“The idea of becoming all that you were created to be, so that not only can you produce more, right and have more income, but you can create more for others, and be able to give that all away, and to help more people.” Carla Blumenthal is a coach who specializes in helping empathic, sensitive, and introverted entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. She has coached a wide range of clients, from C-suite tech and marketing execs in Silicon Valley and New York City, to investors, small business owners, and creative professionals across the US. She is a Certified High-Performance Coach (certified by the High-Performance Institute), and was trained under Dr. Tracy Thomas, a leading therapist, and coach in the topic of emotional sensitivity. She has given a TEDx Talk, holds a BA in Communication Studies from James Madison University, and a Master’s in Marketing from Emerson College.
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6 Pillars Of High Performance With Carla Blumenthal
Hi, Brett Swarts here of Capital Gains Tax Solutions. So excited about our next guest, she’s not your typical guest, you may hear on here talking about finances and tax and real estate and capital gains, tax deferral, and all those things that we dive into. She’s actually a high-performance coach, which to me is one of the most important if not the most important thing that as a high-performer or as a high net worth individual yourself, that you should take a look at right or you should have a coaching mastermind, any of those things so that you can become more of the person you were created to be not just achieving wealth and success on achievement. But really having a high-performance mindset which she breaks down in this episode, she talks about really the difference between being high performance versus a high achiever. And she’s also going to talk about the six pillars of high performance. And she’s going to talk about strategic tools to help you reach new heights and achieve greater accomplishments. She’s also going to break down how to stay encouraged after you’ve reached new goals. Her name is Carla Blumenthal, and she is from New York. And she is amazing. So listen to this episode now. And please, please, if you like it, make sure to share this with somebody who needs some encouragement today. Thanks so much for listening. And here’s the show. Welcome to another episode of the capital gains tax solutions podcast where we believe having a capital gains tax deferral plan and a wealth plan is the best way to create and preserve more wealth. Hey, but sometimes you’re looking for something more than just creating and preserving more wealth, but a balanced and fulfilled life which really is the definition of true wealth in my book. And so I’m your host, Brett Swarts. And we’re bringing on an expert today in just that. So let’s face it most high, hard-driving entrepreneurs struggle with feeling more balanced and fulfilled in their fast-paced life. Our next guest is a certified high-performance coach helping overthinking and deep feelers build remarkable relationships and success on their terms. She has coached a wide range of clients from C suite tech, tech, and marketing execs in Silicon Valley in New York City to small business owners, entrepreneurs, consultants, managers, entertainers, and real estate investors. Through her work, or through their work once they work with our guests, they have started their own businesses, landed new, new exact roles, or met romantic partners, all while feeling more balanced and fulfilled. She also has given a TEDx talk, and it’s been a guest on lots of podcasts, including the best ever real estate show ever with Joe Fairless, your biggest Vision Showman and the investor mindset in our previous work and leadership development. She was featured in Forbes and presented at TED women. She lives in the Greater New York City area with her husband, please welcome her to the show with me. Carla Blumenthal. Carla, how are you?
I’m great. Bret. I’m so glad to be here.
I’m excited to have you. And as I was saying before the show that we don’t have a lot of guests that are focused on this such a topic, but it is truly the most really the most important topic right? being fulfilled in our lives. And making sure we’re finding some balance between not only driving to new heights and reaching new goals and helping people create and preserve more wealth, whether through real estate investing or capital gains, tax deferral, but being able to take a breath and say, Okay, what does this look like for the entire, you know, part of me and my family and the vision for that. So Carla, before we dive into some of those tactics, I’m just curious. Maybe you can share a little bit about your background and your current focus?
Sure. So I am a certified high-performance coach. But long before that, I worked in marketing in New York City and went through my own process of asking these big questions? Who am I? What do I want in my life, what’s purposeful and meaningful to me, besides the externals of making money and career, and I went through my own process to land on coaching and helping people that are overthinkers, which I think a lot of people fit in that bucket and also deep feelers, people that feel a lot and have a lot of emotions but want to make progress. And so, and I studied with Brendon Burchard, who’s the world’s leading high-performance coach, and learned all of these great principles, practices, strategies, and tactics to help gain more clarity and really move people to bigger and better heights and how to dream even bigger dreams.
Love that. And I’m just curious, Carla before you become a high-performance coach, and before you kind of found your niche, and you’re calling to help high performers get a more balanced life? Who was Carla growing up, and not so much? So what’s your story, but more? So? What was the gift that you’re giving? I believe we’re all given, you know, some people call it a superpower. I call it a god-given gift, you know, maybe one or two gifts, but maybe what’s the one gift that you’re giving Carla? And how does that connect to what you do today? and really how you help people?
High Performance: “It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.” – Warren Buffett
Mm-hmm. Great question. So I was a shy little girl. I mean, going back to I remember, in preschool, there’s actually a photo of me, like with my mouth open, because I was told to be nervous actually speak. I was just so shy and quiet. And also a sensitive person, I felt a lot and could actually pick up on the way other people are feeling, too. So I used to see these as weaknesses. And especially if you know, your teenage years, and I live in New York City. So there’s a lot of overachievers. And I always thought I was an overachiever. But that part of me, I sort of stuffed down that part that was sensitive or just empathic. And over time, I actually realized Those are my superpowers. And what makes me an incredible coach, and an incredible friend, family member as well. And so recognizing and going through a process in, you know, my late 20s and early 30s, of saying, Who am I really? And who was that little girl? And how have I evolved and shifted, and I really turned that into the superpower I am today. And that’s what I realized that studying and gaining skills in that area that I already had a natural proclivity towards, and really made a lot of sense.
Take us to that moment when you said, Oh, my gosh, like, I’ve been trying to, you know, either press it down or be someone else or not use what I have, is this gift? And what was the moment maybe that shift? And maybe it’s not like one single event, but maybe it’s you know, it’s probably a little bit of a journey. But what not only takes us to that moment or that season of life. But then second, what, what helps you to overcome that and really step into that gift?
Yeah. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is I actually in my 20s, I worked with Joe Fairless, verts bring him up, we work together at the same advertising agency. He was my manager. And I remember him saying to me, Carla, you can really read a room well. And I remember thinking to myself, What are you talking about? Like, I thought everyone did that. It’s almost like your superpower, such a superpower that you can’t even see it is what I see in a lot of clients, as well. And so I realized that when people started saying to me things about, hmm, you do this, and you don’t even know that you’re doing it, I realized that those are the clues, those are the dots. And I’ve been lucky to have mentors and friends like Joe and a lot of other people in my life who have been able to call that forward. And I think that’s so powerful. So recognizing that there were things that I couldn’t see for myself, as my ability to read a room, as my ability to understand people’s emotions, that was just so normal and natural to me, and realizing that those were clues that I could bring forward. And of course, with that came my own struggles and pain and you know, challenges that I had to go through and to really come out the other side to see that they were strengths and things that I could move forward and live-build my life upon.
That’s so inspiring, Carla, you know, growing up, my parents were divorced and my mom and my grandmother were the rock stars in my life. I mean, strong, compassionate, loving, really, really sacrificial. My brother and I especially so with, you know, two boys growing up. I’m curious. So now, you know I mentioned you also help women too. But I imagine a lot of your clients are men, right? And so maybe talk about that dynamic of being a strong, tough, hey, step into your gifts, right? especially coming from like, Hey, I’m shy, and I’m a female to now Hey, no, I believe in you and what you’re doing, and I was my journey. So walk us through that transition? Because I think that’s, there’s something there for sure. Hmm.
Yeah. I mean, the way I see it right now, as a coach is I believe that each person has magnificence in them. And I look for that in all of my clients. And I think that every person if we can even take a step back and use that as a frame, as we go around, out and about in the world, that we… Click To TweetAnd but for me, you know, I went through my process when I was working in marketing, and went through my own journey of letting go from a job. And as a high performing and high achieving person was like, I don’t know what’s next for me. And that’s when I went through my own struggles of redefining who I was and having, choosing mentors in my life, to help pull all of those parts of me forward. And so did a lot of different freelance opportunities and opportunities where I could be put in a situation so that, and, yeah, so that just having the right people and places, so I would create opportunities for myself, basically. And I think that’s the big thing is recognizing and putting yourself in places where you won’t know the outcome really, but you, you know, that there will be opportunities created from, from being put in a situation where maybe you don’t know someone new or that there’s, it’s really building a skill set for yourself. So I think it’s one recognizing that there’s magnificence in everyone and to put yourself in opportunities where you will be sort of forced to grow and try something new.
That’s fantastic. I love that. And thank you for sharing that. So I want to dig into a little bit to dismiss as sort of the tactical here, right, and let’s walk through a little bit about you know, the six pillars of higher performance that maybe that you had some on the show notes for so maybe walk us through maybe just a couple of those, those pillars that really stick out, and especially in today’s today’s environment, right, where you have lots of rapid change going on, you have this really fast pace of life, a lot of noise that’s coming in from all different, you know, media and, and information. And so walk us through maybe some of those pillars and how they help the best help your clients.
Yeah. So I think it’s first important to level set on what even is high performance? Because being you know, there’s a lot of people out there who are high achievers, but maybe not high performers. And I wanted to clarify the difference. Right. So high performance, the way I see it is it’s succeeding beyond standard norms over the long term while maintaining your well being and positive relationships
To make sure I can succeed. Yeah, succeeding and above and beyond your norms on a continual, you know, long term basis while maintaining that last part again.
Wellbeing well be and positive relationships
and positive relationships. Okay, keep going, please.
Yeah, so, yeah, so here’s, here’s the difference. You know, I’ve been in New York for 11 years. And I’m surrounded by high achievers, right, high achievers who are killing it in their jobs, making good money, but they’re unfulfilled. They maybe aren’t taking good care of themselves and their relationships aren’t great. So that may be the difference is that we have high achievers, but they’re not always high performing in that they’re able to sustain the well being positive relationships. And you know, sometimes there are one-hit wonders in your career. So making that difference between high achievers being a high achiever, but are you actually a high performer, that high performer really, it’s also a feeling as well, where there’s joy, there’s confidence, there’s full engagement in your life. You’re not avoiding difficulties, not avoiding things or challenges. So I think that’s a good distinction. And so, I studied, like I said, with Brendon Burchard, and he did this massive study with the high-performance Institute. And they really came up with these six pillars. of high performance. So I want to talk a little bit about that. And so these six pillars are really this framework that you can think about leveling up your life in. So the first one is psychology, which we all know about mindset and your thoughts and beliefs. But it’s really this idea that you can cultivate and take action in those areas. So the first area is psychology and having awareness around that Nexus physiology, which is your well being, it’s your food, your water, your exercise, all of those areas, which the whole world in of itself, but having awareness and practices in those areas. And next is your people skills. So your ability to influence or persuade, or we can bucket sales in there or your management style in that area. And next is your productivity. So that is not just like, are you productive in your outputs each day? But are you actually focusing on the right things that are moving the needle? Do you know when to start, when to quit? In certain things? So having some more nuanced understanding in those areas. The fifth is presence. And that goes back to sort of this underlying area, which is, are you really cultivating the emotions you want in your life? Are you really present with your loved ones? Are you thinking about it? Do you know about something in the past or something in the future? Are you really in the here and now? And then the last one is the purpose? And these is these feelings of liveliness and connectedness to yourself and to what you’re doing in your life? And so are you really doing the things that make you feel fully alive, so that you can give back as well. So those are their six pillars that we have with my clients, I really drill down into each of these areas and assess where people are, and how we can level up into greater areas of performance in all these buckets.
I love that I want you to pick one right now, this is gonna be hard, because I know it’s everyone’s different. But in particular, for the high achieving real estate, entrepreneur, operator developer, you know, someone who’s been in the game a long time, you know, and has had a lot of experience, you know, ultra-high net worth, what is the one that you would say, All too often, this one is always the probably the most challenging one that they’re facing?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I would go with presence. Because the people that I have interacted with, you know, in the real estate world are very, you know, have productivity on lockdown. There are always hacks and different things you can do. People skills are on point, of course, always room for growth, but the presence and being able to cut down, as we talked about, at the beginning of this call, cut down on the noise from the outside world. And asking those questions of yourself even a little bit beyond my, my, you know, what’s my why, but like is being able to say, am I truly present with my loved ones? Am I present at this meeting? Do I really have full engagement in my life? And that seems like a little bit of it’s a little bit more of a woo-woo you know, angle in, but I think it’s so important because, without that, life feels flat, it feels like you’re going through the motions and When you are present and know how to click in drop-in and be with others. You show up differently. Click To TweetAnd actually the outcomes of whatever engagement, you’re in whatever is happening in your life, the outcomes might be different because you’re actually there, you’re with someone, and you’re bringing your full self to that. So I think presence is a big one, especially in the always-on and distracted world that we’re stepping into more and more. It’s actually a skill that we can continue to cultivate. And I think it has outcomes in all of the areas that we’re talking about.
Before we dive into maybe some practical tips on how to be fully present. I can’t help but think of this sports analogy where maybe it’s the basketball player, the Steph Curry who’s playing and in front of all of the crowd, and all of you know, the fans talking trash and all the rest and all the noise but yeah, he has an ability and all the top professionals do to really get in the zone right or they’re so deadly focused on what they’re doing, and a TV The goal for the team and you know, various family, everything else. Walk us through some of those tips, you know what, what are the top high performers doing? Right, not just high achievers doing to move from achievement to performance in regards to being present?
Um, yeah, great question. So I think first is learning about how you are personally distracted. And taking an inventory of that. And so what I mean by that is, you know, we, sometimes it’s so unconscious, what we’re doing, and how we are distracted. So, from the moment you’re waking up, are you jumping onto your phone? Or are you in another room? Or maybe on airplane mode? So it’s almost looking at you, the span of your whole day? And what are these key moments when you get pulled away from whatever your intention is? And so I think we can look at one, what are where are you distracted from with your technology is the first thing and really doing an inventory of your technology, destructive habits, whether it’s notifications, or if you’re just unconsciously checking your email or whatever it might be doing a sort of breaking down what those ways that you are distracted from, which technology is the first thing. And the second thing is something we don’t talk about a lot, is you can be distracted with your own thinking. And a lot of people are addicted to thinking. And what that does, is that pulls us away from being present with the people that are in front of us, right? We live in a knowledge economy, right? We are in many ways paid for our insights, our intellect, and applying that to our work, right. That’s how things get done in the information age, is we have an idea and we produce it. And that’s a wonderful thing. And sometimes when we’re with the people we care about the most or at a moment where we need to take in information. We’re so much in our heads, and not actually looking at what’s truly in front of us. So I think that’s the second piece here is are actually distracted in your own thinking. And I had a mentor that talks about three different rooms in our mind. The first is the past library, where there’s sort of all these books about who you are and books about your life, right? This is the past. The sort of, we jump ahead to the third room is this future creative workshop, where you’re workshopping and have your whiteboard, and you’re brainstorming everything for the future. But that second room is the present. And that second room is where actually things happen. And so of course, we can go into the past and pull out a book and get what we need. And we can go to the future creative workshop. But if we’re living in those rooms, we can’t actually do what’s happening in the present moment. And so, my, my mentor, James Williams talks about how being in those three rooms and how to bring yourself always to that room of the present. So you can take action,
I can’t help but think about active listening and being about being present. And I read a book called Never split the difference. It talks about mirroring, to make sure that the other person understands what you just said by saying the last three words or the last few thoughts, right? So the past library, right your books of your life, those different chapters that you’ve written, the future, you know, a workshop or things that you’re trying to get to. But really, it’s the present. That is where you’re at right now. And so if your mind is taking you there, where you’re distracted on things over here, it’s hard to accomplish and be fully alive and while you’re at it. Am I hearing you correctly?
High Performance: “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” – Thomas Jefferson
Yeah, yes. And that’s a way that our presence gets pulled away from our presence is being in a destructive mode by our own thinking in the past, by our own thinking in the future. So it is a skill, just as much as it’s a skill to put your phone on airplane mode or in the other room or have a plan for when you’re checking your email. It’s just as much a skill to be able to lock into the present moment with the person that you’re with.
Absolutely. That is incredible. And I’m sure that’s what you help your clients do is develop those skills. Stay calm. To those skills and be aware of certain things. So we define what high performance is. We’ve kind of talked about some of the pillars we dove into being present are probably the most important ones for high, high driving entrepreneurs, especially those who are in real estate. I’m curious, what, what are some really great ways to stay encouraged? You know, because the other thing with the entrepreneurs like myself and those we work with, and those who are high performers, and achievers, is they reach these heights and they reach these coals. But again, they’ve either become discouraged because they thought it was going to be something that’s really not right, it isn’t really bringing the full fulfillment as part of it. So how do you help your client stay encouraged? Another way to put it is motivated right? to reach new heights and reach new goals?
Yeah, well, I think that there’s a distinction here, which is that we don’t just have motivation or encouragement, we can actually generate that within ourselves, we can generate our motivation or encouragement. So if you’re just sitting around waiting for motivation, or encouragement to appear, or maybe to reappear, chances are you’re going to be waiting for quite some time. So we have an opportunity to say, Okay, what sparks motivation, what sparks encouragement. And really, it’s two things, if we look at what that spark is. The first is ambition. And, you know, we all know that it’s like the hunger or the desire for something more. But here’s the flip side, when you achieve something already, maybe you and your hunger aren’t at the level of which it was, or it’s shifted in some way, it’s maybe different than the way it was 10 years ago. And so there’s, I want to grant everyone permission to dream again, to dream something new, a different dream. And something that maybe it’s different than your current identity, it’s different than who you already are. And something we can do under this ambition umbrella is to just do a quick inventory here. So look at all these different areas of your life, you can pull out a piece of paper, and write down these different areas of your life. So you know, work, health, relationships, romantic relationships, adventure, family, finances, giving back all of these areas, and right, a scale of one to 10, where you feel you are. And if you know, one being low, attend being high. And if you’re, you know, ask yourself, okay, in a second column, what would attending look like? What would attending feel like? And start to dream once again, and start to look at what else could be possible here. And, and just because, you know, if it is a 10? Then what? What could the 15 be? Right? Like, what is off the charts mean and look like? And because here’s the thing, if, if you have lost some of that motivation, or ambition, chances are, if you dig down somewhere, maybe you got too comfortable. Maybe you were going through the motions, maybe you didn’t spend a lot of time dreaming again, about what else could be. And so there’s an opportunity to take a real honest inventory, about where things are, and where they could, could be again. And so that is around the ambition piece of it. And I think my challenge for everyone is to see with ambition, in particular, there’s this paradigm of being in stagnation or being in generativity. This idea of generativity is, are you generating ways for you to make your mark, give back, create something new, or stagnation is, you know, not so much rocking the boat, it’s sort of not finding that way to contribute. And I think this, this initial spark of going back to the ambition, writing down where you currently are an honest inventory of where you are, where what else could be, is, is really powerful. And then the other side too, excuse me, motivation or encouragement is expectancy. So really Believing that not only is it possible for you, but what you do really matters and will make a true impact. Click To Tweet And so once you combine both of these two things of saying, okay, I trust that, you know, I’ve reconnected with that ambition and drive and really looking at that every day, this isn’t just something that you do on January 1, this is an everyday process. And then as well, that expectancy of saying, okay, you know, I can see how that would work for me, I can see that I can go and do this. But in bringing those two together, that’s the spark for tapping back into motivation. And once again, that doesn’t just appear that’s from generating it from within.
Um, wow, I mean, if you, that value just was amazing in the last three minutes and all of it, but really rewind and hear that again, and if I’m hearing you correctly, Carla, it’s about visualizing really, not just your Why, right. But having a new dream and being okay with giving yourself some grace that, hey, my identity may not be there yet. But I realized that what I’m doing right now is maybe not fulfilling or not as fulfilling as I thought it might be, and dreaming a new dream and visualizing what that will feel like, you know, what, what, what that’ll one little be like once you get there, and that helps to stir encouragement and produce a motivation to go there, as well as you used a really unique word that I don’t know if ever heard before. But is it generativity, maybe you can define that again, I’m sure we all cut that.
Yeah, so this is a paradigm in sort of the human development models. But this idea that usually in midlife, there’s this paradigm that comes forward, whether you’re going to be stagnant and maybe not contribute as much, or this idea of generativity, which is, are you creating, even more, creating more for others, creating more for your family, and making a mark on your world, on the world and your world. And so it’s this, this paradigm of saying, and choosing, I’m going to be generating even more opportunities, options, income, you know, resources for other people and myself, and making that choice. And that comes from I mean, if you think about it, generativity, it has this feeling of like generating, right, and that’s, that’s part of the word. And that generating also comes from within, right, choosing that by getting in momentum that by choosing every day, to reflect on this stuff, and to take action forward. I mean, that’s how already you’ve started your businesses and gotten to the level where you are, you already know, this is what it comes down to just tapping back into that, that progress and that momentum forward that you already had. And it’s continuing to build that and move forward.
I love that I can’t help it. I think it’s the Rockefeller, Carnegie, who they said, the first half of my life, I’m going to earn as much as I possibly can. And the second half of my life, I’m going to give it all away, right? So the idea of becoming all that you were created to be, so that not only can you produce more, right and have more income, but you can create more for others, and be able to give that all away, and to help more people. And, and then also the idea wrapped into that It's not about what you get, it's who you become, that actually becomes the most valuable thing to you, your family, your community, your organization, and who you become is always more powerful than what you get, because who you… Click To Tweet And they can, they can, you know, really learn from you versus just giving them something like money, which is kind of like teaching a man to fish versus give a man a fish. So that is amazing. I love that. Yeah, and versus stagnation. Because you’re either doing that, or you’re stagnating and you’re falling, right. And so, you’ve got to have those things in your life to continue to grow. So hopefully, I’m a good summary of what you’re just saying there. Yeah.
Yeah, it was. Yes.
Excellent. Excellent. And so it’s a reminder, you can find Carla and I maybe haven’t said yet but CarlaBlumenthal.com. And she offers complimentary clarity calls, as well as she has a free three-part video series to overcome analysis paralysis, take decisive action and build momentum towards your goals. And those will be in the show notes for you to take a look at. Carla, you want to leave our listeners with any last thoughts or encouragement? and also any other ways to find you?
Yes, I mean, I think this is all about the undertones of stepping into a new identity for yourself and being brave and courageous to do that. Once you’ve reached new heights, it’s saying Okay, I’m going to even continue to level up and how can I step into a new identity. Part of that is by really just asking yourself those questions: Who do I want to be, and having words, phrases, things that you can go back and recall that really mean something about who your ideal self is. And that’s the undertone of what we’re talking about here is continuing to level up, be motivated. But always recognizing that you’re always in a process of learning and growing. And having that ideal self, in your, in your mind and on an imprint is really important. And so yes, so I run a coaching business and I work one on one with clients and would love to connect with any of your listeners on that CarlaBlumenthal.com and super excited about this, this three-part video series was actually released yesterday. So great timing, and it’s all about these areas of high performance. And I get really tactical into questions, you can ask yourself how to continue to level up and provide some tools and resources there. So we’d love to see your listeners in there.
Want to thank you for sharing your time, your energy, your talents, your heart, on how to help high performers, really live a more balanced and fulfilled life, it’s been an absolute pleasure. And I’ve got to rewind this and watch, you know, watch it and hear it again, because it was so much value. So thank you for what you’re doing. It’s inspirational to see you write in your gift set and use the strengths. And thank you for fighting through when you could have taken the stagnant route, right, you decided to really, you know, have grit and be where you’re at today. So thank you so much.
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About Carla Blumenthal
Carla Blumenthal is a coach who specializes in helping empathic, sensitive, and introverted entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.
Since 2015, Carla has coached a wide range of clients, from C-suite tech and marketing execs in Silicon Valley and New York City, to investors, small business owners, and creative professionals across the US.
She is a Certified High Performance Coach (certified by the High Performance Institute), and was trained under Dr. Tracy Thomas, a leading therapist and coach in the topic of emotional sensitivity.
She has given a TEDx Talk, holds a BA in Communication Studies from James Madison University, and a Master’s in Marketing from Emerson College. Carla lives with her husband in the Greater New York City area.
