PODCAST: How law enforcement can ‘Rise Above Chaos’ with Erick Rheam | THE INTERVIEW ROOM | Episode 051
LISTEN
WATCH
How law enforcement can ‘Rise Above Chaos’ with Erick Rheam | THE INTERVIEW ROOM | Episode 051
Erick Rheam
Meet this Weeks Guest: Erick Rheam
Erick Rheam is a speaker and published author. He communicates and educates on topics related to discovering significance and the art of mastering human dynamics to achieve success.
Erick spent the past decade training and educating athletes, entertainers, business leaders, public officials, and association executives on how to build value added customer service programs, create culture, and gain organizational buy-in. Erick partnered with The Speaker Lab, a leading coaching program for aspiring professional speakers. As the Director of Student Success, Erick ensured that The Speaker Lab’s curriculum properly trained and equipped leaders and influencers on how to speak professionally as a career.
Prior to partnering with The Speaker Lab, Erick worked for eighteen years in the public power industry for a leading energy efficiency software company and two municipally owned utilities in Indiana and Colorado. He led a customer service division and served business communities to ensure local policy enhanced the business environment so that the business class could thrive, grow, and create jobs.
Erick earned his Key Public Power Account Executive designation through the American Public Power Association (APPA). He also served on several national boards and committees to promote green technology, energy efficiency, and customer service. He was vice-chair for the National Customer Services Section for APPA. He also served as the chair for the National Key Accounts Committee for APPA.
Erick graduated from the United State Military Academy in 1995 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering. He served as a Military Police Officer in the United States Army in Bosnia Herzegovina and Europe.
Another key part of this interview is that his dad was a police officer for 40 years and the Chief of Police for 8 of those years, we talk a lot about growing up in a law enforcement family and how this shaped his own career and aspirations.
Show Notes from This Episode
The On The Blue Line Podcast and Community has the mission of Empowering Cops in their personal lives and educating the public on the realities of law enforcement. This law enforcement podcast is focused on providing concepts, ideas, and actionable steps that can make a difference in your life. The morning roll call is a weekly monologue show with Wayne Mulder. The Interview Room podcast is an interview style format hosted by Wayne Mulder.
Go Deeper:
Step 1: Subscribe to the Podcast wherever you are streaming it.
YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeart Radio
___________________
Step 2: Follow us on social media, so you never miss an update.
Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | TikTok
___________________
Step 3: Join the On The Blue Line Community on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/onthebluelinecommunity
___________________
CONNECT with Erick:
WEBSITE: https://erickrheam.com
WEBSITE: http://riseabovechaosbook.com/
INSTAGRAM: @erickrheamspeaking
FACEBOOK: @erick.rheam.3
LINKEDIN: @Erick Rheam
LINKS discussed:
PRODUCT: Athletic Greens
Topics we discuss:
· US Navy
· US Army
· WestPoint
· Military Police
· Mentorship
· Dominating “the beast.”
· Importance of Significance
· Losing our “why.”
· Encourager
Erick Answers:
1. His favorite morning routine?
2. What it was like growing up with a dad in law enforcement?
3. The primary way military Lieutenants used to die.
4. The three gut punches that led to a life changing revelation.
5. Who the world belongs to?
AFTER the episode:
• LEAVE US AN iTUNES rating and review! [This is a HUGE help]
• VISIT OUR Website: https://www.ontheblueline.com/
• EMAIL me your feedback: Feedback@OnTheBlueLine.com
• Get the eBook, “How the law enforcement makes you cynical and what you can do about it” by Wayne Mulder.
On The Blue Line was founded and is operated by active-duty law enforcement to fulfill the mission of providing guidance, resources and community for law enforcement officers, first responders, and military personal in their off-duty lives.
HONOR | EMPOWER | EDUCATE | DEFEND
Listen and subscribe wherever you prefer to Stream your Podcasts!
Get every Podcast and Blog delivered to your inbox.
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE. Please note this is a new service we are offering and there will be spelling, grammar and accuracy issues. This transcription is offered as a convenience to our listeners, but at this time it is not guaranteed to be accurate.
00:00:04:19 - 00:00:26:11
Wayne Mulder
Welcome, my friend, to the On the Blue Line podcast with Wayne Mulder. I am your host, Wayne Mulder, and this is a law enforcement podcast where we discuss topics that will empower you on and off the job. Maybe you're tired or frustrated, feeling overworked, struggling to balance work and home life demands, or simply maybe you just need some encouragement.
00:00:26:19 - 00:00:47:01
Wayne Mulder
Well, you've come to the right place. Be sure to listen all the way to the end of today's podcast to learn this week's guest favorite morning routine what it was like growing up with a dad in law enforcement, the primary way military lieutenants used to die in the three gut punches that led to a life changing revelation. I think you're going to really enjoy this.
00:00:47:01 - 00:01:05:16
Wayne Mulder
If this is the first time that you're finding us, we have to weekly podcast. This one that you're watching is the interview room. This is the weekly interview show that releases every Thursday at zero 500. And I sit down with guests from all walks of life, not only cops, but someone who can offer us something beneficial for our personal and professional lives.
00:01:05:24 - 00:01:24:19
Wayne Mulder
And then the other podcast is called Morning Roll Call releases every Monday at zero 500 and is a weekly monologue show where you and I, we just sit down and we discuss the news, recent events, law enforcement trends and a variety of other topics that gives you something to consider as you begin your work week for this upcoming week.
00:01:24:19 - 00:01:41:04
Wayne Mulder
I'll be talking a little bit about my trip out West. You can see I am wearing the Wyoming hat. If you are watching us on YouTube or on Rumble, just know that we are on video on both of those and the podcast is both of them are available pretty much on any podcast platforms or streaming services that are out there.
00:01:41:04 - 00:02:01:02
Wayne Mulder
And for more on all of it, you can always go to on the blue links. Something I just wanted to mention this week, you're going to be seeing some changes, maybe a little bit different intros, a little bit different focus with some of the conversations. Nothing drastic. If you've been along for the journey this long, I'm sure you're going to enjoy everything that's coming, but there will be some changes and updates.
00:02:01:02 - 00:02:19:00
Wayne Mulder
I'm working with some great guys that are giving us some ideas and some feedback on some things we can do to improve the show. So the most important thing to me is you, the listener. What can I do to improve it for you? So as you see these changes, as you see the focus or even anything that you have now, I would love to get your feedback.
00:02:19:09 - 00:02:35:10
Wayne Mulder
Never hesitate to reach out. You can reach out via social media, you can reach out via DMS, you can reach out via email. Really, the only thing that stops you from reaching out is you because there are a million different ways and all of that is that on the blue line ocean and the blue line dot com as well.
00:02:36:09 - 00:03:04:16
Wayne Mulder
So let me go ahead and tell you about this week's guest. Eric Ream is a speaker and published author. He communicates and educates on topics related to discovering significance in the art of mastering human dynamics to achieve success. He spent the past decade training and educating athletes, entertainers, business leaders, public officials and association executives on how to build value added customer service programs, create culture and gain organizational buy in that may sound like a business topic.
00:03:04:16 - 00:03:25:21
Wayne Mulder
However, everything we discuss is 100% applicable to what you and I are doing in the law enforcement world, so I encourage you to listen to it. He's worked in the public power industry. He is a speaker, and he graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1995 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering. He served as a military police officer in the United States Army, in Bosnia, in Europe.
00:03:26:07 - 00:03:46:17
Wayne Mulder
And another key part of this interview that specific to this audience is the fact that his dad was a police officer for 40 years and the chief of police for eight of those years. And we talk a lot about growing up in a law enforcement family and how this really shaped his own career aspirations and who he became and the career that is amazing that he has had as well.
00:03:46:17 - 00:03:58:04
Wayne Mulder
So without taking any more time, here's this week's guest, Eric Graham. All right. Well, Eric, welcome to the show.
00:03:58:14 - 00:04:08:22
Erick Rheam
Hey, Wayne, it's a pleasure to be here. I was telling you before we jumped on This is my last thing of of the week. It's been a busy week, man. And I'm just this is going to be fine, man. I'm really looking forward to this. Thanks for the opportunity. Hang with you.
00:04:09:07 - 00:04:21:15
Wayne Mulder
Absolutely. I'm glad this is a way that we can bookend it. So let's get to I always start with this kind of get to know your questions, break the ice questions, and I start extremely simple. Is it coffee or tea for you?
00:04:21:15 - 00:04:38:20
Erick Rheam
Oh, coffee, man. I like black coffee. I like truckstop coffee. And I like to have like stuff in I can't identify. I don't know why it is, but I like bad, nasty coffee. I think it reminds me of the military. But it's easy. It's simple. If you have that expectation with your coffee, you can pretty much drink anything.
00:04:38:20 - 00:05:01:06
Wayne Mulder
So I agree 100% and I find the military seems to be a common denominator. Though I was not in the service, I spent my summers on Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and the crunchier the better. Sometimes with sun comes the coffee. So let me ask you, do you have a favorite place to have that drink? Like a place where it's peaceful for you or just a way that you reset when you have that cup of coffee?
00:05:01:13 - 00:05:18:06
Erick Rheam
Yeah, I have a routine, man. Every day I wake up at 5:15 a.m. to start my day, I get my workout in. After I get my workout, the first thing I do is I read I read the Bible 30 minutes a day. It's just it's just something I find it kind of grounds me. And I have what is called athletic greens.
00:05:18:06 - 00:05:47:15
Erick Rheam
I know if you've heard of that or not, but it's highly potent. And so I drink that first that first 30 minutes and then when that's done, then my next part of my routine as a prospect for my speaking business for an hour. And that's when I open up my coffee. And so I sip that cup of coffee, usually on the back deck with the water fountain going and the birds chirping and using my Labrador and my Doberman laying at my feet as I'm reaching out to potential prospects that want to hire me as a speaker, I'm a professional speaker, and for that hour I'm sipping on that coffee and my ember mug to keep
00:05:47:15 - 00:05:56:04
Erick Rheam
a hot. Don't judge me, okay? But I got an Amber mug. My wife got a tip for me for Father's Day. It changed my life. So I think stays hot for an hour while sipping on. It's fantastic.
00:05:56:18 - 00:06:10:01
Wayne Mulder
And does it maintain the cool? I have to ask like this is a whole rabbit trail here, but does it maintain the quality? Because I've looked at those and yeah, yeah, okay. They're a little elusive. But yeah, I've been a little concerned as to whether or not it maintains the quality as well as the well.
00:06:10:02 - 00:06:23:19
Erick Rheam
Wayne, we've already established I don't care about quality, right? I like coffee, so it doesn't really matter to me. But the main thing is I like it hot. I'm not a big fan of cold coffee. I don't like iced coffee. I want my coffee to be hot. And so that's the main thing. It keeps a hot and that's all it matters.
00:06:24:01 - 00:06:28:08
Wayne Mulder
I love it. Let me ask you, Eric, do you have a best or worst travel story?
00:06:28:08 - 00:06:33:24
Erick Rheam
Oh, my gosh. I travel a lot. Yes, I do have a really bad one. Do you have kids, Wayne?
00:06:34:06 - 00:06:36:08
Wayne Mulder
I do. He's 20 years old, though, okay.
00:06:36:08 - 00:06:38:01
Erick Rheam
Yeah, but he was a baby at one point, right?
00:06:38:01 - 00:06:39:04
Wayne Mulder
So believe it or not.
00:06:39:17 - 00:06:59:12
Erick Rheam
Yeah. So we were flying back from a actually a business trip. My wife and I exhausted with my daughter. My daughter was young enough. We didn't have to buy a plane ticket for. So she was under two. And as the plane was about to take off, she had a major diarrhea attack. I'm talking about the kinds that kind of go up her back type of stuff and she just she couldn't stop.
00:06:59:12 - 00:07:17:17
Erick Rheam
And so my luckily they let my wife go in and change her, but she just kept having his diarrhea taxed. We ran out of diapers, we had no more diapers. And so litter was do whatever we could. And there was like baby diarrhea all over us. We smelled. The whole plane smelled. It was exhausting. We got home and we hired we had a Labrador retriever.
00:07:17:17 - 00:07:37:23
Erick Rheam
Cheyenne was her name, £104, beautiful brown chocolate lab. And we had hired somebody to watch her. And we got we mixed up the times. And the lady that was watching her thought we were coming home at a one time and we were coming home at a different time. So she didn't realize that. We didn't know that. And so she left our dog in the house for like 30 hours without letting her out.
00:07:38:12 - 00:07:56:08
Erick Rheam
And so our dog pooped all over the house, all right? And she ate it because she knew she was wrong. And then she threw it up all over the house. So we got home at 2 a.m.. We smelled of baby poop. We were exhausted. We opened up and it looked like a murder scene that someone had, like, this spread, like dog poo all over the house.
00:07:56:08 - 00:08:12:12
Erick Rheam
It smelled. And at 230 in the morning, I was trying to find any place that was open that I could rent a carpet cleaner to clean up this mess. It was exhausting experience and even to this day and when I see a baby, I'm like, it's good that they have their baby and I don't have the baby. So that was a that was a pretty bad one.
00:08:13:15 - 00:08:20:01
Wayne Mulder
That qualifies as probably the worst travel story that I've ever heard asking that question in 55 episodes.
00:08:20:24 - 00:08:21:14
Erick Rheam
That's awesome.
00:08:21:18 - 00:08:26:13
Wayne Mulder
Wow. So let me ask you, do you have a favorite modern non fiction book?
00:08:28:04 - 00:08:47:22
Erick Rheam
A favorite modern nonfiction book probably would be Thinking for a Change by John Maxwell. I love that book. It never really dawned on me that thinking is a skill set and he just kind of walked through the fact that we just kind of forgotten how to think as a society. And this is really written before a lot of the social media stuff.
00:08:47:22 - 00:09:06:03
Erick Rheam
So he was already on that bandwagon way before all the I mean, everybody says now we're society just never thinks anymore. But he's talked about the art and science behind his thinking and it really kind of set me on this path that I do need to have more quiet time. I need to be more deliberate about how I think and how I deliberate and think about the future.
00:09:06:03 - 00:09:07:04
Erick Rheam
So that's probably my favorite.
00:09:07:19 - 00:09:17:14
Wayne Mulder
Okay, good stuff. Well, let's go ahead. We'll segue into I'd love to hear kind of your origin story, your beginning. I know you were a runner at one point and just kind of love to hear the beginning for you.
00:09:17:22 - 00:09:31:21
Erick Rheam
Yeah, well, I think you and I were talking about this. You have kind of a really cool audience that I have a really strong connection with because I grew up in a law enforcement family, and I think that's where I'd like to really start because, you know, I was you know, when I was growing up, I was, you know, at nine years old.
00:09:31:21 - 00:09:54:06
Erick Rheam
I remember my dad, he was a police officer. So he started out in Saratoga, New York, and he started out as a police officer. He was actually in the Air Force in Saratoga. And he was just fascinated by police work. And they were understaffed as a police department in Saratoga. And this is like the 1960s. And so my dad would volunteer to be a police officer on his off time.
00:09:54:06 - 00:10:09:01
Erick Rheam
This is back in the day where you just do stuff like this, right? And so he would walk the beat in the sixties and loved it and he loved the adrenaline. And going into a bar and just fighting people that needed to be taken care of. He does it. Does he love that? I don't know what it was.
00:10:09:01 - 00:10:24:21
Erick Rheam
He just loved that conflict, I guess. And so he really enjoyed that and then decided that he would apply for my mom when they had my my my sister, my mom went to go back home, which is Indiana, which you and I are both from. And so there is a place there was a spot open in Anderson, Indiana.
00:10:24:21 - 00:10:44:17
Erick Rheam
My mom and dad had never been there before. My mom's from Swansea, my dad's from Gas City, Indiana, Van Buren. And so anyway, so my dad applied for the job and part of it was you had to know the city. So my dad went there, my mom, and for a weekend they drove all around the city memorizing the streets, just figuring it all out and he started pumping a lot of iron.
00:10:44:17 - 00:11:03:00
Erick Rheam
He just realized he was going to have to get big and strong. So he was a big, strong guy. And so that's what started his journey as a police officer. He got hired on it, too, Anderson Police Department. And then I was born several years later in 1973 and then in 1983 as a 982. As a nine year old, I'd watch my dad come in from work.
00:11:03:00 - 00:11:21:23
Erick Rheam
You take off as police uniform. You know, I'd watch him go off, put on his uniform, go out and fight crime. You might been well, he's been a superhero. And my nine year old eyes. Right. And a lot of respect for him and so he came back, took off his uniform, and then he would put on his street clothes, he would have dinner and then he'd go back out a night and the cover of darkness, WAYNE And he would paint parking lots all night long.
00:11:21:23 - 00:11:39:09
Erick Rheam
You know, the park when you go shopping at the grocery store, the lines, you know, the parking spaces. Yeah, my dad did. That was reems striping service. So my dad was a serial entrepreneur because as you know, as law enforcement, you know, you're not going to be rich being a law enforcement officer, law enforcement officers and firefighters, probably the most serial entrepreneurs that I've been around.
00:11:39:09 - 00:11:55:11
Erick Rheam
Right. And so they always got side businesses and stuff like that. My dad was a mall cop, so he was Paul Blart before Paul Blart was Paul Blart. So he did that. He was a security at a country club. He owned a hairstyling salon. He owns 15 cottages up at Barby, not too far from Fort Wayne, where you're from.
00:11:55:18 - 00:12:12:03
Erick Rheam
And so I just grew up watching my dad just try to make ends meet. So I didn't see much of him. But as a young boy, I yearned to be with my father, to connect with my dad. But what my dad also did, what was fascinating was he also ran. So he ran all the time. So he was always running.
00:12:12:03 - 00:12:26:12
Erick Rheam
I mean, he would go out and run ten, 15, 20 miles. He was just as hard charge and full of energy, you know. And part of that was he just became a runner. And by and a funny thing about this is that the reason why he became a runner, your law enforcement guys will get a kick out of this.
00:12:26:24 - 00:12:45:20
Erick Rheam
The reason why he became a runner is he was actually a captain of the police department. He'd risen pretty quickly in the department and the new party came in. So it was all Democrats. And the Republicans came in and they took all the folks that they thought were Democrats and they pushed them in third shift and did that just kind of how politics works in some departments.
00:12:46:08 - 00:13:02:21
Erick Rheam
And so my dad got move. He lost his rank for captain and it ticked him off and they made him patrolman. And my dad said he vowed, he said, someday I will be chief of police. And he was this angry. So the way he dealt with that anger and that energy he had was he started running because he couldn't do anything else.
00:13:02:21 - 00:13:20:01
Erick Rheam
He was stuck on third shift as a patrolman, so we had to do something with that energy. So he became a runner. And so I used to watch my dad run all the time. And so one day I told my dad, I said, There's this race every week, every Thursday on. And Anderson called the Thursday night bike race for our bike trail race.
00:13:20:09 - 00:13:32:24
Erick Rheam
And so it was $0.50, 1982 to get in. And I asked my dad if I could get in it only because I wanted to run with him and let him know that I was a runner just because I want to spend time with my dad. And he said, Now you don't need to do this on your own. Go like this and like, Please, Dad, let me do it.
00:13:32:24 - 00:13:46:18
Erick Rheam
So he paid for it. I ran in the race and he finished. I finished not too far behind him. I had Chuck Taylor converse on. I finished not too far behind me, behind him. My dad's like he had to cut the course. He was asking all his friends and then my son cut the course like, no, he did good.
00:13:47:04 - 00:14:09:05
Erick Rheam
So my dad took me to the YMCA up to the fourth floor. There's a little track up there was hot. It was like 26 laps for a mile. And he had me run the mile and he came back and I remember telling my mom, he goes, I think our son's for real. And that started really a lifelong yearning and an affinity for running where my dad and I started to run together and we ran thousands of miles together and it worked.
00:14:09:05 - 00:14:27:01
Erick Rheam
My dad and I really became really close. We connected with one another. We ran in races. It'd be Thursday night races, we'd run the Thursday night runs, and then every weekend on Saturday we'd run ten KS. Back in the eighties, they didn't have five ks, right? The five ks were for the losers that couldn't run. They were called the Fun Run and nobody ran those.
00:14:27:01 - 00:14:44:12
Erick Rheam
You ran 10-K, that's what we did back in the eighties. And so my dad and I raised together and then I started running marathons with him. I'd run the last six miles and that's really what started the the really the, the connection between my dad and I. And when I, you know, up to that point, I was I was really distant with him and we became really close.
00:14:44:12 - 00:15:06:04
Erick Rheam
And so that started that connection where my dad was my hero, my best friend, someone I looked up to and a guy that I just saw was a law enforcement officer. And it started my love for police officers because I saw what they did for the communities and I saw my dad did. I mean, many times at Christmastime, you know, he would come home and he would watch me open up my gifts and he'd go back out to cover Homicide.
00:15:06:04 - 00:15:24:11
Erick Rheam
You know, that was our life. And so I was just used to that. We would and I was also used to getting death threats. One time acid was dropped on our cars because somebody didn't like my dad. And I got out of prison and came to, you know, to get revenge and we'd have to have policemen, especially. My dad was chief of police set outside our house because we did threats all the time.
00:15:24:11 - 00:15:44:23
Erick Rheam
And, you know, just being around that but also seeing the Brotherhood, I remember at Christmas time, Santa Claus would come at the FOP and I remember sitting on Santa Claus lap, which was some policeman that drew the short straw and sit on a lap and get some kind of cool gift. And this seeing this this brotherhood, it just struck me as a young kid that these people were so close.
00:15:45:07 - 00:15:52:20
Erick Rheam
And I just wanted to have that my life, which is what kind of took me down the military and ultimately military police. So that's that's kind of the start of this whole thing.
00:15:53:19 - 00:16:10:11
Wayne Mulder
That's great. I there's so many questions I have in there. I love it. So was it always a positive thing for you? I think this is a conversation. In fact, Father's Day, a year ago, I actually had my son on the podcast because I wanted to get his perspective as a 20 year old now. And the times have changed from the eighties, obviously, to the 2000.
00:16:10:11 - 00:16:19:23
Wayne Mulder
So was it always a positive thing? Was it always one of respect that, hey, it's cool, my dad's a cop? Or was there ever a period of time at school and so forth where there was a kind of a negative connotation to it for.
00:16:19:23 - 00:16:40:00
Erick Rheam
You or not? Back then? It was a very honorable profession, I think, and still considered, I don't know what it's like now, but I mean, it was very considered, very honorable profession. I always was proud that my dad was a police officer. I remember when was Bring Your Dad to school? I thought I was cool. My dad came in his uniform and you know, my mom, all my friends thought my dad was cool.
00:16:40:00 - 00:16:57:22
Erick Rheam
He came in with his handcuffs and his his gun. And I was fascinating. You know, I was proud that my dad my dad looked sharp. He he was he really made it. He took a lot of pride in the way he looked. You know, he was part of the the what do you call the motorcycle. And he would do parades and stuff like that.
00:16:58:13 - 00:17:14:24
Erick Rheam
His stuff always looked shiny. He always represented really well. And something my dad did that I didn't realize now I was a father. He didn't really let on a lot of the stress that he was feeling. I mean, he covered some pretty bad cases. And in some of the stories he tells me pretty, pretty horrific that he had to deal with.
00:17:15:05 - 00:17:32:21
Erick Rheam
He never brought that home. I never really he never talked about it, that kind of thing. He protected us from that. And so I didn't find out about a lot of that stuff till later, which I always admired him about. He didn't scream and yell. I mean, my mom and dad had a pretty volatile relationship, but that was just because they were both type a high energy.
00:17:32:21 - 00:17:50:16
Erick Rheam
I do think sometimes the stress of being in law enforcement might it did come and it showed as it reared its ugly head when dad and I would get in fights sometimes when I was going through my teenage years, I look back at it. I think he was just stressed out more than anything. He was exhausted. He didn't get a lot of sleep, and so he would get set off very easily.
00:17:50:16 - 00:18:04:04
Erick Rheam
And so I would we'd go toe to toe. One time when he was chief of police, we had a all out brawl and my dad's. All right, I'll meet you outside. He was going to beat the crap out of me, basically. And I went out back and I grabbed my bike and he let that air out of my tires because he knew I was going to try to escape.
00:18:04:04 - 00:18:22:01
Erick Rheam
He's going to make it. He's going to he's going to be wallop me, basically. And so my mom picked the phone to call the police and the police call because I knew it was a chiefs calling. And she said, my, my, my, my husband had to kill my son. And the police called and my dad picked up because this is Chief Ron Ream.
00:18:22:01 - 00:18:41:03
Erick Rheam
I got it covered. Don't worry about it and hung up. The police never came and we figured it out, you know. And so, I mean, those things happened. So I think that part. Yes. But as far as the community, just regular people, they you know, we were my dad was in the newspaper a lot. One time he actually as a chief of police, he wasn't paying attention.
00:18:41:03 - 00:19:01:23
Erick Rheam
And he was he went through a stop sign and he hit an old woman. And that made that made and she survived. I mean, she did that. But my dad had to leave town because it was he was the butt of the jokes and he had to send her flowers. And so little things like that. Our house burned down one time at Christmas time, and the first thought was that somebody burned down on purpose, which is kind of sad, right?
00:19:02:11 - 00:19:25:00
Erick Rheam
That's what their first thought was, that it was arson. And that made the front page. But it turned out it was my dad actually burn the house down accidentally. And so he was just an idiot. That's why it happened. But my point was, is that that was just something we were used to, that whenever something happened, small town chief of police, that kind of thing, there was so there was a bad side of the town where that was a negative because they were just bad people, right?
00:19:25:00 - 00:19:42:22
Erick Rheam
And bad people didn't like my dad. And so sometimes they would try to do bad things, but regular people, they actually I think they honored him. They honored our family. They looked up to my dad that he would willing to do those kind of things. And the whole community really supported the police officers. It was it was kind of a prideful thing to be a part of the police department back then.
00:19:43:09 - 00:20:02:02
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, no, I could definitely see that. Even growing up a little bit younger. Where in the eighties I was much younger, but same thing with the local law enforcement and so forth up there in that part of Indiana where I'm from, it's just changed. You know, where back then it really was there was a certain amount of respect and a whole lot less interaction.
00:20:02:02 - 00:20:21:14
Wayne Mulder
It was shocking to me coming to Florida and then coming into law enforcement and just seeing the amount of interaction people have with law enforcement. I mean, in Indiana, it was more of a you know, obviously if an emergency happened, you called them. But outside of that, like, everything wasn't an emergency. Nowadays, it seems like people call 911 forever.
00:20:21:14 - 00:20:25:23
Wayne Mulder
I mean, I'd fix people's sprinklers before when they call 911. So yeah, it's literally everything.
00:20:26:07 - 00:20:52:15
Erick Rheam
Yeah, I tell you one thing that I really thought was interesting when I was growing up, just from the outside and watching things, is that in the police department, they, they had a love hate, right where they loved each other, but they hated each other like brothers. And so I just remember when my dad, as is chief and he gets so mad at assistant chiefs, he would throw chairs against the wall, you know, and they would just have these brawls, like just getting each other's face like this, you know, and then love each other right after that.
00:20:52:15 - 00:21:10:15
Erick Rheam
He just don't. I just don't see that in regular work environments. But in the police department, it was nothing to see that. And I remember like my dad when I was born, he told me the whole police department you couldn't even see because there was so much smoke because everybody was lighting up cigars. You know, that, you know, Ron Reeves son had a birth of a son in 1973.
00:21:10:15 - 00:21:24:12
Erick Rheam
That was back when they didn't do ultrasound. You didn't know what the sex was until it came out. So they came out and and my dad was so glad he had a son. He called my grandmother and was crying. My grandmother thought something happened and I died because he was so happy and he took cigars to the police department.
00:21:24:12 - 00:21:43:23
Erick Rheam
Everybody lit it up, right? Yeah. And and it was what is interesting to me is I remember how the policemen took care of each other's kids, too. And so whenever I got myself in trouble or something happened, another police officer would come and he knew who I was, and he would take care of me for my dad and then get back to my dad later.
00:21:43:23 - 00:21:55:17
Erick Rheam
I really liked I've always felt like I could go to any police officer because I knew they were like brothers and they would take care of me if I needed something. I really loved that security blanket that was that fraternity. It, you know, I'm saying. Yeah.
00:21:56:04 - 00:22:05:22
Wayne Mulder
And so important. That's awesome. Now, in your own journey, then at some point you end up at West Point, correct? Now, are you hoping to run in college? Was that your intention or.
00:22:05:22 - 00:22:25:19
Erick Rheam
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know that starting running with my dad, that really started my whole career running and it turned out that I was actually halfway decent at it to the point that by my senior year I had many, several Division one full ride scholarship offers from all over the country. And there was a couple of programs I was interested in really was West Point and Navy.
00:22:25:19 - 00:22:41:13
Erick Rheam
And so the United States Military Academy and Naval Academy both were vying for me. Army had one of the top five running programs in the country at the time. So they had one of the top guys from California and one of the top guys from Pennsylvania, New York, then one of the top guys from Kentucky, from Georgia. Alabama.
00:22:41:13 - 00:23:00:01
Erick Rheam
And then they wanted me, this guy from Indiana. And so I was honored that they were even considering me. And it was funny because I was fast, but, you know, I was just an average student, 3.5 grade point average, like maybe 1100 days at SATs. That's not even close to being acceptable at West Point. I didn't even have a nomination from a senator.
00:23:00:01 - 00:23:18:15
Erick Rheam
Nobody wanted to nominate me. So West Point called me up and said, Listen, we're think you need to go to prep school. And I said, I'm not going to do that. Navy's call me every day. I'm sure they'll figure something out. And they said, Well, let me get back with you is what they said. And so this true story the day later, Congressman Dan Burton's assistant called me and said, Please hold for Dan Burton.
00:23:18:15 - 00:23:33:19
Erick Rheam
Congressman Burton, he gets on the phone, he says, all right, you did a good job on your interviews. I'm going to go ahead nominate you. And I said, cut the crap, sir. Did the coach call you from West Point? He goes, Yes, he did. And don't embarrass me. That's what he said. So the head coach at West Point called up the congressman said, we want this guy.
00:23:33:19 - 00:23:50:06
Erick Rheam
Whatever you got to do, let's make it happen. And then West Point flew me out and had me take the act because I had to get an acceptable score. So I did that. And then Navy called and said, Before you make a decision, come out to us first. And I said, Nah, I'm going to Army. And they said, okay, excuse, excuse my language.
00:23:50:06 - 00:24:05:08
Erick Rheam
But they said, We're going to kick your ass for the next four years. What Navy said, and it turned out not to be true. We beat the crap out of them for the next four years. So that's where I started my, my, my career at West Point. And I went there to run. Basically, I was interested in military because my dad was Air Force.
00:24:05:08 - 00:24:19:18
Erick Rheam
I remember one day as a young man, my dad and I were driving by Fort Wright Patterson, I guess what it's called in Ohio. And I remember looking at all this, the military compound and being fascinated. And I started asking my dad about it and he started tell me a little bit about what it takes to get in the military and that kind of stuff.
00:24:19:18 - 00:24:30:02
Erick Rheam
And I thought that might be nice. And so when West Point started calling on me, that's when I realized, okay, maybe this is a good, a good win win. I can be a part of a good running program and then go on to the military. So that's why I decided to do that.
00:24:30:21 - 00:24:55:14
Wayne Mulder
Very good. Yeah, very, very cool. So eventually that leads to military police. And from there you talk about in your writings and we'll get to your book Rise Above Chaos, but in your story, you talk about some setbacks or some failures that eventually in a lot of ways became a starting point for you. So kind of walk us into that moment and what some of those were and what the world was like for you in that time.
00:24:56:01 - 00:25:15:00
Erick Rheam
Yeah, well, I reason why I went military police. When you at the academy you have to pick one through 16. I think it was 16. Your number one choice all the way all the way down to your 16th choice as far as what branch of service you want to go through. And so I was really trying to figure out what I wanted to do and it really came down to armor, which is tanks or military police.
00:25:15:08 - 00:25:38:12
Erick Rheam
And ultimately I decided to go military police for a couple of reasons. One, my dad was a police officer. I've kind of wanted to honor him a little bit with that. But also, military police is interesting because the sharpest some of the sharpest sort folks that come into the Army, they put him in military police because in order to be a law enforcement, especially in the military, you have to be you have to think really well on your feet.
00:25:38:12 - 00:25:51:12
Erick Rheam
You got to be pretty sharp. Right. You just can't be some dumb grunt that can hold a weapon and point and shoot. You actually got to be able to think and make decisions. And so they put a lot of high IQ folks in military police. And I thought, well, I'd like to work with a lot of people who are sharp.
00:25:51:12 - 00:26:08:11
Erick Rheam
And the military police makes up 3% of the army, but they're involved in 98% of the missions everywhere. There's a mission with the military. There's always law enforcement there with it. So I thought, well, that's a good way to experience the military. So that's what I did. And so then he headed to Chu. You had to choose where you want to go.
00:26:08:17 - 00:26:24:18
Erick Rheam
So based on your class rank, Microplastic was high enough I was able to get my top choices. So I put Germany. I thought I'd be fine to go to Europe. Well, what I did think about is when I went there, Bosnia was pretty hot right there. So in the middle night in the mid nineties, Bosnia-Herzegovina was like World War Two level genocide way.
00:26:24:18 - 00:26:44:00
Erick Rheam
And we're talking like, you know, basically if you're the wrong ridge, religion didn't matter. If you were man, woman and child, you were executed, murdered your whole family, they'd murder your daughter, your kids right in front of you. I mean, the saying it it sounds weird to saying it, but man, it was like happening and so so much so the world cannot look no longer look the other way.
00:26:44:00 - 00:27:05:09
Erick Rheam
And so we had to do something about it. So they they formed together. All of our allies started Operation Joint, never. And I, my first duty station was in Bosnia as a platoon leader, leading 33 men and women into harm's way in the country. Three, that's about the size of Alabama, with over 3 million undocumented landmines. We didn't shower for like two months.
00:27:05:12 - 00:27:20:22
Erick Rheam
When we got there, there was no running water. I was 23 years old. I mean, it was a very high stress environment. And I was like, man, I'm not sure if I can do this. I remember when I got there within the first like 24 hours, we got called out on a mission and I was just bad. I just I was stumbled on over myself.
00:27:20:22 - 00:27:32:22
Erick Rheam
I could tell my soldiers were looking at me and they were kind of like, you know, kind of like kind of like law enforcement. You know, when you're the new guy, you're a new captain, new sergeant, new shift supervisor, people are looking at you like, Damn, I don't even respect this guy. And I can see it in their eyes.
00:27:33:09 - 00:27:50:06
Erick Rheam
And so I remember after that mission was over, I went somewhere where nobody could see me. And I just bawled, man. I cried. I was like, There's no way I can do this. I'm not equipped. I'm not ready for this. And luckily, there was this operation, Sergeant, his name was truly, truly model Lulu. He looked like the rock.
00:27:50:22 - 00:28:08:07
Erick Rheam
So this picture of that, but with hair, he's big, he's Samoan. He had calves that were bigger than my body. He had these really deep age lines in his face of a life well lived. He had dark coal eyes that were sunken and it was Skull. I didn't know he had teeth because he never smiled. He was the ops sergeant and he just ate my lunch.
00:28:08:07 - 00:28:23:13
Erick Rheam
All the time. Just got all me. I was scared of this guy and this guy was huge, but he lived. He didn't stay in the tents. Everybody else, he had his own little tent on this hillside. It's like a movie setting, right is on the hillside. And every night I'd see a little fire up there. He's like, What the hell are you doing up there?
00:28:23:19 - 00:28:36:11
Erick Rheam
He had a slingshot. He was like proficient at and he would hunt with a slingshot. He would try to hunt these wild boar with a slingshot. This guy was phenomenal. He's a kind of guy that if something went down, you want him on your side. You know, I'm saying I mean, he would take out a lot of people.
00:28:36:24 - 00:28:47:19
Erick Rheam
And so one day I decided I just I want to go up and talk to him because I respected him. And I went up to him and I said, Sergeant, my Lulu, can I talk to you? And he goes, Yeah, come in. And he was different when it was just me and him. He softened his tone a little bit.
00:28:47:19 - 00:29:02:23
Erick Rheam
He was gentle. He even smiled and he kind of took me under his wing and I just blurted out to him and said, I don't know what I'm doing, Sergeant, you've got to help me out here. And he goes, Listen, you're talented. Trust me. You know what you're doing. He says, You just got to take a deep breath, trust your noncommissioned officers, and you're going to be fine.
00:29:02:23 - 00:29:16:20
Erick Rheam
They're not going to let you fail. And so that started where I'd go there every night. And go to his tent, and he would just speak wisdom over me and just teach me all this stuff. And and the public said and he still ripped my lunch in front of the people is kind of a role I had to play.
00:29:16:20 - 00:29:34:03
Erick Rheam
He kind of set me up, use me as an example with the other lieutenants. But behind closed doors, he kind of taught me the ropes of what it meant to be a soldier, what it meant to be a leader. And that's really kind of what got me back on track. And by the time we redeployed back to base to Germany, I was rated the top lieutenant in my battalion.
00:29:34:09 - 00:29:51:09
Erick Rheam
And whenever there were high end missions or my platoon, the Wolfpack platoon was the first platoon the battalion commander would always call on. But it all started with me find in a mentor that was really to sit down with me and kind of explain to me what it's going to take for me to survive this situation because we're dealing with real world, right.
00:29:51:09 - 00:30:12:11
Erick Rheam
You know, if you if you think about like back in Vietnam and and all these times we were in conflict as as a country lieutenant and I was lieutenant then the primary way lieutenant's died was getting shot in the back. Most of the time the jets were shot by their own soldiers. And so if you think about you're dealing with situations that, you know, you're being mixed with people from all walks of life.
00:30:12:11 - 00:30:31:01
Erick Rheam
I had a guy in my platoon that practiced voodoo. I had a Las Vegas stripper in my platoon. I had gang members in my platoon. I had white, black, Chinese, all kinds. Right. All put in this one together. We all had weapons with live ammunition at any time. Any person could take their weapon off, save it, just start laying into people, right?
00:30:31:12 - 00:30:48:12
Erick Rheam
So that just real world, man, you got to gain someone's respect when they're looking at you and they've got an M-16 that's loaded. Like you got an M-16 is loaded, you know, and all around you is landmines that if you step in the wrong direction, you get your toe blown off, your leg blown off. It just all that together, you had to figure out how am I going to survive?
00:30:48:12 - 00:30:56:24
Erick Rheam
It really taught me a lot about just the the bare bones of humanity and how you can survive it. It was an unbelievable situation.
00:30:57:21 - 00:31:06:12
Wayne Mulder
That's absolutely fascinating. You talk about this idea of the beast. What does that mean? What are you referring to there?
00:31:06:21 - 00:31:18:12
Erick Rheam
Yeah. So fast forward, you know, to many years after that, I got out of the military and actually got in the utility world. I got in the utility world because of a girl. Have you ever done anything stupid in the name of love before?
00:31:18:12 - 00:31:20:16
Wayne Mulder
Wayne I think most guys have actually.
00:31:20:16 - 00:31:35:22
Erick Rheam
Yeah, well, that was me. And so I met this girl. Her name is Alia. She was in Anderson, where I'm from, but I wasn't. I didn't live there anymore. I was in Colorado. I met her actually at my sister's funeral, which is a weird thing. But I met her there. She was the mayor's daughter, right? She was seven years younger than me.
00:31:35:22 - 00:31:51:02
Erick Rheam
I never met her before. And for whatever reason, she went with the mayor because they want to pay their respects to them. Her dad was a mayor. My dad was the chief of police. They want to pay their respects to our family. And she decided to go. And we laid eyes on each other the very first time in front of my sister's casket.
00:31:51:19 - 00:32:07:08
Erick Rheam
And I realized it, man, she was sharp. She was sharp, you know, and I knew that there was I was kind of interested in her. Well, she had a boyfriend at time. Ironically, ironically, he was a West Pointer, and I was a captain in the Army at the time. And so I realized he was in New York, I was in Colorado.
00:32:07:08 - 00:32:22:23
Erick Rheam
She was in in Anderson, Indiana. And I thought, well, if I really think this is the one, I'm just going to have to move to. ANDERSON So that's what I did. I moved to Anderson, took a job with utility. My dad by that time was no longer the chief of police. He was the board of Works chairman. And so he got he told me I can get the job if I wanted it.
00:32:22:23 - 00:32:41:13
Erick Rheam
So I took the job and then it worked. Within five months, Ali and I were engaged. Nine months later, we were married. That was 2001. We moved to Colorado in 2005 and I really hit rock bottom. I just kind of lost my way, man. I think this happens with a lot of people. Law enforcement or not. I mean, you just get in a phase where you're just trying to figure things out.
00:32:41:22 - 00:33:00:01
Erick Rheam
And I just was not living up to the standard I needed to live up to. And my wife called me out on it. And so and 2005, I had three gut punches. One is my wife looked at me and this hurt me. She said, you know, Eric, you're not living up to my expectations. Her eyes were bloodshot. She's like, You're not what I expected from a husband.
00:33:00:01 - 00:33:19:18
Erick Rheam
And that hurt man because she was fantastic and she chose me to be her husband and I was letting her down and she was my best friend. And that hurt and it was a gut punch. The second one was my dad. My dad, when my kids were born in 2005, when my dad came out with my mom, my twin boys, to be with us, to be with his grandchildren and to spend time with me.
00:33:20:03 - 00:33:36:00
Erick Rheam
They were scheduled to say stay ten days. After two days, my dad and I got into a big fight. I laid my hands on my dad in anger and I threw him out of my house. It was probably one of the lowest moments in my life with my father. And he just left. He got packed up his bags and flew home and we didn't talk for six months.
00:33:36:09 - 00:33:49:11
Erick Rheam
My dad was the best man at my wedding. I've already explained to you what he meant to me, and I couldn't believe that I did that. Have you ever had that out-of-body experience where you just been so mad and you see yourself doing something you know you were going to regret, but you can't help it because you're just mad.
00:33:49:11 - 00:34:05:08
Erick Rheam
And that's what happened. So that was gut punch number two and a gut punch number three. I was suspended from work because I just got out of the military. I was treating my colleagues like soldiers and they weren't having any of it. And they basically were saying I was abusing my power. Well, I had energy. I had talent.
00:34:05:08 - 00:34:21:12
Erick Rheam
But I had no I just lacked self awareness. You know, I respected you get the job done. I didn't care about your personal problems and all this and that, and I just wasn't treating people correctly. And so the human resources person manager said, hey, take a week off on unpaid leave. And so I found myself in a dark place, man.
00:34:21:12 - 00:34:40:17
Erick Rheam
I found I was just not living where I needed to live. So I on that first day of suspension, I told my wife, I want to go out for a while. I got cleaned up and got dressed and got in my car and I just drove and I found myself in a small little town called Norwalk, Colorado. It's about 15 minutes outside of Boulder, about 45 minutes outside of where we lived.
00:34:40:17 - 00:34:59:02
Erick Rheam
Far enough where I could think about my life, but close enough with my wife needed me. She call me. And so I begin to think about I went to this coffee shop and I thought, Colorado is this beautiful little, hallmark little town. It's gorgeous. And so I parked and I went inside this little coffee shop right downtown, got a cup of coffee, sat right next to the window.
00:34:59:10 - 00:35:13:11
Erick Rheam
And to sip that coffee for 7 hours waiting and just thought about my life. In fact, I went there every day for seven days. By the end of it, this barrio just thought it was weird. Like, this guy comes in, he gets one cup of coffee and he sits there. And so I just sit there and I begin to ask myself, what's the problem?
00:35:13:14 - 00:35:33:12
Erick Rheam
It seems like every time I get any momentum of my life, I do something stupid to just destroy it. I was I had this destructive lifestyle that I couldn't get out of. And so I began to realize that there was this unknown force that was always there. It was whispering, you know, I'm not good enough or you're not good enough for her, or Why didn't you get that promotion?
00:35:33:12 - 00:35:53:01
Erick Rheam
It kept me up at night and was just always in the back of my mind. And so being from a military background, I recognize it's an enemy, it's an unknown forces, but it's an enemy. And I identified it and I started to call it something. And so by the end of the week, I just started calling it The Beast, and I realized that the beast is something that we all deal with, that negative voice that you just can't get out of your mind.
00:35:53:11 - 00:36:14:22
Erick Rheam
And it was in the shotgun in my life. I mean, if I was driving a car, it was riding shotgun and it was dominating my life. And so I realized that something needed to change, that I had to tame it. And so I was determined by the end of that week, by the time that suspension was over, I realized that although, although I was at a rock bottom of my life, that I still had my wife, I still have my dad, I still had my job.
00:36:14:22 - 00:36:22:05
Erick Rheam
But if I was going to do anything about it, something needed to change. And the first thing was I needed a team, that beast. And that's what started that journey.
00:36:22:23 - 00:36:44:24
Wayne Mulder
Well, very powerful. And I think it's something that we all find these areas, even as you were talking and kind of sharing these vignettes of your life and these moments, I know they were similar ones that come to me from my own relationship with my father, which I love. My father passed away last year. We had a really bad relationship.
00:36:45:00 - 00:37:18:06
Wayne Mulder
And same thing though, as you talk. You know, I think as young men, we all go through these phases, both as teenagers and young adults and so forth. One of the things you talk about in line of talking about the beast and determining the path forward, you talk about this fear of not being relevant. And I found that I think that's something that really does resonate with a lot of law enforcement officers, too, because I think you're drawn to these careers of service because of a desire for relevance and and even things like podcasting and so forth.
00:37:18:07 - 00:37:25:02
Wayne Mulder
Another way to get your voice out there because you want to make a difference. So tell me a little bit into that and what that means to you when we talk about relevance.
00:37:25:10 - 00:37:50:07
Erick Rheam
Yeah. So that was the second part of the equation. So the first part of the equation, I had this beast that I had to dominate, which I developed a methodology that my book talks about how to deal with that. But the other part that I realized that I was missing in my life at the time was significance. You know, I believe that if you don't have a purpose in your life, that there's a fundamental void in your in your heart that has to be filled with something.
00:37:50:07 - 00:38:06:03
Erick Rheam
And that's where the beast comes in. So usually, like when I was in Bosnia, when I saw people living a destructive lifestyle, I like all those Bosnians, young men that were just doing bad things. Most of them just they had no purpose. And because of that, they filled it with something and they usually filled with something evil. That's where the beast comes in, right?
00:38:06:17 - 00:38:24:07
Erick Rheam
I believe each and every one of us wants to achieve some level of significance in our life, and we all want to know that our life matters. At the end of the day, we want to have an impact. And I think the frustrating thing for law enforcement is you have an impact, but a lot of times you don't get the resources to do what you want to do with your life.
00:38:24:07 - 00:38:42:04
Erick Rheam
You know, you really pour your entire life, your blood, your sweat, your tears, you know, my dad's got scars. He walks with a limp. You know, he gave everything for his community, right? Yeah. But was he properly rewarded for that sometimes? No. You know, and so sometimes we get tied up with the identity that is our job and that's it.
00:38:42:15 - 00:38:58:19
Erick Rheam
Then sometimes that can that can lead to a lot of destruction in our lives. So what I realize is that in order for me to cut through the whirlwind and rise above my chaos, I had to find my level of significance and I had to unpack. Well, what does that really mean? And how am I going to get there?
00:38:58:19 - 00:39:18:19
Erick Rheam
And what steps do I need to take? And so that started on a 15 year journey where I had to figure some things out and I found what I call the Five Principles to discover significance and live in peace, because ultimately everybody wants that. Law enforcement doesn't matter who you are, but especially law enforcement. You want to know that you're having an impact.
00:39:19:04 - 00:39:38:10
Erick Rheam
And sometimes you're not going to get that the the relevance or the rewards that you want to get publicly. But that that's really irrelevant. There's some things that are going to happen inside and that you have to address. And the steps that I lay out that allow someone to find their own level of significance, that makes for them.
00:39:38:10 - 00:39:42:01
Erick Rheam
And so that that's what I meant when it talked about relevance and why that's important.
00:39:43:06 - 00:40:01:00
Wayne Mulder
Very good. You've mentioned and of course, your book Rise Above Chaos. I want to make sure the listeners get that book and go through it. But you've mentioned that some of these principles, when we talk about significance, when we talk about rising above chaos before we before we get to one of the principles, let me just quickly back up and ask a question.
00:40:01:02 - 00:40:14:01
Wayne Mulder
Can you define chaos? Because we live in chaotic times, right? So when you use the term and we're using it in the meaning of this book, how are you defining chaos or what do you see it as the problem that is going to be addressed?
00:40:14:13 - 00:40:37:19
Erick Rheam
First of all, chaos is is all relevant, right? Meaning that your chaos is different than my chaos, but know because sometimes I think we can prejudge other people's chaos. Like what's that person worried about? That's not chaotic. But if they're in their own chaos as they're chaos. Right. And so the way I define it is any time that you're overwhelmed, so much so that you're not even sure where to start, that's what chaos means to me.
00:40:38:01 - 00:40:56:16
Erick Rheam
In fact, the military is one that first kind of clued me in on chaos. When they when I got to West Point, one of the first things they asked us, do you understand what business you're about to get into? And I had no idea. And I said, as a as a military officer, a U.S. Army officer, you're going to be in the business of managing chaos.
00:40:56:16 - 00:41:10:04
Erick Rheam
Right. And what they meant by that is that you're going to have the best plans you can, have the best weapons, you can have the best soldiers. But as soon as you go into that mission, that first bullet flies and someone gets hit and you start to smell blood and people start going down, chaos is going to ensue.
00:41:10:11 - 00:41:36:02
Erick Rheam
And whether you're going to live or die or get your soldiers out of there is how you manage chaos. And the thing they taught us in the military is the way you manage chaos is usually through standard operating procedures, battle drills, but also center of gravity and understanding what your very next step is. And so what I do, what I had to figure out is, is that now what I lay out in the book is, is when you find yourself in chaos, the main thing is you've got to have kind of a true north in what your next step is.
00:41:36:02 - 00:41:49:13
Erick Rheam
And that's why I lay out in the book, step by step, how to get yourself out of the chaos. So that's that's it. All that chaos is being overwhelmed and not understanding where you need to go next. And the first way to get out of it is identify on your next step and do that. And that's what we lay out in the book.
00:41:50:00 - 00:42:05:11
Wayne Mulder
I love it and definitely everyone needs to get the book. It's rise above chaos. Could you give one of those steps or what do you think would be the foundational? Is it just simply from the planning, like you said, or what would you say is the foundational point there?
00:42:05:20 - 00:42:24:08
Erick Rheam
Well, I think you just start with number one, because it's called embrace your spiritual journey. And what that means is, is that it's not like a religious thing. But we all I think all of us has a little voice inside that's always asking that question. Why? Right. I think why is the fundamental question that each and every one of us has to answer.
00:42:24:08 - 00:42:40:14
Erick Rheam
Because when when you get up out of the morning, right, and you go out into the world, you're walking into a hostile world that's just a regular human being. But if you're a law enforcement officer, you're walking into a hostile world times 1000, right? So if you're going to walk out into that hostile world and face the world is who you are.
00:42:40:21 - 00:42:59:01
Erick Rheam
If you don't know why you're doing what you're doing, what's point? If you don't know your why, the beast is going to eat you alive because people that don't know their why lose their way. And probably the first time I kind started to clue in on this is I remember we started this whole podcast conversation about my dad being an avid runner.
00:42:59:14 - 00:43:14:14
Erick Rheam
Well, I remember it was like 83 or 84. My dad ran the Boston Marathon and so he pulled me out of school and it was an honor for me to go to Boston with him and watch him run that race. And I watched him run. It was fantastic. Was an unbelievable experience, but my dad never ran again after that.
00:43:14:22 - 00:43:30:24
Erick Rheam
My dad, up to that point, even competed in the police Olympics, the international police Olympics. He dominated. He was fantastic. He even ran so hard. The police Olympics in Austin, Texas, it was so hot. It was over like 100 degrees. He passed out. They had to take him to the emergency room and pack them in ice. And I remember they asked him, where are you from?
00:43:30:24 - 00:43:45:00
Erick Rheam
And he said, the United States, he was delirious. And they got him back together and they put him back out there. And he ran again that night after coming back from the hospital. That's kind of that's how how he worked, how he does life. He's just a beast. And so I watched my dad run that marathon and never ran again.
00:43:45:03 - 00:44:04:15
Erick Rheam
And so one day I asked my dad, many years later, I said, why did you stop running? And he told me, he said, Eric, at mile 18 of that Boston Marathon, I started to cramp. I start to feel bad. And for the first time in my running career, I stopped and I walked. And he said During the eight mile while I was walking, I realized that I don't care that I'm doing this anymore.
00:44:04:16 - 00:44:26:07
Erick Rheam
Nobody cares that I'm out here. I've lost my reason for doing this. Why am I doing this? He lost his why? And so after that, he realized that running was a phase of life that helped him during that time when he lost his captain and he had to become a patrol. When, by the way, here's a funny story of that is once he did make Chief, he fired the consulting company that downgraded him to patrolman.
00:44:26:07 - 00:44:43:05
Erick Rheam
That was his first thing he got rid of. Sure. It took him ten years. It took him ten years. But he came back and said, screw you guys. You guys are out of here. You probably had a patrolman where you just lost your job. So anyway, so he stopped doing that. And so that's when I realized that you got to know what your way is.
00:44:43:05 - 00:44:58:08
Erick Rheam
And so for the first step, what I recommend for everybody, listen to this. The main thing with why is there's two parts to it. Number one is you got to understand your passion. And your passion is what are you willing to suffer for if you know what your passion is, that's the fuel that's going to help you rise above the chaos.
00:44:58:08 - 00:45:14:02
Erick Rheam
Right? So for me, my passion is people I have a passion for. Like you won't mind. It's really motivating for me to meet someone new like you. It's motivating. I did a talk yesterday with 475 people I never met before. I loved it. I walked out of there with 75 friends. So that's my passion. I have a passion for people.
00:45:14:10 - 00:45:42:11
Erick Rheam
The second part of your why is your superpower so you're uniquely qualified waiting to do something great, right? We're all uniquely qualified. You have a set of skills, Wayne, that I can't even touch. Well, once you identify what your superpower is and you line that with your passion, what happens is your y begins to formulate. And when your why formulates and you understand what your why is, then when you go out in that hostile world, you get spit on by somebody that you're trying to arrest.
00:45:42:11 - 00:46:02:00
Erick Rheam
You get videoed by somebody who some who think they know it all or you get suspended or whatever, it doesn't really matter because all those things are going to happen to you. But when you know why you're doing what you're doing, you're willing to do what you're doing because you're willing to suffer because it's your passion and you're suffering for something within your superpower that you're uniquely qualified to do.
00:46:02:10 - 00:46:20:04
Erick Rheam
So for me, what that meant was I'm really good at communication. I have a passion for people. I line that together and over time I realized that I'm a speaker. And so I go out and I speak to thousands of people on a yearly basis. People some people hate me. Some people write me bad letters, some give me really bad surveys.
00:46:20:04 - 00:46:34:21
Erick Rheam
And it doesn't matter, because on the other side of that is hundreds and hundreds of people that come up to me with tears in her eyes saying, You changed the way I look at the world That's my way. So if you know your why, that's the first step for finding your significance. And I lay it out in the book on how to do that.
00:46:35:08 - 00:46:57:06
Wayne Mulder
That that is so powerful that that if the listeners get nothing else, you need to go back and rewind that and listen to that one more time. That that was absolutely powerful. And that's not hyperbole. It really was great. Eric And for the listeners, definitely check out there's five principles from the book. The book is Rise Above Chaos and it's Rise Above Chaos Book Chaos Books.
00:46:57:06 - 00:47:14:06
Wayne Mulder
I do want to ask you one thing that you had just mentioned. One things I was reading about you. You talk why the world belongs to the encourager. Just quickly, I loved when I read that line, I know I think it was mentioned as maybe a possible title for a show, but why do you think the world belongs to Encourager?
00:47:14:06 - 00:47:15:19
Wayne Mulder
Because I just love that concept.
00:47:16:03 - 00:47:30:19
Erick Rheam
Well, because at the end of the day, if you want to live a life of significance, you can't do without the help of others. There's no example of any man or any woman achieving any level of significance by themselves. If you're going to do anything significant, you're going to need somebody on your team. You are where you are right now.
00:47:30:19 - 00:47:46:20
Erick Rheam
Win because somebody edified you, they supported you. It could have been a coach, could have been your dad, could have been a mom, a spouse. They edified you and they supported you. You can't do this by yourself. If you're going to continue on the path of significant success, you're going to need to surround yourself with good people. Well, here's the thing.
00:47:46:20 - 00:48:01:03
Erick Rheam
When you're trying to connect with others, you need to be an encourager y because people remember how you make them feel. At the end of the day, nobody cares what you know, who you are. All they care about at the end of the day is how do you make them feel? How do you make them feel about you?
00:48:01:10 - 00:48:19:08
Erick Rheam
How do you make them feel about the world and how you make them feel about themselves when you evaluate your relationships, you always evaluate them based on how you feel about the person that's so important. And so if you start to learn that, if you can encourage others, then by doing that, you're going to attract the right people that want to be around you.
00:48:19:08 - 00:48:35:15
Erick Rheam
And when you're an encourager, you will never be without people who want to support you and be around you because the people like to be around others that encourage them. Now, don't mistake what I'm saying here. I'm not talking about being a cheerleader like a rah rah. That's not what encouragement is. Encouragement is actually through the act of sacrifice.
00:48:35:15 - 00:48:59:23
Erick Rheam
That's how we encourage one another. As law enforcement officers, we can understand this more than anybody. We really value our fellow police officers because we sacrifice for one another. Right. We sacrifice our blood, our sweat, tears, our finances. And when you sacrifice for another human being, you form a connection that can never be broken. And so the three ways you sacrifice is time, money and ego.
00:49:00:06 - 00:49:18:02
Erick Rheam
So right now, you and I are sacrificing for one another. I'm spending an hour with you. You spend an hour with me. We're connecting with one another. Right? And so when we when we spend that time together, we we sacrifice. So if I spend time, like, for instance, if a law enforcement officer, if it goes down and he's sick and he's hurt spending time with his family.
00:49:18:02 - 00:49:42:05
Erick Rheam
I've had that happen before where when my sister died, the law enforcement community came and surrounded dad and supported us and sat with us and cried with us. You know, that's an act of sacrifice. That is encouragement, money. When you sacrifice money, I can't tell you how many times my dad contributed to funds for charities and stuff, or maybe a law enforcement officer who died and they had kids and need to get to college, stuff like that.
00:49:42:11 - 00:50:00:17
Erick Rheam
That's an act of sacrifice. Right. And the last one is ego. How many of your listeners are better arguers after the arguments over you know, I'm talking about when you get an argument with someone and you're just so mad at that person and you can't wait to talk to them the next day. But before you can argue with them, they look at you and they say, Hey, I'm sorry what I said last night, can you forgive me?
00:50:01:00 - 00:50:17:03
Erick Rheam
And when someone does that, it takes the wind out of your sails because you realize how hard it is to say you're sorry. Because when someone takes their ego and they rip it out of their chest and they lay it at your feet, you know, that's an act of sacrifice. So here's the question for all your listeners. Do they have a relationship right now?
00:50:17:07 - 00:50:37:00
Erick Rheam
It would change everything if that person just said they're sorry. More importantly, would it change everything if they just said they're sorry? And if we just relax a little bit and learn to sacrifice our time, money and ego for one another, we edify and encourage one another. And then that is in itself a path to significance. It's a beautiful thing.
00:50:37:14 - 00:50:52:20
Wayne Mulder
Absolutely it is. Well, thank you, Eric. Let me ask you to final questions that I kind of ask everybody. What is next for you and your mission? We've talked about obviously you are a speaker and a great one, by the way. And we've spoken about your book Rise Above Chaos. But what is next for you and your mission?
00:50:53:19 - 00:51:11:16
Erick Rheam
Well, I have a pretty big mission. I want to help 10,000 people over the next three years cut through their own whirlwind so they can rise above their own chaos and discover significance, but more importantly, find peace. Peace is so important because you can find peace in your significant journey, even with chaos happening around you. And so that's what I want to do.
00:51:11:16 - 00:51:36:09
Erick Rheam
And so what I'm doing is I traveled across the country doing keynotes and workshops and just add as much value as I can and get this book in people's hands. I got courses I give, I do workshops, things like that, just to help people get back on track. Because my thought is, is that let's just say that more law enforcement officers go to work with their why they go to work with their relevance in mind and peace doing what they're doing.
00:51:36:17 - 00:51:58:08
Erick Rheam
That's huge. You know, I've seen a lot of really good law enforcement officers go bad, mainly because they just lost their way. They lost their way. And I want to help as many of them get back on track because I know how important our law enforcement community is, man, let me tell you, I know what life would be like if people like my dad didn't go to work every day like he did for 40 years, and I don't want that life.
00:51:58:08 - 00:52:09:10
Erick Rheam
And so I want to encourage as many as law enforcement officers I can and their families to be encouraged to go out. And so if I can help 10,000 people like that in the next three years, then hopefully I can make a dent. And that's what I'm trying to do.
00:52:09:21 - 00:52:25:16
Wayne Mulder
What a powerful mission. Let me ask you my last question. We've gone over so many good things. I'm not sure if there's anything left for this question. But the final question I ask everybody who comes on the show, what is the one take away one thing that we all can do that what's going to help law enforcement officers in their personal lives?
00:52:25:17 - 00:52:28:03
Wayne Mulder
And what's that one thing that will make a difference in their personal life?
00:52:29:02 - 00:52:54:07
Erick Rheam
Wow, that's a good one. I think probably just acknowledge that what you're doing matters, I think would be one thing I would tell you that as a young man and I just want to encourage anybody that's in the law enforcement. By the way, if it's a wife that's listening this right now, you played just as a big role as the the husband or wife that is going out there and putting their life on the line.
00:52:55:04 - 00:53:10:23
Erick Rheam
There were many times that my mom would pick me up from school. We spent a lot. My dad even says he wish he was there more often, but my mom had to bear the brunt of my dad not being around. Right. So if you're a mom or wife of a law enforcement officer, you're you played just as a bigger role.
00:53:10:23 - 00:53:27:22
Erick Rheam
Right. And I think just to understand, I think we can get a little jaded sometimes just going and doing the calls and doing all the things we got to do that sometimes we forget impact we're making. You know, and this from my standpoint, I would tell you that my life was shaped by just watching police officers from afar.
00:53:28:12 - 00:53:44:19
Erick Rheam
So I think important for every law enforcement officer. Whenever you put on that uniform and you go out in your community, people are watching and most of a lot of people aren't watching for the negative reasons. There's a nine year old boy that's watching like I did and saying, man, I value that, that that guy is awesome. That lady's awesome.
00:53:45:03 - 00:54:02:16
Erick Rheam
And because of that, that person may make decisions. That's going to be very positive because of something they may have saw you do that you didn't even realize that you did. You know, just getting out of your car, that looks sharp. It's clean. You look clean. You look sharp, you know, not losing your cool, being professional, things like that, that impacts.
00:54:02:22 - 00:54:20:20
Erick Rheam
I think the community gets a lot of its cues from its law enforcement officers. You know, I'm saying the community gets its identity from those law enforcement. You know, they're probably outside of maybe the fire department. They're the most visible community asset in the community. And when you go in, you notice the police the police cars, you notice those officers.
00:54:20:20 - 00:54:40:02
Erick Rheam
And when they're not, they don't look sharp. That tells you a little bit about the community. So they represent the community that's so freaking important. So never lose the fact that you are shaping people's lives and impacting people just by showing up and being who you are. So I think what I would do is acknowledge that you're making an impact and just keep showing up because showing up matters and we value you.
00:54:40:02 - 00:54:51:11
Erick Rheam
I value you and you guys, what you're doing is making a difference. So I love you guys and I appreciate you. And Wayne is been an absolute honor to be on this podcast. Thank you so much for what you're doing. This is making a difference, man. I appreciate it.
00:54:51:18 - 00:54:54:22
Wayne Mulder
I greatly appreciate it. Real quick, what is the best way for people to connect with you?
00:54:55:16 - 00:55:11:16
Erick Rheam
I just go to my website, ErickRheam.com. So e r i c k r h e am I'm the only Erick Rheam in the world. So if you google me my mom, she must have been a genius. She knew that it was going to be important someday. She knew Google is going to be great. So that's how you find me?
00:55:11:21 - 00:55:17:09
Wayne Mulder
Perfect. Well, I will be sure to link all that up. Thank you so much for coming on, Eric. This has been a blast and I appreciate your time.
00:55:17:16 - 00:55:18:15
Erick Rheam
And it's awesome. Thanks, man.
00:55:19:00 - 00:55:43:17
Wayne Mulder
Thank so thank you for watching or listening, depending on how you were accessing this week's program. So this week's podcast, every episode, if you want to get the full show notes, you can go to OnTheBlueLine.com. There's pictures of the guest. There's a transcription of every episode and it's all at OnTheBlueLine.com/show-notes.
00:55:44:01 - 00:56:12:08
Wayne Mulder
Or you can just click down below in the show notes on whatever platform you're watching this and that will take you directly to the show notes page on the website for this show. If I could just ask you one quick favor. If you hear a book or anything from any of the guest, or if you go to the bookstore section of the website, if there is any books that you intend to get from Amazon or from Audible, if you click that link and do it through the link that is on there, it will benefit us and it doesn't cost you anything additional.
00:56:12:17 - 00:56:31:21
Wayne Mulder
It will actually throw. Amazon doesn't charge you anything more to use the affiliate link and in turn they will throw a few pennies our direction, which will help with the overall expense of bringing this to you each and every day. So that's a favor I ask, and I appreciate you considering it. That is all for today. Don't forget that.
00:56:31:21 - 00:56:47:21
Wayne Mulder
I'm going to see you next Monday in Morning Roll Call. I will see you Thursday in the interview room. But in the meantime, I'll see you out there on the blue line.