Overcoming Adversity and Leading with Purpose with Scot Heathman
How does facing adversity shape the leader you become?
In this episode, Scot Heathman, a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, shares his incredible journey of leadership, resilience, and self-discovery. With over 25 years of military service, including leading 36,000 people, Scot has mastered the art of servant leadership and personal growth.
His story also includes overcoming a life-threatening health challenge, a brain tumor diagnosis that shook his world but ultimately strengthened his resolve.
Scot talks about the importance of resilience, how to build strong teams, and his shift from people-pleasing to leading with purpose. Learn how embracing challenges can unlock untapped potential, and why mindset and emotional intelligence are essential in leadership.
Tune in to hear Scot's personal lessons on leadership, resilience, and commanding your life with courage.
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
Scot Heathman’s journey from aspiring pilot to U.S. Air Force Colonel and leadership expert.
The importance of servant leadership and empowering others to lead with courage.
How focusing on doing your best work instead of people-pleasing can lead to success.
Overcoming adversity: Scot’s experience with a life-threatening brain tumor and the lessons learned.
The power of building strong, supportive teams and how to choose your tribe wisely.
How to develop resilience in the face of challenges and turn adversity into growth.
The role of emotional intelligence in leadership and personal development.
Why embracing challenges and staying true to yourself is key to unlocking your full potential.
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
"The gift of resilience is the key that unlocks potential." - Scot Heathman
“ Our ego is not always our amigo.” - Scot Heathman
"The best leaders are those who empower others and help them reach their potential." - Scot Heathman
"Leadership is not about being perfect; it’s about embracing the journey and learning along the way." - Scot Heathman
"You can’t control everything, but you can control how you react to challenges." - Scot Heathman
“ It's okay for your tribe to shift during different times in your life.” - Courtney Turich
“ if they saw something that you didn't recognize, you put trust in them to help you.” - Courtney Turich
”Don't focus on the end result. Focus on the here and now of the journey.” - Courtney Turich
About Scot Heathman
Scot Heathman is a leadership coach and consultant with over 25 years of experience in the U.S. Air Force, where he served as a combat instructor pilot and base commander. He has led teams of up to 14,000 personnel and now works with leaders at all levels to build strong cultures and improve communication.
Scot holds three Master’s degrees in Organizational Leadership, Operational Planning, and National Security & Strategic Studies. He is also certified in Emotional Intelligence and DiSC, tools that help leaders improve their performance and grow their teams.
Scot is the author of an upcoming book Command With Courage: Elevating Beyond Adversity, focused on resilience and leadership. His mission is to help leaders navigate challenges and elevate others to their full potential.
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BLOG TRANSCRIPT
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Courtney Turich: Hey, everyone. It's your host, Courtney Turich with Bold Moves and Confident Choices. We're here to talk with leaders and entrepreneurs about making fearless decisions and taking charge of your own path. Let's get real, get bold, and take charge of your future.
Today's guests are extremely decorated. I am pleased and thrilled to introduce Colonel Scot Heathman, who is retired. He's a former U. S. Air Force leader renowned for his servant-leader approach. With over 25 years of service, he commanded and served at multiple levels, including as Deputy Commander the 18th Air Force, as Commander of Scot Air Force Base, and on the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.
He's a highly decorated, like I said, combat experience pilot. Now serves as Elevating Sorry, as it is for his company, elevating others and organizational leadership, consulting business, and inspiring leaders to command with courage. He holds 3 master's degrees and is a certified emotional intelligence coach, which I completely admire and a huge fan of, and he is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Missouri.
So elevating others is his passion and his joy. So I'm going to stop talking and pass this over to Scot to really shed some more light. Hi, Scot.
Scot Heathman: Hey, Courtney. How are you today?
Courtney Turich: I'm fantastic. How about you?
Scot Heathman: Oh, I'm doing great. It's a little rainy today, but you know what? I'll take it. We need it.
Courtney Turich: what we have to say. Now. We need the rain, right?
Scot Heathman: Yes. Yes.
Courtney Turich: Well, again, so happy that you're here with us today. You have such a tremendous background and experience in All sorts of things. Scot, why don't you start with us? Just share a little bit about your background and bring us where you are today.
And then we'll start diving into that big, bold moment for yourself that really catapulted you professionally or personally.
The Evolution of Leadership with Scot Heatman
Scot Heathman: I grew up in Minnesota and as a young kid, wanted to fly airplanes from a very, very young age, like around age three. because what did it do for me? That spark was Star Wars.
When that movie came out, I was like, how do I do that? How do I fly those things? And, pretty much chase that dream. You know, obviously I went through my school years, but, you know, in order to get to a point where I could learn how to fly, you either had to go to, either get flying lessons, go to university, or join the military.
And, it was important to me to try to find a way to pay for college for myself. That's something I wanted to do. And, I said, you know, I really would like, really would love to serve my country. I would love to be able to fly. Why don't I start looking at military options? and I knew that to become a pilot, you have to have a degree.
So, because you have to be an officer. So I'm like, okay, that kind of narrows down how I'm going to go about this. And I decided to go through the Air Force ROTC program at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. I got my civil engineering degree and then I was selected for pilot training and I was off and running.
And what I thought was maybe going to be, I don't know, 4 to 10 years somewhere in there ended up being a 25-year career, doing things. I had no clue I was ever going to do it like they weren't even a vision in my head other than flying. but a lot of the leadership positions, I just wasn't thinking about, you know, the levels that I would reach and the thousands of people that I would actually be leading.
And, you know, when I think back to that, I'm like, wow. 25-year career. That was pretty amazing. And a lot of things I'm very proud of. But I'm still on my leadership journey. I started my leadership consulting business. Not only am I in a space where I get to continue learning about leadership, which I absolutely love, I get to help others.
And, you know, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out, well, who am I after I leave the military? And I said, you know, I am someone who loves elevating others. And so that became the name of the company. And that's what I do now. I am looking for my next client anywhere I can find them because there are just so many Folks and organizations out there that could just use some help. So that's what I love doing
Courtney Turich: That's fantastic. And Scot, I'm very honored to have had you come into my life and I can attest to everyone listening. What a tremendous leader you are. And to shed some light on that, Scot, could you tell everyone how many people you actually have led?
Leading with Servant Leadership
Scot Heathman: Yeah, It still kind of shocks me when I think about it, and I don't think my parents believe me either.
But, you know, it's been a small team of about three people. I flew big airplanes, like airlift, cargo planes, and tanker planes. So we'd have a crew of three. So at the smallest, I'd say I'd led a team of three. But at the largest portion, my last job when I was the deputy commander of the 18th Air Force, we had a number of Air Force bases that fell underneath us.
So that number was right around 36, and they were spread out all across the United States. So they weren't all at any one given location. So that made it even more challenging. But yeah, I mean, when you're dealing with those kinds of numbers, it's hard to get intimate with everybody, but you can still lead effectively, those numbers of people.
You just have to work on the right kinds of attack tactics for the right kind of environment. So. but I worked directly for a two-star who was the commander of that organization. And you know, we did our very best to support those individual bases that were essentially responsible for flying all the logistics that the Air Force has around the globe.
So we owned all the aircraft, all those operational units, and most of the time when you see stuff on TV, it probably had to deal with an asset from the 18th Air Force or men and women from the 18th Air Force.
Courtney Turich: So interesting. So when you talk about leading all these people, Scot, what is one thing you're most proud of from a leadership standpoint?
Scot Heathman: One of the things I'm most proud of, I studied servant leadership because I worked for an incredible servant leader. And as a young captain, I didn't fully understand, like, what that term meant, like, from a Robert Greenleaf. definition, you know, who's kind of the godfather of, bringing this to the forefront.
But when I saw that it involved a heavy level of empowerment, building relationships, and leading in a way that you see them actually grow through your leadership. I think it's the style that I've learned to be very comfortable with the servant leadership style. I honestly would say that I'm very proud of that, that I've been able to lean into that because I've seen the effects, the positive effects, on the backside of that and not that it always led to success, right?
Because, you know, we don't live in a perfect world given perfect dynamics and situations, but I led with a very high touch. Heavy level of empowerment, high trust. But I also set very high standards because I believe that, you know, we're not just going to have an organization and be happy all the time and run around without high standards.
You know, I believe in being a championship team in order to do that, we all have to be bought into that. So I think that through the combination of my servant leader style, and servant leadership style, equate that with kind of a people-first mentality yet. a really good, I would say instinct for growth and development.
I've been able to really shape organizational cultures in a way that we could all get more than we ever asked for, or we could all do more than we ever thought we could do. And I, I'll, I often just get to sit back and watch, especially the leading teams of, you know, You know, 36, 000 or 14, 000 or 3000.
You know, I get to sit back and watch, but when you see those aha moments, you're like, holy crap, we did it. Like they did it. They figured it out. And it often took some struggle, but they did it. And, when you get to kind of sit back and see that as a leader, you know, Or you see, a project comes to fruition.
You're just like, man, What else can we do? You know, so you're always looking for the next challenge. But, I think those are some of my most proud moments in leadership.
Courtney Turich: I love it. So now I'm going to ask on the flip side. What was your biggest challenge as a leader?
Overcoming Adversity Through Resilience
Scot Heathman: Well, this may be kind of obvious to you and I, you know, because we've talked about this, but, you know, stuff will happen.
know, to use the force go friendlier version of that, right? The bumper sticker. yeah, I would say for me, my challenge came at the tail end of my career. I just turned 45 and I was a deputy commander up at Fairchild Air Force Base, which is in Spokane, Washington. My wife and I were on our way to a holiday party.
It was the end of the year and we were at a stoplight. We got hit from behind by a vehicle. luckily nobody hurt, but through that process of, you know, checking out my neck, I had a little bit of a whiplash injury. They actually found a brain tumor that I didn't even know I had. And I literally was asked the question by, uh, One of our flight doctors.
Do you know you have a brain tumor? I know I did, but don't think he quite knew what to say. And, because that's just not something that a lot of flight doctors deal with, right? they don't see that in their aircrew a lot. No, no, especially something that we didn't know was there because it was of a pretty significant size.
I mean, it was a little bit smaller than a ping pong ball, but in your head, that's huge, you know, no kidding, you know, the something, the size of a pea is big inside your head on your brain. Well, so through the process of looking at that and trying to figure out, I spent the whole next year after that diagnosis, just kind of in, I wouldn't say limbo, but just watching this thing, because.
What we were trying to figure out, the neurosurgeons were, trying to understand first, what are we dealing with? Is it growing? And then, on, you know, what we're dealing with, if we had to take action, what would we do? You know, is it radiation, surgery, or combination? What is it?
But about a year later, and I had moved during this time period about halfway, through this kind of looking process, I moved to be the commander of Scot Air Force Base. So I took command, and literally three days later, drove to St. Louis, had gotten set up with all my new doctors, the MRI, multiple MRIs.
but nothing was kind of happening. There was some small growth, but, from my perspective, I didn't have headaches, I didn't feel anything, no effects from this thing. But sure enough, after an MRI in January of 2019, or excuse me, 2020, things started to change. I started to walk with a limp.
Like a very slight limp, but my team had noticed it in me and my face went a little bit numb on this side, which makes sense because it was kind of more on the lower left side of my brain. Okay. so I called the neurosurgeon and I said, Hey, this is what I'm feeling. And he said, Scot, I think we need to do something quick.
and quick isn't tomorrow, but, you know, within the month, and that's what happened. We ended up, You know, both getting together and talking again. I said, well, I'd like to go through surgery. and then we'll go from there. because it was important for me to get the pathology on this thing to understand what we are dealing with and then, get it out, get Toby out.
Toby, Toby was the name I gave it. Yeah.
I named him after the HR. Rep from the show, the office, Toby, because Michael Scot just treats him like crap and he wants them gone. And I was like, it's kind of how I feel right now. You know, so you have to have humor with these things. so that's what we did about a month later in February 2020.
I had a 10-hour surgery. They removed about 85 percent of it. A good portion of it. They couldn't get it all because of the location. Very difficult to operate kind of underneath at the base of the brain. But, I knew that once I got healed up to a point, they were going to follow up with radiation treatments to get the rest.
So. But when I woke up, the challenge there was I couldn't walk hardly at all, you know, without the aid of a walker. I couldn't really talk, you know, very slurred speech. I have a little bit now that I can sense, but most people don't sense it anymore. I couldn't see my vision. I had really bad double vision because my eyes were kind of looking in different directions.
I couldn't stand because my balance was off. So I spent the next four months kind of dealing with all of that. And, hanging out with my therapy team, whether it was occupational, physical speech, mindful therapy, or whatever it took. they told me it might take up to a year to kind of get back to a new normal. And, I ended up getting back into my job, because I had obviously come out of the job. My deputy took command of the base of the wing. And then in about four months, I was good enough, I felt like going back to work and I could pass my fitness test. I could run again. It just took a ton of work, though, but I will.
I wanted my job back. And that's just the way I kind of looked at it. So, yeah, 4 months later, I walked back into the job and said, well, what's this pandemic? Everybody's talking about, you know, I mean, challenge number 2, so that was not only trying to figure out how to operate but also lead an organization through a pandemic on top of that.
So, Those were some challenging years for me.
Courtney Turich: I would say those are some big challenges and thank you for sharing about Toby and all you went through with that. Did you find that was it a dark time or how did you keep yourself lifted and moving forward through this process?
Scot Heathman: There are certainly bad days.
I think anybody that deals with adversity, whether it's on a medical piece or a, you know, death in the family or, you know, maybe it's a dream job, they didn't get whatever it may be. Right. it's not about the actual adversity piece. I think we as humans are gonna experience the full range of emotions.
So, I did. I certainly did. There was something that I did in particular, and I'm writing about this in my book right now, which will be out next year. I tried to mobilize the right team around me, and I'm by nature a generally happy person, but that's just temporary. A moment in time, you know, I would say I'm an optimistic person, which tends to be a little bit more of a long-term mindset.
Not just a fleeting moment. I have really tried to make sure I fed that part of me and if I didn't have a lot of optimism in the tank, I tried to see if there was something or someone around me that could help me because We don't all show up every day as our full 100 percent self, right? Right. You know, oftentimes we're maybe 50 percent or less in the tank.
So I never shied away from telling a partner or a colleague, Hey, I had a little bit of a rough night last night. Do you mind just kind of watching out for me today? don't take anything I'm doing personally. I'm just, my mind's here, but I do want to be here. And, you know, I think that's a healthy thing to do, whether you're going through adversity or not with your teammates.
but I did make sure that I surrounded myself with good support systems, and great people who could keep my level of optimism high. I did have to tell a couple of folks that were kind of in my inner network that What you do for me right now, I really appreciate, but it's not helping me in the way that I need the help right now.
And After explaining that to them, and some of the things that were happening where, you know, they were just kind of dumping negativity on me all the time about their life and things like that. And things that people naturally do,
But it's okay to say, I hate to hear that, but. I'm having a really hard time right now and that's just not something I'm in a position to listen to right now, because I can't help you.
I can barely help myself right now. So, I didn't bring those people to my inner orbit as much. They stayed in my orbit, but when I mapped my network of support out, it was very strategic about who I wanted right around me, you know.
Courtney Turich: Wow. What an important note for us all to take on that. It's okay for your tribe to shift during different times in your life.
Scot Heathman: Yeah. And you know what? I talked to them about it and we are still the best of friends and best of colleagues. Like it did not disrupt our relationship. They understood what I was getting at and they just stepped back, let somebody else come in for a little bit and then we just picked up where we left off.
So, you have to communicate. Okay. You have to talk about what this relationship means and your specific needs while also understanding their needs and mine were just different at that moment in time.
Courtney Turich: I also pulled away not only communication, like you said, but also trust, right? With that tribe. Yeah. As you were going through this really challenging time in your life and asking them to help you, if they saw something that you didn't recognize, you put trust in them to help you.
Scot Heathman: Absolutely. And, if they couldn't do it, I usually had somebody else around me that I could go to, but there's also some self-coaching that has to happen.
You can't just rely a hundred percent on others. you have to kind of like go into the gym. You know, build yourself back up to so, you know, through self-coaching, whether it be journaling, meditation, reading, writing, whatever it may be, all those things help and it's important to lean into that side of it, too, because I do have to hold myself accountable because I'm now the one who has to take care of myself with this new Scot, you know, this new way to operate. So I have to figure out what works and what doesn't work anymore. I can't sit in front of a computer for hours on end anymore. It's just too much. It's, it overloads me.
So I planned breaks. I did not have back to back to back to back meetings, which seemed to be very popular in organizations, but our brains are not. They don't work well. We don't have breaks in between these meetings. So. Instead of hour-long meetings back to back to back, I held 30-minute meetings with 15-minute breaks in between.
That was enough to get my brain refreshed and ready for the next engagement. and I do that in my personal life too, whatever activities I'm doing, you know, day in and day out. So.
Courtney Turich: Such great self-awareness, Scot. And that's something we all need to keep at the forefront too, is self-awareness during these times as well. Yeah.
Scot Heathman: Absolutely.
Courtney Turich: So, wow, we have gone through a lot and I haven't even asked a big question, but you might have already elaborated on maybe the answer to this. I'm not sure you've had such a vast background. So, Scot, what would you say was the bold move or confident choice that took things for you to the next level in life?
The Bold Move That Shifted Scot’s Leadership Journey
Scot Heathman: Will say something maybe a little bit different, you know, about midway through my career, and I think a lot of people experience whether you're in the military or in the corporate world, we're always chasing that, like, that next promotion or people pleasing and things like that. Right? Yes. And I think when I reached about my 12-year point, I was a fairly new major in the Air Force.
I had started my work at the Pentagon working in something I had no background in, but this was my job. I actually stopped focusing on pleasing people and chasing the next level or, well, if I just do this, maybe I'll get promoted. Well, if I just get this job or this position or these responsibilities, I might get promoted.
I just started focusing more on Doing the best job that I could building the best teams that I could, contributing to the best collaborations that I could and things started to happen differently for me. Positive things like promotions, getting jobs with greater responsibility, you know, things again that I wouldn't even dream of.
I never dreamed I would be a commander of an air force base, you know, but. I think when I stopped being kind of a people pleaser chasing. Life just happened and I just left that responsibility to those supervisors who need to rate me or do my appraisals. I'll just leave that to them. Because in the end, I can only control what I can control.
I can't control what ink they actually put on that piece of paper. So let's just take that, worrying out of the equation and use all of that energy into doing the best work that I can. and once I started doing that, Boy, I tell you what, my journey actually got a lot easier because I just didn't have all that head trash that we carry with us all the time, you know,
Courtney Turich: Of course, it's interesting. You say this was a bold move for you because I just saw this on LinkedIn that somebody said, don't focus on the end result. Right? Focus on the here and now the journey. And that's exactly what you did. And then before you knew it, you were leading over 36, 000 people.
Scot Heathman: Yeah. I mean, it's wild again. It's unreal. and I actually felt better about getting various responsibilities after that, like I felt more locked in. And prepared even though they may have been new jobs to me I just felt like I approached them with a different mentality that was a little bit more positive Because what can tend to happen if you chase so much?
You may get a job that you always wanted and then what if you don't like it. That is an awful feeling. You know and I don't like that feeling. So, Why don't I just do what I can with what I have done the very best work I can at the moment And just enjoy that journey? And therefore, I was never really let down by another role or position or anything like that.
So, that's kind of how I will just approach things for the next probably 10 to 15 years. So,
Courtney Turich: I love it. And when I think about chasing things, like if you're chasing that bigger version or vision for yourself, I find that's when our ego also takes control.
Scot Heathman: Oh, yeah. It is. Our ego is not always our amigo. Right. mean, it can do
Courtney Turich: I don't know that I've heard that.
Scot Heathman: I think I heard that from a woman named Cy Wakeman, who I highly recommend her books. She is an incredible reality-based leader. But, yeah, I mean, the voice is talking all the time. It is not always our amigo. Sometimes we have to say, look, I hear you, but I'm going in this direction.
You know, and it comes back to self-awareness, which I think is the foundation of all great leaders is having a good sense of yourself first, making sure you understand the clues about yourself, that your body gives off, your emotions give off, that you see reflected in other people. It starts there. and then we move into that kind of, well, how do you control yourself?
Talk? I think that's where we have that interaction with our ego. What are you depositing? And what are you listening to? because again, the output is our behaviors and we have to be mindful of those things and intentional about them.
Lessons Scot Shares With His 18-Year-Old Self
Courtney Turich: Right. Scot, you have taken us on this amazing journey from being a little boy, seeing himself as a pilot to having a brain tumor, and then also from retiring from leading 36, 000 people in the Air Force, you're now coaching people.
Right. And leading others and all these amazing ways, when you look back at your younger self, what would you say to the 18-year-old Scot who is getting ready to embark on this magical world we have.
Scot Heathman: I'm probably playing off on the resilience story a little bit here. I think the biggest thing I had to face at that time was getting cut during my senior year, and being cut from the baseball team.
Dramatic, right? But, I think what I would say to people, or at least to myself, is I think the gift of resilience is the key that unlocks potential. And there's so much to be learned. Regardless of what the resilience is and again, I'm not into comparing scars with people Because one.
It's not helpful. And two, you don't learn anything through that. It's actually going through and developing that grit. And what did it take to get through that? What did it take to deal with the bad days? Like you asked, right? I think when you go through resilience, experience resilience, don't shy away from adversity.
If there is a challenge ahead take it head on and learn something. Again, I think there's so much That can happen in your own potential or the potential of others that to me, the sky's the limit after that. That's how you build resilience. Adversity and learning. So, if you haven't been tested, learn through others, you know, read their stories, listen to their talks, surround yourself with that sort of mentality of what they learn so that you can be better prepared when you have to deal with your own challenge.
So that's what I would say to myself,
Courtney Turich: Scot, I am so fortunate to have you in my life as a friend. You are a tremendous leader and listening to your story. Even more, today has just brought forth so much warmth to me and to know that you're somebody out in this world, making it a better place.
Scot Heathman: Well, I appreciate that.
I'm so happy we met and we got to hang out and I'm looking forward to talking about life with you again anytime. So you let me know.
Courtney Turich: Me too, Scot. So before we head out here today, where can everybody find you?
Scot Heathman: Yeah, so, you can go to my website at command with courage. com. I've got all kinds of information about what I offer there as far as coaching or training, you've got something customized you need for your team, I love doing customized work.
You know, also on LinkedIn. Reach out to me, DM me, let me know what's on your mind, or if, Hey, maybe we just need to talk about some options. So if I can't deliver it, I'm pretty sure I know somebody who can. but yeah, reach out anytime.
Courtney Turich: Scot. Well, thank you for sharing your journey, and talking to us about mindset, and having resilience.
Leaning into your tribe when you need it and really just setting your ego aside and being your true self. So again, thank you for being here today. Thank you to all of our listeners. Now, please go be bold, be confident, be you. Thanks.
