Testimonials

"You are a gracious, honest, diligent, thoughtful, compassionate man and it's an honor to know you."

 - Richard Saul Wurman, Founder of the TED, TEDMED, eg and WWW Conferences, author of 90 books

"A great friend, who always had confidence in me. Simply, thank you for your support and honesty."

- Gabriela Sabatini - 1990 U.S. Open Tennis Champion - International Tennis Hall of Fame 

"It has been a great privilege for me to be mentored and coached by Carlos in preparation for my championship title fight. His guidance pushed me to the next mental level that gave me the edge to win the World Series 3.5 championship. Thank you Carlos for the mentorship and guidance. We won this championship together!"

- Pietro Fittipaldi - International Race Car Driver - 2017 World Champion Formula Renault V8 3.5 Series - Formula 1 Team Haas Test and Reserve Driver - IndyCar Driver

“I am very glad I was able to work with Carlos. I learned a lot with him and it was great year. We shall continue working together and make more great memories.”

- Enzo Fittipaldi - International Race Car Driver - 2018 Formula 4 Regional Champion (Team Prema) - Formula 2 Team Red Bull Academy Driver - Ferrari Academy Alumni

“You’re a miracle worker! You’ve opened my eyes wider to help better myself in the racing world aspect. You’ve introduced me to new skills that helped me climb up the ladder faster and I’ll use that for future references.”

- Amna Al Qubaisi, F1 Academy member, Formula 4 Race Car Driver, Abu Dhabi UAE (first Arab Emirati woman to win an open seater race)

"I’ve struggled with my confidence ever since I started racing,

and even if I was the fastest on track I still had all these negative thoughts that I’m “unable”, but after talking with you I feel like I was more calm and more focused in the races, I looked at things in a completely different perspective and I had a more positive attitude. One specific thing that really helped me was me practicing my starts in my head like what you told me to, and I’ve done it a lot and also did the exercises you told me to do and so far in the last round I’ve had the best starts I’ve ever had, the exercise I did really simulated what a start should be like. Everything I did helped me be less nervous and stressed and more focused and determined to strive and to reach the top. I feel like also reflecting on the races like what went well and what didn’t go well or what can be better really helped me see the wider picture and it helped me understand what I needed to work on. Thank you so much Carlos."

- Hamda Al Qubaisi, F1 Academy member, Formula 4 Race Car Driver, Abu Dhabi, UAE (second Arab Emirati woman to win an open seater race)

"Carlos is one authentic thought leader in a world where those words are often overused. Time with him is worth every minute."

 - Brian Hackett, Founder of The Learning Forum, Greenlawn, NY, USA

"Thanks again for your very interesting speech at ETH.

The students feedback I got yesterday was very positive! Your PowerPoint presentation is probably one of the most professional presentations I have ever seen.  Carlos is an excellent communicator and a true subject matter expert. His presentation skills combined with his knowledge and inspiring attitude added a lot of value to our leadership class. The staff and students at our Department evaluated his presentation very positive and the learning effect was high. In addition, it is a pleasure to work with Carlos. He is a trustworthy, innovative and yet down-to-earth person. I can highly recommend Carlos to any Institution that has a need in Peak-Performance training and/or consulting."

- Prof. Stefan Seiler, PhD, Group Head HR, UBS, Zurich, Switzerland (former Head of Leadership and Communication Studies, Swiss Military Academy ETH University)

"Carlos Salum is a thinker and a visionary, a potent combination. Always considerate of what someone is trying to achieve, Carlos looks for ways to solve problems. Because he has a wide assortment of problem-solving tools, he can be counted on to solve them."

- Ron Jones, President, Ron Jones Productions, Award-winning Hollywood Films and TV Composer, Seattle, WA, USA

“I want to thank you for your excellent suggestions

about making Liminal Thinking more interactive and actionable. Your idea to put exercises at the end of each chapter was a great addition. Many readers have commented that it made the book practical, useful and actionable - much more meaningful to them."

- Dave Gray, founder of XPlane and co-founder of Boardthing, management consultant and author, St. Louis, MO, USA

"Carlos is dynamic, detail oriented and an engaging facilitator. His insight and vision are unmatched. He knows how to get individuals and teams in the mindset to become consistent peak performers. I highly recommend Carlos as a performance architect for your team or organization."

- Trudi Lacey, President and CEO, Lacey & Co. - former WNBA Coach (Washington Mystics) - Charlotte, NC, USA

"Carlos is a creative facilitator of projects and events. He impressed me with his enthusiasm, energy and innovative nature. Carlos has made many of the events I attended memorable ones. His work in this respect has become a benchmark for me."

- Donald Waterreus, International Advisor, former COO Pictet Wealth Management, Zurich, Switzerland

"I usually introduce Carlos as the man who is bringing together opposite things and throws them on the table to serve a higher cause. 

Those opposites are his sensitivity, his compassion, his strong feeling, his perfectionism. He does not settle, he's a pain in the butt until something meets his perfectionist's standards, so he can deliver fantastic stuff. He has a very open mind. He's totally reliable and what he delivers meets all needs, both intellectually and emotionally. I recommend Carlos to clients as a "friend of Humanity" who aims to serve its future with a variety of tools. Carlos is a very rare combination of holistic approach, seeing multiple interdependencies and being able to wrap it up into one package that appears as a unity. He realizes this with a humble communicative approach that gives his interlocutors always the sense that he is there to serve them. As his client one is always feeling safe; he delivers and over-delivers everything promised in due cause."

- Philipp Johner, Founder and CEO, Manres AG, Zurich, Switzerland (1958-2021)  

"Carlos is an inspirational, creative thinker and true gentleman who creates fabulous settings that foster learning and transformation - an exciting and jazzy experience!"

- Dr. Thomas Gartenmann, Managing Partner, Aergon, Zurich, Switzerland

"He is one of the most honest people I know, a warm and most trusworthy man, 

someone who always wants to learn and never stops learning. It is a pleasure working with and learning from him. It is never boring because you always learn something about yourself. Because of his great knowledge, he can always give the best advice, but above all, the human being is first: he does business with and for human beings."

- Michael Strepp, co-Founder and Managing Director, PowerPrinting GmbH, Dusseldorf, Germany

“Carlos Salum is multifaceted, gifted, and in possession of a humanity reserved for luminaries. His greatest gift may be his ability to facilitate, inspire, and elevate conversation. Clear, concise, and focused, an appetite for the poetry of life and understanding of the human animal’s ravenous need to be simply seen, heard, and felt makes him a refreshing agent of breakthrough free of cliché.”

- John W. Love, Jr., Interdisciplinary Artists, Guggenheim Fellow

"When it comes to counseling and coaching higher-performers, Carlos Salum is the real thing. 

Academically, he knows his subject matter through and through. He moves easily amid circles of influence and power. He is a master coach of potential achievers. And he personally lives and breathes the counsel he provides others. As you can tell, I like the guy and I like his track record. If he were a stock issue, my advice would be: Buy.  I love it when multiple gifts end up in the same individual, and this is the case with Carlos Salum. I mean, what else can you say when you have someone who is a accomplished tennis pro, writes plays that get produced in London (to favorable reviews), jets back and forth across the Atlantic sometimes several times a month to hobnob with leading lights in the financial and corporate learning communities, is adept enough in IT technologies to have earned a living as one of the industry's senior managers and who is a respected "peak performance" coach to executives and many others? And he does it with such charm, grace and integrity. Every hour you spend with Carlos is a reminder of what being in the company of the accomplished, personable, knowledgeable, authentic professional is supposed to be like."

- Dudley Lynch, Founder and President, Brain Technologies Corporation, Gainesville, FL, USA

"You have been a great friend, business coach, and my personal international strategist. I have been able to evaluate many opportunities through your eyes and successfully have weeded out the winners from the losers. It has been an honor to have you in my life."

- Deborah Aguiar Velez, Former CEO of Sistemas Corporation, Charlotte, NC, USA (1955-2016) 

"Carlos has been a tremendous resource in helping me establish a new company.

He’s helped me transition out of a corporate job, helping me break out of my old way of thinking and patterns of behavior, helping me become more aware of my strengths and capabilities and more confident of making a go of it on my own. He’s been tremendous in helping me explore what my new business will stand for, how to talk about it, what it will deliver, and bringing it all together to develop a solid value proposition. Beyond that Carlos has been very creative in thinking about a variety of different marketing initiatives that will help me get established and achieve success as soon as possible. To top it all off he’s helped me get my golf handicap down to single digits. Whether you’re starting your own business or trying to reach the top of your game in your current role, Carlos without a doubt will help you get there."

- Joe Torrez, Performance Improvement and Leadership Effectiveness Consultant, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

“Carlos Salum participated as a judge for the Raw Science Film Festival in 2018 where he presented a workshop on the science of peak performance amidst the largest California fire in its history. There are so many important aspects of this and it resonated with the many thoughtful people there. Carlos is a consummate professional that inspires people to express the best of their humanity.”

- Keri Kukral, Founder, Raw Science Film Festival, Raw Science Foundation, USA

“You're mostly insignificant until you meet Carlos. There's really nothing undifferentiated or unique about you.

You inhabit the world with its many myriad of illusions, and think that it's real and that this is "all there is." You live in the "you know, you know" zone of life mostly, the zone of habit, routines, the familiar, the comfortable. You may call it living but really you're dying of boredom and meaninglessness. Carlos mythologically enters your life when you're in need of a Merlin or maybe even a Gandalf. When you've reached the plateau of mundane life, and called to move into a life of higher consciousness and inner freedom. When you're ready to explore the domain of potentiality, the part of you that 'you don't even know, you don't even know', or as Joseph Campbell so aptly states, when you're ready for a "threshold crossing". In the presence of this indentured servant of humanity, you'll experience the wildest ride to the depths of your soul, Through the magical journey filled with metaphor, story, symbolism and with his vast knowledge and experience, you'll leave ten feet taller, with a desire to conquer the unimaginable. Drunk on enthusiasm to live your biggest dreams, your highest calling and to build a lasting legacy with social impact, the only thing you'll come to regret, is that you didn't meet him sooner. For most part you'll work hard under his tutelage and guidance, never doubting that he will, with his wizardry, lead you to the buried treasure within, and to your eventual, promised breakthrough. There is only one caveat: You must, however, stay the course.”

- Artemis Elias, International Executive Recruiter, Charlotte, NC, USA

“Carlos is profound in so many ways.  When you are working with him, there is no way to avoid having a commitment to raising the bar for yourself. 

His quiet strength and amazing passion is inspiring and makes you want to dig deeper for a better sense of self and your moon shot.  I cannot thank him enough for his work with me and his friendship.  He is an amazing coach, teacher of life and purpose, and person.  If you ever get a chance to work with him do it, it should not be a thought!  If you ever get to have tea, coffee, or wine with him then you have really made it – the conversations will leave an impression that resonates in all you do!”

- Sharai Lavoie, MBA, CPA, CGMA | CEO/ Managing Member, Lavoie CPA, Charlotte, NC, USA