Dr. Carla Fowler | From Surgery to Ultimate Frisbee: A Journey in Performance and Coaching
In this episode of The Last 10%, host Dallas Burnett engages in an insightful conversation with Dr. Carla Fowler, an MD PhD turned executive coach and founder of THAXA Executive Coaching. Dr. Fowler shares her incredible journey from leaving surgical residency at Stanford to becoming a world-class performance guru and Ultimate Frisbee world champion. They discuss her multi-faceted career, high-performance principles, and methodologies for achieving excellence in life, work, and relationships. Tune in to learn about her unique coaching approach, which integrates elements of strategy, execution, mindset, and physiology, and how these pillars can help unlock high performance. Whether you're a leader, coach, or someone looking to elevate your game, this episode is packed with actionable insights and inspiration.
Connect with Dr. Fowler on LinkedIn HERE.
More information about THAXA Executive Coaching.
Transcript
dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Hey, everybody.
Speaker:We're talking to Dr. Carla Fowler today.
Speaker:What an amazing woman She is an MD PhD turned executive coach, and the Mastermind
Speaker:behind Taxa Executive Coaching has some incredible stories like leaving surgical
Speaker:residency at Stanford to become a world-class performance guru and winning
Speaker:a world championship in ultimate Frisbee.
Speaker:Oh man, this is gonna be fun.
Speaker:She's a great new friend of mine.
Speaker:You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.
Speaker:Welcome to the last 10%.
Speaker:Your host, Dallas Burnett, dives into incredible conversations that
Speaker:will inspire you to finish well.
Speaker:And finish strong and strong.
Speaker:Listen, as guests share their journeys in valuable advice on living in the last 10%.
Speaker:If you are a leader, a coach, a business owner, or someone looking to
Speaker:level up, you are in the right place.
Speaker:Remember, you can give 90% effort and make it a long way, but it's finding
Speaker:out how to unlock the last 10% that makes all the difference in your life,
Speaker:your relationships, and your work.
Speaker:Now, here's Dallas.
Speaker:Welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker:I'm Dallas Burnett, sitting in my 1905 Koch Brothers barber
Speaker:chair in Thrive Studios.
Speaker:But more importantly, we have a great guest today.
Speaker:She is a triple threat, an MD PhD traded scalpels for coaching, and
Speaker:three time national Ultimate Frisbee champ, who's taken performance
Speaker:science to the next level.
Speaker:And this is the founder of FSA Executive Coaching, where she helps leaders
Speaker:crush it in everything from tech startups to Fortune five hundreds.
Speaker:Welcome to the show, Dr. Fowler.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Hey Dallas, it is great to have
Speaker:met you to be on this show, and you could definitely call me Carla.
Speaker:Please don't bring any medical issues.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker:That's awesome.
Speaker:we are excited to have you on the show today.
Speaker:, we always have a warm spot for performance experts and performance gurus, and
Speaker:so you are definitely one of those.
Speaker:And so we've just been excited to have you on the show, but before we get
Speaker:into all this high performance, talk, I wanted to just talk about something fun.
Speaker:how does one become an ultimate Frisbee world champion?
Speaker:I've played it and is a lot of running, and you gotta be good at throwing a
Speaker:Frisbee neither, which I'm that good at.
Speaker:So tell me how that came about.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh my goodness.
Speaker:I agree with the start with something fun.
Speaker:And one of the things about Ultimate Frisbee is that.
Speaker:It is way more fun than the sports I did prior to that.
Speaker:I think , I always was like athletic, played, did a bunch
Speaker:of different stuff growing up.
Speaker:like I did competitive diving for a little while.
Speaker:we were big backpackers in our family, so very kind of outdoorsy, took ski
Speaker:lessons from a young age but didn't like race or anything like that.
Speaker:so I. Ultimately ended up doing, cross country running in high school,
Speaker:so kind of an endurance athlete.
Speaker:and, but wanted something different when I got into college.
Speaker:I was going to Brown, which is in Providence, Rhode Island.
Speaker:It's on the water, has a deep, competitive, history of crew.
Speaker:And so I got like a postcard in the mail before I was showing up and
Speaker:they were like, we invite walk-ons.
Speaker:And I was like, what?
Speaker:Because I had been calling around trying to figure out where I might be able to run
Speaker:cross country competitively in college.
Speaker:And I was like, ah, yeah, I'm not quite fast enough.
Speaker:Like I was good, but not quite that good.
Speaker:And I was like, you mean I can just walk on to a, nationally
Speaker:ranked rowing team sold?
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Golly.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: it's amazing.
Speaker:And one of the things, and I think this is a theme that shows up like throughout
Speaker:my journey, was I had like a, I don't, you know, like a signal for like.
Speaker:Environments that were like high performing and if you could get access
Speaker:to them and if they would teach you.
Speaker:So if you could get in the door and get access to the people
Speaker:teaching, the people coaching.
Speaker:I knew, I was like, I'll bring everything I've got, but I need people who can
Speaker:show me what to do because I don't know that I innately at that mo at those
Speaker:earlier moments, knew how to define my own path, but I was like, if you
Speaker:put me in a system, I'll work harder.
Speaker:I'll do it.
Speaker:So show up.
Speaker:I row crew and I learned how to, I learned from the, like some of the best coaches
Speaker:in the country, I row alongside Olympians.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Oh man.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I was not as good as that, got to
Speaker:row in those boats with those people.
Speaker:It was incredible.
Speaker:And but it's a lot of work.
Speaker:that's a 20 hour a week job during college that, you know, outside of your studies.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: yeah.
Speaker:that's a lot of work.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: And, so at some point I was
Speaker:like, ah, I gotta take the MCATs.
Speaker:Like I was thinking about going to medical school and I think I'm
Speaker:just ready for something different.
Speaker:And I had some friends and dorm mates who were way into Ultimate Frisbee.
Speaker:And, the college national championship at the end of my junior year
Speaker:happened to be, in I forget, I think it was in the, oh, Boise.
Speaker:It was in Boise, Idaho.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Wow.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: was from Seattle.
Speaker:And so I was like, I'm totally gonna drive out and watch the Brown Men's Frisbee
Speaker:team play, because I know some people on the team and they're going to nationals.
Speaker:That's awesome.
Speaker:So I go out, I watch it and the, I watch it and I think.
Speaker:That doesn't look that hard.
Speaker:I think I could do that.
Speaker:Which sounds terrible.
Speaker:I'm so embarrassed.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: I love
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I'm so embarrassed
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: it.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: that was my thought.
Speaker:but at any rate, so coming back for my senior year, I was
Speaker:like, I'm gonna play Frisbee.
Speaker:And so I like played some pickup in Seattle that summer.
Speaker:Went back to Brown.
Speaker:I was a captain for the ladies B team, that was definitely a, I don't know
Speaker:what I'm doing, but apparently I'm the captain of this team of other people who
Speaker:don't totally know what they're doing.
Speaker:But we worked hard and then I went back to Seattle to, do my
Speaker:graduate school and move on with, professional stuff, but kept playing.
Speaker:Had more years of college eligibility.
Speaker:So played for UDub, for the women's team while I was in grad school.
Speaker:And then tried out for the women's elite team in Seattle,
Speaker:which is called Seattle Riot.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: This is not associated with a school.
Speaker:This is like pro, is it like a pro professional team or like a How does,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: How does that work?
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: I didn't know that was a thing.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:That's
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I know, I feel like we should probably
Speaker:explain for the audience, anyone who hasn't heard about Ultimate Frisbee.
Speaker:It's essentially Soccer and football and basketball all combined.
Speaker:You play it on a soccer sized field.
Speaker:but you have two rectangular end zones like football at either end.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yep.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: and you have teams of seven people.
Speaker:And the only way you can, move the Frisbee down the field to score
Speaker:a goal in your end zone is by throwing it from person to person.
Speaker:And like basketball, once you receive it, you have to set a pivot foot and
Speaker:you have about 10 seconds to pass it on to a teammate before, it's an automatic
Speaker:turnover and the other team gets to be on offense and go the other direction.
Speaker:So that's, that is a very quick primer and ultimate Frisbee.
Speaker:There's a lot of running, a lot of throwing, catching, aerial
Speaker:layouts to catch a Frisbee.
Speaker:it's actually quite exciting
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: sport in, college.
Speaker:intramurals.
Speaker:I remember
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: right?
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: we just had the best time.
Speaker:let's take it to the next level.
Speaker:You did that and so there was , like a professional team out in Seattle
Speaker:that was outside of the college
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: it was as close to
Speaker:professional as existed.
Speaker:Now there are professional teams, but it's not anything like
Speaker:soccer or these types of things.
Speaker:We were sponsored, we got a lot of Patagonia gear, which was like
Speaker:super great as an outdoorsy person.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: awesome.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: but there's a whole national
Speaker:circuit, like Vancouver had a great team, like many of the major
Speaker:cities had, had a competitive team.
Speaker:And turns out I made the team.
Speaker:and one of the important points just about performance, like getting back
Speaker:perhaps to the topic at hand is one of the really interesting principles about.
Speaker:High performance and thinking about how to get more results or achieve
Speaker:things that we want to, that becomes important is this idea of focus.
Speaker:So when I think about principles of performance and focus has two parts to
Speaker:it, and you could argue this is, it's sort of similar to strategy, that part
Speaker:of the point of strategy is this idea of focusing, what are you aiming at?
Speaker:what's the goal, what's the objective?
Speaker:And there are many objectives you could have, but you gotta pick which, which
Speaker:are most important to you, but also you have to decide what are the most
Speaker:important priorities that you're going to put your efforts or your resources
Speaker:towards that you think are gonna give you the best chance of getting on that team.
Speaker:getting that objective.
Speaker:So
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yes.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: for me, I knew that, I was like,
Speaker:alright, I'm a pretty new Frisbee player, but I think if I can get on
Speaker:that team, I will learn a lot and I'll become a much better Frisbee player.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Ah, I love
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: like that, the amount of skill I could
Speaker:build up playing league, like regular league versus if I can, even if I don't
Speaker:always play that much in a competitive like game for this team, I would learn
Speaker:so much more practicing against these players than I would, getting to play
Speaker:a ton and being an all star, like on, let's just say a lower level team.
Speaker:And I knew my route onto the team was defense.
Speaker:be, it was basically be athletic and you have to know how to throw the Frisbee,
Speaker:enough to get it to someone else.
Speaker:But I knew I was never gonna be a great thrower.
Speaker:Like I was never gonna be the person who, the quarterback who makes the big play.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yeah.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I was gonna be a defender because all
Speaker:you really have to do if you're on defense, is be really fast and knock
Speaker:the Frisbee out of the air, make sure someone else can't catch it.
Speaker:but these are these interesting things.
Speaker:I made the team and part of making the team had a lot to do with focusing on,
Speaker:I was like, what can I control here just to take the broader lesson out of this
Speaker:somehow saying, I have to be good at all of these things.
Speaker:I really focused on, you have to be good at a short pass under pressure
Speaker:so that you can reset the Frisbee to someone who's a better thrower than you.
Speaker:You need to be super agile and really athletic.
Speaker:and I knew that I already had some of those skills, like at least the
Speaker:endurance piece from previous sports.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: how you, I love how you take that though.
Speaker:'cause your path on that is very interesting.
Speaker:'cause it's kind of circuitous.
Speaker:Like you have, you start in cross country, you do that for a while, and
Speaker:then you have an open opportunity.
Speaker:You don't really know about crew, but you like the idea of doing college,
Speaker:like being an athlete in college.
Speaker:And so you pivoted from something that you said, well, I might not be as
Speaker:competitive in cross country, but I've got an opportunity to be on the team
Speaker:in college, and have that experience with other high performers and athletes.
Speaker:And so then you take that and you do that for a while.
Speaker:by the way, have you ever seen the movie, the Boys in the Boat
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh
Speaker:talking about
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:And the book to
Speaker:this.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:It's,
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:both.
Speaker:It's incredible.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: incredible movie.
Speaker:Anyway,
Speaker:I love how you, it's so process oriented too, because when you're wanting to
Speaker:be in the room and in the process, and it's about improvement and being
Speaker:a student of whatever you're doing.
Speaker:It's not about I want to be the ultimate Frisbee champion, or I want to win
Speaker:the national championship and crew.
Speaker:I want to be the top.
Speaker:It's more about how you're looking at it as the process, which I love
Speaker:that, because I think that helps you.
Speaker:It helps move you forward.
Speaker:And I think it, it's so cool to see how you've done that and you've
Speaker:let opportunity open the door for you and you've let your passion,
Speaker:it's like when you ran the kind of the crew out to the end of it.
Speaker:You're like, eh, I want, but then you see something, you're like, Ooh, I like that.
Speaker:And you take everything you've learned and endurance and athleticism and crew
Speaker:and cross country completely pivot that into a completely new sport.
Speaker:But you're successful with it, And I think that, so it's so cool to
Speaker:see that you, how you maneuvered through those different sports.
Speaker:I think that's really cool.
Speaker:And how you were successful in some sense at every level, but
Speaker:it was really ultimately when you got to ultimate Frisbee.
Speaker:ah, that's really cool.
Speaker:was your favorite thing playing ultimate Frisbee and
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh man.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: and all that stuff?
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I think one of my favorite things,
Speaker:it's funny, I actually, so I played for the women's kind of elite level
Speaker:team for about four years and then played for, the co-ed elite level
Speaker:team in Seattle for another two years.
Speaker:I actually think I had the most fun of my life playing coed.
Speaker:I played on the team where I, I guess I, I had met him before, but I
Speaker:played on a team with my now husband.
Speaker:And
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: wow.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: that was, we were not dating at the
Speaker:time, but like I'll tell you, you learn a lot about people, whether it's
Speaker:a business partner, whether it's like your life partner when you watch them,
Speaker:like how they show up for a team.
Speaker:you learn a lot about people, or I mean, even a friend, right?
Speaker:Or a future colleague, right?
Speaker:You just can learn a lot about do they say, what do they do, what
Speaker:they're they say they're gonna do.
Speaker:do they show up on time?
Speaker:Do they do the work?
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yeah,
Speaker:actually a really great, I've never really thought about that before,
Speaker:but what a great way to meet someone.
Speaker:Just have come out and, let's be on the same team together.
Speaker:And then I'm just gonna watch for a while and
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I'd actually sound creepy when you say it.
Speaker:Let that, but
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: No, I lo I love that though, because
Speaker:I mean, you tr you're so right.
Speaker:I always like working with people.
Speaker:'cause I always say, you get to know, someone so much better at
Speaker:when you can actually work together.
Speaker:And you were saying the
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: thing except it's just you're
Speaker:this on this team sport together.
Speaker:I think it's so true.
Speaker:But, so is that where you guys actually met?
Speaker:You met on the, you met on this team, or did you already kinda know each other?
Speaker:Or how did that
Speaker:, carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: we were all in that same community.
Speaker:so I think we, we had met maybe six years before, but this was the first time we
Speaker:actually got to play on a team together.
Speaker:but yeah, so that, that was a great thing.
Speaker:And I think the other highlight was, ultimately I got to
Speaker:go to a world championship.
Speaker:In my heart of hearts, I think I always wanted to be a sports star.
Speaker:And so this was like a little bit my chance to do this, at
Speaker:the age of, gosh, how old was I?
Speaker:Probably around 29, 30.
Speaker:I played in the world Championship of Beach Ultimate Frisbee.
Speaker:So this is five on five.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Wow.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: It was in Maceo, Brazil.
Speaker:And
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: my
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: it was loads of fun, but also
Speaker:more than that, it was like this total international experience of
Speaker:seeing how they put on the tournament on the beaches.
Speaker:I remember like the first stage situation was like some, someone
Speaker:got hurt, got cut on their foot or something, and it was okay.
Speaker:They were like, Nope.
Speaker:They got a taxi driver.
Speaker:They were like, here's the list.
Speaker:You need to take her here, go to this pharmacy, get this stuff,
Speaker:we're gonna get you fixed stuff.
Speaker:And they had all the stuff, but it was so different than, I don't know,
Speaker:like a normal tournament, like in the US or how that would've been handled.
Speaker:And
Speaker:Total kick.
Speaker:And just super sports fans.
Speaker:so we were on Brazilian television, like it was great.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: that's awesome.
Speaker:That's, that's just one of those life experiences that you get to
Speaker:just be thankful for and, just adds color to life, man, that's awesome.
Speaker:Well done.
Speaker:world championship.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:That's really amazing.
Speaker:It's so much fun.
Speaker:I don't care what it is.
Speaker:Ultimate Frisbee, golf, football, it doesn't matter.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah,
Speaker:sports are awesome.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: and throwing the sport.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:To throw in the culture piece as well.
Speaker:It's just really great.
Speaker:I want to get into your path a little bit professionally because, started
Speaker:out with a different focus as well, not just, it was almost mirroring the sports.
Speaker:Like you had one start and then you had a couple pivots.
Speaker:So tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are now and the road through
Speaker:the medical field that got you there.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:Des I love that you picked up on that because it's something I know but isn't
Speaker:always, obvious from the outside, but that like the path with some pivots and
Speaker:some different steps to get somewhere.
Speaker:absolutely true.
Speaker:Sports, but also true like with the career.
Speaker:I always a math and science person love problem solving,
Speaker:but also very people oriented.
Speaker:And I went off to college to become an engineer, was clear that I
Speaker:was like, ah, there aren't quite enough people in this for me.
Speaker:And so I, went and said, Hey, I wanna switch to pre-med.
Speaker:Like I, I did some first aid work at a summer camp and I was like, oh, I
Speaker:love learning from the nurse here.
Speaker:I love like knowing how to solve like a physical problem for someone.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: this this feels like a better fit.
Speaker:Very sciency, but also like pretty close to that human impact.
Speaker:And so, uh, started down the medical path at some point I had a friend tell
Speaker:me that there were these programs where when you apply to medical school, if
Speaker:you're willing to do a PhD also, so add another four to five years on there,
Speaker:they'll pay for the whole thing and you'll graduate with two degrees and.
Speaker:Going back to this theme that you pointed out, like how do I get access to the arena
Speaker:and the idea that like, not only was it a fiscally, you know, sort of good idea,
Speaker:um, you know, 'cause loans for med school are kind of a big deal, but that also
Speaker:I would access to two really different worlds and be able to potentially be
Speaker:a bridge between those disciplines.
Speaker:Medicine, which is a little more, kind of has a clear path.
Speaker:There are ladders and rungs.
Speaker:You gotta get through those gates or do that science being really
Speaker:different in the sense much more.
Speaker:I would compare it a little bit to entrepreneurship.
Speaker:Like you're actually trying to learn stuff, nobody knows.
Speaker:And so people can't really just give you the playbook or say, you do this and
Speaker:then you do this and then you do this.
Speaker:I looked at that and I was like, okay, I'll definitely know what I need, what
Speaker:I'm doing by the time I'm out of there.
Speaker:So if I can get into that program, I know I'm gonna learn a lot and I'll
Speaker:be kind of, well set up for a number of different opportunities depending
Speaker:on what I wanna do when I get out.
Speaker:So, um, you know, I signed away, my twenties and early thirties.
Speaker:It's about a decade of school.
Speaker:and
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Unbelievable.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I loved a lot of it.
Speaker:So now I think my perception of what going through the learning process for
Speaker:that was, versus what would be like to be out and practicing medicine.
Speaker:There was a disconnect there, but.
Speaker:but just to talk about like the med part of it, it was a lot of learning.
Speaker:So you're like constantly growing in med school.
Speaker:There are clear challenges like this test, this exam, this set of boards, that
Speaker:like scholastically I felt prepared for.
Speaker:And, where the bars were clear now.
Speaker:when the bars are clear and if no one defines the process for me, sometimes
Speaker:I come up with my own process.
Speaker:So I played a lot of ultimate Frisbee during medical school and I didn't always
Speaker:go to class and I often learned from the syllabus, but I figured out what I
Speaker:needed to do and had a lot of autonomy of time and to just make it work to
Speaker:say, okay, what's most important that I need to do for this part of my life?
Speaker:Okay, what's most important I need to do for this part?
Speaker:But I probably wasn't doing all the things other good med students were
Speaker:doing, like figuring out what your specialty was gonna be or any of that.
Speaker:And then science was its own, like the PhD was its own interesting journey
Speaker:because, I think it was the first time I did something really unstructured.
Speaker:It was scholastic, but I had a hands-off mentor, which I think
Speaker:was fundamentally very good for me.
Speaker:Like that he was not, there was not, there just wasn't a lot
Speaker:of handholding at the start.
Speaker:He didn't have a grad student heavy lab.
Speaker:So there were a lot of postdocs, but I didn't have a lot of peers
Speaker:like in the lab with me, and
Speaker:I had to figure out how I dealt with, the uncertainty of going
Speaker:to work and being like, no one's gonna tell you what to do today.
Speaker:In fact, like your mentor doesn't even know exactly what you need to do today.
Speaker:he's not holding out on you, That you, this is,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: your own adventure book.
Speaker:Do you remember those
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: oh, I do.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: your own adventure?
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:You get to choose your own adventure.
Speaker:When you're in
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: you choose
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Did you cheat when you read those books?
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: I have to confess that I
Speaker:did cheat, quite a bit.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:although you, it was just funny because they were written so fast that
Speaker:sometimes you would go to the page, you would say, to go to and get wrong,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: No.
Speaker:You're like,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: grammatical errors.
Speaker:You're like, wow.
Speaker:But no, I did, I would cheat, I would die and I'd say, no, I'm going back.
Speaker:I'm gonna choose the other way.
Speaker:I'd die again.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Let's go back two
Speaker:I did love this.
Speaker:Choose your own adventure books.
Speaker:Those are very good.
Speaker:so now, so with science, what did you focus on in your PhD? what was
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: about?
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I studied immunology, so I was a very
Speaker:popular person during the pandemic.
Speaker:I was like the armchair immunologist, call a friend kind of thing.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: were very busy.
Speaker:Oh, man.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: yeah, I.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: that was your PhD. You were doing that
Speaker:at the same time as your md that was
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: It was
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: or stacked?
Speaker:How?
Speaker:How did they do
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: double stuff.
Speaker:Oreo style.
Speaker:So like you do two years of med school, then you go into a lab, you literally
Speaker:disappear from your medical school class.
Speaker:They move on.
Speaker:You go into the lab for four or five years, then you come back and
Speaker:finish medical school and when you arrive back you're like, I don't
Speaker:remember any of the things that I've learned in the first two years.
Speaker:So a little bit rough return to, and this is when you do your clinic.
Speaker:So you're more in the hospital now as a med student, you're
Speaker:picking your specialty.
Speaker:and like one of the, one of the things I liked about general surgery, which
Speaker:is ultimately what I picked, was that, number one there, there was a
Speaker:lot of that specialty that was less about talking and was much more about.
Speaker:Like action and okay, we have clear, kind of clear steps for like how a recovery
Speaker:curve or a pre-op curve goes for people.
Speaker:and I think part of it was, there were parts about the culture
Speaker:that I liked, very action biased.
Speaker:Like how can you speak to what needs to happen in the shortest,
Speaker:most potent way possible?
Speaker:it was fast moving, lots of things I liked about that.
Speaker:and and in some ways very different from the science where it was like, all
Speaker:right, you really gotta think about what are the right questions to ask here.
Speaker:Gotta deal with the uncertainty.
Speaker:and, but what was fun was like, throughout that whole journey,
Speaker:I learned things that were super useful, that ultimately in where I
Speaker:ended up, I still use those things.
Speaker:So people ask me, they're like, could you do coaching now?
Speaker:what I. do you regret doing all that school?
Speaker:these questions, but, for example,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: specialized generalist I've ever met.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:Because you're pulling stuff from all over the map, but you are,
Speaker:have such a tremendous specialty in all these different areas.
Speaker:It's incredible.
Speaker:you're.
Speaker:Your path and your journey, your knowledge, medical field, of
Speaker:science and all these things.
Speaker:And then now of performance is, it is a very diverse thing.
Speaker:But it's awesome because you truly are pulling, it's just, it really
Speaker:does parallel your athletics where you're just leaning on other things
Speaker:that you've experienced to build.
Speaker:So that's really fascinating.
Speaker:I'm so curious.
Speaker:Have you ever taken the Enneagram?
Speaker:You've got me stumped.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: do you wanna guess My Myers-Briggs?
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: oh, Myers Briggs.
Speaker:You've gotta be an E, right?
Speaker:You're an E. You can't be, you're not an I. You're not an
Speaker:You're an
Speaker:not?
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I'm an I.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Oh, it's gotta be a weak eye then.
Speaker:It's gotta be a weak eye.
Speaker:I'm
Speaker:. as well, but it's gotta be a weak eye.
Speaker:So what's your Myers-Briggs?
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I am an INFJ.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Ooh, I'm an INTP,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: yeah, that's so interesting though.
Speaker:I think I would love to hear what you're, I'll send you a link after the show.
Speaker:You'll have to
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I'm so kind.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: we have our own Enneagram
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Amazing.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: take it because I'm very interested
Speaker:to see what your Enneagram type is.
Speaker:I'm, I am a seven,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Okay.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: and so it'd be fascinating to see.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:you could go a couple different ways here.
Speaker:So I don't know, I don't have you figured out on that yet.
Speaker:But, I wanna talk about how you moved, then.
Speaker:You get out of school, you've chosen surgery, and now you've,
Speaker:what point in time did you say, did you make the dec the call and
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: know what?
Speaker:get into surgery or did you
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I did.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: I just know you did.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: No,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: my
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I went through the match process.
Speaker:I got my first choice, went to Stanford general surgery.
Speaker:Like, you know, I'm living the dream.
Speaker:Like my husband and I are driving through the sunset down to
Speaker:Palo Alto to get our apartment.
Speaker:I'm living the dream Dallas.
Speaker:And, yeah.
Speaker:And then, you're living the dream and what the dream is like
Speaker:80 to a hundred hours a week.
Speaker:Uh, like where, there is a lot of learning, but A lot of it is really
Speaker:squeezed because of course, like you are still a doctor in training,
Speaker:but you are now an MD now and you are providing the care that actually
Speaker:happens in teams with, you know, with all the levels of doctors, right?
Speaker:But, you are operating like you are stitching people up in
Speaker:the er, you're doing it all.
Speaker:And, there was a lot about that was super interesting and thrilling.
Speaker:And also just some realities of what it means in a system like that is pressured.
Speaker:Like our healthcare system, there is more work than there are people to do it.
Speaker:And for the doctors who are working so hard every day, I am
Speaker:eternally thankful and grateful.
Speaker:It is not an easy job.
Speaker:and it's funny, like the grit part of it, I'm good at that, like
Speaker:the put your head down and work.
Speaker:I certainly worked really hard on various other things, but one of
Speaker:the things I wasn't prepared for was like the loss of autonomy of time.
Speaker:That there was a lot of work, but also unpredictable work of like,
Speaker:when was your pager gonna go off?
Speaker:Were you going, like the not being able to organize things in a way that
Speaker:made more sense for either how our brains work or, how much sleep do we
Speaker:need to be really effective or, even like how do we communicate together?
Speaker:And I think this was a moment when I started to realize, and it wasn't
Speaker:like a single moment over that year, but where I was like, I actually
Speaker:think a lot about performance.
Speaker:I think I know a lot about my own performance having gone through a variety,
Speaker:not just one sport, but three sports.
Speaker:Not just like one kind of medical training, but like also science.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yes.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: There are things about this that I know
Speaker:, in some ways have to operate the way they're operating because it's really
Speaker:tough to change the direction of a tanker.
Speaker:And the medical system is a tanker, but that are not optimal for me.
Speaker:And I love having multi-channel life.
Speaker:I love pushing performance in a number of different areas and I like thinking
Speaker:about performance and it really frustrates me the number of things I can't change
Speaker:here that I know would improve myself and also like how this is operating.
Speaker:And and I realized that, I was like, it's not whether or not I can get
Speaker:through this 'cause it was going well, but more just looking ahead at the
Speaker:people who are already five or 10 years down the path and saying, no, I can see
Speaker:what the job is and I can't unsee it.
Speaker:And this is really inconvenient, but.
Speaker:. This is the earliest time point that I have left to make a different choice and
Speaker:think I need to make a different choice.
Speaker:And that's hard, but it's clear.
Speaker:And yeah,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Did you have a lot of peace
Speaker:as you went through that?
Speaker:As you gained that clarity, was it, a time where you're having conversations
Speaker:with your husband and you're like, ah, I just don't know, I'm racking my brain?
Speaker:Or were you like when you got to the end of that, you were like, no,
Speaker:this is, I know it, I know it in my bones and this is what I wanna do.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I dunno if peace is a word I
Speaker:would use, but like sometimes you have certainty about a thing.
Speaker:And you're right, there is some call like certainty versus uncertainty.
Speaker:Like there I had no doubts that like, nope, you need to move on.
Speaker:You need to figure out how you take these pieces and everything you've learned and.
Speaker:All the intelligence and effort you have to give the world
Speaker:and create something great.
Speaker:You need to direct that towards something else.
Speaker:And after having been trained in a lot of different things, I also
Speaker:realized that I was like, I don't know that I need someone to, I don't
Speaker:need to be in someone else's system.
Speaker:That I think it was one of the first times I was willing to have the thought
Speaker:of maybe I could run my own thing, design my own thing, versus go be an academic,
Speaker:and be in that system or, even just change what type of medicine I was doing it.
Speaker:I think I realized that I knew a lot about my own performance and how to
Speaker:produce impact, but I think I also picked up on the thread of performance
Speaker:is the thing I can't put down.
Speaker:It's not medicine.
Speaker:Now me,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: you found the common thread.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: could have been a vehicle for that, but
Speaker:it wa it turns out it wasn't the vehicle.
Speaker:And so that was how I began to come to the thought of, and.
Speaker:I've been coaching people long before, like I ever thought
Speaker:that I was going to be a coach.
Speaker:So it became this interesting question of, well, do you wanna
Speaker:be an academic around performance?
Speaker:Is that the thing you wanna do?
Speaker:And it was like, no, that I am an applied scientist.
Speaker:I love taking science and giving it to people, figuring out how to use it.
Speaker:I'm Guinea pig number one, but I share it very freely.
Speaker:Like I'm not a person who like keeps it close to chest.
Speaker:So if someone else has a challenge, they're working towards an ambitious
Speaker:goal and trying to sort it, whether it's a friend or colleague, like
Speaker:I was often a person they were talking to and I had quite a bit of
Speaker:appetite for those conversations.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: I love it , and this is something
Speaker:we have in common, there's a translation component to that, and I,
Speaker:hear that when you're, whether you're talking about medicine and you said this
Speaker:earlier, you're a very good translator.
Speaker:So you have the ability to understand complex topics, and you could read
Speaker:a scientific paper or a medical paper, you can digest that, but then
Speaker:you can have normal human speak and essentially give meaningful dialogue
Speaker:and meaningful, things takeouts out of that, components out of that
Speaker:information that actually help people,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Mm-hmm.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: really where the fun in my opinion is.
Speaker:the
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I agree.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: and the experiments are great, but they're.
Speaker:Very theoretical sometimes, and very full of things that
Speaker:you can't ever land the plane.
Speaker:So it's
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: out the valuable, information and bits
Speaker:and bytes to give to people is really where that's actually really fun.
Speaker:And that's where you get to see the impact.
Speaker:You know, I feel like some of the academic work, you don't really see
Speaker:the impact as much as where you're at, where you're living in that translation
Speaker:space where you can see the light bulbs go off and you can see the difference
Speaker:and see the life change or the
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: growth or the whatever.
Speaker:So that's a really fascinating space and I think that's really
Speaker:cool that you're able to do that.
Speaker:I want to get into there.
Speaker:so you've come into this clarity, this realization.
Speaker:And now you're moving into this performance space because you have
Speaker:this background that's very much a performance oriented background, whether
Speaker:it's in sports or medicine or science.
Speaker:And so you're able to translate that, but you didn't just
Speaker:say, I'm gonna go be a coach.
Speaker:You literally, you started a coaching company or executive coaching company,
Speaker:but you developed your own system.
Speaker:how did that work?
Speaker:Tell us a little bit about the
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: your methodology and how you
Speaker:approach things with that.
Speaker:, carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:one of the interesting things about starting is, I left residency, like I,
Speaker:I said I gave him some notice, fill my spot like, 'cause I'm not, I'm gonna
Speaker:finish the year, but I'm not coming back.
Speaker:And,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: right?
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: and then started at zero again, which
Speaker:is, because of course I wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna go to a coaching school
Speaker:and I will get that certification.
Speaker:Because part of what I thought was so interesting was the ability
Speaker:to come into a space from, as an outsider and bring new ideas to it.
Speaker:And there we have, there's countless examples of science about how
Speaker:breakthroughs in science happen when two people meet in the cafeteria
Speaker:with really different specialties and talk through a problem together.
Speaker:So I, I found this to be very appealing as an idea.
Speaker:And I also noted that, One of the things, the barrier to entry into
Speaker:coaching, relatively speaking is low just compared to some other kinds of things.
Speaker:and
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: or PhDs or world champions
Speaker:and ultimate Frisbee.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: and so there was also a piece of me that
Speaker:was like, I bring something different and useful into this, that, it, like it,
Speaker:there is the coaching piece of it and there was a number of trainings we got
Speaker:in medical school about how to do really patient centered dialogue, which is not
Speaker:dissimilar from, a good number of things one might learn in a coaching program.
Speaker:not identical, but, some of the most important things I think are there.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: hundred percent.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: but the other thing is, I thought it
Speaker:would be really important and useful to come into coaching with a background.
Speaker:While, no, I might not have been a startup founder, but if you wanna
Speaker:ask me, do I understand what it looks like to have a really high stakes
Speaker:conversation with someone or to make a decision that is very high stakes?
Speaker:I have parallels for that because of like past background.
Speaker:like at a relatively young age in medicine, you get to sit down with
Speaker:someone and have a really serious, medical decision making conversation with them
Speaker:that could be sort of life and death.
Speaker:a lot of the times it's not quite that severe, but it's, it's a real thing.
Speaker:And ultimately part of designing my own methodology was this thought of
Speaker:saying, let's not pretend I'm gonna be the normal anything in this field.
Speaker:So let's, we don't need to fix that.
Speaker:Let's just feature it and.
Speaker:Design something different.
Speaker:Not because what's there is bad, but because it's great to have
Speaker:options in an industry and in a marketplace because different people
Speaker:are going to want different things.
Speaker:so I set to work designing, and part of what I was drawing upon was both
Speaker:trying to distill all the noise that was in like the field of performance
Speaker:science, which, I think of as loosely like lots of disciplines contribute
Speaker:to it, but you've sort of got, four buckets is what I always say.
Speaker:That's how I ended up distilling.
Speaker:And I say, okay, you've got four buckets of ideas or approaches here.
Speaker:You've got strategy like, and the business schools love to talk about that.
Speaker:any, you know, the startup world and culture are always discussing this
Speaker:strategy is essentially what are, the most important goals you might have
Speaker:and also what are the most important like priorities you're going to
Speaker:invest in to go after those things.
Speaker:What are all the things you're not going to do that are just gonna,
Speaker:that are just gonna dilute you?
Speaker:Bucket one strategy.
Speaker:Bucket two is about execution.
Speaker:There are more effective or efficient ways to do things and not six Sigma
Speaker:is a great example of some science that has contributed in that execution
Speaker:bucket or the productivity movement probably lives in that execution bucket.
Speaker:you've got, the third bucket is mindset.
Speaker:So you've got the psychologist and the sociologist contributing to this.
Speaker:if strategy is figuring out like the most important or right things
Speaker:to be doing, execution is figuring out how to do those in a good way.
Speaker:The mindset bucket may be how do you stay motivated doing those things over time?
Speaker:How do you keep after it when it's really challenging?
Speaker:How do you deal with uncertainty, which is certainly a prime question for us.
Speaker:All right now, and then the fourth bucket is physiology because it turns
Speaker:out there's a lot about our bodies, the hormones, the stress chemicals,
Speaker:like how we're caring for our bodies, like mental health is physical health,
Speaker:and physical health is mental health.
Speaker:it's important to think about our physiology and how that can relate to
Speaker:our decision making or our ability to connect with another person or to not
Speaker:get angry about something and to stay cool and work through it, for example.
Speaker:so those are the four buckets and in distilling that I wanted to
Speaker:make it accessible to people so you could actually talk about it in a
Speaker:coaching session and that it was a framework that other people could
Speaker:start to say, oh, okay, four buckets.
Speaker:What approach or what thing do I think.
Speaker:I need right now, or what do I think is the approach I want to use to solve
Speaker:a challenge that I'm thinking about?
Speaker:Or, if I'm trying to improve my results, which of these buckets
Speaker:should we be looking at to say what might have the biggest impact on
Speaker:changing the results you're getting?
Speaker:And
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Interesting.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I keep them in the back of my head.
Speaker:So whether or not people wanna use the framework, those are the lenses I'm always
Speaker:thinking about as I'm listening to a client and thinking what would be helpful.
Speaker:And I often ask also, they get to participate obviously, but I like
Speaker:having a structure for a coaching conversation that says, what kind
Speaker:of approach do we wanna use here?
Speaker:And we have multiple options.
Speaker:The first one doesn't work.
Speaker:We have at least three more.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: I love that we call that in our thing.
Speaker:we, when we train on our little, coaching app, as we call it,
Speaker:we're finding that growth edge.
Speaker:I always just love it.
Speaker:Where's the growth edge?
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh, I love that.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: edges.
Speaker:you can grow in strategy, you can grow in your execution,
Speaker:your mindset or your physiology.
Speaker:You've got areas where there's always this, I'm right at the edge of where, I
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: that next uncomfortable place on that and
Speaker:experience that growth edge more fully.
Speaker:I think those are great categories.
Speaker:I would love to hear your, and you can use a client example, not obviously specific,
Speaker:but, or you can, change the names to protect those, the of the innocent.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: if you have a client example or a thought on
Speaker:uncertainty, you mentioned uncertainty.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh, yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: it's funny 'cause we're not short of
Speaker:it, but we're so exposed to it as well.
Speaker:It's like the, it's a double-edged sword.
Speaker:We're so much more connected that we may not experience as much uncertainty 'cause
Speaker:we were just unaware a hundred years ago.
Speaker:Now we have everything instantly, all the time.
Speaker:And it's, it just creates all this anxiety, I think, for a lot of people.
Speaker:How would you coach someone, or what's your, been your experience
Speaker:specifically around uncertainty, that you may wanna share with our listeners?
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: I love this topic because,
Speaker:again, it actually reaches into a number of the buckets.
Speaker:but it is something like, like I've spoken to groups about this because
Speaker:it is so front of mind for people.
Speaker:so when I think about uncertainty, there are, both like mindsets or perspectives
Speaker:that I think are really helpful.
Speaker:And I think there are also actions that are really helpful.
Speaker:and I. I think we often need to do some of both.
Speaker:So I know like , there are plenty of loud voices out there or gurus who are
Speaker:all about one thing and it is powerful.
Speaker:'cause one thing is focused, it is easy to remember.
Speaker:So they're all about the mindset or they're all about
Speaker:the, like, get into action.
Speaker:But in my experience, often when we can do a combo of things, it's
Speaker:like we can get out of gridlock.
Speaker:It's if you can shift everything just a little bit eventually, like the
Speaker:intersection clears up, but we have to
Speaker:keep picking at it from a couple of different angles.
Speaker:with uncertainty from a mindset standpoint, some of the things
Speaker:that like I talk with clients about and that I use myself.
Speaker:So this is actually one of the like muscles I'm constantly trying to
Speaker:like, build in myself because I know that uncertainty will continue.
Speaker:Things are gonna change at a rapid rate.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: hundred percent.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: On the mindset front, couple
Speaker:perspectives that can be useful.
Speaker:One of the firsts is to remember that we forget what
Speaker:the opposite of uncertainty is.
Speaker:Now our brains as human beings love to be in control and we love
Speaker:to know what's going to happen.
Speaker:But actually, if you played that out to its end, if you knew what was gonna
Speaker:happen in every movie you ever went to go watch, if you knew the ending of every
Speaker:book you even started, would you read it?
Speaker:And then think about life, like how flat life would be.
Speaker:We would be bored out of our minds, and that is actually terrible
Speaker:for the human condition that,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yeah.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: this stagnation is like one of the
Speaker:underpinnings of what often we start to feel midlife, mid-career as like
Speaker:kind of a crisis where we feel flat and we're like, everything's going
Speaker:fine, but I just don't feel good.
Speaker:I don't like something's missing.
Speaker:And when you talk about that growth edge Dallas, I think being at one's
Speaker:growth edge is both uncomfortable, but also life-giving and invigorating.
Speaker:So when we're feeling a lot of uncertainty, sometimes I like to
Speaker:say re remind ourselves with the opposite of uncertainty actually is
Speaker:if you carry it out to an extreme.
Speaker:now, like a second piece of mindset is to understand that while it is stressful
Speaker:to feel like there are some things that are uncertain, that part of the reason
Speaker:we feel that stress, and this is an idea, from Kelly McGonigal on her book,
Speaker:the Upside of Stress, but that the fact that we are stressed, what that
Speaker:represents is that there's something we care about and that thing is at stake,
Speaker:but that fundamentally having things we care about in our life.
Speaker:Are really important that is actually, that if we didn't care about anything, we
Speaker:would feel a lot less stress, but we would not fundamentally be in a better place.
Speaker:In fact, some of the studies show that like the people with the least stress were
Speaker:actually sort of the worst off from like a kind of mental health standpoint, which
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: How
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: is interesting.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Those are vast, very interesting.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: yeah.
Speaker:, dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: when you said the opposite of uncertainty.
Speaker:I've never asked that question.
Speaker:It's fascinating 'cause as soon as you, when as soon as you asked it,
Speaker:I immediately went to, oh my gosh.
Speaker:It's boredom, and it's just amazing 'cause I've never really
Speaker:thought about it that way.
Speaker:So it's a fascinating, that, it the reason that we tend to push ourselves, I think
Speaker:when you see someone growing, like you,
Speaker:the growth edge, the reason that you would do that.
Speaker:'cause there's a lot of reasons not to change, there's a lot
Speaker:of reasons that, we can come up with whether they're good or bad.
Speaker:There's just a lot of them.
Speaker:But one of the reasons that we do is that you just, if you
Speaker:don't, you risk being stagnant.
Speaker:You
Speaker:being bored.
Speaker:people say getting in a rut or, you know, like that stagnation.
Speaker:So I just, that's so fascinating that the thing that you might have too much of
Speaker:that causes you great anxiety if you don't have enough of, it's actually causing you.
Speaker:Tremendous boredom.
Speaker:And, it's a problem on the other side of the spectrum.
Speaker:So are,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: we're now back at Goldilocks, we gotta find the,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: yeah.
Speaker:and again, like certainly sometimes we know we have a little more
Speaker:uncertainty than we would like.
Speaker:It's not that people are asking for no uncertainty, but so now let's get
Speaker:into some of the actions, because
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Okay.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: think.
Speaker:One of the pieces of mindset is just if we can turn, tune down a little.
Speaker:The sense that our brain sometimes have, has when we are, like, we feel
Speaker:out of control when it's uncertain.
Speaker:But if we can just tune that down a little bit, it's not, you're still
Speaker:gonna feel some discomfort, but if you can get rid of the, there is something
Speaker:wrong, there is uncertainty here.
Speaker:If we can just say, this is uncomfortable, but it represents
Speaker:that I care about some things.
Speaker:Yeah, I feel like they're at stake.
Speaker:And also I don't know what's gonna happen and that causes me some discomfort, but
Speaker:it doesn't mean there's necessarily, something capital w like wrong.
Speaker:so that helps then get us in a place I think where we can
Speaker:start to take some action.
Speaker:And there are three things I think about with regards to dealing and.
Speaker:Let's just say moving through and navigating the phases of
Speaker:life or of external events or things that cause us uncertainty.
Speaker:And, there are very few things that are just going to fix
Speaker:it if it's something big.
Speaker:So I think about this very much as like, how are you gonna, equip yourself for the
Speaker:journey I'm putting on a backpack here,
Speaker:who can't see.
Speaker:And those three things are, we often need to give ourselves
Speaker:more time to think versus react.
Speaker:We often think we're thinking, but we're actually doing a lot of reacting.
Speaker:we need to create, some learning for ourselves and figure out
Speaker:what would be useful to learn and, start on that pathway.
Speaker:And we need to learn to, use our biology to our advantage in these moments.
Speaker:We can talk about some tools for each of those like things.
Speaker:but I think on the thinking front, and I know from our conversation
Speaker:before, the show that like part of your app has leaders do some reflection.
Speaker:So I, I think we're actually gonna, we're probably gonna align
Speaker:really well on this recommendation.
Speaker:when it comes to creating some time for yourself to think, what I recommend is we
Speaker:need to be by ourselves, not distracted by devices or emails or the things that
Speaker:are requir us to react so that we can ask some deeper level questions like, what is
Speaker:most important to me in this situation?
Speaker:Or What is the outcome I'd like to have happen out of this situation?
Speaker:What's an outcome I'd be okay with?
Speaker:What is the outcome I'm most afraid of?
Speaker:so these are some of my focus questions.
Speaker:So when I think about focus, which we talked about earlier,
Speaker:they help our brain sort of.
Speaker:Calm down from either trying to do everything or being so frozen by the
Speaker:number of things we can't do anything.
Speaker:and get back to what might be most important here.
Speaker:So we can ask about the goal or the objective, the outcome we want.
Speaker:We can also ask questions about what do I actually think is gonna be most
Speaker:important, to move me towards that thing.
Speaker:it won't be a guarantee, but of all the things I could do, what things are
Speaker:more extraneous and what things are more fundamental, and to be able to
Speaker:pull out something you have control over that is something you could be
Speaker:investing your time and energy in.
Speaker:And last question I really are like, what are the distractions here?
Speaker:What are the things that I could pour time or energy down emotional
Speaker:cycles that aren't actually really going to contribute to my progress
Speaker:through this period of uncertainty?
Speaker:and
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Those are
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: yeah,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: great questions.
Speaker:I love that first part.
Speaker:We've gotta talk about it for a second.
Speaker:'cause that's just, you're exactly right.
Speaker:The time to think.
Speaker:I feel like it's so under.
Speaker:Valued in our culture.
Speaker:I just think that as we've gotten a, you know, I think the
Speaker:ancients, had a better perspective.
Speaker:if you read any kind of, literature from like meditations on Mark
Speaker:Aurelius or, scripture or whatever.
Speaker:I mean, just the, they had, they, I feel like they, had a
Speaker:better grasp on, understanding how to manage themselves in time.
Speaker:And we have so many, like you said, distractions.
Speaker:That's the thing.
Speaker:That's a great question.
Speaker:It's like how, and it's so many things that are not,
Speaker:it's the death by a thousand.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: it's not one big thing.
Speaker:Maybe it is, but there's so many little things that, you go to work
Speaker:and on the way in you're listening to a podcast, whether it's great or not,
Speaker:or music or you get done, you go to a thousand emails all day and then you
Speaker:go home and you're watching Netflix and listen to music on the way back.
Speaker:And then you have this, and you have that call and you have, talk
Speaker:with your friend or talk with your family or talk with this, and it's
Speaker:just like one thing after another.
Speaker:And you get at the end of the day and you lay down, you're exhausted
Speaker:and you realize you've just run most of your down autopilot and you
Speaker:can't even remember what you did.
Speaker:And so just this idea that you bring up of taking time to think and
Speaker:reflect and being very specific about the questions that you ask yourself
Speaker:when you reflect is so powerful.
Speaker:And I'll tell you a story.
Speaker:and you are the executive coach that's meeting with owners
Speaker:and leaders and founders and
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: companies.
Speaker:Our system is more to drive it in the organization.
Speaker:So
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: was a coach that was a, an operations manager.
Speaker:He was testing out the system for the first time, our system.
Speaker:And he asked these three reflective questions.
Speaker:Actually, I was asking
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: in a demo.
Speaker:We weren't even, this wasn't even through the app yet.
Speaker:It wasn't even, it was still on a piece of paper at this point in time.
Speaker:And he had brought his two, subordinates in, there was like two project
Speaker:managers that were there with him.
Speaker:And he just wanted to kinda show it off this is what's
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: give y'all the heads up 'cause
Speaker:you get see it here first.
Speaker:And so he says, go, come on.
Speaker:do ask, go take me through a one-on-one.
Speaker:I said, all right, all right.
Speaker:. So I sat down and I asked him these questions and it was just three
Speaker:questions that were reflective.
Speaker:Just three.
Speaker:And then it was into the making a commitment or what's
Speaker:the most important thing.
Speaker:So we go into the second half of it.
Speaker:I get done and I look over at the two project managers
Speaker:and they're sitting there.
Speaker:deadpan, stone cold, no emotion, not a smile.
Speaker:And they looked at him and he's like, well, and they're just like, yeah, okay.
Speaker:And are we done here?
Speaker:And I was so deflated at that moment because I was like, man, that was,
Speaker:I mean, I didn't get anything.
Speaker:I got no feedback, nothing.
Speaker:And so I was like, all right, I'm done.
Speaker:I'm outta here.
Speaker:So I get up and leave.
Speaker:That was a Thursday afternoon, Monday morning, the operations manager that I
Speaker:was sitting across from that gave that 1 0 1 to comes and knocks on the door.
Speaker:you gotta hear this, you gotta hear this.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:One of the project managers came in this morning and said, he made a commitment.
Speaker:I said, what is that?
Speaker:He goes, dude, he quit smoking over the weekend.
Speaker:He quit smoking.
Speaker:I said, that's great.
Speaker:He goes, no, you don't understand.
Speaker:sat there and listened to those questions and when we finished, he got in his
Speaker:truck and drove home and he was thinking about those questions all the way home.
Speaker:And then it sparked more questions.
Speaker:And he was like, I'm about to have a daughter.
Speaker:And I don't want to, I don't want her to smell smoke all the time.
Speaker:And I wanna take my family on good vacations.
Speaker:How much money am I spending on cigarettes and all that?
Speaker:Well that would equal X dollars, And he starts doing the math and he's wait a
Speaker:minute, I wanna be the dad who takes my daughter and family on a great vacation.
Speaker:And all of a sudden these, all these things start clicking.
Speaker:And he literally came back on Monday morning and said, I quit smoking.
Speaker:I'm not a smoker anymore 'cause I'm this.
Speaker:And funny enough, he went cold Turkey, no knick patch, no nut.
Speaker:and that was four years ago and he hadn't touched it since.
Speaker:a most amazing thing.
Speaker:now I'm not Tony Robbins and that system, our system is
Speaker:but it shows you just what you said, the power of focus.
Speaker:was seeing that cigarettes were a distraction from what he really
Speaker:wanted and that he really wanted to be an and identify as a dad
Speaker:that was having a baby girl that wanted to be her hero and not, a guy
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: choose a cigarette over his daughter.
Speaker:And so had been.
Speaker:He had been moving but not thinking,
Speaker:then it was like those questions just gave him five.
Speaker:All it was five minutes to sit with his thoughts.
Speaker:And it's a game changer.
Speaker:So to your point, that is the power of great questions, alongside of
Speaker:just a moment to think and reflect.
Speaker:So I think that's huge.
Speaker:, I think you're onto that.
Speaker:that's a huge thing that time to think.
Speaker:I would love to hear more about, creating, learning
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: our biology.
Speaker:'cause, you've obviously got, deep well on the, using our biology with
Speaker:all the medical background as well.
Speaker:So
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: curious as where you go with those.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: So the second one, this idea of
Speaker:creating some learn, like some learning for yourself, it comes from the idea
Speaker:that in uncertainty, often what's happening is there is a gap between
Speaker:like where we are today and what we know and what we might need to know
Speaker:to be successful in a different and or un like the next, what's coming next.
Speaker:And that if we actually break down all the different parts of what
Speaker:uncertainty is that, that's one of the elements is this idea because, often
Speaker:if we, like, when we have the mindset around uncertainty, if we're like,
Speaker:Hey, I know everything I need to know.
Speaker:Like we actually don't feel as bad about uncertainty.
Speaker:if we like you,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: a confidence.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: a confidence builder.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah, but also, like often if you, during
Speaker:your thinking time, one of the questions you could ask yourself is, does this
Speaker:uncertainty represent a gap in what I know and what I think I should know?
Speaker:So AI is a great example here.
Speaker:I think a number of people are feeling a lot of uncertainty about
Speaker:this, and, part of that uncertainty is related to, obviously are the
Speaker:robot overlords going to eat us all?
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yes.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Okay, that's very existential,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: It's fair.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: but let's just, let's bring it back
Speaker:to something more within our control.
Speaker:And that's to say, well, part of that uncertainty of AI is maybe a sense of
Speaker:I don't know how to benefit from it.
Speaker:And and I don't know enough about it, and so I only feel
Speaker:like it's going to be bad for me.
Speaker:could be like one example of this.
Speaker:And figuring out and asking yourself.
Speaker:What could I learn that would start to reduce some of the uncertainty?
Speaker:So picking something that might be really relevant to that.
Speaker:So identifying what would be useful to learn is one of the first pieces.
Speaker:But then the second piece is most of us learned how to learn in
Speaker:school, but like our systems for learning are not, set up that way
Speaker:for most of the rest of our lives.
Speaker:when you onboard into a new company, sometimes when you're early in career,
Speaker:there are sort of some learn like developmental programs or things, but
Speaker:honestly, you get to like mid-career, you get to that leadership level and no
Speaker:one is creating that for you anymore.
Speaker:you have to drive your own learning and also , learning
Speaker:isn't now your full-time job.
Speaker:Like school.
Speaker:We used to just go to school, full-time job.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yes.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: so I think it is really useful to identify
Speaker:number one, what, like what should I be learning about Number two, if I
Speaker:were going to spend the highest first.
Speaker:High yield one hour period to learn as much as I can.
Speaker:What resource would I use?
Speaker:So for example, sometimes it's a person you're like, I have a friend, I have
Speaker:someone in my network who is an AI expert.
Speaker:I am going to go talk to them for an hour so that I have a framework to even
Speaker:know where I should dig in next, or honestly an hour with chat GPT asking
Speaker:questions, it is imperfect and it's not a substitute for critical thinking, but
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Correct.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: now that if you just have a conversation
Speaker:with chat GPT about an area, you will learn potentially 80% of the basics.
Speaker:And then you need to check those.
Speaker:you need to kind of check those things.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: yes.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: it's reading like the table of contents
Speaker:in a few chapters of a book, or it's listening to a podcast with the author
Speaker:of the book, which is, you know.
Speaker:It
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: right.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: so plan your first high impact hour
Speaker:and out of that high impact hour, make a list of what, it could also be read
Speaker:three articles you found on the internet and find what are the commonalities
Speaker:where the places where that diverge.
Speaker:Those might be more contentious issues that I need to think about.
Speaker:But basically make a list of what are the three most like, fundamental things
Speaker:you feel confident about in that area?
Speaker:And what are your list of next questions that would be most
Speaker:relevant, for your business or your leadership or what you're doing.
Speaker:so
Speaker:, dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: I love how you framed that up with
Speaker:boundaries because it, I think that some people need to put at least an hour
Speaker:they would just hit it and, ah, nah, it's just, that's not what I want.
Speaker:I'm, and they'd move on.
Speaker:And then other people get in the Rabbit Hole syndrome and
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: oh, I just spent two days,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yes.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: into this, you don't really need that.
Speaker:So I love how you said you've got a high impact hour.
Speaker:If you feel uncomfortable, you need to learn something.
Speaker:At least take that first hour of high impact.
Speaker:And then by going hard in a specific direction with experts in the area
Speaker:or with a friend that knows or chat GBD, you can come away from that
Speaker:experience and know what to what, how to spend the next hours as you
Speaker:interface with this, whatever this thing
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: uncertainty about.
Speaker:I love the boundaries around that.
Speaker:And the focus, because you're saying, I'm designating this high impact hour.
Speaker:I'm okay with that.
Speaker:And when I get done with this, I should have these things to show for it.
Speaker:I think it's really good.
Speaker:That's good stuff.
Speaker:So now let's talk about, a little bit about the biology.
Speaker:What's, when you say that for our own benefit, what would you or
Speaker:our own advantage, what do you
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah, learn to use your biology
Speaker:and this is where it's important to recognize that yeah, like our health
Speaker:and our mental and our decision making don't all live up here.
Speaker:It's like we got open systems nerves, like chemicals are crossing like
Speaker:blood is crossing these barriers.
Speaker:And we are one package, we're not two separate packages.
Speaker:And so knowing like how our bodies tend to react to uncertainty and what can be
Speaker:helpful, I think, you know, yeah, I know it as a doctor, but there's really easy
Speaker:stuff to learn that everyone can use.
Speaker:one of the first pieces we already talked about, which is that, how
Speaker:stress impacts our bodies has a lot to do with our mindset on it.
Speaker:So I remember we talked about the mindset of actually like stress means
Speaker:there's something you care about.
Speaker:One of the interesting things that, Kelly McGonigal discussed in her
Speaker:book was that the impact of stress.
Speaker:'cause we've all heard oh, stress is so bad for us, like linked to,
Speaker:chronic inflammation and all these terrible things that actually how we
Speaker:view our stress has a lot to do with how good or bad it actually is for us.
Speaker:And so if we're really stressing out about the fact that we have stress,
Speaker:it is likely to produce a different set of chemicals as opposed to
Speaker:saying, I am stressed right now, but like my stress has a purpose to it.
Speaker:Like I stress because there's something I care about and
Speaker:I'm working really hard on it.
Speaker:And I really want this investor pitch to go well, I'm a startup founder
Speaker:and of course I'm stressed about this investor pitch right now, but also I
Speaker:know I'm doing something really great.
Speaker:there is a reason for this.
Speaker:and this is what I wanna be doing.
Speaker:So sometimes we can give some purpose.
Speaker:One of the mindsets is, can we give some purpose to our stress?
Speaker:And can we also know that it is good to have these things
Speaker:that jazz us in our lives.
Speaker:so we can use mindset actually to tap into our biology, which is important.
Speaker:Point number one about this.
Speaker:important point number two, there are long-term arcs that like we
Speaker:were built to go up and to go down on the stress curve, right?
Speaker:So we wanna have moments when we are jazzed, I'm playing in the
Speaker:Frisbee tournament, or so and so is giving, a pitch to the investors,
Speaker:but then you need to have some time when you come off of that.
Speaker:So staying too stressed, too long, not great for us, but actually our bodies
Speaker:were built to stress and recover.
Speaker:Stress and recover.
Speaker:that's
Speaker:how athletic training works.
Speaker:That's how our muscles get strong.
Speaker:we wanna have some ways long term to be caring and making sure that
Speaker:we're not spending too much time up.
Speaker:So, some great things, and this isn't preaching about lifestyle, it's more
Speaker:to say, we know these things work.
Speaker:You can pick some things you don't have to do all of them.
Speaker:Pick one or two.
Speaker:things like trying to get enough sleep.
Speaker:thinking a little bit about what you're eating.
Speaker:is it like relatively healthy or let's say not too unhealthy all the time.
Speaker:we're drinking enough water.
Speaker:are we getting outside?
Speaker:Turns out daylight's really good for us.
Speaker:are we exercising and moving our bodies, like sweating a little bit or
Speaker:just getting that blood flow pumping?
Speaker:are we spending some time in community, whether that's with our family, a good
Speaker:friend, a partner, are we getting some social, you know, like getting a hug?
Speaker:It turns out, releases oxytocin, for example.
Speaker:Like, so we, um, you know, a meditation or a breathing practice.
Speaker:it could also be a religious practice, but a reflective process.
Speaker:So there are a number of these, tips, which I didn't create, but we
Speaker:know tap into our biology in some great ways and long-term when we
Speaker:practice them, help us just have some regulation of the up and down.
Speaker:and then the last category that we could talk about is the instant fixes.
Speaker:Just to say that sometimes you are stressed and in the moment with that
Speaker:uncertainty, or you need a biological fix to just get through the next 10 minutes.
Speaker:so we can go there next, but those longer term things I think, are important and
Speaker:of course, take some attention over time.
Speaker:, dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: I think the mindset is so important
Speaker:and I love how you framed that up, where you add purpose to the stress.
Speaker:I mean, that is fantastic.
Speaker:Ah, I love that.
Speaker:And I think what that also does, when you went in to talk about the
Speaker:recovery side of it, I think with the mindset it will also help.
Speaker:Because if you are, , if there is a purpose and you know that you have
Speaker:a good recovery mechanism, then it's like, yeah, I'm working out hard now.
Speaker:But I know that the, it's like athletics.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: hard now, but man, when I take the,
Speaker:jacuzzi tub or the ice bath or whatever it is, later, I'm gonna, it's gonna
Speaker:feel so great and I'm gonna get a
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: or I'm gonna get, whatever I'm gonna recover.
Speaker:I. I've got the weekend all of a sudden that whole hard
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: doesn't, it doesn't over,
Speaker:it's not overwhelming.
Speaker:And so I think from a mindset, the purpose part is great.
Speaker:And also just having these things where, you know, which one of these,
Speaker:and if you're listening to the last 10%, as Carla read off this list of
Speaker:sleep, diet, water, outside, daylight, sweat, community, social meditation.
Speaker:You probably have at least one or two that just smacked you in the face
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: that you're like, I know I probably
Speaker:need to be doing that, but I'm not.
Speaker:And this is not, this is a no judgment zone.
Speaker:But on the flip side, it's such a great way to build your confidence and be
Speaker:able to handle more stress if you're, or if you know that stress is coming
Speaker:to know that's on the other side.
Speaker:I just encourage you to, To find what works best for you and in, in all of
Speaker:these ways and experiment with it.
Speaker:And obviously there's a lot of information out there.
Speaker:very good stuff with that.
Speaker:I love all that.
Speaker:I love the actions.
Speaker:I love all the actions.
Speaker:Now, you talked about instant fixes.
Speaker:what is the instant fix?
Speaker:I'm very interested in that,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:and I almost hesitate to call them that.
Speaker:And I am, I'm definitely a person who, doesn't believe in the silver bullets of
Speaker:things, but I also know that one of the powerful pieces of mindset is whether
Speaker:you're on stage giving a public talk and like literally freaking out inside.
Speaker:part of what helps us go into stressful situations is knowing that
Speaker:we have a toolkit for in the moment if stuff is going wrong, or we're
Speaker:just, or we're just really nervous or we're just really feeling it, that
Speaker:we have some tools that we can use.
Speaker:I just think that's a very empowering thing.
Speaker:It's the, it's the what will I do if,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: three things that, you can
Speaker:practice within five minutes.
Speaker:Now again, I like it.
Speaker:I have other tips for people.
Speaker:Were on stage, literally speaking, but let's just say
Speaker:like you're in your workday.
Speaker:So five minutes or less if you're really feeling the stress like you're amped, the
Speaker:adrenaline is like coursing through you.
Speaker:Three things.
Speaker:One is you can close your eyes and breathe for a minute.
Speaker:Like generally I recommend just focusing on how the breathing feels inside you.
Speaker:if you have a meditation practice, you may have other things that
Speaker:you want to do with that, but
Speaker:the things that's recommended is just try and lengthen the exhales so you can count.
Speaker:Sometimes that helps you focus on the breath, is it gives
Speaker:your mind something to do.
Speaker:So you can breathe in for however many counts you want and then breathe
Speaker:out for a certain number of counts.
Speaker:you don't have to close your eyes, but just don't look at your computer screen.
Speaker:look at the floor.
Speaker:you can go do this in the bathroom, right?
Speaker:if you, if you need privacy and you can't find it, that is a place you can do this.
Speaker:so just do that.
Speaker:And that actually has, pieces when, we really can start to lengthen the
Speaker:exhale and that helps us breathe in more, which flattens our diaphragm
Speaker:more, which ends up, getting our vagal system, our parasympathetic
Speaker:system to, be more engaged.
Speaker:And that's part of what calms us.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Wow.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: thought number one, thought number
Speaker:two, go for a five minute walk outside.
Speaker:Turns out even a two minute walk up and down the stairs, like in the stairwell
Speaker:can also help but outside's even better because you get temperature variation.
Speaker:you get, daylight, not fluorescent lighting.
Speaker:You get fresher air than is typically in most of our living spaces or buildings.
Speaker:And, and again, like you get the blood pumping and that often
Speaker:changes how our brain feels, how everything feels like it's working.
Speaker:So that's,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: really good.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: a great instant fix, or instant tool.
Speaker:Let's just say it helps.
Speaker:and then I think the third one is you can go back to that mindset
Speaker:and you can have a, mindset moment.
Speaker:And it could be as simple as like grabbing a post-it note and,
Speaker:saying, I'm gonna write down what is it that matters to me here?
Speaker:what's important to me?
Speaker:Why am I in the, why are we in this situation?
Speaker:but you can also write down some things for like what?
Speaker:what is good about me being in this situation?
Speaker:Like what is in it for me?
Speaker:And, and also like sometimes it's like how are some ways I might grow through this?
Speaker:and but just taking some moment to get back in touch with the purpose of it.
Speaker:Like even if this is really hard, even if it doesn't go well, like what is,
Speaker:why is it important that I'm doing this is maybe a great way to frame this one.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yeah.
Speaker:Going back to that purpose thing and bringing that back out.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:I think that's really good stuff.
Speaker:And it's all stuff that you can do if you're stressed in the moment.
Speaker:You don't have to, you don't have to have any, it doesn't take a long time.
Speaker:It's a five minute fix.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Five minute fix.
Speaker:man, this has been so much fun.
Speaker:I really, I really appreciate your wisdom.
Speaker:I think there's so many things that the listeners are, have enjoyed today.
Speaker:I would love to, before we close, I'd love for you to just speak to if there was, we
Speaker:talk about the idea of the show is being able to live in that last 10% being able
Speaker:to perform what does it take to perform at a level that's beyond just good.
Speaker:it's pursuit of greatness and excellence.
Speaker:And also finishing well and finishing strong.
Speaker:If you were to speak to that on what differentiates, and you've been
Speaker:collegiate teams and athletic teams on the professional level, and you've been
Speaker:in medical field and now you're working with business coaches in business coaching
Speaker:and fortune 500 and all kinds of things.
Speaker:What constitutes what you would say performers from great performers, if you
Speaker:was, if you had something that you would
Speaker:my opinion, and I know that's a larger question than just
Speaker:a five minute talk, but,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: no, that's all right.
Speaker:Yeah, we definitely, we've already talked about some of the things,
Speaker:so I'm actually like, I'm going to pick something different.
Speaker:then, focus time to think these are all things that I see
Speaker:people doing using really well.
Speaker:but one of the pieces that I think we can get stuck, particularly in that like last
Speaker:piece is because it feels like the last piece, we're often like looking for that.
Speaker:Trick or that I don't know that like that silver bullet, that thing I get asked
Speaker:about performance hacks all the time.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yes.
Speaker:The hacks, right?
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: And what I find is that some of
Speaker:our most meaningful change does not come from that nature of thing.
Speaker:I'm not saying that there aren't some good tips or tricks out there and
Speaker:I have those too, but tends to not produce the kind of like impact that
Speaker:like really like distant distances.
Speaker:Someone like almost where that 10% feels like way more than 10%, those
Speaker:10 to be things that we stack up now, notably, they aren't complex things and
Speaker:this is where we often get mixed up and why I love bringing performance out of
Speaker:academics into like really usable stuff.
Speaker:So the thing I notice is that we often waste a lot of time looking for that
Speaker:hack or secret Rather than taking a good idea that we already know that we
Speaker:could do and work on starting, whether it's, it might be a learning journey,
Speaker:it might simply be a, I need to start investing in that, and it just, it's
Speaker:gonna be stacking up day over day.
Speaker:But that stack turns into a moat between like you and like other people
Speaker:in terms of performing and that it's hard because as humans, yeah, we like,
Speaker:we want that instant gratification.
Speaker:But this is a thing that it, if you find you're searching for something, probably
Speaker:what that means is there's something for you to learn or there's something
Speaker:for you to start taking action on.
Speaker:So if there's something meaty you're searching for, then probably
Speaker:it's actually a learning journey.
Speaker:But if what you're actually, if you're being honest with yourself, you're
Speaker:like, oh no, I'm actually searching for a way to make this really.
Speaker:Easy and not Hey, I'm looking to see, I'm learning about AI tools to figure
Speaker:out how to actually implement them.
Speaker:if you're actually like, no, I'm looking for that magic wand.
Speaker:I'm looking for that thing, instead, define your learning
Speaker:journey and get going.
Speaker:Or use an idea you already have.
Speaker:You might not need to learn anything.
Speaker:You might just need to use a good idea that already exists in your
Speaker:brain and start working on it.
Speaker:so that's what I got.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: so good.
Speaker:The stacking idea is fantastic, and I think that is.
Speaker:A quintessential component of what we would refer to as the last 10%, because
Speaker:it is a separator and you can't fake it.
Speaker:the last
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Nope.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: can't fake because it's where that craftsmanship
Speaker:or the finishing or the grit or the, that's where all those things exist.
Speaker:And it's also where that momentum,
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yes.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: you're talking about Jim Collins,
Speaker:good a great, and that, that flywheel of momentum, that last 10% is where
Speaker:the, it moves so much faster because all of the time and effort and energy
Speaker:and stacking that you've done to get to that point is where it's realized.
Speaker:And I think that, I think that idea is so fascinating.
Speaker:Now, , the idea of stacking also has, we were talking about the
Speaker:before the show, it has a lot to do with how you named your company.
Speaker:So tell us
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: the
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: that's right.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: and how that Yeah.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:th axa means a task in Latin and, I picked it because one of the first
Speaker:performance principles when I was like young, trying to figure out how to go do
Speaker:things that I wanted to do in the world.
Speaker:. You know, the things fifth graders want to go do, win the track meet or,
Speaker:I don't know, be popular, these things.
Speaker:But I realized that the big stuff was all made up of like smaller
Speaker:tasks, smaller things you stack up and that is how you get there.
Speaker:all laughs aside.
Speaker:but I just liked it and I thought so much of coaching was actually
Speaker:helping people break down their big challenges, maybe in a new way than how
Speaker:they had broken it down before, maybe breaking it down for the first time.
Speaker:They might not have thought about it that way.
Speaker:They're trying to make a gigantic leap when they need to make
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Yes.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: many smaller, doable leaps.
Speaker:And I love the phrase what's doable and valuable.
Speaker:And this is, like a phrase I often when faced with uncertainty, is
Speaker:one of my phrases around or my helpful reminders around stacking.
Speaker:Which is like what would be doable and
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: phrase.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:I've never heard that before.
Speaker:Oh, that's so good.
Speaker:What's doable and valuable?
Speaker:There's been so many things we've talked about.
Speaker:I love how you talked about gaining access in the beginning of the show, and I think
Speaker:that's, so whether it's academics or whether it's in, in your learning PhD,
Speaker:whether that's it, just it, whenever you're trying to stack or whenever you're
Speaker:trying to grow, get it in the last 10%.
Speaker:having that process driven approach like you did early on, I think is so valuable.
Speaker:But also.
Speaker:You are looking for open doors of access, and I think sometimes
Speaker:people misunderstand opportunity.
Speaker:Access is opportunity.
Speaker:So if you're a leader, the more access that you can give
Speaker:to your team members, the more
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: to
Speaker:if you are in development, whether you're an entrepreneur
Speaker:or you're leading a company, you need to be thinking about that.
Speaker:act, what do you need access to, to grow?
Speaker:And I think that's just a great concept.
Speaker:I love the four areas that you talked about, the strategy,
Speaker:execution, mindset and psychology.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:what a way.
Speaker:we're just gonna end right there
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Yeah, we better.
Speaker:Uh, great way to find me.
Speaker:my website's a good resource and you can message me through the site.
Speaker:So that's at axa.com, T-H-A-X-A.
Speaker:but I'm also on LinkedIn and I'm always posting like content related
Speaker:to conversations I'm having about performance science, so that's
Speaker:an awesome place to follow along,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Wonderful.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: if there's anything interesting.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: All right, we'll do that.
Speaker:We'll put that in the show notes as well so you guys can see that.
Speaker:If you're driving, you can check it out later and go and check her
Speaker:website and LinkedIn out if you need to get in touch with her and
Speaker:have further the conversation.
Speaker:lastly, we always ask, and it could be.
Speaker:It could be someone you know, it could be someone you don't know.
Speaker:It could be someone famous, it could be someone know no one knows about.
Speaker:We've had everything from Madonna to my daughter, So it's
Speaker:the whole gamut in between.
Speaker:So who would you like to hear?
Speaker:If you were to listen to the last 10%, who would you like to
Speaker:hear as a guest on the last 10%?
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh my goodness.
Speaker:What?
Speaker:This is such a great question.
Speaker:Well, I'm gonna just say the first thing that's top of mind to me.
Speaker:so I have a friend, his name's Mark Bridge, who is doing really
Speaker:interesting things with a startup in jewelry, and it's called App Present.
Speaker:They're doing awesome stuff.
Speaker:He's an entrepreneur, like has branched, from, history.
Speaker:his family ran, jewelry, company still does.
Speaker:And, so he is a very interesting person.
Speaker:Very fun.
Speaker:Runs a podcast called The Materialist.
Speaker:which is excellent and full of wonderful stories from various,
Speaker:designers and other people who are, creating jewelry, thinking about it.
Speaker:very interesting person,
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: yeah, we'll have to reach out to Mark
Speaker:and see if, he would be on the last 10% you think it would make for a good show.
Speaker:So that would be, it sounds like a very interesting, guy.
Speaker:He is got an interesting story, yeah, we'll have to get with you
Speaker:after the show and get his contacts.
Speaker:If we can get him on, get him on the last 10%, that'd be good.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: excellent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:dallas-burnett_32_04-08-2025_162056: Carla, thank you so much for being on the
Speaker:last 10%, sharing some incredible wisdom.
Speaker:I know the listeners got, a lot out of it.
Speaker:You guys can connect with her, on her website and we just
Speaker:thank you again for your time.
Speaker:carla-fowler--md-phd_1_04-08-2025_132055: Oh, you're so welcome,
Speaker:and it was really fun.
Speaker:Thanks Dallas.
