What if the future of leadership isn’t about choosing between people or profits—but designing cultures where both thrive together?

In this powerful 50-minute podcast episode of Think Your Way to an Epic Life, Coach Schug and Dr. Ron Stotts unveil The New Leadership Playbook—a proven, neuroscience-backed approach to building high-performing, people-centered organizations that outperform traditional command-and-control models.

This episode is a complete leadership framework for entrepreneurs, executives, founders, and team leaders who want to increase employee engagement, innovation, retention, and long-term profitability—without burnout or toxic culture.

🔑 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- Why traditional leadership models are failing in today’s workforce
- The difference between transactional leadership vs developmental leadership
- How conscious leadership drives innovation, trust, and financial performance
- The neuroscience behind collective flow states and high-performing teams
- How fear-based cultures shut down creativity and decision-making
- Why self-awareness and emotional intelligence are leadership multipliers
- A 5-step practical playbook to transform any organization from the inside out
- How to build cultures of psychological safety, growth, and accountability

🧠 Based on Research From:

MIT, Harvard Business School, McKinsey & Company, Gallup, Stanford, Google Project Aristotle, Deloitte, Nielsen, and the Center for Creative Leadership.

🌱 Who This Episode Is For:

✔ Entrepreneurs & founders
✔ CEOs & executives
✔ Business owners & managers
✔ Leadership coaches & consultants
✔ HR professionals & culture builders
✔ Anyone responsible for leading people

🎧 About the Podcast:

Think Your Way to an Epic Life explores the inner game of leadership, performance, and personal growth—bridging neuroscience, consciousness, and real-world business results.

📅 Schedule a complimentary discovery call:
• With Kara: zcal.co/karaschug/discoverycall
• With Ron: ronstottsclientscheduling.as.me

In today’s rapidly changing world, high IQ and traditional intelligence are no longer enough. The leaders of the future are the ones who know how to integrate logic and intuition… strategy and creativity… productivity and presence.

In this episode of Leadership on the Leading Edge, Dr. Ron Stotts and Kara Schug reveal why conscious, whole-brain leadership is becoming the new standard for high-performing leaders, entrepreneurs, and change-makers.

You’ll learn:
🔹 Why relying on IQ alone creates stagnation, stress, and rigid decision-making
🔹 The 3 awareness levels leaders experience as they evolve beyond traditional thinking
🔹 How subconscious survival patterns block your forebrain and limit creativity
🔹 How whole-brain leadership increases resilience, clarity, innovation, and vision
🔹 The neuroscience behind forebrain activation, coherence, and expanded consciousness
🔹 Practices to engage both logical and intuitive intelligence
🔹 How leaders can rewire their brains for presence, purpose, and visionary thinking

This episode includes guided sentence-completion exercises to help you uncover hidden patterns, unlock deeper creativity, and tap into your “Big Mind” — the part of you that leads with clarity rather than fear.

If you’ve been feeling stuck in your head… overthinking… disconnected from purpose… or sensing that your next level requires a more conscious version of yourself, this conversation is for you.

What You’ll Take Away:

✔ Practical steps to shift from reactive, fear-based leadership to creative, visionary leadership
✔ A deeper understanding of the science behind emotional intelligence and whole-brain integration
✔ Tools to strengthen intuition, innovate more naturally, and make aligned decisions
✔ A roadmap for becoming the leader the future demands — adaptable, inspired, and grounded in purpose

Work With Ron & Kara:

If you're ready to expand beyond IQ and step into conscious, whole-brain leadership, Ron and Kara work privately with a select group of leaders committed to deep inner work and meaningful impact.

📅 Schedule a complimentary discovery call:
• With Kara: zcal.co/karaschug/discoverycall
• With Ron: ronstottsclientscheduling.as.me

This is not surface-level leadership training. It’s a transformational process that helps you heal old patterns, rewire your brain, and unlock the vision, creativity, and resilience your next level requires.

In this episode of Think Your Way to an Epic Life, Coach Schug and Dr. Ron Stotts reveal the powerful idea behind “The Maple Tree Moment” — a life-altering experience that reshaped Dr. Ron’s entire meaning of leadership, impact, and legacy.

If you're a leader, entrepreneur, or creator who feels pulled between short-term demands and the deeper purpose you know you're meant to fulfill… this conversation will hit home.

🌱 What kind of ancestor are you becoming?
🌳 What world are you leaving behind for generations you’ll never meet?

In this episode, we explore:
- The Quarterly Trap — Why short-term thinking is crippling modern leadership
- The Japanese Maple Awakening — Dr. Ron’s emotional vision that reframed his entire purpose
- Redefining Success — Why true leadership goes far beyond profit
- The Ripple Effect — How conscious leaders shape humanity through everyday interactions
- Legacy Questions — Practical prompts to align your leadership with long-term impact

Packed with research from Harvard, MIT, Stanford, UCLA, the Long Now Foundation, and more, this episode blends neuroscience, leadership strategy, emotional storytelling, and ancient wisdom into one of our most profound conversations yet.

🎧 What You’ll Walk Away With

- A new framework for leadership success
- Insight into how your daily decisions shape the future
- Practical reflection exercises to reconnect with your purpose
- The motivation to become an ancestor future generations will thank

🌟 Want Support on Your Leadership Journey?

📅 Schedule a complimentary discovery call:
• With Kara: zcal.co/karaschug/discoverycall
• With Ron: ronstottsclientscheduling.as.me

📚 Research Referenced

Washington University • Harvard Medical School • MIT Sloan • McKinsey • UCLA (Hal Hershfield) • Long Now Foundation • Future of Work Institute • Northwestern (Adam Waytz) • Gallup • B-Corp Movement • MIT Collective Intelligence • HeartMath Institute • Presencing Institute • And more.

In today’s episode we sit down with Emily Cole, co-owner of Fans First Entertainment and a driving force behind the world-famous Savannah Bananas. You may know the Bananas for their bold yellow tuxedos, unforgettable fan experience, and internet-breaking baseball, but today we go deeper—into purpose, family, and a mission much bigger than the game itself.

Emily shares her and Jesse's journey in building a movement that puts people first—creating joy, connection, and memories that last. But this episode shines even brighter because of Emily’s heart for something beyond baseball: foster care and adoption.

We talk about the creation of Bananas Foster, the nonprofit dedicated to supporting foster families and bringing more children into safe, loving homes. Emily opens up about the calling that led her and Jesse into fostering, what the system desperately needs, and how the platform of the Savannah Bananas is being used for good that matters.

Whether you're a Bananas fan, a parent, a leader, or someone curious about how joy and purpose can collide—you’re going to love this conversation.

💛 Topics We Covered

Fans First Philosophy & how it transformed entertainment
The Cole family's journey into fostering & adoption
The mission behind Bananas Foster
Turning passion into real-world impact
Joy, service, and building community through sports

📍 Connect with Bananas Foster & Emily
• Bananas Foster: bananasfoster.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSavBananas
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emcole3/?hl=en

Burnout isn’t a personal failure — it’s often the turning point that leads to a leader’s greatest breakthrough. In this episode of Leadership on the Leading Edge, Kara and Dr. Ron Stotts unpack the real causes of burnout, the hidden beliefs that keep high achievers stuck, and the transformational inner work that helps leaders reclaim peace without sacrificing their edge.

Through powerful reflections, proven research, and real client stories, you’ll learn:
✨ Why burnout is more than exhaustion — and what it’s trying to tell you
✨ The three levels of awareness leaders move through before they finally shift
✨ How hidden beliefs like perfectionism, pressure, and over-responsibility drive burnout
✨ Personal + professional ways burnout shows up (often before we notice it)
✨ A guided sentence-completion exercise to reveal what you’ve been avoiding
✨ Real breakthrough stories from leaders who rebuilt their lives and careers
✨ The proven pathway to healing burnout at the root — not just coping with it

You’ll also hear inspiring transformations from leaders who rebuilt their energy, reconnected with what matters, and learned a new, sustainable way to succeed.

If burnout has been whispering (or shouting) for your attention… this episode is your invitation to pause, breathe, and choose a new way forward.

🔗 Want to Work With Kara or Ron?

Ready for a breakthrough of your own? Our team works with a select group of high achievers ready to do the deeper work that leads to lasting peace and high performance.

📅 Schedule a complimentary discovery call:
• With Kara: zcal.co/karaschug/discoverycall
• With Ron: ronstottsclientscheduling.as.me

What if one skill could make you 40% more effective as a leader—and almost no one is actually practicing it? In this episode, we break down the science behind self-awareness and why it’s the single strongest predictor of leadership success, business performance, and long-term growth.

Backed by research from Harvard Business Review, Daniel Goleman, MIT, Stanford, and the Center for Creative Leadership, we explore how self-aware leaders outperform their peers in revenue growth, team performance, customer retention, innovation, and decision-making.

You’ll learn:
• Why 95% of leaders think they’re self-aware—but only 10–15% actually are
• How self-awareness reduces strategic errors, emotional derailment, and burnout
• Why emotional intelligence drives 58% of job performance
• How self-awareness literally rewires your brain for better decisions
• Why authentic leadership boosts engagement, retention, and creativity
• How self-aware leaders create ripple effects across entire organizations

Throughout the episode, we guide you through powerful sentence-completion exercises that help you uncover blind spots, recognize emotional patterns, and strengthen your internal leadership “GPS.”

If you're an entrepreneur, executive, coach, or leader wanting to upgrade your mindset, increase your impact, and operate at a higher level—this episode is a deep dive into the research, neuroscience, and practices that create transformational results.

If you'd like personalized insight into your leadership patterns or blind spots:
💬 Book a Free Discovery Call: zcal.co/karaschug/discoverycall
🌐 Learn More: ronstotts.com

Sources Mentioned in the Episode:
• Harvard Business Review – Self-aware executives outperform peers by 40%
• Dr. Tasha Eurich – 5,000+ leader self-awareness study
• Stanford University – Default mode network & reflective learning
• University of Rochester – Reflective learning increases retention
• Mayo Clinic – Dopamine and learning
• Center for Creative Leadership – Emotional derailment
• Daniel Goleman – Emotional intelligence research
• MIT Sloan – EQ and executive performance
• Google Project Oxygen – Key traits of great leaders

Calm isn’t weakness — it’s power.
In this episode of Leadership on the Leading Edge: The Inner Game of Lasting Success, Kara Schug and Dr. Ron Stotts reveal how your breath can become your greatest leadership superpower.

When pressure rises, most leaders rely on control or speed — but the real edge comes from learning how to regulate your nervous system through conscious breathing.

You’ll discover:
🧠 The 3 levels of awareness that shape your stress response
💨 How your breathing patterns impact your leadership presence
🪷 3 simple, science-backed breathwork tools (Box Breathing, Coherent Breathing, and Breath + Intention Reset) you can use before meetings, decisions, or tough conversations

✨ What happens when calm becomes your default state — personally and professionally

Key Takeaway:
You can’t out-hustle stress. But you can master it — and when you do, you unlock clarity, trust, and powerful leadership presence.

🎯 Work with Ron & Kara
💬 Book a Free Discovery Call: zcal.co/karaschug/discoverycall

🌐 Learn More: ronstotts.com

#Leadership #Breathwork #MindfulLeadership #EmotionalIntelligence #StressManagement #RonStotts #KaraSchug #CalmIsPower #ConsciousLeadership

Many high achievers reach incredible success—yet still feel something’s missing. In this powerful conversation, we explore why traditional definitions of success often leave us unfulfilled, and how true growth begins when we turn inward.

Join Kara Schug and Dr. Ron Stotts of Next Level Coaching as they reveal how to move beyond external achievements and uncover the inner patterns that hold you back from deeper fulfillment and purpose.

✨ Go deeper after today’s session:
💬 Book a Free Discovery Call: zcal.co/karaschug/discoverycall

🌐 Learn More: ronstotts.com

📩 Email: kara@karaschug.com
| ron@ronstotts.com

#NextLevelCoaching #ConsciousLeadership #PersonalGrowth #SuccessWithoutStruggle #InnerGame #LeadershipDevelopment #Mindset #Fulfillment #HighPerformance #SelfAwareness