312. Start Ugly, Finish Strong: Embracing Calculated Risks with Angie Morgan Witkowski

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The Daily Helping Episode 312: Angie Morgan Witkowski

Angie Morgan Witkowski: If other people are doing it and they're showing you it can be done, why not you? It's not that they have privilege. It's not that they have access to more capital, maybe they do. But that's not the reason that's holding you back.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Hello and welcome to The Daily Helping with Dr. Richard Shuster, food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, tools to win at life. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. Whoever you are, wherever you're from, and whatever you do, this is the show that is going to help you become the best version of yourself. Each episode you will hear from some of the most amazing, talented, and successful people on the planet who followed their passions and strived to help others. Join our movement to get a million people each day to commit acts of kindness for others. Together, we're going to make the world a better place. Are you ready? Because it's time for your Daily Helping. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Daily Helping Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Richard. And I'm really excited to share our guests with you today. Her name is Angie Morgan Witkowski. She's a keynote speaker, bestselling author, business coach, multitime entrepreneur, a Marine, a mother, a wife, an athlete, a hopeless optimist, and a winner. There's so much I can tell you about her and we're going to get into her past. But she is a New York Times Bestselling Author for the business books SPARK, Bet On You, and Leading From The Front. She's a leadership and life coach and has shared a stage with some of the most influential leaders of our time. Angie, this is going to be a great conversation. Welcome to The Daily Helping. It is awesome to have you with us today.

Angie Morgan Witkowski: Dr. Richard, I love being here and I love what you're doing for your audience. I think this is fascinating. It's so important. And I know for me personally, too, I love programs like these. Just a little sprinkle every single day lifts my spirit. You just read my bio and I've, you know, dabbled in the leadership space, but, man, I need my Daily Helping, too.

Dr. Richard Shuster: I appreciate that. We all need our Daily Helping. So, I am grateful that you are with us today to share your wisdom with us. I omitted a lot from your bio because you've done some really cool stuff. So, let's hop in the Angie Morgan Witkowski time machine and tell us your superhero origin story. What put you on the path you're on today?

Angie Morgan Witkowski: I think the biggest thing that happened to me in my life was my parents gave me a library card. I grew up in a really small rural community in Northern Michigan. And with that library card, I devoured Sweet Valley High Books. I learned about places like Malibu, because obviously this was pre-internet. My parents also had bought one of those Encyclopedia Britannica sets. Imagine that knowledge wasn't going to change so much so that you would have volumes of encyclopedias that would just be static. But I devoured and developed, I devoured books and I developed this perspective of this great wide world that I just wanted to jump right into. The biggest step I decided to take was going to Ann Arbor. Go Blue. I know we've got some commonalities and differences in this world, but that was a really big step for me was to go to Ann Arbor to start to see diversity and see a bigger world. But that wasn't enough. I decided to join the Marine Corps, which flung me further out into the world. So, as I was getting my BA in English, I was also on the path to become a Marine Corps officer. And so, that's really my origin story. Just I love learning. I love adventure. And life is just too short that I want to do everything, and I try.

Dr. Richard Shuster: So, tell me about your time in the Marines, because I know this about you and I didn't talk about it, but it's pivotal to your career and what you did. So, tell us a little bit about some of the work you did there.

Angie Morgan Witkowski: Yeah. There's so much I did not know, not only about the world, but about myself and my limits and capabilities. And it gave me so many great opportunities to just experience different cultures and diversity going through the Marine Corps with just the diverse experiences, meeting different people. And I don't really think that I understood the impact of service until I actually left active duty and started working in the private sector. I landed a job, I call it the easiest job in the world. I was selling Viagra in Beverly Hills for Pfizer. And so, I had a lot of time on my hands because work was kind of easy just to think about what had happened to me and what did I learn, and now I was in a different corporate culture. So, I spent a lot of time reflecting and what I learned after I left active duty was I learned a lot about leadership. In the business world, we think about leaders as managers, managers as leaders, and it's not the same thing. Those two things are completely different. In the military, that leadership is a verb and management is a noun. And so, that was one of the things. I also learned a lot about being a minority in a male majority environment. Like, that was a profound experience for me. I do a lot of work in the oil and gas space, so I feel like my experiences as a woman leader really resonate with women trying to exceed in those career paths. So, those are probably some of the most important takeaways. I also learned, you know, when you go through training in the Marine Corps, you have this perception of what you're capable for. And I think we all have this sense of the Marine Corps, they break you down before they build you back up. But what do they have to break down? They have to break down the limits that you see for yourself. And that was a powerful takeaway.

Dr. Richard Shuster: That's interesting. And I've always heard that, they come in and they crush you, basically, physically and psychologically so that they can mold you in their image. But I've never thought about it in terms of limit setting, and I think that's applicable to anybody who has these kind of mighty goals. Our biggest obstacle is usually not the goal. It's usually that little voice inside our head, or people, or environment - even worse - telling us that the goal is too hard.

Angie Morgan Witkowski: And I think about just that voice. One of the things we learned about in training was that our mind is going to quit on us before our body does. So, we went through just excruciating physical exercises. And they're right, our bodies would still be going, but our mind is going to shut down on us first. And so, if we can control that narrative that is in our mind, or at least check in with it, and maybe write it or rewrite it to better serve us, then we're in, then we're starting to see a greater potential within ourselves. And that's another cool thing about Marine Corps training, too - gosh. I'm starting to talk just about the Marine Corps - none of the exercises or challenges and training can be completed by yourself. You must work with a team. And so, when you think about breaking you down and building you back up, you had to complete and achieve success with and through other people. And that was pivotal too. I think about that in my life right now, and perhaps your listeners, too, we can be alone and we can let ourselves be alone, but we're not really alone. And if we reach out and get the support of other people, suddenly, success doesn't have to be so fleeting. Our challenges don't seem so [inaudible].

Dr. Richard Shuster: You've already shared such awesome pearls of wisdom - and I know we talked about this offline - you've got a bakery called Morsels as just a side thing you do with your husband, these have been great morsels of knowledge, so I'm loving this conversation. I am curious, though, Angie, so you're out there in Beverly Hills selling Viagra, as you said, it kind of sells itself in that environment. How did you go from that to what you did next, to forming Lead Star, this multi-million-dollar coaching and consulting business?

Angie Morgan Witkowski: A woman I served with in the Marine Corps, Courtney Lynch, she was having similar realizations about her time in uniform and her time in the corporate world. She was living on the East Coast. And at the time, I was married to a Marine, and so was I living in L.A. Then, we moved to or got reassigned to North Carolina, and I transferred into another pharmaceutical sales position. So, Courtney and I were having these discussions. I moved, I started working for a different company. And she wasn't happy doing the work that she was doing. She's an attorney. I wasn't necessarily happy doing the work that I was doing in pharmaceuticals. I was making great money. I was having a lot of career success, but something was missing. And I think for me, what was missing is that I knew that I had more to give. And I think that she felt the same way. So, we decided just with all the swirl going on in our lives to write a book on leadership for business professionals inspired from my Marine Corps services, because we realized we had this wealth of knowledge from the Marine Corps that could be really beneficial to people trying to find success in whatever area of their life, maybe not career, maybe as a parent, maybe as a volunteer, maybe as an entrepreneur. So, our very first book was 2004. We wrote Leading From The Front. We started our business. We had a book. We had a speech. And that just grew into - gosh - so many different entrepreneurial endeavors, you know, coaching, consulting, keynoting, workshops. I think it's also given me a lot of confidence, too, to start other interesting side hustles along the way.

Dr. Richard Shuster: I think it's funny how when we go down the entrepreneurial path, even if we don't really mean to, it opens up so many of these doors that we talk about. I want to spend some time diving into one of your bestselling books, Bet On You. So, let's first kind of set the table here. What was your reason for wanting to write that book?

Angie Morgan Witkowski: I've been speaking and talking about leadership for quite some time to mostly primarily business audiences. And, also, in my coaching work, too, I get access to connecting with people. And what always astounded me is I would meet really smart, exceptionally well-educated people who are hesitant to bet on themselves, to take a risk. And the risks that they wanted to take, maybe they wanted to run a marathon, maybe they wanted to invest in a short term rental business, maybe they wanted to take a month off of vacation or go back to school and invest the money. But there was something in their lives that they were hesitant about taking a risk on themselves, and that was just fascinating to me. And listening to people talk about risk, what was very clear to me is that many people think about risk wrong. They think of it as risk versus reward, not risk is the path to reward. Like, anything you've done significant in your life, you've had to take a risk. So, risk isn't the opposite, but it's presented to us that way. And because we think about risk wrong, we're sometimes afraid of it, we don't want to do it. We say to ourselves, I'm risk averse. And the reality is you're not. You're not risk averse. If you've been married, if you have children, those are crazy risks. Marriage is a 50/50 gamble, friends. It's a crazy risk. And with kids, you never know what you're going to get and you're doing it without any experience, at least the first one around. So, we take risks all the time. So, trying to make this concept of risk-taking a lot more accessible. And we think sometimes that we can avoid risk. Risk is around us all the time. And if we're going to coexist with something, shouldn't we know a little bit more about it? So, that was, like, the spirit of why writing Bet On You to help get people comfortable with taking risks, and then also to introduce them to a process to take risks. Because we tend to think of risk as, you know, rip the band aid, quit your job, change your life. And that's irresponsible risk. Risk done right isn't 90-day fiancé. Risk done right is have a thought, put a plan, build the behaviors. And it's going to take time.

Dr. Richard Shuster: I am so glad, Angie, you're framing this in this way because people talk to me about this all the time, and it's a problem, the bro culture, the hustle culture, like, you can 10X and crush your goals. And listen, I believe that anybody can achieve whatever they want to if they're willing to work hard for it. But burn the ships crowd, what happens if it doesn't work? And it's easy if you don't have children. It's easy if you don't have a mortgage. There's all these things. So, the idea of risk being a systemized process - and you didn't say systemized, but I know it is - I think this is really exciting because there are people I know listening to this who would say, "Yeah. I'd love to do X, but I'm afraid of what might happen." So, let's take a deep dive. So, let's talk about the process of how you can strategically take risk.

Angie Morgan Witkowski: Exactly. We have a whole chapter on it, too, about how to carve the margin out into your life to test, to see if this dream or idea that you have is a viable option. So, carve a couple hours into your week and just start exploring. Talk to people who are doing the thing that you want to do. You go to people and say, "Hey. I see that you're running, you know, Dr. Richard a podcast, can you give me 15 minutes and tell me what successful would be like?" "Yeah." Now, if you go to somebody and say, "Could you mentor me?" They might say, "Oh. I don't have time for that." But 15 minutes, yeah, I can give you 15 minutes. And then, you start to just dabble. I started a podcast last year and I just started dabbling. And I'm still learning. And I think the burn the ship thing, I wouldn't say it's certainly not as successful as yours, Dr. Richard, but I'm learning. And I think we sometimes feel like success as we define it doesn't happen fast enough, that it's just a failure, I'm going to quit. But real lasting success just takes time. You got to experiment. I also think one of the things that holds people back is they're waiting for the stars, the moon, the sun, whatever to align. And it's like, today is the day, friends. Like, today is the day to get started on it. Don't put the pressure on yourself. It's not going to be perfect. Don't spend all your time trying to create a plan because you're wasting your time. Start doing little things. Carve a margin out in your life. And in that margin - this is a guidance from the book - don't have asset. If you want to be a real estate agent, don't cram for the real estate test. And if you fail, "So, I guess that wasn't meant to be." No. You half-assed it. You didn't really give it your best effort. So, use that space to just see if it's a viable option.

Dr. Richard Shuster: I love this. We had an episode with a guest named Chris Krimitsos, who was such a great guy, and he had a book called Start Ugly. And was saying exactly what you were saying, the universe is never going to align the heavens so that you know this is the moment. This is exactly the right time. If you have an idea, if there's something you want to do, start. Just do something, which is what you're saying, and I love it. So, carving out the margins. So, we're talking to people. We found people who have achieved success in whatever we want to do. We're able to nibble the ear for maybe 15 minutes at a time. Got some constructive feedback. We've been trying this out for a couple of hours a week maybe to see if there's some viability to this. All signs point to yes. Next step, what do we do?

Angie Morgan Witkowski: I always say take it to a choice point. That's a really critical thing. Take it to a point or some sort of line in the sand when you decide whether or not you want to go all in and what all in looks like. We also say, too, that you got to weave your safety net. You know, do you have the finances? Do you have the judgment? Do you have the experience? But remember, the most critical element in your safety net is you, your talent, your work ethic, your experience, everything that you're bringing into the challenge that you're seeing. So, you're going to catch you when you fall always. It's not the government. It's not somebody else. It's you. You are the most significant element of your safety net. And I think once you get to that point, like when you determine your choice point, like, "Yeah. I'm going to go all in," then you have something else to face. And that's facing your fears, and they're real. And whatever it is that you pay attention to is going to get your attention. So, we have this amazing ability in our mind to catastrophize failure. I have a friend who is an executive director who wanted to start being an independent consultant. She had an easier time seeing herself homeless on the streets of Chicago than doubling her salary in a five year time frame. And that's just where our mind takes us. So, if you focus on the negative, you're going to see the negative. But you have to appreciate perhaps the downside of your choice. But give the upside some airtime, too, and that's really important. So, when you think about going, "I'm taking the risk. Day one, this is my first step." Think positive thoughts. And when you get your fears, specifically your fear of failure, turn your attention back to all the glories and possibilities that can happen.

Dr. Richard Shuster: There's good science behind what you're talking about, Angie, in the realm of cognitive behavioral therapy. Oftentimes, what a clinician will do with the patient sitting across the room from them is have them list out what's the worst thing that could happen. And in the case of your friend, homeless on the streets of Chicago. What is the likelihood? What are the things that could lead to that? But then, what's the flip side of that? What are the opportunities? What is it that you bring to the table? What are your skills and experiences? And then, when you really start breaking it down and focusing more on the positive, most people will find that what they fear is perhaps a little bit irrational. It's not impossible, but it's a little bit irrational. And that they're actually better equipped than they might be telling themselves that they are. So, this is beyond sound advice, and not just for starting a business. This is sound advice for anything because we do have a tendency to catastrophize things. And so, by focusing on the positive, this is kind of arming yourself with another weapon in your bat utility belt, I guess, to really go create something positive in your life. So, I'm loving this. Okay. So, we tested the waters. We're focused on positive thoughts. We've been trying this out a little bit, having some success. Now what, Angie?

Angie Morgan Witkowski: Enjoy it. Now, enjoy the journey and enjoy the learning and recognize that you're just starting. I feel like sometimes we get so attached to the outcome, like a dollar amount or a big goal, that we forget right now is the only moment that we know. And we often hear, too, live in the moment. Yes. I always like the phrase living all the moments. So, I think about being present here in today, certainly. And then, thinking about my future and just making sure that I've got my eye on the horizon as well, just so I can also be thinking forward, too. Because, again, living in the moment is me eating an ice cream sundae for breakfast. But me living in all the moments is me eating a healthy breakfast and then maybe once in a while indulging in ice cream for breakfast. You know, it's funny, though, most people I talk with - Dr. Richard, I wonder for you too - have a hard time experiencing joy and the rewards of their hard work. And that's been something interesting. We write about this in Bet On You, is that when you think about success in life, are you having fun? Because a lot of people I know just aren't. It's all work and they don't know how to detach and really just enjoy their experience.

Dr. Richard Shuster: So, I'd love to hear what your research in the book have shown. In my experience, a lot of people who can't connect with joy, it's because what they're doing doesn't fill their soul with excitement. If you love what you're doing, you're going to be joyful. Like, this is joyful for me. I love that I get to spend time with an amazing person sitting across a Zoom screen somewhere in the world and sharing that. These are the best moments of my week when I get on a podcast interview with somebody. But that drives my mission in life and I have a very clear understanding and I've worked at it. So, I understand what that is. I think most people, they're chasing dollars. And I remember this kind of moment when I was in undergrad and I was in the admissions office and I was sitting, getting ready to talk to somebody, and I was changing my major actually to psychology. And there was this kid sitting there just miserable. And I said to him, "Hey, man. What's wrong?" And he said, "I'm becoming pre-med." And I said, "Why are you so upset?" And he said, "My dad said I have to be a doctor." I don't know what happened to this guy. I don't know if he graduated from undergrad, went to medical school. If he's a doctor today, I guarantee you he's miserable because he didn't want to be a doctor. I didn't ask him, you know, me at 18 was not "Well, tell me about your dreams." Like, I wasn't that person then, really. But I know that wasn't what in his heart he really wanted to be. So, there is a deep connection between what you do professionally and how profound your level of happiness is. So, you know, if you absolutely hate what you do, even if it pays you - you had a great example - I mean, you made a lot of money in pharmaceutical sales, but it didn't fulfill you. What you're doing now fulfills you. And I think that's the difference. So, I presume that when you put this book together that the data bore out similar things.

Angie Morgan Witkowski: Yeah. And it was a lot of definitely data in there about what are the origins of our risk relationship. And that's been kind of interesting to look into the research for that. But what you're talking about particularly, I call it the play it safe paradox. What gets us far in life is playing it safe. If you think about it, the moment we're born, we're told do this, don't do that, go to this school, get a plan B, all great guidance that keeps us safe. So, if you look both ways when crossing the street, great. That's a wonderful play at safe message. But there comes a time in your life, and maybe this was when you were in undergrad, when you're in the passenger seat of the car that you want to move to the driver's seat and you want to take control, you want to demonstrate agency in your life where you have to start taking risks. And a couple of things happen. First off, you may not have the support of key people in your life, and that is a huge risk, hesitate are for some people. Second is, you don't know how to trust yourself. Because you've been guided and told what to do, so that's the play it safe paradox. You know, what's got you here is playing it safe. What's going to get you further is taking some risks, whether it's risking a relationship with your parents because you're not doing what they want you to do, or it's putting some money on the line, going back to invest in something that you really do want to do. And that's a scary position for people. And I think as a society, we're ill equipped often to have those self-trust moments. But building that relationship with risk is going to allow you to find that fulfillment. And I agree, when people feel misaligned from their purpose and passion, they're just going to go through the motions. And that's no way to live your life.

Dr. Richard Shuster: It's one of those things where you blink and you're 60 and you realize, you ask yourself how did you get here. I'm now going into that song, How did we get here? But it's true, life is too short to be spending it in activities that don't bring you fulfillment. And I think there's other ways, too, to get that fulfillment, and I'd like to get your take on this. You know, you might be really good at your job and you might like your job, but maybe there's something else you could do outside of your job that involves risk but brings you that element of joy. So, take us through that a little bit.

Angie Morgan Witkowski: Yeah. I'd like to think about taking a kaleidoscope approach to envisioning your life. What makes a kaleidoscope amazing to look through and to look at is multiple chambers, balanced chips. And if you think about your life like that, multiple chambers - I don't like the word life balance. I like life harmony, and it sounds like that's something with you too. It's never going to be 50/50 or broken up evenly. But as long as it paints a big picture, that's great. But the chambers in your life, career, that's an important chamber; your personal life, your family, that's an important chamber; what you do for joy, what you do for service too. There's a lot of research out there when you commit, when you give, mentally speaking, it gives you a brain boost. So, it's kind of like a win-win-win if you think about it. I'm serving. I'm getting a brain boost. I'm helping. Awesome. So, trying to think about your life like that. And if you're taking a step back, think about what chamber is empty or what chamber needs some attention. Is it joy? Are you not having fun in your life? Because I know we can get so caught up in our roles and our identities, like I'm a parent. I'm a worker. Sure, it's fun for me to go to a cocktail reception for work with clients. But given my own parameters, that may not be how I choose to have joy. Or my kids will go to a Marvel movie and that can be fun, but that's not how I like to necessarily spend my time. If it's just me, I like to walk in the woods, I like to bike ride.,I like to run. And so, making sure I prioritize those areas and that's a risk, too, if you think about it. Some of the biggest risks we can take are prioritizing ourselves and our relationships because it feels so foreign, especially most of us at this stage of our life, we're there for everybody else and maybe how are you showing up for you.

Dr. Richard Shuster: I would even look at that in the opposite way. The biggest risk we could take is not prioritizing our well-being, not prioritizing those relationships. So, I love this. This is great stuff. Angie, this has been awesome. You've given us a really different way of looking at risk, and I hope that people can begin applying this to their lives with these things that have been top of mind for them. And maybe they've been afraid to pull the trigger. Now, you have a path to look at risk strategically and with a plan. Angie, as you know, I wrap up every episode by asking my guests just this one question, What is your biggest helping? That one most important takeaway you'd like somebody to walk away with after hearing our conversation today.

Angie Morgan Witkowski: Well, I would love people to think about the dreams that they have for themselves, these grand visions, and the times that you look outside of yourself and see all the cool things that other people are doing and just really ask yourself, Why not you? Why can't you do that? If other people are doing it and they're showing you it can be done, why not you? It's not that they have privilege. It's not that they have access to more capital, maybe they do. But that's not the reason that's holding you back. Your fears, your worries, your concerns, your self-doubts, those are probably bigger barriers than any other barrier out there. So, just really ask yourself, Why not you?

Dr. Richard Shuster: Why not you indeed. Angie, tell us where people can learn more about you online and get their hands on your books, which are available everywhere.

Angie Morgan Witkowski: Yeah. So, if you go to angiewitkowski.com - and that is a big Polish last name. So, angie-w-i-t-k-o-w-s-k-i-.com is one place to find me. And LinkedIn, I post actively there frequently, as well as Instagram, Facebook, and all the other channels.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Perfect. And we'll have links to everything Angie Morgan Witkowski in the show notes at thedailyhelping.com. Well, Angie, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Angie Morgan Witkowski: Thank you so much, Dr. Richard. Have a great day everybody.

Dr. Richard Shuster: Absolutely. And I also want to thank each and every one of you who took time out of your day to listen to this conversation. If you liked it, if you learned something, if you think it's helpful, go give us a follow on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five star review, because that is what helps other people find the show. But most importantly, go out there today and do something nice for somebody else, even if you don't know who they are, and post it on your social media feeds using the hashtag #MyDailyHelping, because the happiest people are those that help others.