Resilience Without The Tough Guy Act w/ Omar Ritter

You can be decorated, promoted, and “doing great” while your inner life is on fire. That’s the tension at the heart of this Mind Force conversation with Omar Ritter, a veteran, mental health advocate, finance professor, and fractional CFO whose path runs from West Point to combat to Wall Street and, eventually, to treatment and real stability.

We get specific about resilience, including Omar’s blunt split between dumb resilience and smart resilience. Dumb resilience is white-knuckling trauma, burying symptoms, and calling it strength while relationships and judgment erode. Smart resilience is knowing yourself well enough to step back, take the right care seriously, and build routines that keep you grounded. We also talk leadership culture in the military and corporate America, why people mirror what leaders do, and how visible habits like protected counseling time or morning quiet time can normalize mental health support without turning it into a performance.

From there, we move into purpose-driven leadership and personal growth: the difference between chasing status and growing with intention, how “clout” can trick even successful people into wanting lives they don’t actually want, and how to choose goals without burning out. We close with faith, discipline, and the first steps to take when you’re leading under pressure while struggling silently, including why you’re not alone and why asking for help early can prevent irreversible outcomes.

Subscribe for more conversations on mental health, resilience, and leadership under pressure, and if this helped you, share it with a friend and leave a review. What part of your life have you been trying to “outrun”?

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Transcript

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Welcome And The Three Pillars

SPEAKER_00 0:26

As always, it's great to have you back. I'm your host, Snake Shear, and this is Mind Force, a podcast sponsored by the three L's Love, Life, and Learning. Today's conversation hits three main areas that show how we show up when we're under pressure. One, mental health and resilience in high-pressure lives. Two, purpose-driven leadership and personal growth, and faith, discipline, and the courage to ask for help when really needed. This one is about staying steady when life speeds up and having the honesty to admit you don't have it all handled. Omar, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Hey, Nate. Hey, thank you for having me onto the show. Uh hello to your guests out there and looking forward to this conversation. Absolutely. For those meeting you for the first time, Omar, who are you? So, first and foremost, I'm a husband and a father. And then after that, when I am as a mental health advocate, I'm also an author, a veteran, someone who really loves the journey of academics. So I'm studying for my dissertation

Omar’s Story And Season Of Life

SPEAKER_01 1:33

right now while writing it, and so soon will be Dr. Omar, majoring in finance. And so I like to tell people there's three main things that I do. One, talk about mental health. Two, I'm a professor uh of finance and accounting at UNC Charlotte. And three, I am a fractional CFO. So I have a network of fractional CFOs. I brought it to a franchise, and so I help small and medium-sized business owners with their financial management from a fractional CFO standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

That's awesome. Second part of that question is what season of life are you in right now?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

I would say that I'm in the in the third season of life. So it's the season where if you're fortunate enough and you've built a career that you can start to do the things that you actually want to do, as opposed to the things that you have to do. Right. And so what I what I want to do now is play golf twice a week. And so I'm doing the things that enable me to do that and still be able to pay my pay my bills, right? But there's I never get out of bed at this point in my life saying I have to go do this.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Hmm. That's uh that's some freedom right there. And I'm curious, you submitted your three pillars for the show today. What experiences shaped your passion for those three areas?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

I would say the biggest one, Nate, is just being on the outside, you know, folks viewing me as a successful person, haven't gone to West Point, haven't been an officer, you know, I wanted a Bronze Star in combat. So on the outside, things looked really good and stable. But then when I came back from war, things unraveled a bit, at least from the from the inside, right? You know, I had some mental health issues that I needed to contend with. But then as I was thinking about contending with those, I had a brain tumor, and so I had to have 18 hours of emergency brain surgery. So if you can imagine I focused on contending with that. But then as these things were going on, I was the the breadwinner for my larger family, so I supported my mother, grandmother, etc. And so instead of like taking care of myself, I really needed to get back to making salary, money so I can support them, right? And so that's where the where the resilience comes in, really pushes stuff to the back. And so now my story today is about really addressing those skeletons in my closet.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

That's awesome. Yeah, the two things I took out of there that are really interesting to me is success and resilience. So success is so interesting to me because throughout the show, over a hundred episodes now, and it's so wild how commonly this has come up where people think they've achieved success. They've gotten the cars or the house or the thing they wanted, and then they were incomplete because they weren't serving or helping others or doing something that really fulfilled them in a better way. So success is is definitely a tricky thing, and resilience is another thing I've seen show up in the show so many times where it almost feels like we kind of want it for free. And that's not how it works. You got to go through the difficult thing and then look back and realize you made it to the other side. I feel like it's kind of a buzzword. You know, in the military, we like to say, you know, remain resilient. Like, what does that actually, you know, like a rubber band, make sure you can bounce back. And we say these different things, but I feel like we don't truly understand what all that means until you've gone through it. Like you have. Well, Omar, before we get too deep in the show, I'd like to see if you have a question for me.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah, so Nate, listen, you've been on this show and you've talked to a lot of guests with a lot of interesting stories, and so you've gotten a lot of different perspectives on life, how to deal with tragedy, how to address trauma. How do you deal with the takeaways that you get from guests on this show and how do you how do you use them in your own life?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah, that's a good one. So I would say I did

Quiet Time Routines Under Pressure

SPEAKER_00 5:42

a pretty poor job for the first 30 or so episodes. I'm glad I have a wonderful wife. You know, they say better half for a reason. And she's like, You're taking all these things from the show. What are what are you doing? And I was like, Oh, okay, yeah, good, good to always have a challenge. So sat down, try to figure out the things that came up, the, the, the themes, the the reoccurring things that kept coming up. And so what I started doing, and I've been doing now for probably over a year now, it took a while to get into it, but it's quiet time. So I have an hour in the morning. I wake up a little bit earlier, which is kind of hilarious because I hate you know the morning owl and getting up early. That's not something that typically is uh geared towards me. I don't feel like that's my thing, but it definitely has been. So I get up a little bit early, do devotion, you know, have a little quiet time. Got multiple kids once they're up, things are running around. I go to work, get home, dinner's on the table. They're trying to, you know, do homework and whatnot in the evening. So it's just, you know, mass chaos all day. And so I've found that is super important. I've heard so many times. I heard journaling and and quiet time, devotion, these different things. And I kind of like, oh, okay, yeah, it sounds good. But it wasn't, like I said, uh until my wife kind of challenged me to put put into practice some of these things. So now a dedicated hour where it's calm, and sometimes I will like do the laundry or help her out with some stuff, but it's it's quiet. The household hasn't started yet because they start about 6:30. So I'm up at 5:30, get in that hour and be able to prepare myself. And some of the smaller things I think are really important too. Like another thing, maybe it's silly, but I put my workout clothes out because I go to the gym at 6 30. So 5 30 is 6 30, and then the gym at 6 30. And I put my socks, like every single thing I need to be able to like grab, put it on, and then take the excess because I have to change my uniform when I get to work. Right. Um, and just setting those things aside the morning before, super powerful. But what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yeah, I mean, that's it's good. It's good to have quiet time. You know, I I work from home, and so I, you know, I dropped a kid off really early in the morning, like 7:30, 8 o'clock. And the days that I don't actually have to go professor, so when I do it twice a week, then I I come back home and I'm I'm home by myself until 5, 6 o'clock at night. And so I actually enjoy being here by myself, doing quiet time, trying to get myself organized. And sometimes there might even be a nap in in that in that day uh as well. So I remember the days like you getting up really early to go work out and do all those things, and like the whole day you're you're running. But I'm unfortunate how the times now we're not running all day, right? But you need that time to yourself, that that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Absolutely. And it's interesting, like you don't know what you don't know. Like I always thought that wasn't for me, and then I've been doing it for a year. I'm like, yeah, I notice I have missed some days where I have to go run to an early meeting or something disrupts the thing in the morning, and that whole day is just not as good as the other days where I ease into the day, there's coffee, I can figure out what's going on. Like, so much different. So, yeah, it's interesting. I I would suggest everyone try different things. If you think you're one thing, maybe you're not. Try a couple different things and find out what clicks because sometimes you don't know what you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Exactly. Exactly. And then you start, and then like if you don't have a routine, you start making up excuses to not go do something, right? So when you make it a routine, it's more likely to get done.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Yeah, that's definitely the thing with working out. Like, I would totally recommend that. Put your clothes out, because before it was like, well, my shoes, or I don't know if I'm gonna like my outfit or this, or just have it there. Like, there's then there's no, I don't know what you could possibly come up with. You have to go get in the car and get yourself on the way to the gym. So that's nice. That's right. That's awesome. Well, Omar, your first pillar is mental health and resilience. So, like I said, I think resilience is kind of overuse, sometimes a buzzword in the military. I'd like to key it up to you. How would you define resilience?

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah, so look, there's there's smart resilience and there's dumb resilience, right? And so what I what I live with from probably age, you know, 25

Smart Resilience Versus Dumb Resilience

SPEAKER_01 9:56

to 45, 46 is dumb resilience, right? And what I what I mean by that is I knew that I had an issue, a mental health issue. And I knew that I had I I could I'm not a doctor, so I never said I had TTSD, but I knew I had something going on with me that just made me hot to cold like really fast. And it was good from a perspective of being able to work on Wall Street, work 18 hours a day, you know, just get things done when when people needed it, but it was bad whenever, you know, I I came home, and I didn't get married until I was 45 years old, right? So, you know, I was a single guy, so it didn't matter as much. But when I finally got that help I needed, I'm like, damn man, that was dumb resilience, brother. Like you didn't have to go through that. You didn't have to think go through thinking about taking your own life because like a promotion passed you over, or like losing friends because they may have said something wrong to you, and you took it you took it way off the path that it needed to be on, etc. Right? And then there's good resilience, and so good resilience for me is every day waking up, knowing that I gotta take my my mental health pills, being able to skip extricate myself from situations that I know aren't going to be good for me, and have the confidence that it's okay, like if you don't go, you know, to that to that meeting, or it's okay if you don't engage in in this discussion, right? So being able to know myself and have the resilience and the strength to like pull back, even though on the one hand, it might be beneficial to me from a you know making money standpoint, but on the other hand, it's like, hey man, like I got a lot of things going on, I've been through a lot. Let me just take a step back and play in the lane that I'm supposed to be playing in, if that makes sense to you.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious your thoughts in the in the military, we say resilience and you know, you take care of yourself, make sure you're taking your care of yourself before others. What would you do to like influence culture? I feel like we say a lot of things, but what are like some actions you'd use to get after like helping out a unit or something?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

So the first thing is servant leadership, right? And so what I what I mean by servant leadership is always let you know the troops eat first, right? Especially when you're in combat. The the second thing is I knew as a as a leader, as a young lieutenant that my guys weren't gonna

Servant Leadership And Culture By Example

SPEAKER_01 12:38

deal with a perform in a combat situation as well as they could be if things weren't taken taken going good at home, right? And so or taken care of at home. And so what I made sure of with my guys before we went and deployed anywhere that the finances were in order, everything was gonna be paid for, they had the right situation for their family, etc. Right. So that took extra time out of out of my day, obviously. But being a servant leader really helped because when we got over to, you know, Iraq, Costable, et cetera, my guys were ready to go. They weren't so much thinking about the house, meaning like, will the rent be paid? Will it be food in the refrigerator? Now they miss their people on the same note, but I just made sure that they were taken care of from a from a business perspective, right? So, you know, one is taking care of the troops, but again, one of the things that I missed, Nate, and I'll readily admit it is taking care of me first, right? That wasn't the the mindset that I was under was take care of the troops, then take care of me. I think you gotta do both and figure out how to do both at the same time because there were times, you know, when I was in Kosovo or Iraq where we get a mission and I didn't really like the mission, but as a as a lieutenant, it was like very people I could talk to about this, you know, because I'm the guy giving the work from up top. And so I go off in the corner, cry, punch, punch the air with my fist, etc., and then come back to my guys like this is the greatest mission since sliced bread, like we should be very happy to be doing this, right? So, yeah, so in that instance, you're still not taking care of yourself. And again, like it's a really hard balance to take care of yourself first when the mission, whether it's the military mission or the corporate mission, is dependent on you getting your people moving to execute the commander's intent, right? It's just it's tough.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Yeah, I think it's just so difficult because there's so many things that we do that instinctively seem like the right thing and they're like counterintuitive that actually kind of work against us. Because I know being a leader myself, you want to do things like I'll stay a little bit late so I can get caught up and then be better prepared for the next day or something like that. But then other people see you like, cool, well, if boss is staying late, then I'm staying late. It's like, no, like sometimes you just gotta step out and lead by example, because we say lead by example, but then we won't go and you know talk to the counselor or whatnot. I had boss that he would post his calendar on his door, and so he'd have like his counseling session posted, and it you saw the hour, it was on there. He didn't say what it was for. He's not gonna go into detail, but you saw it on the calendar. So it was just enough where you're like, cool, on Wednesdays, like he's over there, he's taking care of himself, and if I need to step out and you know, go see somebody, like he's got it blocked for every week, then that's fine. So sometimes I think we need to do that and lead by example, but we want to do the other where it's like I'll stay late and I'll take the the brunt of the damage, I'll take the brunt of the the effort and work. And it's like, but then they're staying just as late.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

That's right. Hey, and and and that's just that. I mean, I can remember when I was on all the way from was him as a captain, from associate to senior vice president on Wall Street, just looking under my office door to see if the boss's briefcase or or her shoes were there and not leaving before the boss. I had this, I had to stay, never let leave before the boss, right? I did this until I was a senior person. I was like, I'm the boss, I'm not, I'm leaving, I'm out of here, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Absolutely. So I think in a lot of books and different stuff, we talk about hypotheticals. On this show, I really want to get after actionable tips someone could take and put into practice today, this week, this month. What are some habits or mindsets that have really helped you stay mentally steady during these difficult times?

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Well, the fact is, during the difficult times, I was not 100% not mentally steady, like whatsoever.

Treatment And The Cost Of Waiting

SPEAKER_01 16:36

And, you know, I I tell people in my book, I was doing things actually so I wouldn't have to sleep, so I wouldn't have to be normal. So I'm working 80 hours a week doing investment banking. I'm also a party promoter. I'm traveling to wild, crazy places like the the I did two weeks in the underground hip hop scene in Moscow, right? So that's like the most random thing ever. Going and I'm doing this by myself, going to Many in Columbia, hanging out. So, so what I would say is, you know, I was not mentally stable then, but now, and again, this is why I I I come to these shows and I have this message is once I got myself treated, you know, with with therapy and talking to a psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist, and we figured out what works well for me, now I can really be like my authentic self, right? And so my advice is get to a get to a point where you can be your authentic self, and it's worth putting in the time and the having the courage to raise your hand to go get to those conversations.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

What would you say to someone that's like, I don't want to go, it's gonna be difficult, they're gonna uh uncover things that are hard to process. What do you say to that person?

SPEAKER_01 18:03

The deal is is that eventually it's gonna get uncovered. So you can you can control that situation and have professionals on hand helping you to uncover and unbox it, or you can wait around, not do anything with it, but eventually you're gonna hit that rock bottom. And when you hit that that rock bottom, you know, I I pray you have the strength to to get through it, get some help, and then start on that journey to to recovery, right? And so, yes, it's it's it can be painful raising your hand, but I'm gonna tell you it's a lot easier than going the way where you hit rock bottom.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Did you get that feeling where you're like, dang, should have done that a long time ago?

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Oh, I got that feeling, man. Like, I got that feeling a couple times. You know, one when I have the pistol in my lap thinking about shooting myself with it. Another one when I'm thinking about harming somebody at the office I worked at because I didn't get that promotion or that raise I thought I was gonna take, or they wanted me to uh do something that I didn't want to do. Right. And I was like, I can I can why am I listening to you? Like I'm so much more physically dominant over you, right? And so again, like I would never, ever, ever think about going that those routes since I started getting my treatment and been able to have open conversation about this illness. And so, and that's why I say, like, it's is it's worth it to raise your hand and and get that treatment and start that work.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Awesome. Yeah, that's some good stuff, Omar. Well, your second pillar is purpose-driven leadership and personal growth. What do you think the difference between chasing success and growing with intention are?

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Yeah, chasing success is is what I was doing originally, right? Like just trying to make managing director out of bank so it looked very important on my on my LinkedIn, and and really just not knowing

Purpose Over Status And The Clout Trap

SPEAKER_01 20:04

what that what that meant. But when we talk about growth, it's you know, not only having that that that that season time behind you and those experiences to help other people, but with that growth, you're gonna also get that exposure to move to those different levels, right? And it's gonna be a lot easier, but also you're not gonna be tying yourself to an organization or to a certain job, etc. It's just it's just more fulfilling and easier for you to accept different varying and password, it's just not locked on something very specific. And for me, that's that's total growth, right? Because I was locked on something very specific for so many years, and it all had to do with these various levels at banks.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

Yeah, that makes sense. So when someone is out there and they're looking at different stuff, I think there's fine lines between certain things. So one thing that comes to mind is goals. Like you want goals, you want to say, hey, I'd like to get this certification, I'd like to, you know, take this position or things like that. How does someone like balance a line between achieving goals but not burning out or going that like success chasing route?

SPEAKER_01 21:24

That is a tough question, Nate, because at the end of the day, you know this and I know this, and it doesn't matter whether you're in the military or corporate America. If you have a dream of being a general, an admiral, uh even a colonel or a captain, listen, man, it's a it's a it's a it's an inverted pyramid, man, right? Like, you know, you know, or should I say it's a it's a pyramid, but what I'm what I mean is the the funnel down, it gets very thin, it goes from 10,000 to 5,000, you know, 1500, and then it ends up in like 10, right? And then there can only be one at some point, right? And so inherently, if you are trying to chase that goal to be the commander, the CEO, the person next to the commander or the CEO, it's gonna be tough. Like the road, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. That that's a that's a tough road.

unknown 22:22

But if

SPEAKER_01 22:23

You choose to take that road, just know that it there are going to be some mental and physical hardships that come with that. And so you gotta do the best that you can to navigate that, right? It's it's a lot harder being the the CEO than it is being an associate working in the same job for 20 years, right? It it it is, and your salary is going to show you that it's harder, right? Because they're gonna pay you more, so you know you're under a lot more pressure, stress, external pressure, internal pressure, you're not spending time with your family, all those things would come with being at the top uh of an organization, right? So the number one thing I can tell people is just know that it's not always all sweet at the top outside of like the pavement and the accolades. Now, if you're feeling good about where you are from a professional standpoint, and there's some things that you want to get after that can help you later on in life. So, you know, for example, me, one of the things I've always wanted to do was get my doctorate in finance, and I decided that I wanted to get it online and do it at my own pace. So I'm chasing that goal, but the thing is, there's many different ways to to do things. And so I decided to do it online, do it at my own pace, not put a bunch of pressure on myself. And because I did it that way, it's been it's been the lightest school I've ever had. I'm way ahead of schedule to finishing. I don't feel any pressure or stress because I'm not in a class anyway. I'm doing it online, right? So you gotta figure out what you want, and sometimes you gotta figure out what's the easiest way to get that, because there's no way I'm going back to school full time for six years to get this fitting.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

You gotta be out on the golf course. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good, a good way you're staying happy and fulfilled, but you're still working towards the goal. I think that is that fine balance between it, you're still working towards it, but just in the way and like you said, in 2026, I mean, we just have so many resources, the most resources we've ever had. There's probably a way to do the thing you want to do that will, you know, still keep you fulfilled, but moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

And and then listen, man, I'm not I'm not perfect, right? You know, once a week I'll I'll wake up and like I'll get a LinkedIn message and it'll say, like, CFO candidate wanted for this job. And I'm like, man, I should apply for that. I could totally do that job, right? And then I take a deep breath, take a step back, and say, wait a minute, I've already been a CFO, but I don't want that job, right? That that job means I'm gonna be working, you know, 80 to 100 hours a week. The CEO is gonna be calling me, the board's gonna be calling me, I'm gonna have to travel, you know, two, three times a week. Like, I don't want that job. Like, I don't even want the job. What I really want is the clout. And so then I'm like, dude, you just want the clout. You don't even want the job. You can actually even care less about the money. You just want the clout. And so I have to remember that, right? Even even I today have to like really, you know, say, brother, do you really want no, you don't. Like, you just want the clout. So, like, this is a non-starter for you, right? So people have to remember that sometimes we do things for clout more than anything else. And if it's not something we truly want, like, don't you don't have to chase that goal. You only have one life.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah, stay happy. Right. I wanted to ask you a question earlier, since we're in the leadership leadership section. Earlier, you said sometimes you get tasks or things down from above, and it's like not good, it's not gonna be enjoyable, and you got to pass it along. So I'm curious from your military and then corporate world. I feel like a lot of times we have challenging things in the military, which I'm still struggling with. So you get something down, you you kind of agree, it maybe don't fully agree, or maybe you don't understand, and you got to kind of pass the bad news, but you don't want to poison the well and make everyone like against it, but then you can't be fake either because then they're like they see through you and they're like, eh, we know you don't like it either. How do you balance like that whole situation?

SPEAKER_01 26:45

So the way I balance it, Nate, is I I take that lemon and I try to find some sugar and like turn this thing into lemonade, right? I'll give you an example. So, you know, when I was in Iraq, we got this stupid mission. It was to take some some air defense artillery Bradleys and go defend this bridge overnight. It would have been cool if we would have got the Bradleys and some infantry guys, not air defense artillery guys who used to street up in the sky as opposed to infantry guys that are used to shoot these things on the ground. So I was like, man, this mission is silly. And we knew that we were going to be going against, you know, our Iraq, Iraqi special forces. And so, man, I got that mission, I cried. I was like, well, if this is it, you know? But then I told my guys, I came back and said, hey man, we got this tough mission. It's not the prettiest. I'm pretty sure we don't have the right team going with us. But our training, your training, is gonna get us through this and we're gonna stick together through this mission and see it through. And when we come back, we'll get the accolades that go with it, right? And so I wanted to rub some positive, cool, esprit de corps in there to make them realize that, you know, even though I don't like this mission, we did train for this. And even though we're not getting the right access, whereas we can get them up to speed with us before we get there to make that thing work. And lo and behold, man, we defended that bridge and we we we made it. We took, we, you know, we didn't take any casualties, the other side took some casualties. We came home just fine. And so, you know, even though it's a bad mission, sometimes you just gotta you gotta do what you gotta do. Like we signed up on the dotted line to to do what the commanders tell us if it's not illegal. So gotta make it, gotta put some some sugar in that in that lemon juice. That's what I did. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Good, good. Yeah, I like that. I mean, I think that still remains true where you know you're you're identifying the the resource that's not quite there, maybe there's an issue with it, so you're still bringing that forward. So I think some people want to like sugarcoat, not in the way of the lemonade, but make it sound like, oh yeah, I like it. It'll be good. It's like, no, we we don't believe you. So I think staying real, but then finding a little bit of goodness in there probably is that nice, good, fine balance.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Well, it's like if we don't execute at this level, we are screwed, guys. Like we we need to be at this level. I know you can get to this level. I'm gonna need you at this level. Whereas if I come in and say, Oh, this is great, then they're at this level, thinking it's all sweet, and next thing you know, it's not, right? So, so really trying to set the expectation for what's needed.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Expectation management's always good. Well, the last one on this one, Omar, I love stories in the show. Can you share a moment where your purpose-driven leadership helped you make a difficult decision?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Yeah. So my purpose-driven leadership, the decision that I that I made was to receive help for myself for you know the mental health things going on in in my life. And so let me let me take you take you back and tell you why. So it was 2023, and again, I still had not gotten treatment for my you know, PTSD, mental health issues, anything, right? Even though I was in the VA system and I'm medically retired, it's for something different. It was for my brain tooler. And so I was working a very stressful job, Wells Fargo, in the senior role, and I got the news that a friend had committed suicide. You know, I had got that news the week before. Then a week later, my gunner committed suicide. And my gunner not only committed suicide, he took his three kids with him, right? And so I I I knew those kids. And that sent me very near to rock bottom. And I started thinking about my child, you know, how can somebody do that? Like, is this something that I could potentially do? And so I I I mean, I hit rock rock bottom emotionally, like I was hurt physically from this. And I got in my car, I got on the phone with the veterans crisis line as I was driving, and I drove myself to the VA to start my treatment process. And for me, this felt like the biggest leadership move I'd ever done. And to top it off, I started telling all my guys that I served with and calling them, et cetera, Facebook messages, hey guys, like even I had to go to the VA to take a need, you know, those types of things. And that's when I said, I gotta write this book and tell my story, both from a military and a corporate perspective, because there's far too many people thinking that they can outrun these things and they can't. These things go everywhere with you, and you're not gonna outrun them. It doesn't matter how successful you are, how much money you're making, what your rank is in the military, you ain't gonna outrun it.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Hmm. Yeah, that's absolutely true. It'll find you at some point. Hopefully, and like you said, you have the professionals around you. Lomar, your last pillar is faith and discipline. Why do you think asking for help is still one of the hardest things for people to do?

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Well, it's really hard for successful people because you're used to people asking you for help, right? Like, you know, I I think back all my life growing up, especially after college.

Faith Discipline And Asking For Help

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Anytime somebody needed, you know, $20, $50, they needed a rent pay, like they're coming to me. Right. And so for me, I knew that if I lost my job, there was nobody I was gonna be able to go to, right? At least nobody, sister to my family, maybe some of my my friends, you know, would would do that for me, but nobody like really, really, really close to me. And so I'm so used to taking care of other people and listening to to their problems, like many people are, you probably are as well. And so there's really nobody to for me to go to with my problems. And so when my problems pop up, it's automatically like, man, I think I might have to go to the doctor like for this for this issue, or I may need to take some time off work for this issue. But if I take some time off work, who says I'm gonna be able to come back to work? Or what if work finds out that I got a mental health issue, aren't they even gonna let me back in in the building, right? And so that's why it gets tough. I just think that for some people the stakes are so high that they feel like they can't get the help that they need and they deserve because of the consequences that might come with that in terms of lost job, lost status, loss of military leadership, like that thing being in your record, etc. But now I'm at the point where that's just not true. Because anytime you go get help from a medical professional, whether you're in the military, whether you're in corporate America, that's your business. Nobody needs to know unless you want to know. Literally, unless you put it on your door, go into a counselor appointment, right? And so I tell people this all the time, mate, that work for you know some of these major companies, and which a lot of people work for, every month they pay into a medical system that's supposed to help them when they fall on hard times. And so when they have mental health issues, they break a leg or whatever, they go to the doctor and insurance covers it. And so the folks that don't use it, they're really supplementing people like me who at the end of my career was using it a lot. And so I thank them for supplementing me, but they should also know that it's there for them to use, as well as veterans that have these mental health issues from the military. Like, that's you know, they made the VA to help treat veterans for their issues. And I don't know how many, you know, Westboard classmates or people I serve were like, oh, I don't need to go to the VA, blah, blah, blah. It's like, dude, yes, you do. By the way, they're there to take care of you. And by you not going, you just supplementing my treatment. So I appreciate you, but properly chill on it.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Yeah, and I think that's you know, interesting to me too, because if you look at it from the other standpoint, like you mentioned extreme cases of of suicide or taking other people's lives, or even you know, the anger that came up inside you. And so it's interesting to me because people are worried about the negative implications of things that are going to happen if you're offloading stuff as it comes up. But I'd almost go the other way with it. What if you beat somebody up at work or shoot somebody at work or you know, those other things? Like, that's way worse. So, like if we're comparing the two, like it's not even close. Like, offload those things as you go as opposed to getting to like the worst day of your life, and then you know, then you can't take it back and you're legally definitely in trouble.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

And nay, man, I listen, man, I spent 20 years working in eye banking corporate environments after the military. You know, I've seen people there there's gonna be a restructuring, and a guy isn't like ways to end up so he jumps off the building, right? Like I I've seen, you know, it's just the you it's just not the military. It just so happens that veterans have a 58% greater chance of dying by suicide than the general public. But the when you're talking about the numbers, 6,400 veterans die a year by suicide. Well, that's a small fraction of the number of like people in the United States that die of suicide. But if you focus on the veterans and you focus on the treatment, then you can take that treatment of those 6,400 a year. If you can make that 5,000, 2,500, you can take what you learned and use it on the rest of society, right? And so, because the the veterans are so close, like you know who you're dealing with, you know what they've been through, right? It's all documented. And so that's how I how I really think about you know, veteran suicide and how that really will shed light on suicides in general.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Absolutely, yeah. Shortages of mental health professionals across the United States, across the world. So, yeah, let's start making some changes, making things better, and helping everyone. Well, last question in this one, Omar. How do faith and discipline work together when motivation fades?

SPEAKER_01 37:55

I think you always gotta have faith, right? You always need to know that there's a there's a higher purpose to your life. And I would say that knowing that higher purpose for me got me through a lot of difficult situations. And so when I think about having that brain surgery and being under 18 hours, when I was under, you know, I spent some time with my beloved grandfather. You know, I was, I felt like I was in between places. And, you know, he told me while I was under, you got so much more to do, you need to go back and and and do that, right? And so that gave me the will to learn how to walk again, to learn how to run again, to go through the other surgeries so that I could talk again and have this conversation with you, even though death in one of my ears now, I you know, I just deal with that as normal as possible. And so faith, belief that there's a there's a there's a God there, there's a higher power, that if we have that faith, we can really turn our own course. And just, you know, knowing that even though you may have it tough, there's there's always somebody that's got it tougher than you do, that is bounced back as well. And and then not being afraid to to bounce back and be bigger and better than you than you were initially, right? And so that's what I'm trying to get, Dunate. I'm trying to get to a feel-good story at the end of this rainbow here.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting. I saw this thought ext experiment the other day. They said if they took a hundred people and they put all their problems in a bag and you had to pull one out at random, would you rather have yours or some other person? And the mass majority of people are like, I'd rather have mine. I don't I don't want I've seen what else is going on out there, and I'll just I'll just keep mine.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

The double you know, man, the double you know, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah. Well, Omar, I'd like to bring all three of your concepts together today. So let's bring it all together. If someone is under pressure, trying to lead well and struggling, struggling silently, what is the first step they can take to build resilience, clarity, and the courage to ask for help?

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yeah, the first step they can take is to realize that they aren't they aren't alone. Right? You are you are not

First Steps When You’re Struggling

SPEAKER_01 40:12

alone. This is millions, one out of six Americans are affected with mental health issues, and probably the numbers greater throughout the world. So you're not alone, you're not special, there's not something wrong with you. So first, realize that. Second of all, realize that there's more help lines and crisis lines and you know different places you can go to receive that help than there are people that are willing to call. And I tell people this all the time, mate. We can set up another veterans crisis line, another mental health site, you know, et cetera. But today, the way it works is the ones is on the individual to raise their hand and get that help. Like we'd like to one day get to the point where the, you know, there there are implicators out there, you know, based on their cell phone use, their communication, where a message would go out to their friends and family and say, hey, check on Omar, but we're not, we're not there yet, right? So the only way that we even get there is by continuing to have people, you know, do the work on themselves and then learning from or understanding those that have already passed away and what got them to that point, right? So you gotta go two ways. And I mean, I I would just say, you know, for sure, just realize you're not alone. Realize that going to ask for help is not actually a bad thing, it's a very good thing based on what you said earlier. They I'd rather go to a psychologist and talk about my problems than like beat up somebody on the floor of my office or come in and shoot somebody or tear a gun on campus and get arrested because that's going to be an even bigger issue. And I've seen that those things play out as well because now you can't get employed anymore, right? And so, again, you know, those things. Keep the faith, know that you aren't alone, know that there's help out there for you, and know that you're likely already paying into that help, and so go get it.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Absolutely. Yeah, I've interviewed so many different people, and that's one common trend. Another one that comes up is people don't want to say anything because they're like, oh, it's just me. There's like 8 billion people in the world. You're not the only one that's this has ever happened to. That's impossible. So if you're thinking that, like, no, raise your hand, get the help, move forward. We're all in it together. Well, Omar, this was a grounded and and very real. I appreciate you showing up the way that you did. Before we wrap up, where can people connect with you and follow your work?

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Yeah, so you can always follow me at OmarRitter.com. So on OmarRitter.com, you're gonna be able to get all my socials, my Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. You'll also be able to purchase my book from Amazon. It's called West Point to Wall Street, My Journey to Mental Wellness. And

Where To Find Omar And Closing

SPEAKER_01 43:02

in this book, I talk about triggers throughout my life. It is not a military war story. It is a story about truly what it took for me to get into West Point, what happened once I graduated and went to war, failed to treat myself, and then worked 20 years on Wall Street with these helmets, and then what getting that help looked like for me in the hopes that folks out there that need that help raise their hand and go get that for themselves. And they don't take 20 years and do it.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Awesome. Well, Omar, thank you for coming out. To everyone listening, pressure will always be there. How you carry it is the difference. I love you all. See ya.