Get Warrior Tough, and Think Like CRAP with Dr. Andrew Wittman

Mike: [00:00:00] Today’s guest is a former marine police officer and federal agent turned resilient coach to executives and elite teams.

He’s protected high level officials, trained law enforcement across continents, and now equips leaders to build unshakeable emotional strength through his inner armor system with a PhD in. Theological psychology and battlefield tested wisdom. he teaches how to train resilience like a muscle through physical habits, not theories.

His book is called Inner Armor Perpetual Resilience. Please welcome world class expert in personal resilience and high stakes performance, Dr. Andrew Whitman. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Mike Thanks for having me. You’re man, it says I’m so pumped up to be here in your space. It says, thank you for having me, man.

Mike: Oh, this is great. I mean, you’ve got more kind of things you’ve done and schooling [00:01:00] you’ve done. I can’t wait to dive in. 

But first question as always is from all of that great experience you’ve got, what do you believe is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?

Dr. Andrew Wittman: I think the team has to have a critical thinking matrix if we get everybody thinking. When I say thinking the same way, I don’t not think the same thoughts, but the process of how we think. If everybody on the team and we’ve taught this, you know, across the country, across decades, if I can get the entire team, it’s called uni cohesion in the military, thinking in the same process of critical thinking.

We all think our thoughts on the same pro, like we do it when we’re driving a car, Mike. Everybody that’s a driver opens the door and sits in the seat and gets behind the wheel and turns the, you know, and the gas is on the same side. The brakes are on the same side. We do this when we’re driving and it, right?

So we should do this. So build our leadership team so we all have this same thought process so we can drive the team, drive the car, and when this happens, amazing things. I mean, the results are insane. People just, they’re [00:02:00] just like, I didn’t think we could do that. But when you get all these humans thinking.

The same way, not the same thoughts, but the same process of critical thinking. Crazy results happen.

Mike: So, unpack that for us a little bit. You started off, you called it, I think you called it the critical thinking matrix. So when you talk about not thinking the same thoughts, but thinking the same way and using this matrix help us understand that a little bit more.

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Right. So when I first came at, stumbled, kind of across this, I started thinking of my thinking like a physical skill, right? So if we, if you approach thinking the same way in corporate, I call it the golf swing of thinking because when you’re swinging a golf club, that swing has a process. There’s grip and there’s stance, and then there’s position of your hips, and then how you know, swing the club.

There’s a process. So if you think about your thoughts that same way. Same way someone drives a car, swings the golf club. We all have that same process. So the critical thinking, I call it a matrix. ’cause that’s my, you know, what’s the filter that I run these thoughts through? How do I run it through this filter?

The Socratic method, right? Socrates. So crates for you, bill and Ted, [00:03:00] you know, adventure guys. So crates, but Socrates had this, you know, Socratic method is in academia, it’s nine steps. And I was like. I will get killed in a firefight if I have to go through nine steps of critical thinking in order to be a critical thinker.

So I went through it and I found the first, really the four, the top four ROI right steps that I would get. And it’s really a two, two step process. 

I call it thinking like crap. Clarity, relevance, accuracy, and precision. If I can get my all the entire team to adopt that matrix of thinking like crap, clarity, relevance, accuracy, precision, the results are insane.

to the good side of things. The thing about clarity is what’s my target? And this is the first thing a critical thinker has to decide is not what I don’t want, but what I do want. What is it that I’m trying to accomplish? And every email, every con phone conversation, every meeting, every time I have a conversation, a word that comes outta my mouth, an interaction with somebody, I need to think what’s my target?

What am I trying to accomplish? Now everybody on the team may have different. You know, specific [00:04:00] targets on an agenda. Let’s just say for a meeting, for example, you know, you know, I’ll just use the military, right? But there’s a guy who’s in charge of communications, there’s a combat medic, there’s somebody in charge of weapons, and then there’s somebody in charge of languages or whatever.

They all have different, right? Maybe targets, but we’re all, we all have a target when we get to the meeting. So we don’t end up what I call in a sand trap, which is the things that are not relevant.

Mike: Well,

Dr. Andrew Wittman: just do those two things that gets insane. But then, accuracy and precision are the other two. And this is from my law enforcement days where accuracy is the difference between truth and fact.

Where, in a courtroom,evidence that is entered are fact witnesses swear to tell the truth. And we know, you know, like two eyewitnesses. It was a red sweater, it was a brown sweater, and in fact it was a green sweater. Nobody’s lying, but they’re telling their perception, right? So a critical thinker, we want to take truths in everybody’s perceptions and move them to the fact column where it’s a neutral.

non, you know, non-partisan, not opinionated. It’s just a, an objective fact. And then where we do that, the whole team can [00:05:00] actually make decisions like, for example, weather, right? So if it’s 70 degrees outside Fahrenheit, that’s a fact. Whether I’m hot or I’m cold is my truth. Right. And then precision is I want to, I wanna be precise with, I don’t wanna have vague language.

I wanna take my facts and get ’em down precise. Because when we’re say, let’s do lunch sometime, it’s never happening, man, when’s this due? I need it due by Friday. No, I need it due by Friday, 12 noon eastern time. Right? So when we, everybody on the team does that, there’s no, people are like, we have a communication problem.

No, you don’t. You have a thinking problem, right? So that’s what I mean when I talk about this critical thinking matrix. If we all run it through that filter, everybody. is moving towards the target. We get anything that’s not relevant off the board, and we’re moving our opinions into the fact column and then we get very specific and we’re rocketing.

Mike: I love that. So we gotta think like crap. I love that. and I, from the beginning, I loved it because what the first thing you said around, around clarity, I guess it was, is it’s not about what you don’t want, it’s about what you want. And I hear that from leaders all the [00:06:00] time, just complain and this is wrong and that’s wrong and this, and it’s like you ask him a simple question, I get it.

You know that. Yeah. That all sucks. I’m with you. What do you want? And then all of a sudden there’s silence. like you’ve asked them for Pythagorean’s theorem and

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Right, right, right.

Mike: you know, so, I love that start you talk about in, in your practice you talk about getting warrior tough.

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah.

Mike: What does that mean?

Dr. Andrew Wittman: So like when I, you know, I was the fat kid in high school and I got bullied. So when I went in the Marine Corps to try and, you know, get control of my machine, my body and my mind and emotions, well, I lost 50 pounds at bootcamp. Well, you find out when you get there, warrior tough is you know, it, I’m hot and tired.

They’re like, Hey, rub some dirt on it, drink some water. Let’s go get on it. Right? So there’s a lot of things a warrior tough for me is just to look at a lot of things that we think that are obstacles and really they’re just minor inconveniences. Right people, they get all we, we get this, you know, well, we think it’s an emergency and it’s just a minor inconvenience.

There’s traffic, right? Well, you know how long there’s been traffic since they’ve [00:07:00] had roads. When the Romans built roads, there was traffic. It’s not going away. So it’s just, it’s part of, do you want to go where you’re going? Then let’s put that on the best. So warrior tough is I’m just gonna, you know, rub some dirt on it, you know, take a drink of water and keep, get, keep going.

Mike: And how do you build that? Right? Because we both know people and I’m sure like, like any human being, we’ve both probably fallen into the trap of creating drama.

You know, that where there doesn’t need to be drama, just kind of get over it. But how do you build that kind of mindset?

Dr. Andrew Wittman: So with what I teach, it all starts with your internal identity. Who are you and who do you want to be? Like? We engineer this identity statement. It’s just a one sentence statement, but it’s our operating system. And what it does is it pre decides everything in my life. So my identity statement is I’m a man of excellence who always keeps his word.

So now whether I’m being a father, whether I’m the CEO of my company, whether I’m leading a team, whether I’m a little league coach, whether I’m a volunteer at the PTA or church, I’m a man of excellence. So always keeps, so I’m never gonna half step because that’s not who [00:08:00] Andrew is. Andrew can’t do things, can’t phone it in, can’t not do his show prep, can’t not, you know, do, his reading.

He can’t. Because I’m a man of excellence and then I aspire to always keep my word. So I don’t give it out that often. It gives me permission to say, no, I’m not going to do that, because if I give you my word now I’m obligated to do it. So it kind of, and, but the first person I have to keep my word to is me.

so if I say, you know, I’m, my body fat percentage is gonna be under 10%, then chocolate cake and, you know, is off the board, right? So every, this is how you get that warrior tough is you have to decide who you’re going to be. and who you wanna be. And then you just ask this question to yourself.

Anytime you’re about to act out outside of your identity, you say, is this who I am? Is this who I wanna be? Is it am? Am I being who I say I am? And of course, if I’m not, then I have to change my behavior. Does that make sense?

it does, how do you suggest someone create that identity? You created yours. someone could steal yours, No, they can if they want. I mean, yeah, I mean I go, I talk about it for [00:09:00] three chapters in the book I go through walking through the process of this whole thing. Right. So this is just a quick down and dirty right Mike. I would say for you, like right now, if you’re just sitting at home, pull out a notepad and just write down like 10 things that come to mind of characteristics that you admire.

think of the coach that you most admired or your hero. it could be Superman or Batman. What was it? Was it, you know, integrity? Was it loyalty? Was it, you know, excellence? Was it diligence? Was it faithfulness? What, you know, just write ’em down. Courage, you know, honor, right? And then circle the top three that kind of capture your attention.

And now okay, so I’m drawn to these three characteristics, these internals, that, now maybe I, now I put ’em in this statement. That’s an I am. Comma who is right. I am a man of excellence. Who is or who always keeps his word. Right? So an I am who statement. and then we put it in one sentence. ’cause I mean, some people, when I ask them who they are, I’m get this long dissertation of, and you can’t remember that.

Now I wanna know what, and then I say this statement, Mike, over and over again. [00:10:00] Hundreds of times a day. I’m a man of excellence who always keeps his word. And I joke about this, but I’m serious, that like you hit your hand with a hammer instead of Joe Peshy home alone cussing, assassins it, right?

You’re gonna say, I’m a man of excellence. Who always keeps his word, like it’s gotta be in there so much that comes out when you stub your toe or you hit your hand with a hammer.

Mike: love that. Love that you say and this may be. 

Part of what you just covered, but at the very beginning of your book, inner Armor, you say the first tool of resilience is a question.

is that what we’re talking about here? Or is it, is that a different,

Dr. Andrew Wittman: That it’s different. I mean, that, that question is right. So, and I say the first tool of resilience is the question is because the, my original two minute rule is because I know the brain is the original search engine, it has to answer a question, right? So you, and let’s do an experiment to see if I’m right.

Don’t think of this answer, Mike. What’s two plus two? What city are you in? When’s your birthdate right now? The brain has to go find this. So we’re asking dumb questions all the time, like, how could this day get worse? So now my [00:11:00] brain goes and finds all the ways that the day could get worse, right? So the question I want to ask myself is.

Well, like you said earlier, when you’re hearing all this stuff about I can’t do it, and that’s not so that voice of resistance, it’s impossible. We can’t do this. We can’t do that just for, just for two minutes. Say, yes, I get it. It’s impossible. But if it were possible, here’s the question. If it were possible, how would I do it?

And resilience starts there. When you hear the voice of resistance, you say, hang on. I’m not arguing that we can’t do it. I’m just saying if we could just fantasy play along for two minutes. How would we do it? And you throw that on the table at one of these, you know, I walk into, get a consulting gig where I’m, you know, in a boardroom with the C-suite and they’re stuck.

We can’t, and it’s a room full of Ameri-can’ts I call ’em? We can’t do this, we can’t do that. And then I say, okay, I know we can’t, but if we could, just for fantasy, how would we do it? And like literally within three minutes you have five different solutions that maybe it’s not. The solution, but I can be a chef and mix and match the five, take ingredients [00:12:00] from the five and come up with an actual, you know, executable solution.

Mike: Andrew, it’s obvious when you talk about this that you know, you’ve got this level of energy. It’s just who you are. The energy comes out when you are working with clients and you are helping them to, you know. Build that, that, you know, what is their identity and helping them to make sure they’re asking that, you know, question if it were possible.

what do you find your clients struggle most with? what’s the hardest thing typically for folks to overcome in creating this kind of warrior mindset? So

Dr. Andrew Wittman: So, here’s the biggest thing, and especially when we get into, later on in our career when we become senior leaders from the director level on up when their forties and our fifties. When you’re faced with this stuff, and I go into the neuroscience and the bio-psychology, how the machine works.

It, the pushback is this, I’m, I have a level, you know, we think we’re walking into this, you know, the C-Suite. I have a level of success. I didn’t get here without. [00:13:00] Now what I have to do, you’re telling me that how I got here, a lot of it is not right. The things that I’ve been doing, I’ve been my body, mind and emotions have been operating against each other.

and so now I have to either fight you because of cognitive dissonance because I got here. So I’m gotta double and triple down on where, who I am and who I came from. So there’s the pushback, or I have to be like, Hey man, take an honest assessment. This could rocket me to a whole nother level, you know?

And so that’s where the pushback is. They have to decide. ‘Cause I’m messing with core beliefs here, Mike. I like, I know I’m under the hood. I’m tinkering with core beliefs. The older we get and the more successful quote we think we are. That’s why I break success down in eight cylinders. You might be successful in the office, but you’re, the rest of your life could be a dumpster fire.

You know what I mean? So when we tinker with these core beliefs that pushback as you get older or you do have success in one area, you have to come to terms with. My life has been built on falsehoods. That’s pretty heavy. You know what I mean? But that’s what, that’s it. that’s the big, [00:14:00] that’s the big hurdle. If we can get over that, they’ll just rock. I mean, I had one client, he was 58 when I met him, right. And he was a small town, like he was a small time real estate developer. He was flipping houses.

So I get to him and I said, what’s your target? You know, we walked through this stuff. What’s your ultimate goal? He goes, I just wanna, you know, maybe flip 10 houses, you know, a year and make 150. I’m like, well, you don’t need a coach for that. You could do 150,000.

You know, so we went to work, man, and he, Kool-Aid drank all this stuff. And so now it’s seven years later and he has one of the biggest real estate land development operations on the east coast. It’s a billion dollar company. And so he rocketed. So here is a guy is, 

I call him a unicorn ’cause he’s 58 and he had the humility to just say, yeah, I, you know, and then just dive into this stuff. And it’s just taken him beyond where even his wildest dreams could be. And I’m even like, I sit back and I’m like, that is so awesome, dude. You know?

Mike: that’s near and dear to, ’cause I turned 60 this year and I remember when I used to think 60 was old. And now I

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah. It ain’t old. No man.

Mike: I don’t know, but [00:15:00] I, but there are folks who are 58 or 60 or 62 who have this mindset that their best years are behind them.

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah. Dangerous

Mike: and like I remember seeing, there was a band, there’s a band in the eighties called Squeeze who I used to really like, and they played these big arenas, new wave kind of stuff and my wife and I saw them about seven or eight years ago, and they’re all older guys now, and they were on stage playing the same stuff they played 40 years ago.

And they look miserable. And I look at my life and I’m like, I’m 60 and I haven’t peaked yet. Like, there’s so much more I wanna do. and it seems to me like that. And I think that also goes back to that clarity of what do you want? It’s not what, oh, I don’t want, you know, getting old sucks and I don’t want this and I want, no, it’s still a whole lot of stuff I wanna do and be, and learn. and I think that mindset kind of gives you the energy to keep things going. but how do you, [00:16:00] how does someone stay? Motivated to be consistent. So it’s not a flavor of the month. We’ve both seen, I know I’ve seen a ton of people. I’m picturing some friends of mine, you know, in my mind who, you know, went through some program and they’re pumped up and everything’s great, and I’m like, wow, they’re really changing their life.

And then I talked to ’em two months later and they’re kind of back where they were and you know, it’s a how do you keep this mindset up

Dr. Andrew Wittman: yeah, so I’m the anti motivational guy. I think motivation wears off, just like you said, fast, right? You get all pumped up and then it wears off. So I don’t care about that. In fact, I don’t want to even talk about Motivat. I want the people like, you’re a motivational speaker. I’m like, I’m the anti motivational guy.

What I do is rewire, what we’re gonna do is rewire the, so how we know how the machine works, right? The, when I say the machine, I’m talking about your body, mind and emotions, bio-psychology. How do they work together? Do they work against each other? What we know from neuroscience now, and this is really like in the last 15 years, we started really getting a hold of this stuff, and I love the technology now and every day the studies that come out, [00:17:00] but Hebbian learning is the neurons that fire together wire together.

Okay. And we know we’re creatures of habit. The habit is just that neurological highway that we have, and we’re running this neurological loop. We all do it. That’s how the machine is built. That’s how we survive. That’s how we, it can even process any kind of information or, you know, just go through our day, what I’m gonna, we’re already doing everything that you need to do to be resilient and have the great success.

All you have to do is point. That neurological loop in a different, create a different neurological loop. Put ’em one in a direction that helps you instead of hurts you. So the, you go to the program, they don’t rewire you, they get you, it’s an emotional hype. That’s what motivation is. You know, it’s a motivational, it’s a driver, but emote, it’s to mote is like the Latin for movement.

So I’m trying to move you off the mark, but. Motivation wears out, but rewiring your habits, don’t. So I’m like, if you brush your teeth every day, right? So let’s say you brush your teeth twice a day, that’s two minutes in the morning, two minutes a night. If you just did just, you know, just that, what are you doing during those two minutes?

So during those two minutes, I’m going over my identity statement. I’m going over [00:18:00] like the impossible thing that I’m looking at. How would I do it? And every time that we do that, we know that this is, the brain is like a muscle. And every time that you do that, even the smallest little victory.

It’s like doing 10 pushups. You’re, it’s a victory for you and you just got, you strengthened that neurological highway. So every time that you, say you go to the gym and you work out even when you don’t want to, every time that you do that, you get better at it. Every time that you know, pick carrots over Twinkies, you get better every time.

And it’s small things. These tiny little decisions. A lot of times we go to these programs and we’re trying to make these big giant changes. You know, I used to do, personal training and I had this client, she was way overweight and she wanted to. Quit drinking, quit smoking and lose a hundred pounds all at one time.

I’m like, well, we’re not doing that. First off, don’t worry about the alcohol. Don’t worry about the smoking. We’ll get to it later. First of off, all we’re gonna do right now is you’re just gonna go for a short walk. We’re not even gonna start working out. ’cause I mean, I gotta get her body used to just doing exercise.

Any kind. So go for a walk for 20 minutes and then we’re just gonna, you know. Start change, maybe it gets a [00:19:00] small changes in your diet. And so this is, and again, 10, 15 years later, the weight’s off. She did stop smoking, she did stop drinking. And she’s, but so if you try to do it all at once, I’m like, you’ll never do any of it.

’cause after that three weeks, you’re will, you’re exhausted, right? So it’s all about rewiring these little tiny habits. And I’m not trying to stop a bad habit. This, somebody asked me, how do you stop bad habits? I don’t. What I do is I rewire new habits. So I’m doing re neurological, so. Instead of stop thinking about chocolate cake, which every time I say chocolate cake, I’m thinking about it, right?

Or I’m, I, you know, what I can’t have or what I can’t do, I gotta change my, I’m gonna think about, hey, I want, you know, my goal again, clarity is 10% body fat. So what could I, what do I need to do to get there? Alright, so now I’m thinking different things and I have a different neurological loop than it’s trying to stop something.

I’ve replaced it with going towards my target. Does that make sense?

Mike: Yeah. and it goes back to when you talked about thinking like crap. It goes back to focusing on what you want,

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Right. It’s all inter inner, woven, you know what I mean? it’s, it is kind of like a, you know, it’s like a cloth.[00:20:00] 

Mike: I love that. 

How a as you know, I think it’s very easy as a leader, and I don’t wanna come back to, you know, the audience of this show is a whole lot of folks that are leading companies or their,or part of the leadership team of companies.

And I think a lot of folks. Here’s something like this, and they think, yeah, my people really need this. 

Right. yeah, I, oh yeah, you know, my, my wife needs, my husband needs this. So, but I do wanna kind of go down, I wanna go down both of these road roads. It’s one is, and before we wrap up, I wanna find out how you help people, how you help your clients.

but for the person who says, yeah, you know, I’m probably. Not as focused, probably too much drama. I focus on, you know, I’m focused on, you know, things that are outside of my control. I wanna make some changes. You know, I wanna ask you, and I’ll give you a sneak peek of the next question I’m gonna ask is what should a person, what’s the first step or two that [00:21:00] a person should take?

And maybe it’s something you’ve already talked about, maybe it’s some new idea. Yeah. But that, and then I do wanna go to after that if you are a leader of a team. Or you’re part of a leadership team, what could you do to start trying to instill this not just in yourself, but in your team as well?

But I wanna start with taking ownership for ourselves. 

What’s something pragmatic someone to could do to get started in creating this warrior like mindset?

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Well go get my book. That’s the first thing.

Mike: There you go. I like

Dr. Andrew Wittman: I’m, and it’s not a hard read. 

I mean, I wrote this thing, so Inner Armor was designed for the Marine Corps. They came to me and said, can you do something for the, you know, spiritual fitness of the war fighter as in PTSD and suicide rates were off the charts and therapy drugs and, you know, it wasn’t working.

Can you do something else? So I designed this thing for, you know. Marines that don’t have time to go to a suicide awareness class or sit in a training or like, how do I adopt this? So we did a workout of the day, the things that I’m talking about. They, we ran it just like it’s physical training, like doing your pushups or running your mi.[00:22:00] 

We just put it inside their training schedule and it’s just part of what they do day in and day out. And so. The book is written like that. It’s a tactical manual. I mean, there’s 23 chapters. If you just ran one chapter, it gives you a field drill, tells you what to do. Here’s the executive summary. It’ll take you like five minutes to read the chapter and you spend the next week trying to do what it said.

You should be practicing what it said, and it’s not spend the whole week doing it. Why I’m brushing my teeth. What am I thinking about while I’m in the shower? What am I doing while I’m driving the car? What am I right? So that’s you. You just have to start taking that step. if you’re serious about this, the stuff that I’ve, that you’ve heard me say, then get the book like it.

and this cracks me up ’cause it’s like I’m, I can’t make it any cheaper. I’m literally making a dollar a book. It’s 15 bucks on Amazon. Or you could get it for like free on Kindle if you’re like one of the Kindle people. Right. You know what I mean? I can’t make it any easier for you. I don’t know what you know, and if you won’t spend a buck or even 15 to get control of your life, then you’re probably not somebody I want to, even in my airspace, you know what I mean?

I’m like, I can’t waste my time on you. ’cause there’s other people. [00:23:00] That want to take this step and they want to get better, but if you can’t even do the simple thing of get the book and start looking at this, you know, or watch my podcast, you know, my radio show or get, you know, any of those things, then I don’t, I can’t help you, but if you wanna know what I’m doing and how this works, it’s like a $15 investment into yourself.

Like Andrew. Yeah.

Mike: remember that. Remember everybody, this guy was a marine, a police officer, a federal agent, get his book or he might kick your ass. I hear it in his voice. go now. but I’m gonna, I’m gonna push you, Andrew, so, so let’s say. So somebody just ordered your book, but they don’t like to read it on the Kindle like I do.

They ordered your book. It’s gonna take a couple days for them to get the physical copy. 

What’s something, while they’re waiting to get that physical copy of your book, what’s something if they’re, you’ve motivated them, they wanna do something right now to go start to change their life in this way, what’s one thing they can do?

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Well, you could go to my website and start. Look at, there’s tons, there’s hundreds of hours of just me talking about this stuff. I have a radio show. my partner’s, Dutch Coleman, the YouTube, [00:24:00] there’s 300 episodes. They’re on YouTube right now. I have, there’s, you know, it’s on Spotify. It’s, I mean, there’s no fence around me.

Like you could literally go to my website and start walking through this free con. it’s out there. it’s not even hard to get. that’s what you could do right now. Just pick any, just click on any of the YouTube videos. I mean, we just, put a clip out last night. We’re talking about if you’ve been potty trained, you already done this stuff, you’ve already dominated your body.

If you went through potty training, your body didn’t do something and now you made it do something. So you could do that same thing repeated until you get to the top of whatever success is however you define it. So there’s nothing here that you can’t do.

Mike: Does

Dr. Andrew Wittman: make, I mean, I don’t know. We can’t make it any simpler than it is.

It’s just a matter of do you do it or you don’t do it. It’s the Yoda thing. Right. Do or do not. There is no try.

Mike: does it? Yeah. I guess I’m still digging to, even if someone goes is there something we can tell right now? Go do the other than read your book. And in addition, I won’t say, other than in addition to that,is the first step to, to create that [00:25:00] identity that you talked about.

Like what’s a literal assuming people can go read your book, they go to your website, what’s a literal first step that, that they can take? in addition to reading this stuff, what could they go do is

Dr. Andrew Wittman: a, through that question, the two minute rule, I said as soon as you open the book, I’m already gave it to you. Right. I mean, I’ve given you guys so much in the last half hour. It’s life changing stuff that I’ve, I already know what we would known this. Like 25 minutes. I’ve literally given you life changing information in this last 25 minutes.

Play this episode like three times and take notes on it. I mean, I’ve dropped so much mad life changing things in here that all you have to do is just to, and they’re not hard. I, listen, I have a PhD, but I don’t talk to you like I have a PhD. I read the science, but I give it to you like it’s so practical that you know Forrest Gump.

Because I’m Forrest Gump. That’s really what I am. I’m just, give me a process and I’ll do it. And that’s what I’ve done is given everybody a process. and you literally can just do the process thinking like crap’s the first, I mean, what’s my target? Think about that. What is it that you really want out of life?

We’ve talked about that right at the beginning of the [00:26:00] show. What’s clarity? Not what you don’t want, but what do you want? People have the hardest time saying what it is that they do want ’cause they’ve never given themselves permission to even think about it.

Mike: Yeah. 

And I think that thinking like crap, I’m gonna pull back to now from an individual to the leadership team using those, you know, that acronym and tho those four things. and if you don’t remember what they are, go rewind. but using those four things as a guideline to kind of help keep.

A conversation, a debate, a meeting on track. To me, that one thing could add incredible value

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah, the, the profit, I mean, I’m seriously, it’s profitable, like on the bottom line, it’s profitable, on the top line. It saves you money and it increases your profit. So, but I will say all it really takes is one person. To adopt thinking like crap and everybody on the team, if they’re serious about it, the other team members will adopt it.

They have to because [00:27:00] I’m going to ask you, what’s your target? What is it we’re trying to accomplish here? Right? Even if I’m the lowest member of the team, I’m like, well, what’s our agenda? What are we trying to accomplish? And then, is that a sand trap? Is that relevant? Is this helping us or hurting us? Get to our target.

Like it’s just when you have one person, it forces everyone around you to answer those. ’cause if you’re saying, let’s just say, you know, you have a team drama, right? You disrespected me. Now, that’s a truth, not a fact. So I’m thinking like crap, I was a critical thinker. I need to take that truth and move it to the fact column.

Okay, so what was the facts of my behavior? So that we don’t do this again. I don’t do it again. What are the facts of my behavior that made you think that I disrespected you? Now you have to tell me, was it I rolled my eyes, I put my hands on my hips, or I didn’t say you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.

That’s not, disrespect that I didn’t say you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, but now we, well, at least I moved it to the fact column and I can say, okay, so now I know as a critical thinker, next time, Hey look guys, we probably shouldn’t roll our eyes at each other ’cause that makes people feel disrespected.

Are, you see? So one person can [00:28:00] change the entire dynamic of the team. like you can’t be in my space if you’re not gonna think like crap. Because I’m not gonna, because I’m not gonna allow it. Like I’m gonna, I’m gonna force you to, because as you say, Hey Andrew, I need this by next Thursday. I’m like, well, next Thursday is a big block of time.

You know when exactly on Thursday do you need it close? The business is close. The business a factor of truth. Well, that’s a truth. ’cause hey man, business is, I mean, what time zone are we in? I don’t know. Do you close the same? Oh, I need it by lunch. I don’t even eat lunch. You’re not getting it. You see what I mean?

So. Oh, I need it by 12 noon central time. Okay, now we’re talking, but see, I’m gonna, I’m gonna kind of force that in every email interaction, right? I’m gonna get to the bottom of when exactly how we’re gonna do this. Does that make sense? So you really only need one person to adopt it.

Mike: Yeah, no, I love that. I love that. 

How, tell me a little bit about specifically how you work with your clients. is it one-on-one? Do you work with teams? Do you, is it always coaching? Is it sometimes you’re speaking to a large audience. Give me an [00:29:00] idea of how you take all this great stuff and get it out to the world.

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah, it’s kind of all the above, right? So it’s all client specific. I’m gonna cut. So some, a lot of times I’ll come in and do a keynote, and so I’ll do, you know, it’ll be 4,000 people at a conference. Well, then of course, these people hear me and they, oh, we gotta get that guy in. So I’ll do either like a half day training, a full day or a two day training, followed.

There’s like a six or 12 week coaching program. Sometimes I just do individual coaching with the CEO or the COO or an executive. And then there are times Mike. And this is, I mean, that they’re in a panic that I, they don’t have time for training. They don’t have time for coaching. There was one, it was a defense subcontractor.

They were getting fined a million dollars a day. Because they were not fulfilling the government contract. They don’t have time for training. I, you know, two days is our $2 million. They’re gonna be outta business in three weeks. They literally, everything would be drained. All the investors would’ve lost their money.

Andrew, can you come in? Yes. First thing I have to do is come in and look at it, apply thinking like crap, and I execute. I’m gonna execute the solution. I don’t have time to train it to [00:30:00] you, but you can learn it while I’m doing it. We stopped the bleeding and, you know, we had, with three weeks, I saved him the $21 million immediately stopped.

The, stopped the bleeding the first day. And then over the course of the next eight months, the processes I put in place, they billed $17 million. That’s a $34 million swing, but I couldn’t have trained that. in the time, by the time I trained her, they adopt it. We would, the ship would’ve sailed or sank, you know, are you following that?

So there are times when I’ll call it the, you know, the executive sprint or whatever. Well, I’ll come in and just do crisis. I’ll take the crisis and we’ll just look at it. We’ll diagnose it. Here’s what we need to do. and I’m very fast at it, right? So if you’re not, you know, if you’re not teaching somebody when you’re just doing what you do, it’s very quick, right?

But I would rather teach it to you because I would rather teach you to fish so I don’t have to. You know, come back again and fix it later. And that company did well for, I don’t know, like 10 years. And then they’re not in business now because they reverted, they didn’t do training, they just got over the hump.

And I put the bandaid on the bullet hole and we’re good until, you know, we revert. ’cause you’re always gonna [00:31:00] revert back. this is a huge thing. You never rise to the occasion. The human machine will always revert back to whatever their default training is always. So that’s how I, that’s how I work with my clients.

It depends on what they need at what time and how much time we have, how much what your budget is, right. Am I, you know, how, and when I say budget, a budget is time too. How many, you know, do you wanna bring people off the line? How? Because the Marine Corps did not have time. They didn’t, money was not the problem with the Marine Corps.

It’s like, how do I fit this into traning schedule and get this, scale it out to all these Marines, right? we’ll craft the, you know, we’ll sit down and we’ll find what the target is. We’ll do thinking like crap for whatever the client, if they ask me, that’s what we’re, that’s the exact thing we’re gonna go through.

You know

Mike: Love that. And is it just you or do you have a team of folks that,

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah, no, I got a group of folks, my, my kids are really now, they’re, they’re grown and now, you know, they bought a pharmaceutical company when was 22, the other was 20. They weren’t even outta college. They bought a pharmaceutical manufacturing firm. They turned that thing around. It was, 8 million in debt.

They made it profitable and they sold it in three and a half years and made a lot of money. So, and one’s a, They [00:32:00] both went to the Citadel. One’s a construction engineer, the other’s a mechanical engineer. My daughter’s coming up, she’s biomedical engineer. But see, these kids, I will put ’em up against any CEO, any 50-year-old, 60-year-old because they’ve been doing this thinking like crap since they came outta the womb.

They really don’t know how to think any other way. And they’ll look at, I mean, they can’t, there’s not a problem they can’t solve like the pharmaceutical thing. They, I was there as kind of a backstop, but I just watched them go to work. And solve problems. And, you know, so, well, it doesn’t matter what the industry is, there’s construction, whether it’s pharmaceuticals, whether it’s, you know, it could be, engineering.

It might be, it could be a dental practice. I have a, one is a management company and defense contractor because the problems don’t matter because there’s humans involved. And I know how the machine works and I taught these guys how to, you know. How the machine works and how we could solve these problems.

Does that make sense? I mean, so it’s, we, I keep them running, but they’re, I’m kind of the front person where I do all the talking, but they do all the hard work now.

Mike: yeah. 

One, [00:33:00] one more question for you before we wrap up. And I always like to. you use my podcast as kind of free coaching when I can. So I’m gonna use if, use you for that. Now, if you’ve got someone, and I’m thinking of a very particular client here, but they will re remain nameless.

if you are, let’s say you’re the CEO and you’ve got someone on your leadership team that is, you know, is. Just attracting drama like everybody else is trying to move forward in the best way they can. But you’ve got somebody on the team that is the naysayer and taking all the, you know, the, letting the little things stop them.

Here’s why we can’t do it. as the leader, as the CEO, what’s the best thing a CEO can do to try to help that person? Modify the way they’re thinking. Like at a certain point they’re hurting the team. They may have to make a harder decision, but before they make that tough [00:34:00] decision,

Dr. Andrew Wittman: well, this is how I’m gonna get there. Right. This is how I get there. I would bring them in, and I’ve done this, you know, a lot of times I’m gonna bring you in. I’m gonna ask you this question. Do you love what you do on a scale of one to seven? Seven being, I absolutely love it.

One is, I hate it. Go.

Mike: You want me to give you a real answer for me or role play

Dr. Andrew Wittman: yeah. Role play. Yeah, role play. If you’re that

Mike: So that person’s gonna say, ah, I’m, you know, I think I’m probably a, a four or a five because, you know, there’s just a lot of stress

Dr. Andrew Wittman: And all this stuff. Right. So now then I’m gonna ask you, could you get to a six or a seven? I know you’re four and five. I thank you for your honesty, but could you get to, do you think you can get to six or seven?

Mike: you know, I could try, but in this environment with, tariffs and this and that, it’s gonna be tough. But, you know, could I get there? ideally Sure.

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Okay. How would you do it? How would you get there? Right? So you see what I’m saying? and if you can’t, then Hey, look, I love you. I appreciate you. This is not the place for you anymore. I’ve just helped you self manage yourself [00:35:00] out of the thing I, and I am helping you because if you can’t get to six or seven, what kind of person am I as a leader?

That I wanna keep somebody around that they’re at a four and five for their life. They’re miserable. Like I wouldn’t do, wouldn’t wish that on my enemy, man. I want you to have a good life. If you can’t get to six or, and if they say I could, then I’m gonna ask them, how could you do? See, it’s not up to me.

Right. to come up with a plan as the CEO to get you. You know, to become a high performer or not, it, all I need to do is, are you, can you get there? How would you do it? If you’re not, then you know, you need to find somewhere else to go where you can be a six or seven. That’s how I’d frame it.

Then you need to find something that you can be a six or seven, and it might be in this industry, but just not what this company and that’s cool. We just need to part where, and it’s never, we’re never escalating. It’s always, you know, it’s always in their best interest. ’cause honestly, if you can’t get to a six or seven, why would you want to keep them there?

Mike: Yeah. And I love what you did, you modeled very well the idea of. You know, coaching what I call coaching, which is really about asking questions and modeling a way of thinking that person could use versus trying to give them advice, [00:36:00] which they’re not gonna take anyway. And they may nod, but then go back and say, that guy’s crazy.

So I love that. 

So, so Andrew, if someone, wanted to find out more about you, maybe talk to you about working together. What, where do they go? what, where’s the right place for them to go? Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Yeah, if you go to, my website is getwarriortough.com/podcast. And if you do wanna get a hold of me, there’smy calendar link is up there. just mention thatyou heard me on Mike’s ’cause if it’s, if they don’t give me the magic code, Mike Goldman said the set, then I’m probably not gonna put you on my calendar.

But for your audience, I was, they use the magic words. Mike Goldman, I’ll like, oh yeah, me and Mike. Yeah. Right. So, and then I’ll talk to you for however long we need to, and we could just walk through this stuff, the that, and look, I’m not,I’m at a point in my life now. I don’t need your money.

Right? It, but it has to cost you something or else you don’t value it. And that’s really what it is. Because if you don’t, if you’re not gonna invest in yourself, then I’m not going to do it. if you’re not willing to, if you’re not willing to spend a half an hour to talk to me, which will cost you nothing, [00:37:00] but a lot of people think they’re gonna high close me or whatever.

I don’t care about your money. I don’t. I’m only do this because it’s my purpose in life. We have more than enough money. We have multi-generational wealth. But if you don’t invest in yourself, then I already know why would I waste my time? I’m gonna go find people that actually wanna. You know, invest in themselves that they were gonna bet on themselves.

That’s also part of the warrior culture is would you bet your own money on you?

Mike: Love that and get what’s the website? One more time?

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Getwarriortough.com/podcast. Get warrior tough.com.

Mike: Beautiful and buy the book. He told you to buy the book. You gotta buy the book. It’s called, inner Armor Perpetual Resilience. I will always remember, think like crap. You can’t forget

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Can’t forget it, baby. Yeah.

Mike: that. That’s got that should be the name of a book is Think Like Crap. I like that.

That’s another, that, that’s your next book, even though it’s probably in this book.

Dr. Andrew Wittman: it is in this

Mike: Yeah, no, this is, awesome stuff. I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. Certainly, you know, Andrew, your stuff getting [00:38:00] Warrior Tough Inner Armor is gonna help us all get there.

So, thanks again.

Dr. Andrew Wittman: Thanks for having me, Mike. It was a blast, brother.