phone. And so some of this was also focusing, getting back to the core of what matters most. And you might layer on some extra when you have the option of doing that. But in performance, it's often really important for us to define, like, do we know the core of what matters most? Because our time is limited and our time and our bandwidth and even like how many like We'll keep this clean. Like, how much anxious cycles do I have to worry about X, Y, or Z? Like, do I have that energy to give, right, to something? And also to say, you might not, and that might be okay because it might not be related to what's most important for what you're trying to do. So that's a different way to think about it. There's letting go, and there was definitely some of that, but there's also a refocusing on, well, actually, what mattered most, and am I able to deliver that? And then I think the last piece, this is another bucket of performance, is really around practices and execution, like building capabilities. And so part of adaptability and resilience is, hey, do you know how to sort of manage the awkward moment when something doesn't go to plan? Are you practiced at that? Do you sort of have some backup plans of like, well, here's what we're gonna do instead, or this can be like a learning moment for us? Or that's another piece of that resiliency. And so I learned like, oh, how do you reconnect to your backup hotspot? How do you, you know, get on the phone real quick and you have everyone's phone number so you switch seamlessly to a different experience? Like some of these are just really practical execution pieces that also help us be resilient. And so like, I love this as a microcosm because we've gotten through 3 of the buckets that I think about with performance. There is one more and we can get to that, but I think this is why it was such a powerful exercise for me.

Yeah. And I'm feeling it as well when I'm listening to you speak about it, because I think about, we like to say that you practice resilience before you need it. You develop resilience before you need it. So it's, and sometimes even in the book Change Proof, I talk about the idea of performing resilience, that you perform it before it's needed. And it's, as you say, 'cause it allows you to operate in the world as it actually is. So we have the world in our heads, and then there's the world in reality. And sometimes they're similar, but I mean, often the world, the world is really a lot less perfect, a lot less ordered, a lot less neat and clean than the worlds in our, you know, inside of our—

Yeah.

Well, or sometimes well-organized, well-intentioned, you know, very goal-oriented minds. And so, yeah, if every time you sort of, something is not sort of optimal in the environment, it can easily distract you at a minimum. It can throw a lot of people off. It can really get in the way. of performance, I would think. But I know this is your real expertise, so I'd love to go back before we get to that 4th one and share a little bit of the backstory on how it is that you became so more than just infatuated with performance and how it is and why it is that you actually work with people that way, you know, coaching them.

Yeah.

Et cetera. So.

Well, I'm so glad you asked because again, sometimes they're just stories that aren't really clear when you try to connect the dots on paper and You know, I will often get asked, like, how did you start in, like, a career in academic medicine? Like, you got an MD, you got a PhD, then big pivot, like, out of your residency program into starting a coaching practice that was focused around performance science. And so, yeah, it's like, connect those dots. So if we go back really far, and I'm talking like 5th grade, this is the first time I can remember having a thought that I would categorize as like, well, that was sort of a performance-based thought. Like, you— I was in 5th grade is the first time I can remember asking a question of like, well, I want X, Y, or Z, and I see other people getting X, Y, or Z, and I would like to understand why that is. Like, in its simplest form, it could be like, well, there's a track meet and I'd like to perform well at that track meet. But it also bled into other realms, right? Like, there were questions about, hey, you start to see the social structures getting set up in middle school, right? Who's friends with who? Like, Where is the influence? And of course, this plays out every day in the politics of our workplaces. So this is not about just, you know, middle school social dynamics. This is a fundamental thing about us as human beings. But like, I was really curious and wondering about these things. And at some point, probably around middle school, I figured out that one of the best ways that I could learn was sort of to subject myself, to put myself into arenas or situations in which I would be forced to be challenged. And I would have to figure it out. And it would create enough pressure of the scenario that, you know, I'd be really motivated. We can argue whether that was like a, you know, a clean, like intrinsic motivation or if it was more fear, but regardless, it was effective. And so, you know, fast forward a little bit there as you're growing up, there are lots of arenas in which one can be challenged. You've got, you know, academics. Where do you go to college? What are you going to study? There was definitely sports for me. I guess played— I was a runner, so. Ran like cross-country and track, headed off to college, was like, I wanna keep playing sports, but I don't think I can run here. So walked onto the crew team and Brown, which was my college, has a nationally ranked crew team, but they took walk-ons. So it was like, great, you wanna start at zero and row with people who have been rowing already for probably at least 4 years. That, I was so excited. This is a chance of a lifetime. When can you like just join something like this? And

I'm just, I'm literally smiling ear to ear, and I'm only gonna interrupt your flow for one second to say, 'cause this is what—

No, please do.

This is one of those uncanny things. Okay? 'Cause I got to walk on a crew team as well. I was a swimmer and, uh, Oh, amazing. In college. But when I got to this, this experience was when I went to England and I got to study at the University of York. And they had this, you know, Oh, amazing. Well-regarded crew team and this beautiful river, the River Ouse, that's, that's there, et cetera. And I don't even know how it happened, but I went out for that, that walk-on, you know, crew team. And I want to know what your experience was like. It was one of the best things I've ever done in my entire life and one of the most difficult, challenging physically, but also on a lot of, on a lot of psychological levels as well. But how funny that you and I had that same experience.

Oh, I'm just so glad you interrupted.

Uncanny, actually. Yeah. Too funny.

Well, I think for me, it encapsulates A characteristic of experiences I really appreciate, which is where you show up and it isn't entirely based on like, where precisely have you been before, what precise experiences have you had, but is much more about what capabilities do you have? And I think like whenever I'm coaching someone who is transitioning, like this question comes up a lot because like in work or in careers, sometimes like we may wanna make a pivot, we may want to do something different, but that doesn't mean we're starting at zero. And so in this crew experience, it, what I loved was they wanted walk-ons. Like they absolutely had recruited athletes who would go on to the Olympics and did, but they needed to fill boats and they understood that they could teach athletic, like really hardworking people. And see, this is a great, I think your experience, you obviously were athletic, I'm assuming hardworking given your background and Like, they were like, we can actually teach you how to row very well. And in some ways, we'd love to get to be the ones to teach you so that you don't develop a bunch of bad habits. And like, we welcome you because we see, like, they didn't, they never said this out loud. Of course, it was all coachy stuff, you know, like, like, get in the locker room, do this, do this, do this. But there was a value you knew because they welcomed you and they took the time to teach you. And really started at the basics. Like a crew stroke, like can be broken down into like about 4 parts and they literally started part by part. And being, I, I'm guessing you might echo this, but being an 8, a sweep 8 going full speed, like in flow, there's nothing like it. And I mean, I think people got a little bit of that when like the Boys in the Boat book came out, when the movie came out. I think to try and encapsulate it, but like, and I haven't rowed since college, but like, this is such a unique experience. And, um, not just the, the rowing part of it, but the, hey, how do you show up for stuff with all your capabilities and learn to do a new thing that you actually don't have?

Exactly. Like, we're so adaptable, but we're also, we have far greater capacity, I think, than most people give themselves credit for. And especially as you say, like in that work context, Where people think, you know, I've got so much invested in this one area, you know, it's sort of that sunk cost fallacy.

Yes.

That they've sunk so much time into something that it would be foolish from a career standpoint or a development standpoint, you know, like a, I don't wanna start at the beginning. I don't wanna suck at something again. You know, you really do. I mean, I would say, I don't know how that experience, the rowing experience was for you at the beginning. I know for me it was challenging in the sense that my hands were so soft. Like, I was a swimmer. I played water polo.

Oh, they, they get totally like torn up.

They're wrecked. They're wrecked.

Oh yeah. Totally wrecked.

To the point where—

That's pretty normal.

The blisters are so intense that you could barely hold onto the oar. It's stuff like that. And then you've gotta feather that oar and be in sync and—

Yep.

So in the end, it works out. In my experience, it was just ridiculous. It was so amazing. And we did well and, you know, all that kind of thing. But it was the The willingness to suck for some period of time that I think is, is really, you know, I don't know that we are that adept at that, at accepting that in us or accept— Yeah. Like dealing with that emotion as we can, as we can be. Because otherwise, you know, if I wasn't, you know, if you don't have that humility to really just be a neophyte at something, and like you say, have to be taught really from the start, like how do you hold the thing? I mean, basic basics, right? Then, then you, you won't, you know, you won't allow yourself that opportunity to go, wow, I would never have known I could do this. And like, I didn't make a career out of it, but it became one of the best experiences of my college life. And I still talk about it. I'm talking, you and I are talking about it. So you go, but without that willingness to, you know, that sort of, I use the word humility. I don't know what, do you have a better word for that? Do you like, what's that mindset? In a performer, in someone that you're looking to help

to

perform better? You know, are they actually in their own way because they lack that humility at times? What do you, what's been your experience with that?

Oh, we, I mean, we can all, it's well said because I think we can all get in our own way, like when that is kind of rising up within us. And interestingly, I think this relates to resiliency quite a bit and like how we deal with uncertainty, because I think one of the things uncertainty often puts in front of us is it highlights a gap between what we think might be necessary and where we feel like we are. So it kind of highlights a learning gap. And so often when, when we're learning something, we're at zero, or at least we are, we are not where we need to be. And so, you know, I think this comes into performance at all. So like, I, I've accomplished a lot, but like not with, not without things coming that are challenging or places where, you know, I've failed or I'm like, oh yeah, I didn't do that great at that, whether you want to call it failure or not. But Like, for example, using the crew example, I like, I had a very like bright start in that. Like, I learned quick. I was tall but smaller. And so, you know, competed in some like erging, like lightweight competitions, did very well. And, but like got so caught up in my own head about wanting to do well that like a year or two in was like my form got like, I had really great form when I started and my form got all off. And the whole point was because I was trying to control it so much. That like I was gripping the oar too hard. And like, this was the challenge I dealt with at the end of that experience. And it still was this amazing experience, but it taught me that like, what are some of the ways we as high performers get in our own way? And I like the, the image of like, you're gripping too hard. And you could use this as an analogy for trying to control things too much, creating a lot of friction for yourself as you're like, optimizing down to the nth degree versus like what we referenced before, saying, do I understand the core of what's most important here? And can I deal with a little bit of mess? Or as other people have put it, like having some fires that continue to burn, like where I'm not gonna— everything's not gonna be sorted perfectly all the time. But if I have a sense of what's really important and, and what we need to be invested in, that we can keep going and be quite successful. And so that was something I learned from that crew experience. And I actually think I took it into medical school like fairly well, which is to say there were a lot of things I wanted during this like 10-year period where I was getting a PhD and an MD, and it was sort of like a job. So I, it was a scholarship program that because I was gonna do a PhD also, and that's a whole nother, you know, half decade of your life, they would pay for everything. So you gotta sell, you gotta, not a big salary, but like a grad student salary and You had no loans. And I was like, this is incredible. And it's sort of furthering my dream of like wanting to be in a field that where I felt like I was really helping people, like where I could connect that my work to like an impact to someone. And while I was in medical school, actually, I did an analysis and this is a place where, I mean, you could just spend all of your waking hours studying every last detail, but I kind of looked at the whole thing and said, I need to get good enough grades. I mean, I need to pass this test, but there's a lot of other stuff I want in life. And so, I learn best by reading. I don't learn that well in class. And so, I made trade-offs. I was not your ideal med student. Grades-wise, did great, but like, I'm not a model. But we, I like skipped class and I did a number of other challenging things like while I was in the program. So, I took up a new sport. I took up Ultimate Frisbee. And played it at an elite level, like went to national championships, won a world championship, and had to embrace, instead of saying, how do I like control everything, tried to embrace, how do I make sure I do what's important in each of these like channels or buckets of my life so that I can have the life that I want, but also be an ambitious person? And this kind of goes back to this, this thought we had about performance, which is what resiliency is there? to be had, or like what performance comes from being really clear on where you're getting most your impact from, and then being able to say, all right, this is not going to be optimal. It's probably not going to look optimal, but I might actually be able to have a lot of the impacts I want, even a bigger impact than if I'm trying to optimize everything from like to the smallest degree. And so that was a really interesting follow-on experience to undergrad, which was to say, how do I focus on what most matters? And it's gonna be a little messy, but still kind of emerge with what I'm interested in. And so just in contrast.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy, of Change Proof. It's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Yeah, I love that. And I, I had a question that I wanted to insert here too for the, please, for our folks that are, are listening to this right now, watching potentially as well. What are you holding onto, or what are you holding too tightly? I think that's a valuable question for all of us to ask that base. But back to the story about holding onto the oar.

Yeah.

And the gripping piece of it. Because as you said, it's a great analogy. And, um, and so I feel like there's probably some value that anybody listening to this right now could, could get in simply answering that question for themselves, whether it's in this moment or to Sort of sit with that, come back to it, you know, noodle on it for a while, take a walk, make some time to meditate on that. You know, what am I holding on too tightly to potentially? Because, uh, yeah, it's, and it's interesting because I think a big part of how we, we move through situations and develop that resiliency in mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually speaking is, is through energy. It's for managing our energy, right? Mm-hmm. Um, which is a big word. But I think for a lot of people, energy could be substituted. You could substitute that word for willpower. And I, I think when you're talking about gripping something too tightly like that oar, and you are sort of wanting to control that situation to the point where it then it's kind of messed up your form.

Yeah.

Was really that res— you know, so a result of exercising that willpower. And I think in certain activities in life, you know, if you wanna put a nail through a, a board, then some willpower is gonna work well. Yes. 'Cause you, the hard— you know, the harder you hit that nail with that hammer, Or whatever it is, the faster it's gonna go through the board. But in, in a lot of other areas in life, especially the ones that are mental or create, or things that are involved creativity or, or, or much more nuanced, let's say willpower can really just get, can be the not, not the right energy to meet the moment when it comes to performing. Would you agree with that?

Absolutely. I totally agree with that. And it's, I often find with performance that We're not looking at the extremes. There are, there are cases where we are looking at the extreme, but like the idea of like, well, I just need to, you know, max out my willpower to achieve what I want to achieve. As you said, like has challenges. I just gave a great example of like what, you know, what happened for me and crew. And yet it's a tool. And so sometimes there's this thing that I think is a useful saying, That things can be tools, not identities. And what it means is when we, when we can do that. So a great example is some people may really have as a piece of their identity, like, I am a willpower machine. I will do it. I don't care how crappy it feels. I am gonna show up day in and day out. And that is like, it is a useful skillset. But if one has it as an identity, and I'll use a, I'll use a personal example because I think this is really important, like. But I've coached countless people who have come up against this in their own lives. And like, what happens when you decide you like don't want to do that thing anymore? Like, it's the same with like, I'm not a quitter, right? This idea of identity around whether or not you see something all the way through, whatever that means, right? However you've defined that. So for an example, let's fast forward. I finished med school, I finished my PhD, I'm a general surgery resident at Stanford. And I loved surgery. It was like very high-performing, very challenging residency program. And like, I loved all those things about it. I loved that it has a physical and like a mental decision-making piece of it. And like, I got there and, you know, it was my first choice. So I'm like top of the world, get there. And like by about like 4 months in, I'm just like, I am like miserable. And there are a variety of reasons for this, but I'm like, This is not like, I can't really see how I'm fitting this into my future, like going forwards year after year after year. And, and I'm looking at the attendings and I'm like, I don't know that I want the life that they have. And it's not a judgment on them, it's just a, like, we all have to make our own personal decisions about this. But like, so you can imagine, like, and I'm a person who has often like gritted stuff out. I have a ton of willpower and self-discipline. And you reach this kind of moment and it can be really difficult. Like, all right, so you've committed to this thing. Does that mean you need to see it through for the next 40 years? Or is willpower a tool for you? And, you know, but is there room for you to make a change? Is there room for you to say, well, I imagined this would be different and I probably could have done more research on that point, but also I got to try it. I've proved to myself I could do it. But I don't know if I want to. Where is the room for me to say, you could willpower your way through this, but what if, like, what are you missing out on? Like, what is the cost of that if you start to multiply that over the years of what you could be doing differently?

The cost-benefit analysis, I think, just does make so much sense in that moment to be asking that. And well, finish your point because I want to, I want to come back to something you said earlier that I wrote down. So I want to come back to that.

So one of the nice things is, and this was a thought, like this analysis of it occurred later, this summary of it, but like, if one can say, yeah, I have a lot of willpower, that's a tool I have, and I can use it when I need it. And I did use that tool. I finished the whole year. I let them know with some advance notice I wouldn't return for a second year. I finished the year, and that took tons of willpower. So it's a tool. And I think if we can start to say willpower is a tool, but it doesn't have to be my identity, I can pull it out of the kit when I need it. Yeah. But there are other moments where more willpower isn't the solution, where, for example, what might be the solution is create— like, you need to express some creativity and vision in defining, well, if I were not a surgeon, what would I do? And I had to do that as well to say, how would I take all of these, like, skills I've been trained with and turn it into something that I actually can imagine doing for 40 more years? Yeah. Like, that's another tool, right? Always being in the visioning or the creativity space, like, I think that's an identity for some people as well. And yet sometimes we need to be not in that space and we need to be executing. So I like this idea of freeing ourselves up to be more than one thing, to not get too stuck in an identity, but instead to say like, I can have a lot of tools, pieces of myself that I can access. Then I can pick and select, like, is a hammer the right tool for this? Do we need to pound a nail right now? Okay, great. A hammer is a great thing for that. But, you know, if I need to, like, maybe we need to cut a board. Okay, well, hammer's not a great tool for that. So, but now I really want to hear what you were thinking and, uh, we can go from there.

No, no, I, I so love where you're going with that. I mean, I wrote down the question, if, if not willpower, then what? Because my, Where I was thinking before was just that because people lean on that, they—

Absolutely.

To use your analogy, that's a tool that they go back to again and again. So yeah, we, we, a screwdriver would be a better tool here, but we'll still pick up the hammer because it's like, you know, if I can't screw that thing in, I'll just bang it in, you know, like somehow, some way I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use that tool for that. And I, I think that, you know, ultimately when we think about what gets in the way of resiliency, And how it is that people do end up burned out, which you and I see, probably see quite a bit of in our work. You go, well, how did that happen when people are so resourceful and they have all these capabilities and they have all these tools that are, theoretically speaking, available to them, and yet they keep picking up the hammer, to use your point. And then ultimately that becomes depleting for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it's ineffective. Absolutely. And yeah, you could swing that hammer a whole heck of a lot more times and get worn out doing it than it would be to pick up the, a different tool that would allow you to more elegantly create what you're looking for.

Mm-hmm.

But it's, it's less of a, of a sort of an outer game, uh, and more of an inner game is really where I was going and wanted to get a sense from you. So, you know, in many ways, willpower is a physical thing to me. I know it's not literally not that doesn't have to be defined as physical. No. And yet I think a lot of that energy, when people define it, when they're looking for it and they're wanting to deploy it, it's sort of a physical, look, I'm tired, but I'll muscle through. I'll sleep when I die, or I'll sleep over the weekend and I'll just do without for now. Or I don't need to actually focus on the better choice for myself from a Like a food intake standpoint or hydrate myself because I just need to muscle through this now. And I think a lot of people do that.

The language that we use around willpower is very physical. And I think I always say words have power, right? And you can often listen to how someone talks about something or how you are talking, you yourself, right? Like are talking about something and get some clues around like, how am I really thinking about that thing? But I love it. You're like, we gotta muscle it out. Like we gotta grit it out. Like—

So what I wanna understand from, from your standpoint, if it's, if it's not willpower, Then what is it? And if it's not a physical sort of muscling through something, like, you know, enduring it, that endurance of, I'm not gonna quit in the middle of the year, I'm gonna finish this year no matter what it takes. I will get to that point where I've completed at least that much, and now I'll move on. If it's not that, then on the mental side or on the emotional side,

Mm-hmm.

From a performance standpoint, how would you coach someone or help them to perform at a higher level without actually trying harder?

Yes, great question. And this is where, like, I love performance science because it actually gives us different options for how to tackle this. And what's great is you can actually talk these through with another person. It's not just me and my coaching performance science operating system, like, making a judgment, although sometimes I have an inkling, like, of Ah, I suspect, given what I've heard, like, this might be the root. But this is where I love thinking through, like, these 4 buckets of performance, and we can start to say, like, what's gonna be helpful here? And so, for example, if someone is like, I am so burned out, I'm, like, leaning fully on willpower, and I'm trying to find a way out of this, some of the questions I might ask are, number one, sometimes someone just has way too much work to do. Like, they're, they're literally trying to do it all, and this is the mistake that's happening. When in fact they might actually be able to reach some of their goals, but they're not going to do everything they see everyone else doing. And what we need to do is focus them. So one route in is that first bucket of performance. It's like, could we look at what really is giving you impact and start to say, rather than trying to muscle through doing it all, can we actually make your portfolio of activities more potent? Your time usage more potent. And so like, that is, that is one of the things we can look at is literally making some changes in how time is being used. Um, the second bucket is like often around execution. It's sort of, it's both about like, what are sort of your capabilities and processes and systems? Um, and so sometimes we want to look at what people are doing. Like this is particularly true in like business leadership. To sort of say, is there work on your business that might be useful or with your team? Like, is part of this that you're reinventing the wheel all the time as opposed to having some like repeatable processes? Or are you trying to do everything, but you actually have this whole team who could really help you if you could kind of let go, like delegate some things? So like, that's a route through the second bucket, which is sort of this execution. How are we actually sort of operating the things we thought were most important. Then I think the third piece that we've talked a little bit about is just like the mindset piece, right? And this is getting a little more at like, okay, if someone's like, I'm just used to pulling out the hammer, we can talk a little bit about like, well, what feels good about the hammer, right? Like, and kind of dig in a little bit to like, what might be some like ongoing beliefs that one has about why a hammer is a good thing to do. Sometimes it comes from our childhood, right? Like, my family was very much a family where we were trained to, like, be responsible. Like, in fact, don't just be responsible for yourself, but be responsible for the stuff that goes wrong for other people as well. And like, you could— you're smiling, Adam, and it's because you could totally see how this goes wrong when you put it into a workplace. And This, uh, so for example, we can explore that mindset or even the thought of like, my team is working so hard. If I'm not, I feel like if I'm not in the trenches right there with them, as opposed to like, no, your team needs you to be thinking like strategically preparing for the future. And also don't take away their wins, right? Like we could create a whole new mindset that isn't that, for example, one needs to be responsible and in the trenches all the time, but instead say, No, like as a leader, your role might be really different. So, create a new mindset about what's the value you're bringing that doesn't require you picking up the hammer. Um, so that's kind of like that mindset bucket. And there's a 4th bucket that we didn't talk about. So, let's just introduce the 4th bucket. Yes, let's do it. And that is physiology. So, at a base level, everything that's happening in our brains and in our bodies, it's a bunch of chemicals. Like we are bags of chemicals and I'm not, we will, Save the debate for what else is there for other folks. But it's, we have to care for like the bag of chemicals. And so, and we know there are great things we can be doing that really shift whether or not we're in fight or flight all the time. Basically like where we're sitting in terms of are we kind of relaxed and calm or are we like out of our gourd stressed? And stress is a fine thing to have. Stress is not bad for us. In fact, um, I love what, um, the author Kelly McGonigal said about stress, which is stress tells us that there's something that we care about that is at stake, and it is good for us to have things we care about in our lives. So stress, if you have something you care about in your life, you will have stress because that's how it works. But I think one of the things we can think about is when we're feeling burnt out, we're trying to go back to that like willpower hammer. Is to sort of say, well, where is sort of my physiology at? And do I need to be caring and investing both long-term and short in-the-moment things to kind of ramp myself down so that it's okay to be stressed? We just don't wanna be chronically stressed all the time. And also we wanna know that like, it's okay to have some stress. That's, that's, and, and in, when there's uncertainty, there will always be some stress with that. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. And so we might ex— the way you might explore that bucket is looking at practices like exercise or getting enough sleep or diet, or have you had a hug recently, right? Like, have you had time with people you care about? Meditation, or even just kind of mindfulness and breathing practices. So there are a lot of things that just care for, like, ourselves as a literally, like, as a physiological being. And that is the 4th bucket that matters and impacts all the other buckets. So these are ways I think about, and, and again, you can kind of look to see where people are leaning in, and you can also look where there's the biggest opportunity to impact them. But it gives us a lot of options. And that's, as a coach, I love saying, all right, if that didn't work, we, we have many more options. Like, we will keep trying things.

I love it. So, Carla, just as we wrap things up, I, I would love for you to summarize those 4 buckets once again. Um, because we've done them over the course of the last, you know, 30-ish minutes. So, would you do that?

Yeah, absolutely.

Awesome.

Thank you. So, 4 buckets. The first one is like focus or strategy. What's most important and what are you aiming at? Second bucket is really about execution. So, the things you've decided are important, what are the best ways to do those things or to help your team kind of organize to do those things? Third bucket is like mindset and psychology. So, this is everything from how do you keep yourself motivated to how to motivate your team, what makes you feel confident and not, how are you thinking about things? And then the 4th bucket is really that physiology, that baseline, just the hormones and chemicals that are meant to help us rise to the challenge, but that also we have to make sure they have time to sort of ramp down as well. And so, practices to help with that.

Carla, just on the physiology side, I'd love to get a sense of what you, do you have some favorite rituals? You know, everybody has their own individual ones. We talk a lot about the rituals, not only on the show but in our work as well, because it really, um, in many ways, I think it's, uh, as you said, it impacts everything else. The ripple effect of whether you've— whether you're a bit sleep deprived or

a

little hangry or any of the other ways that sort of our physiology intersects with everything else that's going on in our world.

Yes.

Is a lot more prevalent than I think we, we might even say all the time. So Just curious, you have some favorite practices?

Absolutely. And I'm definitely like kind of a planner and like I have some habits, but, uh, this is going back to digital nomading. When we move places, it's a wonderful moment to like rethink a habit and say, is this still a habit I want? Do I need to change it? So that's, sorry, total tangent, but it's something I forgot to mention, uh, at the start, which is it's good to have habits, but sometimes our habits need to evolve. And so that's an interesting role that moving locations sometimes plays. But my favorite habits are, number one, I love exercising outside. And I do do some weightlifting in a gym as well, but like most of the days of the week, I wanna be like biking or walking or rucking or running outside. And I do that in the morning when possible because I just, I mean, the science would show that you get endorphin burst from that that goes throughout your day. But for me, it's more important, like, I just feel happy when I do it. So that's how I feel.

Yeah, totally.

Um, I sleep a lot. Like, I sleep like 8 or 9 hours a night. And I know that some people get by on less, and I just, it just helps my brain rewire and process a lot of the learning or just, I think it gives me really good capacity to be really present with people all day. And so sleep's a really important one for me. And then I think a third one is, I mean, I think one of the like greatest joys in my life is like time to talk with my husband. And so we make like, we have kind of planned times. We sort of know like when that's happening every week. Um, what, at what time of the day, like, or what's the activity we're doing together? Are we going for a hike on Saturday and we'll have 4 hours to just like geek out on whatever we want to talk about? But.

Yeah.

But I think those are 3 things that are really important to me. And if one looked at my calendar, you'd be like, oh, like someone would be able to deduce that probably from looking at my calendar.

Yes. For me as well, in the sense that if it's important to me, it's on my calendar these days. Whereas in the past years, you know, 20 years ago or so, my calendar wasn't a reflection of what was important to me. And I've learned, and maybe this is wisdom, I don't know, just experience or something. But things that are calendared happen typically in my life, and things that aren't calendared don't typically happen. So those walks, the time that you spend in— for us, in resilience language, we call it recovery periods.

Yeah.

Toggling the alternation, the interval training from my swimming days, back and forth between sort of your exertion stage and your rest and recovery stage. The alternation between those 2 things is what leads to growth.

Yep.

In so many respects. So, so you've gotta schedule that. And I, I think when we, when we work often with leaders, we're, we're helping them to understand that even though they've got tremendous pressure on them always to perform, that the way for them to be more effective leaders is not to drive their teams harder and harder to perform better. You know, ultimately, it's to help them to recognize this value in, in that alternation between phases and stages of exertion and those same ritualized recovery periods, because that's ultimately when greater innovation, ingenuity, problem solving, critical thinking, you know, and performance in that old just sort of, you know, those things are bolstered when we're at better, when we're better and when we're depleted and when we're

absolutely

burned out, which is what we're hearing a lot about today. Mhmm. For a good reason. Anxiety levels are levels that people, psychologists, psychiatrists have never seen before. You go, something's not right. Something's off. So I wanna, I would just love to get your last word on this. So given that that is the landscape that we're hearing a lot about, Yeah. Do you have a, a sort of a best recommendation for, you know, you're brought into an organization and they have engagement challenges or they have turnover or they, you've heard that anxiety is on the rise there. Burnout is a word that's being used. You know, what's your philosophy or where, and this is too broad perhaps a question, but I mean, if you're gonna look at something, if you're gonna focus on or target something with a senior-level leader, you know, given that context, what's your sort of your method?

What's my go-to? How do I approach that?

A little bit. Yeah, I know that's really broad. So, but maybe just a piece.

No, it's okay. You, you are allowed to ask those questions. So, one of the first thing that I would really think about Is, and, and you sort of gotta work through a stepwise process, but I'm gonna tell you the first thing I start with is it comes back to that first bucket of like performance, which is, I think it's really important to have clarity as a leader of like, what are we trying to do? And that of course waterfalls down to the leaders under you. But like, I think one of the most stressful things for a team Or company can be, we don't like know, we want, like, we're being evaluated, you know, like, and also as human beings, like, we like to contribute, we like to win. And so, if it's not clear what we're trying to accomplish as a company and what we think are the most important priorities for that, which then has to be translated down through teams and different roles, like what's their part of it? But that is one of the first things that I think is important to get clarity on because a lot of anxiety can come from, certainly if there's a totally toxic culture, that's a whole nother like bag of worms. But, um, let's just say like, like there are many workplaces that are not toxic, but there might not be clarity and that can create all sorts of stress and anxiety about, uh, on the individual level about how do I help my team win today? Like, what will be valued if I contribute it? If I'm going to learn or grow, like, what would be the directions to learn and grow in so I can contribute more and be recognized and seen for that? There's a number of root causes that come from this, like, focus, like, and strategy bucket of, like, can you be clear to everyone about, hey, here's where we're aiming, here's what we think is most important, and here's how we think we could win at that. And then to have, like, Leaders start to say, what does that mean for my team? And how do I help my team members know their part, how they're contributing, so that I can both recognize them for it? And so, we can figure out how to do that well together as a team. This is a dramatic oversimplification. I love it though. Obviously, there are, you have to work through then some other things like, okay, well, people have to execute, and you do have to think about culture and how are people interacting together? What's the general vibe of a place? I think you can have a great culture, but if people don't know how to win, you'll have other issues. There will be an anxiety even though everyone's nice to each other and like respectful and it's not toxic. So.

I loved what you said earlier. So I would go back, if I were answering that question, you know, I would go back to something you said earlier too, which is that choosing the right tool, you know, we had a good kind of in-depth discussion around the hammer. So.

Yeah.

Knowing the tools that your team is using.

Yeah.

Meaning the tools that you're giving them or that you're suggesting, but also what are they, what's their default? Because they should say their identity is so tied up in some of that stuff. Then it comes back to childhood. It goes back to so many other influences in their lives that it could be just that the fact is they're using the wrong tool. But if you're not, if you're not paying attention because you are yourself so in the weeds as a leader, Everybody's rowing so hard, rowing so hard that nobody, you know, that, that you're not in that position to be the coxswain, right? Yeah. And so back to our rowing days, the, that person's the person who sits on the end of the boat and is looking at not only—

And yells at everybody.

And is yelling at everybody. True. But, but often just to keep the cadence, right? To get everybody kind of in a, in a flow. But yeah, without that objective look, at how people are, are using the tools, you could be missing a lot. Uh, and, and the converse being true, that you could find a lot, you could learn a lot, you could really be able to, to help your team in a great deal more ways by just thinking about it the way you suggested, which is that, you know, are we using the right tool? And also it can be a tool and, and not be an identity. Like, so where is it possible to step outside of that default?

Mm-hmm.

Carla, I could talk to you all day. I loved it. I love the conversation. I so appreciate your time today. You were amazing. Yeah.

Oh, Adam, thank you so much. This was really fun. I love just where we went with the conversation, and that's why these are fun.

Well, I hope you were as just impressed with Dr. Fowler's ideas and her way of communicating as I was. She is, uh, she is remarkable, and we had so much in common. So just from a personal standpoint, I really vibed with that conversation. I loved, I loved how many sort of synergies there were, and there were more synergies than even Even we got to discuss today. But, um, one of them being, uh, the fact that she is a digital nomad and has been doing that for now, gosh, she said 4 years or so. And my wife and I, we've just recently, we didn't give up our home or anything, but we just decided that we were in a position to take it on the road, take the, take the show on the road, if you will, and, um, experience what it would be like, you know, with kids out of the house now and, and Us having done that job as parents, this being more of a time when we can be intentional about how we want to experience our relationship and our relationship with each other, our relationship with work, our relationship in proximity to other people, and geographically speaking, where it is that we live, reside, play, work, et cetera. So Carla and I and her husband and my beloved, we have that in common. Really, really cool. And we also have in common our sort of love and passion for helping leaders and organizations and teams actually perform better and looking at it in a holistic way. We would say mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. And I think Carla gave us a different framework, but 4 specific areas nonetheless that she summarizes quite well. And, you know, we got to get into the weeds about Today as well. So I love that conversation. I thought there was so much to be gained from really thinking at a deeper level about what Carla was sharing. And I added a few questions in there, including the one that I'm gonna repeat right now, which is, what are you holding too tightly to? Is there something that you're holding too tightly? And if so, what is that? And where is it that you are potentially using willpower? Yeah. As a go-to, as a tool over and over and over again, where is it potentially the case that that tool, which in Carla's analogy she called a hammer, you know, where is it that you're using that willpower tool perhaps to the exclusion of other tools or by reason of it being a default that potentially you're actually wearing yourself thinner and maybe creating even more anxiety or more burnout or more exhaustion because there are other tools that are not being utilized, possibly because you identify with that tool, whether it's the willpower tool or it's the grit tool, or it's the taking on everything tool. You know, I'm responsible tool, the, you know, that I'm a not a quitter tool. I'm a yes person. You know, the person who doesn't say no to things and doesn't create boundaries or have sort of those carve-outs to other people's expectations or other people's agendas. Lots and lots to consider there when it comes to how it is that you will develop greater performance in your world, be able to elevate your performance. I know that's what you want to do. I know it's what I want to do. It's what we all want to do. But also how it is that you lead others and help them to perform better, potentially not by perpetuating that cycle of just trying to will your way through it or grit your way through it or muscle your way through it more than is needed and maybe More than is optimal. So anyway, lots that we got to noodle on today. We'd love to get your thoughts on the show. As always, if you could leave a rating on the platform that you consume the podcast as well, 5 stars is always great. That's helping us or helping the algorithm to help us. And for that, we are grateful, incredibly grateful. But whatever rating, whatever feedback you have is valuable. And to take those few moments to do it, we so appreciate your time. And your commitment to do that. So thank you, if you will. And if not, then we thank you as well for just being a part of the community, for listening, for sharing this episode. If it's something valuable that you think other people could benefit from, we appreciate that too. For now anyway, I will just say ciao for now. Thank you again and have a beautiful rest of your day.

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