MBA1253 Guest Teacher: Don Scott – Leading From Within
2 Feb 2026 · 16 min
Podcast episode (2019-04-29) where host Omar Zenhom interviews Don Scott (business leader coach) on "leading from within." The episode focuses on how inner beliefs, clarity, and clearing unhelpful patterns produce more effective, less-stressed leadership. The transcript also includes multiple sponsor ad reads (QuickBooks, Dell, Fidelity, McDonald’s) and a host wrap-up with practical encouragements and a call-to-action to subscribe.
Chapters
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Hi, I'm Don Scott. I'm the business leader coach and I'm here to talk about leadership from within. So this is for business leaders and we're all business leaders. We all are leading ourselves, we're leading our peers, we're leading those above us and below us. We lead by the way we show up every day. So this is for business leaders who want to be more powerful, want to be more effective and want more grace and ease in their life. This is for those of you that are tired of doing it the hard way, tired of trying to get everybody to see the light and go along and they just can't quite seem to get it. I think this will Help. And it's a whole different way than most people typically think about leadership and think about how they really walk through life. So let's think about what most people have going on. If we really look under the hood, let's think about what is inside that is conflicted, it's confused. So let's think about individuals that you might know, that you don't always seem to be stressed, that their office is a mess, projects all over the place. Many of those never seem to really get done. That's a good example of confusion. That's a good example of conflict. I can guarantee you if you see someone on the outside who has created those kinds of circumstances on the outside, and if you could see what's on the inside, it would mirror. You'd see that same conflict and confusion and start and stop and lack of clarity. Conversely, if you think about an individual or an organization where things just seem to go well, things seem to go smoothly, they take advantage of the opportunities in front of them. They're always moving forward. Not so much of this. Two steps sideways, one step forward, half a step back, they're moving forward. There's clarity. If you look inside of that person, I can just about promise you there's a great deal of clarity and commitment. Not just around what they want to accomplish in the moment, not just in the set of objectives that are on the table, but in who they are, what they're about, why they are there, what the things are that they want in their life, and what the things are that they don't want in their life. They've sorted that out better than most. And that shows up in everyday life. It shows up in relationships. It shows up in the power of their leadership and in their results, their paycheck, their bank account, and all those things. It has to. It cannot not have a tremendous impact. So what have we said so far, really, kind of simple conceptually, is that where we're coming from matters more than anything else when it comes to the power of our leadership. Not just the power in terms of the impact that it has for us and others, but in terms of the grace and ease, the struggle or lack thereof that's present as we go through life, as we go through our day, our week, our month, and our year and our careers and our businesses. So if clarity is so important, if the uncluttered mind is so important, and I'm talking about at a deep personal level, you know, how do we access that? How do we figure out what's going on in there? Well, this is where you have to sort of put your psychologist hat on and do a little therapy with yourself. First thing I do is I would get in a quiet place and I would meditate, I would relax, I would clear my mind, I would feel for any tension in my body and let all that go and maybe ask for a little help and just say, hey, whatever is in there, I want it to come out. I want to understand and be in touch with what's going on inside of me that's pulling in the right direction or pulling against the direction I want to go. I've got no judgment around any of it. I just want to know what it is. And so this is what I do with clients all the time. I. I sit with people who are busy, who are successful, they're chasing around in their lives, and in an hour and a half I'm asking questions and all this stuff just comes pouring out. It is in there dying to get out. And we find that there is fear, there is struggle, there is belief that I can't do this or I can't do that. Very successful people, I just can't seem to get out of my own way. Or, or there's victimhood or blaming others or comparing to others or judging against judging the past. You know, if only I'd made these decisions differently. All that noise is floating around in there, and if I can ask questions and help bring that to the, to the top, I know you can do that as well. It's a little harder if you're close to it, right? But that's the reason you want to get quiet and give yourself some distance.
You to want.
You want to let that all come out and just take stock of what's in there. Don't judge it. Don't think of it as right or wrong. Don't overthink it. Just let it come out. And eventually you got to start clearing that out. And this is a process. It takes time. It's not something you can do in the next five minutes. But there's a lot of help out there. There's a lot of things that you can read. And if you begin to study and look for help and resources through this lens, this lens of there's nothing going wrong here, except I've got some beliefs, some patterns that don't serve me. I want to heal those. I want to clear those up. I want to get rid of those. If you look at it from that lens, you're going to find that you can clear those things up. You can let those things go, you can Put a belief out on the table and say, is this true or is this a lie? And if it's a lie, then what is the truth? So what steps can you take if you really get focused and are you willing to get focused and committed to just clearing those lies out to create a habit and a pattern of focusing on those truths that will support you and will take you to clarity and thereby just letting all of the noise and the things that are in your way begin to die on the vine and go by the wayside. So access what's inside and assess what it is, get it out on the table, touch it and feel it, and then begin your cleanup process. Start getting that stuff out of the way and start focusing more and more and more on where you want to go, not where you've been, all the strengths and the assets that you have and not the liabilities, not the things that are holding you back. And then lead from that place. Lead from the place of I know who I am, I know what I want, I know where I'm going at a very fundamental level, and I have no place for the detractors, the things that are holding me back, I'm letting those go and I'm not going to bring those into the equation. Between you and me, and as I'm leading and teaching you to be a leader, leadership is contagious. How often do I find organizations? How often do you see organizations where the CEO, the person at the top, is stressed and just working too hard, trying to do so much, maybe doing a fantastic job, but just too much on his or her plate?
And.
And then you say, well, what's going on with the next level of leadership below that CEO and may be pretty spotty. Imagine as a leader, if you had really strong leaders supporting you and they had really strong, committed, clear, uncluttered mind leaders supporting them, what would that be like? Would you be able to accomplish more? Would you be able to move forward faster, bigger, better? Would you be able to do it with more grace and ease? I believe that you can. What I hope for you is this, that you'll hit pause and really consider what I've shared today, that you really consider that leadership is not just about what's in your head. It's not just about the next task, the next objective, the next project. Leadership is about what you have inside of you. And if you can access that, let that out, see what it is, see those things that are serving and those things that aren't, and really get focused on amplifying those that serve and really using and building on those assets and clearing out the liabilities, clearing out those things that are standing in your way and, and finding that clarity, finding that uncluttered mind, that uncluttered inner mind and leading from that place, you'll see a powerful impact and you'll do it with infinitely more grace and ease. I'm Don Scott, the business leader coach. I can be found@donscottcoach.com if you go on my website and subscribe, we'll send you an assessment tool that, that I believe will be a handy way to get you started with some deep reflection and just pulling some of those things out on the table that you can work with. Thank you so much.
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What a powerful episode and lesson by Don Scott. Thank you so much Don for that amazing lesson. I want to emphasize a few points he makes. He encourages us to take a look at our beliefs and our patterns and and to ask ourselves from these lists of beliefs and patterns, which ones really don't serve me that make me feel bad, that don't allow me to be productive, that don't allow me to be motivated, that don't allow me to feel like I'm doing The right thing that don't allow me to feel good about myself. You have to be objective about it sometimes. You can't just be caught up in your emotions and your beliefs constantly. You have to kind of put them on the table and analyze them and challenge your beliefs. You got to be very, very, I would say, clinical about it. Really take a look at these beliefs and ask yourself, is there real proof that this is true? So say, for example, you have a belief that says, I don't have what it takes to lead a big team. And I like to go with the principle of innocent and proven guilty. Is there any way you can prove that's true? No, you can't prove that. There's no proof to say you don't have what it takes. So that means that you have what it takes. That means that the default is you have. You can do it. And I really encourage you to follow through with this exercise that Don recommends and to be clinical about answering each question and demanding some proof to these beliefs. And don't forget, Don has a great assessment that you can take. Just go to donscottcoach.com and subscribe to their website, subscribe to their newsletter, and they'll send you that assessment for free. Thanks again, Don Scott, for that amazing lesson that wraps up today's lesson. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe so you don't miss any more episodes. By hitting subscribe, we make sure that the next episode in our feed gets downloaded automatically to your device. That way, it's ready for you when you're ready to listen. And we're on any platform that you love using to listen to podcasts, whether it's Spotify, Stitcher Radio, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Himalaya, we're on them all. So hit subscribe right now. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I've always said that business is mostly a mental game. You have to convince yourself every day not only that you can do this thing, that you will do this thing, and it will happen every. Every day. You have to talk to yourself. And I know that sounds a little bit kooky, but it's true. You have to do it. You have to convince yourself that that dream, that vision you have for your business is not just a mirage. It could happen, and it will happen. And it starts with you. A lot of people say I have to see it to believe it. Well, in entrepreneurship, you have to believe it to see it. And if you don't believe it, then you're going to have a really hard time convincing others, the others on your team that you're leading to believe in it and therefore see the vision that you want them to see. So whatever it takes, if you have to talk to yourself in the mirror every morning and you know, do some incantations, totally fine. If you need to write yourself a letter, if you need a journal, if you need to pump your business partner up and they pump you up, whatever it takes. Rocky music, it doesn't matter. That's what entrepreneurship is. And that's really what attracted me to being an entrepreneur, is this notion of these people that create things out of thin air, things that never existed before. They create them, they're in the world and they're there for people to consume. They amazing to me. I'm still fascinated with that because I believe that entrepreneurs are modern day magicians. They're really creating magic in the world. But if you don't have that core belief in yourself, and if you don't work towards encouraging yourself, pumping yourself up every day, you're just not going to make it in that long haul, in that long journey as an entrepreneur. So don't be ashamed to do what you got to do to keep on believing. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.
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