Stop Judging and Start Leading with Michelle Scott
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
Michelle Scott is an intuitive leadership coach with over 14 years of experience. She holds a doctorate in Spiritual Science and advanced training in trauma-informed somatic work. Michelle empowers high-impact leaders to break free from ego-driven patterns and outdated paradigms by helping them reconnect with their intuition and lead from within. Her work focuses on fostering clarity, confidence, and authenticity, allowing leaders to unlock their fullest potential and make a deeper impact.
Defining Intuitive Leadership
Michelle blends traditional leadership coaching with intuitive insight.
She helps leaders tap into their natural knowing, fostering clarity, confidence, and authenticity.
Intuition is accessible to all—it's about learning to listen and trust it.
The Power of Self-Leadership
“You’ve got to lead yourself before you can lead others.”
Leaders who aren’t self-aware tend to project issues onto their teams.
Michelle emphasizes the importance of handling personal challenges before addressing others’.
The Ladder of Leadership Consciousness
A model inspired by David Hawkins and Steve Chandler.
When leaders are “up the ladder,” they’re in a creative, responsive state (prefrontal cortex activated).
“Down the ladder” behaviors include blame, shame, and judgment.
First step to change: Awareness of your own position on the ladder.
Clearing Internal Obstacles
Leaders must work through emotions and reactions to maintain flow.
Emotions aren't bad, but staying stuck in them limits leadership effectiveness.
Michelle uses the analogy of a clogged artery—anger, ego, and judgment block leadership flow.
Coaching Through Frustration and Ego
Michelle walks Mike through a real coaching example involving his frustration with “long-winded” people.
Introduces concepts of “self-forgiveness” and “mirror” work: seeing in others what we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves.
Coaching involves recognizing ego-driven reactions and letting go of judgment.
Key Concepts Shared
Self-Forgiveness: Helps release judgment and emotional weight.
Mirror Principle: “If you spot it, you got it.” We often criticize in others what we deny in ourselves.
Label Jail: When we trap others (or ourselves) in fixed identities, limiting growth and potential.
Law of Positive Intent: Everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have.
Leadership Impact
When leaders take full responsibility (not blame), they empower themselves and others.
Teams thrive when individuals practice self-awareness and embodied leadership.
Self-aware teams communicate better, repair faster, and innovate more collaboratively.
Michelle’s Coaching Offerings
Primarily works one-on-one with high-level leaders.
Also offers support to leadership teams as needed to address dynamics affecting her clients.
Discovery calls are available at: MichelleScottCoaching.com
Direct Booking Link
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Mike Goldman: Michelle Scott is an intuitive leadership coach. She empowers high impact leaders to break free from outdated paradigms and ego-driven patterns, unlocking their fullest potential through intuitive alignment and holistic transformation.
That's a lot of big words With over 14 years of experience, a doctorate in spiritual science and advanced. Training in trauma-informed somatic work. She guides leaders to transcend external pressures and lead from within, creating exponential impact with clarity, confidence and authenticity.
And we're gonna talk, on the show about leading yourself and leading others. Michelle, welcome to the show.
Michelle Scott: Oh, thank you so much. I'm very happy to be here. I can't wait to have our conversation and see where it goes, so
Mike Goldman: Yeah. And I can't wait to learn what some of those big words I just used, meant. me too. Yeah. But we'll figure it out together. we'll get on, Google or chat GPT and look it up.
so. So Michelle, you know how I always start, is that better leadership team show question, which is from all of your experience with leaders and companies, what do you believe is the one most important
characteristic of a great leadership team?
Michelle Scott: yeah, I appreciate that question and my word is willingness. And what that means to me is that team members and leaders of those teams, are willing to take a look at themselves, take a look at how they're showing up, take a look at all the facets of leadership, but from my perspective and my lens, to really look towards how individuals also are showing up on that team.
and then how they're impacting the team dynamics, et cetera. So that's the direction that's the answer that makes sense to me right now. So, yeah.
Mike Goldman: excellent. It's amazing how many different answers I
get to that same question, so it's great. And you may be the first one that said willingness, so that's great.
now I, in your introduction, I called you an intuitive leadership coach. Now that may mean a leadership team, a leadership coach that happens to be intuitive, but that's kind of a title intuitive leadership coach.
what does that mean?
Michelle Scott: Yeah. it's almost hard to put into words, really. I guess. I do more than just talk about leadership strategy metrics. I have that background and I have a lovely left brain that loves to figure all that out and help people. But I also have this amazing, ability, I guess to tune in to other people in a way that I can,
Really get to the bottom line of what's holding them back. And that includes teams. you know, I really can see things that maybe other people can't see because of those gifts. And I love doing that work. I love being able to see, maybe see a little angle or something that was hidden and I don't know if that makes sense, but that's my experience of it.
Mike Goldman: is that a natural talent you think you have to have that kind of intuitive way of looking at things? Or is that something, I know you've got a lot of schooling, doctorate and spiritual science. Science, and I know, you know, conscious leadership is a big part of what you do. is that learned or is that a natural talent you think you have?
Michelle Scott: Well, well, great question. I love it. I love it. I love it. it's. Both, I would say I've taken the time, obviously I have a doctorate in it, but I've taken the time to develop it, but everybody has access to it, everybody has intuition and it's really just about learning to pay attention to it. And, I just happen to be a person who's been in the world who's really wants to really know a bit more about that.
And so that's why I dove in at the level I did to get that doctorate. but it does help me in serving others and. Helping them connect with their intuition, and that's actually one of the things that I love to do is help people and leaders, particularly because. Often they're leading and they are intuiting, but they're not always listening and hearing what that guidance is.
Sometimes they'll question themselves and not trust it, but I love helping people connect with that. And then they are, they're more clear, they're more self-confident. I mean, there's so much, so many gifts that come from tuning into our natural knowing and our natural intuition. So yeah, it's great. It's good stuff.
Mike Goldman: Excellent. So, and I know you say, and I say this all the time, so when I saw something you said, I grabbed onto it. You said
you gotta lead yourself before you can lead others.
and I want to talk, you know, in, in our time about leading others. But let's start with that.
When you say you gotta lead yourself, before you lead others, unpack that for us a little bit.
Michelle Scott: Yeah. for me, I can't lead. Okay. You could argue, or somebody could argue, probably argue with this, but I don't believe I can lead someone else if I'm not handling my own issues and my own, what's going on inside of me first, because otherwise it's like, I don't know if this is, if I could say this really, but the blind leading the blind or, you can cut that out I guess, if you want to, but it's
Mike Goldman: did we That's okay. I'm not, did we just insult blind
Michelle Scott: I hope not. I don't know. I dunno. I don't know, but I'm
Mike Goldman: I'm canceling you. Now you're in big trouble.
Michelle Scott: I'm in trouble. No,
Mike Goldman: we could say that. We could say that.
Michelle Scott: Okay, thank you. So, yeah, so it's like the blind leading the blind. you are not, to me, if I'm not tuned into myself first. I can't necessarily see or help someone else. Maybe I'm seeing something in someone else's leadership.
I can't, or someone on my team or direct report. I really can't necessarily help them most effectively and deep the, in the deepest way possible and most impactful way possible. if I'm not aware of that within myself and working that in myself, because otherwise it's just me trying to get somebody else to do something that they're probably seeing me.
Doing the exact same thing. And maybe they're going, well, why are you telling me that you're doing the same thing? So anyway, it's just always good to start from within and then from there, more magic can happen, I guess, on the leadership team.
Mike Goldman: Yeah, I think a great example of that, and it's why I'm such a believer in, in, in this idea as well is from my own life.
You know, my, I have a, I did a TED talk a number of years ago, called the Antidote to Anger, and it's about,
me and my son from when, my son's 30 now, but it's a story
from when he was 12, and he's got Asperger's Syndrome, which for those of you that don't know it, it's on the autism spectrum. And, you know, I, there was, you know, I was so, frustrated. By that situation, and I wasn't a very good dad at all back then. I didn't
know how to handle it. and when I was frustrated, it, it changed the way I saw him.
It changed the way I saw other people. I looked at him like he wasn't a, a kid that was struggling.
he was up to no good. He was pushing my buttons on purpose. and I see that in, in leaders when they are. Struggling and frustrated or stressed or approaching burnout or overwhelmed or whatever it is, when they're that way. It's very difficult to see their teams and other members of the leadership team clearly when they're not even dealing with their own stuff clearly.
Michelle Scott: Yeah.
Mike Goldman: kind of near and dear to my heart.
Michelle Scott: Yeah.
And I guess, how I'm relating to that is, one way I teach about leadership, is on this concept of the ladder of leadership consciousness and the higher up on it's like scale of, let's say zero to 10 or zero to seven, but it's not the higher up on that ladder that I am, then I'm more in my creative mind.
My prefrontal cortex is online. Like I'm clearer thinking. I'm more creative. I'm. flow. There's more flow. and so the more people on my team actually that I can have up that ladder in their state of being up, the better that team is going to perform and the better I'm going to perform. If somebody's down the ladder blaming or judging or just name the making right, wrong, and they're not taking responsibility for where they are on that ladder.
If they're down the ladder and blame, shame, whatever, that, that is just not a productive place to be and it's going to drag the whole team down actually. And so that's one of the big things I coach on is helping people get up that ladder, recognize they're down the ladder. That's. Step one, really awareness, but then helping what are the tools that they can use to get up that ladder?
And those are usually unique to the person. The things that work for you might not work for me, but I help them figure out what those are and help them get back up. But yeah, that's it's personal responsibility. That's what I see in that,
Mike Goldman: yeah, and what did you call that? What's it called? The ladder of. Leadership
Michelle Scott: oh, the leadership ladder of consciousness.
Mike Goldman: Leadership ladder of consciousness.
Michelle Scott: Yeah, and it's based on, some work by, David Hawkins, his Map of Consciousness, and also, a master coach, Steve Chandler, who talks about the ladder of consciousness. And I just added a leadership, piece to it. But yeah, it's really powerful work and powerful information.
Mike Goldman: so what is something that someone could do, to. In addition to hiring you to figure it
out, is there for someone listening now, what could they do to understand where they are on that ladder and start moving up?
Michelle Scott: Yeah, I love that. That's great. You know, I think I said this earlier, but really self aware. The awareness piece, that's step one. You know, if I can't see it in myself, I can't really do anything about it. So the more I can start to pay attention to what I'm thinking, what I'm, how I'm feeling, or what's even going on in my body, what my body's signaling to me, let's say if I'm feeling burnout, that also would be a lower scale.
Thing so that it's, different ways to look at it. but starting to recognize where I'm at on the ladder. So if I'm having more negative thoughts that's down the ladder. If I'm having, Less. I mean, emotions are kind of interesting because there can be enthusiasm at the top, but there can be over enthusiasm, you know, which might not be super helpful.
Right. So, but it's just, I think we can, we know, you know, you most people know what emotions are up or down the ladder. let's see if there's anything else about that. Well, no, I don't for the latter. That's probably good for now, but yeah.
Mike Goldman: I,what gets in the way,and I imagine it's the same things that get in the way of moving up the ladder
when you think about. Great leadership and starting with self-leadership, but then more formal leadership.
I know you talk about leaders, you know, clearing away internal obstacles, ego-driven patterns, outdated paradigms.
Unpack that for us because there, you know, there, there those are things. And when you talk about things like, you know, emotions getting in the
way or, you know, negative attitudes about things very often as a leader. We don't believe that's getting in our way. We believe that's how things are.
It's not a negative emotion.
it's not a negative emotion. Things are crappy right now. How do you think I'm supposed to feel like we, we don't look at it as an obstacle in a way. We look at it as that's what life is.
so, so talk about those obstacles that, that get in the way and how do we become more aware of those obstacles and start to clear them?
Michelle Scott: You know, I think about it in terms of, I'm not a doctor, so bear with me. Nobody who's a professional medical person do not use this against me in any way. But, but I think of in terms sometimes I share about this, in terms of like a blocked artery or an artery where the blood is flowing really smoothly through.
And, and I personally want to be in flow as much as possible. And what I know is if I get stuck in an angry position, so first, let's say, actually back up for just a second, emotions are not bad, actually. Even negative thinking. None of this is bad. it's all part of the human experience. It's just that if I want to have the best life, the smoothest life, the most flow, the best experience, the most fun.
This is my part, my interpretation of my part. I love to have more fun. I don't wanna be stuck in anger or, you know, I wanna move forward. Then I want to be up the ladder. I want to not have these obstacles, these more negative, parts of the, of my experience around any longer than I need to. But I'm not also not denying them.
I'm not repressing them. I'm experiencing them, but also I'm wanting to reduce the downtime and get moving forward. So as quickly, that's just my how I wanna live my life. So it is a choice. but what I will say is when I'm down the ladder, let's say I'm in anger. Let's say I'm in a team meeting and I just go off on somebody.
That there's collateral damage that happens in that. There's the impact on the other person because that probably didn't lift them up the ladder. That probably sent them down the ladder. There's the impact on team overall and what the team's trying to accomplish. Okay. Now we have two people further down the ladder versus if we have everybody up the ladder, the flow will be incredible.
You are knocking people down the ladder is not going to help. Plus there's probably repair. Energy expenditure. I mean, the impact is not really per, perhaps perfectly measurable, but what I know is that I'm going to get way more done. I'm not gonna have as many plaques and obstacles in my artery. It's gonna be clear and clean and moving forward.
I, that's, I hope that makes sense, but that's my, I guess, where I'm headed with it right now
Mike Goldman: let's make this real with an example. Am so, so let's say I am, in a meeting
Michelle Scott: I am particularly frustrated with. A member of the team, and it's hard for me to see that clearly. I am, you know, I'm letting that anger and that frustration impact me. Again, I don't look at that's not my problem.
Mike Goldman: It's this
other person that's pissing me off. but I'm a leader in a meeting and I'm. And I'm frustrated. It's impacting my ability to hear the other person or the other
people in the room. it's impacting how I'm responding. So, so it's having this negative impact, but what could someone do to deal with that when they believe they feel this way because of this other person.
Michelle Scott: Right.
Mike Goldman: still certainly blocking them. Like, how should we think about that? How do we break out of that as a leader?
Michelle Scott: Oh gosh. That to me the, what you're bringing up is I call it like an eighth degree black belt ninja move to be self, that self-aware. And that's also my invitation to folks who are listening to this, is to be, start to become that self-aware because, but why? It's an why it's, I call it an eighth degree black belt to move.
It's because our egos are usually so bought into that. they don't, they're trying to protect our themselves, like the ego. My egos trying to protect myself. So it's hard sometimes for some ego, some people to see that really it's. Up to me to make the change. It's up to me to look at why I'm so angry.
It's up to me to take responsibility for my inner reaction to what's happening, and then I can come in a clear way. But it's about me taking that, seeing that. kind of more negative part of myself. That's the ninja move. Actually being willing to see this more challenging part of myself that, oh, I have this angry part that impacts other people more negatively.
That's not an easy thing always for some people to get. And so the answer, I guess to your question is if somebody were to hear this, maybe that's the beginning of the conversation for that person is just, again, it's back to awareness. and then, once they become, someone's like, okay, I'm willing to look at this.
Then it's about maybe seeking help in some way. If it depends on how far, how much anger there is. I mean, there could be a, some work that needs to be done to help really get to the root cause of that. But, yeah.
Mike Goldman: how do you deal with it if you've got, you know, if I'm your client and you're coaching me
and I am just incredibly frustrated by. This other by this member of my team.
and all I can talk about is, you know, what a jerk they are and how they're throwing a wrench in the works and like, how is there something you do as a coach to get me to, to somehow. Shift. 'cause that's certainly when you talk about, you know, internal obstacles and ego-driven patterns and outdated paradigms, and I mean, that, that's probably right. Smack bullseye in all. or at least a couple of those. how, if you're coaching me, how would you get me through that?
Michelle Scott: Yeah, some. It depends on the,level of what I wanna say. this is not a word boughtinness of
Mike Goldman: you go. It's a new word.
Michelle Scott: it's a brand new word right now. Everybody, added to the dictionary, boughtinness of that person and their story. So usually that's a story that they're telling. Like it's all about that person. It's all about that person externally.
but so how I coach around that is helping that person over time depends on how long they need to stay in their story. So that's kind of step one. That's why I talk about how much bought-in-ness there is into the story of it, and how much they wanna hold onto that, that, that other person's wrong or what have you.
so there's a process of helping them see that, that maybe there's another way to look at it. Maybe they do have some kind of responsibility for their inner reaction. So I often teach about, what we can control, what we can't control, and. what I, the only thing I can really control is my inner reaction to what's happening externally.
Often I have no influence or control over what's happening externally, but I might have a reaction to it, and the reaction isn't bad. It's just that do I wanna stay in it, right? Yes or no? If I wanna stay in it, fine, go stay in it. But if I actually want to not have that reaction anymore, there has to be a point where I decide, okay, I don't wanna do that anymore.
And I wanna, I do wanna do something different. I wanna have a different experience. And so I help people see whether or not they wanna stay in that or not. what is, what's the payoff for staying
Mike Goldman: is this serving you?
Michelle Scott: Is this serving you? Is it serving others? How is this working? How is it helping you? You know, what is it really supporting you?
And if it is, if they think it is, then okay, cool. Go on. And maybe they need to vent some more. So it's a layered process really. So it's like once they decide though, that they're like, okay, I can start to see what you're saying. I'm, I can see my reaction is really actually, well. Oh, I love this. this is from my school I went to.
I also have a master's in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica. And,they always said it like, this is, if something disturbs my peace, it's a clue for me that there's something inside being triggered. And usually it's a judgment about something else or someone else that's, I'm saying they're wrong or bad.
So often, once someone's ready to let go of the story. They're open to seeing what else is possible. Then I might have them identify where they're judging that situation, and then we'll help them release the judgments. Because really those judgments are a big piece of the, I'll call the problem as far as why that anger continues to linger.
It's 'cause they're holding a judgment that shouldn't be the way it is. It's like they're fighting with reality. The reality is that is the way it is. And really what the secret is through secret sauce. The secret is that their anger isn't actually coming from the thing that's they think is wrong out there.
It's coming from that. They think it should be different than it actually is, and that pressure of thinking that should be different than it is, and they have zero control over it. They can't even influence that at all. That pressure is what the problem actually is inside. It's where the, usually the anger or the whatever's going on is, was driving that reaction.
So we can get to that judgment, help them slow down, back off, open up, see the judgment and be like, okay, fine. Sometimes comes out that way, fine, okay, I'll see it. And then we do that self forgiveness and boom, they're free. And then it's, you know, I also talk about, I talk about conscious leadership, but embodied leadership, once I let go of that judgment, I'm embodying, I'm embodying it.
At that point, I'm no longer having to do, actually sometimes not. I'm, I don't even have to adjust my mental state. Once I let go of that judgment, I embody it. I no longer have the issue. In many cases, sometimes I have to do layers to actually let it go, but it can be totally let go of, and that's exciting from my
Mike Goldman: what it reminds me of, I'm actually reading a book and it's not a new book, but, the Art of Possibility.
By Benjamin Zander, who's a conductor, and it's a wonderful
book, and he has this concept and what you just said reminded me of it. He calls it being the board. what he means by being the board is if you think of like a chess board,
you know, or a game board, let's say it's chess, it's like you could believe that in life you are, you know, you're the pawn or the bishop or the, you are one of the pieces
and there's only certain things you can do.
You could also believe, you know, you are on one side of the board, you know, you're your, you're black or you're white on the board, but he says you are the board.
Michelle Scott: You're the board.
Mike Goldman: and everything that happens in your life is. is. you and your responsibility. It doesn't mean he's not
saying it's your to blame if something bad happens to you.
If you're at a stoplight and a drunk driver hits you from behind, you are not to blame for that. But if
you believe you are the board, like, okay, how did this situation happen
and what part did I play? Like I know if I drive, there's a chance something like this might happen and what I am in control of is how I react to it.
So I love that idea of being the board and it's. You know, it's almost, it's taking responsibility for everything
in your life, which is very different than saying you're to blame for everything in your life. But I
love that concept.
Michelle Scott: I appreciate your, you making sure you, are distinguishing or making that distinction between I'm responsible and I'm to be blamed for it because, that also is a big part of when I'm introducing this idea of forgiveness and that I'm judging it. It. So sometimes people, often actually people will go to back to blame or making themselves wrong in some way, and that is not what we're saying because then we're judging ourself on top of the other judgment and we're just adding more judgment.
And that's not the goal. The goal is to let go of. The against this or the shoulds or the judgment that's causing the problem inside of me. My reactions. So, so yeah, it's fun stuff.
Oh, and I'd like to add just one more piece to this that I often teach on and it's, it's a concept called the Mirror.
and this is another eighth degree black belt move. It's like being able to see what I'm seeing out there is actually, if I spot it, I got it. so if I'm pointing out there and blaming or, Shaming or looking at somebody else's behavior and making them wrong. often if I could be, do the eighth degree black belt or more move and turn it back and just do an inquiry without blame towards myself, but just as a curiosity, like, oh, where is that playing out in me?
That's a tool actually. Where is that playing out in me? And that's a way I can be like, oh, okay, if I'm open to look at that. That is a healing, a very deep healing, tool. If I'm willing to look inside and be like, where am I behaving that way to either others or myself, by the way, I could be doing it to myself.
yeah, it's a, it's another level of self-awareness, really. Deep one.
Mike Goldman: So I'm gonna, I'm gonna dig into that and I forgot what it was. I've done some NLP training, neurolinguistic programming
training in my life, and it's the same concept and I'm.
it's killing me that I can't remember what the phrase is. They use an NLP for it.
And it's not just an NLP phrase, but it's basically mirroring.
It's basically like, you know, problem you see out there is really a reflection of you.
And so I, and I always struggled with that. Like, I felt like I got it,
then something would happen. I'm like, no, I don't understand that anymore.
so I'll give you an example for my life. you're gonna coach me right now,
is one of the real pet peeves I have. Whether it's family members
or friends or clients is people that take 10 minutes
to say something that should take 45 seconds.
You know, I have, my wife's uncle, so, so my wife's uncle will, let's say the real story is it didn't work, so I called customer service and returned it. Yeah,
that's the story.
The way he will tell it is, so I called customer service and it rang and, hello, how are you? And I'm like, oh my God, shoot me before this story's over. So now I think that would bother everybody, but I think I have a particular pet peeve
for Okay, get on with it and get to the point.
so how is that, does that mean somewhere? I talk too much and I'm, and we're like, what does that mean when you talk about mirroring or that being a reflection of me? Does it mean I have that problem? or are we saying something else?
Michelle Scott: let's look at a little, is it okay if we do look at that for a moment
Mike Goldman: Yeah. Let you want, do,
I need to lie down on the couch
Michelle Scott: don't know. I don't know. Nah, you should be okay. I think so. well, why is that wrong that he spends that extra time telling that story? What are you making that mean about him
Mike Goldman: for me, for me, it's like, I've got things to do. You're wasting my time. Just
get to it. you know, I, I don't need to hear the long, drawn out story. I.
Michelle Scott: Right. Okay. Got it.
alright, so what are you making it mean if, so if somebody wastes your time, what are you making that mean about that person or yourself?
Mike Goldman: I think if someone's wasting my time doing that, you know, part of it is I don't see that. I think they're being rude. I think
they're not, I say they're, you know, the way I think of it is they're not self-aware enough to know
that they are monopolizing the conversation and wasting time, like, get to the point.
So I, I look at it as you know, they're not self-aware and they're being rude.
Michelle Scott: Okay. Love it. So, so. How do you know that they're being rude and that they're not self-aware? What's the, how are you gauging that?
Mike Goldman: I, I really don't know that's a, it's a judgment. I'm making ba
based on how they're making me feel, I guess.
Michelle Scott: that's right. And that's where we're headed. Right? So that's step one is, it's where is it coming from? It's coming from your thoughts or a judgment or something about that because, somebody else's, Like I prob I might have a different scale of patience on it than you did, but which one of us is not right, but which one of us is accurate in our thinking?
I don't know.
Mike Goldman: Oh,
I, it's me. I'm the one. I'm the one that's
Michelle Scott: Yeah, of course.
Mike Goldman: It's gotta be me.
Michelle Scott: Yeah. But if as soon as you can start to see, like, if I can help someone start to see that there's another possibility, then that can kind of open, I don't know what's happening inside of you right now, but that could start to open someone up to like, oh, okay, maybe I'm full of BS or something, you know, on my side of things.
I'm just curious what did happen for you.
Mike Goldman: Yeah,it's, It's interesting and I
like the way the, you know, the right questions turn it around into, you know, it is not that it's a mirror that I have that same problem that person has, but it is about me. It's like, what meaning am I putting behind it? And I love that. and it's funny how. it's tough to coach yourself, right? It's sometimes
almost, it's hard to, had a client say to me, it's hard to see the picture when you're, it's hard to see the big picture when you're in the picture.
And, you know, I have conversations with clients all the time where they inject certain meaning into a situation or into the, what a person says or the way they act.
and I'll ask them the simple question, okay, what else could it mean?
Michelle Scott: That's right.
Mike Goldman: And they come up with other alter, and part of it is, the other alternatives may be helpful, but just the fact that there are other alternatives, it's helpful. And that's
kind of, That's, kind of what we're doing here. it's the same thing.
Michelle Scott: And so, so this is one piece, and then I'm taking you through a little process of what I kind of talked about with what I would do with a client who has that story, right? So I would probably have you do a self forgiveness if you were open to it.
Like, I forgive myself for judging people who seem to be wasting my time as rude. Because
Mike Goldman: that. Do you need, yeah, Do you need me to say that out loud to,
Michelle Scott: you have to be the one to say it if you want to.
Mike Goldman: yeah. I forgive myself for judging other people as being rude when I really don't know what's going on there.
Michelle Scott: That's it. That's the truth is I don't really know what, why they need to tell that story. Who knows what's behind that? Maybe they've never been really listened to before and they need someone to really hear what they're saying. I mean, who knows
Mike Goldman: There you go. Now see now after this, I have to call Uncle Richie and have a long
Michelle Scott: That's right and then healing can occur. Now I wanna call uncle Richie. I mean that is kind of what can happen. Actually. Things can free up and it's the same with a leadership team like you wanna put, throw this into a leadership team. If I'm a leader and I have a judgment about someone on my team.
As a complete jerk and,I can hold onto the story Absolutely. If I wanna Hold on. Go for it. Hang onto it. It's just that if you are a person's ready to have a different experience, I would, you know, that person's a jerk. I forgive myself for judging that person as a jerk because the truth is I don't know what's going on with their home life.
The truth is, I have no idea why they're behaving that way. Who knows what happened to them earlier today. I mean, that's the general idea here. and then now I wanna come back. Just do we have a little more time to finish up the mirror piece? Okay, cool. So
Mike Goldman: hold on. Because by the way, this is not about my audience. I do this show to for people to fix me, and as long as it fixes me, I'm good.
Michelle Scott: yeah. And, yeah, so, so there's that first step, right? The step out of the story. kind of let go of the story, create a little freedom inside, do that self-forgiveness to kind of clean that up. And then we could look, maybe start to see the mirror. 'cause that mirror is hard to see for some people. I said the forgiveness, I think was the eighth degree black belt move.
But really it's looking in the mirror. Okay. Now, so, so now Mike, looking in the mirror, where might you be? It might be different than what you described, like somebody sharing oversharing or whatever, but where are you? Maybe you potentially, you don't have to fully own it, but maybe being rude either to yourself or someone else in your life.
Mike Goldman: Yeah. I think for me it's almost the opposite
of in like, not, I don't think I could probably be long-winded from time to
time, but I don't think that's a big issue for me, but I'm impatient.
And it's one of the reasons why that is such a pet peeve
for me is I am, you know, high d on the disc scale
and always damn proud of it.
Like, we're gonna get down to business, let's do it.
but that is, I could be impatient. I find myself, really having to stop myself from interrupting other people,
which is incredibly rude.
Michelle Scott: It's so rude.
Mike Goldman: do it All the time.
Hey, you just interrupted me,
Michelle Scott: Yes. Okay, so that's how you look in the mirror. It's not going to be exactly perfectly, it could be exactly the same thing. It could be where I'm actually oversharing and telling the da annoying people, but often it's something a little different, but it's still rude. It's still something that's still, could be called the rude.
You know, someone else is calling you rude because you do that behind your back or whatever, you know? But that's how we use the mirror to, to look at ourselves. And so what just happened as you looked at it that way, inside of you? Is that helpful?
Mike Goldman: Yeah, it's helpful because it's basically, you know, Not that I'm doing the same thing as these other people
or the uncle I'm talking about,
but I have the same problem of being rude just in a different way. And
it makes me more understanding. It's like, yeah, it's coming out me in a different way, but I'm no better than they
Right. Thank you. That's it. That's the bottom line. I'm no better. I'm doing it. Yeah, the, you know, and what this reminds me of too, and it's funny, like these are things I coach on, but
it's so hard to see it myself, is my whole. Ted talk that I mentioned earlier about my son is all about something. You know, that I call in the TED Talk, the Law of Positive Intent
Michelle Scott: law of positive intent says everyone's just trying to do the best they can
Mike Goldman: with the resources they have and so are, and by the way, the reason I did the TED Talk and the reason why I coach on this and I talk about it is 'cause I know I struggle with that.
I very quickly look at other people and judge and say, oh, they, you know, they're just trying to throw a wrench in. They're being a pain in the neck on purpose.
But when I think about it, in all my many years, I've never known anyone who woke up in the morning and said, what could I screw up today?
Like, no one's truly up
to no
good. But we put that on people and I put
that on people. So thinking, everybody's just trying to do the best they can with the resources they
have makes you think, well, what do I know that they don't know?
Or what do they know that I don't know?
What resources do they have that I may not have? And it, you know, all this kind of comes together in, into one, one big, pretty important idea about how we think about ourselves and others.
Michelle Scott: Yeah. Oh, I, and I did think of what I, what I popped outta my head there, is that this is, and this is a normal thing that egos do, is this the mirror thing? It's also about projecting outward. It's, it might be that your ego doesn't want to own that I'm, that you're rude because that's not a nice thing.
I don't wanna see myself as not nice and kind and. All the things. And so then what egos naturally, just normally this is normal, people do this, but that's why I like people to become self-aware because then we can catch on to what's happening in our egos and create different experiences and better hopefully better outcomes for in different ways.
But, I'm, if I'm seeing that out there, that's why I spotted I got it. I can look back in, because often our egos are trying to project it out so it doesn't, I don't have to feel bad that I'm rude. And it's a usually a protective mechanism actually. So it's a, we can be kind and gentle with ourselves even if we are doing that projection or even if we are rude.
but, if we can start to recognize that, that is the key, and that's why I teach self-awareness as a base tool, even in leadership, for leaders, for teams like self-awareness. To me is the root cause, and it helps everything move along better if we're all taking responsibility and seeing the mirror.
Holy cow. Can you imagine if everybody on a team was looking in that mirror and acknowledging that, like you said, like everybody is doing the best they can. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I hear you talking about as well, so.
Mike Goldman: Love it. and I've heard you may, maybe it was when we, the first time we talked and
met each other,and by the way, we, Michelle and I met at a speaking event. W
e were together at,and you mentioned this concept of, label jail.
Michelle Scott: Yes.
Mike Goldman: And I don't know if that relates at all to what we're talking about or if it's a different idea, but dig into what Label Jail is.
Michelle Scott: Yeah, label jail is so much fun and we started to get creative with it, like get outta jail free cards and things like that too. That was fun. yeah. Label Jail is when we put ourselves, it could even be, we're putting ourselves perhaps too, but it's putting ourselves or others in a box and not letting them get out of the box.
And what that does is stops growth. And where I have seen it show up in the, with the teams and the folks I work with in leadership is, if I have somebody who, let's say they make a mistake and it might be a big mistake, small mistake or whatever, it depends on who they're making the mistake with.
Because that person might be a person who really judges hard if you make a small mistake, depending on what's going on in their consciousness, right? But, so you could get put in jail for different levels of offenses. But let's say I made a mistake, and somebody put me in label jail, I could get fired for that because if they had never let me out of the box so I can grow and become a better person and correct it or make amends or however that would be,they're not gonna even give me a chance to, clean it up.
And I might be amazing at what I do, but because they've ho are holding me in label jail. They're going to miss out on the opportunity to really experience my gifts because they're holding onto this judgment based on a past experience that who knows what really happened? Did somebody actually inquire into what was happening?
Maybe my mother just died and I, you know, this thing happened. Maybe I have, neurodivergent ways of thinking and it's harder for me to do certain things. Or, I mean, it could be any number of things. So.
Mike Goldman: love that. And what it reminds me of is I, and I used to do this all the time, one of the things I do with my clients is I help them assess the performance
of their teams, of their direct reports. And I used to label people A player, B player, C player, and Toxic C player. And I stopped doing that, that those particular labels, because people were talking about like if you labeled somebody a B player, they would talk about. That person as if that's who they were,
you know, as if 35 years ago the doctor came out and said, Mr. Goldman, I'm so sorry, your wife has given birth to an eight pound, two ounce B player. It's like,
no, that they may be performing at a certain level Right.
now and they need some work, but those labels of a player, B player, C player, that's putting people in label jail and it becomes really. Harmful. I love that. I
love that.
so Michelle, as we start to, to wrap up, talk a little bit about some of the different things you do with clients. How do you help clients? Is it all one-on-one? Is it in groups?
Is it with teams? how do you work with clients?
Michelle Scott: Yeah. I appreciate you asking. I actually, I love one-on-one, one-on-one coaching. That, that is the largest part of my coaching practice. I will help out and do teams if I have a client that, needs some help because with their team, because the team dynamics are impacting my client, you know, so I wanna clean up all the pieces of the puzzle.
So I'll come in and help. smooth that team out, I guess is a way to say, like, help everybody get into a better situation from individuals to the leader themselves. but yeah, mostly I do one-on-one and I really, I just love what I do. So if I can be of service, if I'm gonna do that,
Mike Goldman: I love it. So, if people are interested in talking to you about that, where should they go to find out more?
Michelle Scott: Yeah. I was originally going to give my website, but actually I think I would just prefer to, which I'll need to get to, is my scheduling link and just put that right in the show notes, so that saves a step if they would like to have a conversation. That's what I like to do with people, and there's no pressure obligations at all.
It's just a conversation to get to know you and. hear about what you have going on in your life, what's working, what isn't working, and maybe we can even break through a little bit on that short call, and just see if there's a way I could support you. So that's really the next step.
And we can maybe put something in the show notes. I'm, I
Mike Goldman: Yeah, we'll do that, give us the name of the website anyway, but
then we'll put that in the show notes.
Michelle Scott: Okay. So my website is www.michellescottcoaching.com and there is a book, a free discovery call on that website too, just trying to make it easy for folks so. Yeah.
Mike Goldman: Beautiful.
thank you for starting to fix my rudeness. I'm sure I still have some work to do. We'll have to do this five or six more times,
Michelle Scott: Yeah.
Mike Goldman: I'll get over it and I'll be able to talk to Uncle Richie again without getting all angry at him.
Michelle Scott: See, and you have embodied it, so that's great.
Mike Goldman: there you go. So, so, so it's not all about me, but it's partially about me.
If you want a great company, I always say you need a great leadership team.
Michelle, thanks for helping us get there today.
Michelle Scott: You're so welcome. I had a great time with you today. I appreciate you.
Mike Goldman: Me too. Thanks.
Michelle Scott: Yep.