Step Up to the Mic! #37 - "Our Protector Development," with Ryan Reichert!!!

Ryan is a professional speaker, mindset trainer, executive coach, best-selling author, and podcaster based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He empowers overwhelmed professionals to break free from limiting beliefs, discover their God-given purpose, and pursue meaningful transformation.
A born-again believer in Jesus and a servant leader at heart, Ryan brings more than four decades of life experience to his work, moving seamlessly from small-town America to global metropolitan markets. He served 23 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel after forty-two months in combat and a leadership role as a Foreign Service Director. After military service, Ryan translated his skills into the Fortune-500 world, gaining practical insight into corporate leadership, strategy, and high-stakes decision-making.
Ryan’s passion is helping others. He is a recovery advocate who overcame alcohol addiction, and his personal journey informs a compassionate, accountable approach to coaching. He’s the father of two daughters, a business owner, and—fun fact—played rugby at the University of North Dakota. Whether volunteering, speaking, or coaching, Ryan follows where God leads, committed to making a lasting impact.
Today his mission is clear: to guide others toward faith, purpose, and transformation—cultivating confidence, restoring hope, and unlocking potential in leaders who are ready to live their best lives.

His website:  https://ourprotectordevelopment.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Step Up to the Mic. Folks, this is the place for aspiring and established speakers to take the stage, deliver their talks, and bring them directly to you. Today's featured speaker. I have had the pleasure of uh speaking with this gentleman previously. I am really excited about him being here today. After 23 years, he is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel. He's a born-again Christian, an author, a motivational speaker, a servant leader, and he is also, and maybe most importantly, you know, the father of two fantastic daughters, folks. Please welcome to our stage Ryan Rikert.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Thank you, Rory. Greatly appreciate this opportunity to speak to everybody today. Yeah, so Ryan T. Rikert, uh, I'm from Hoopal, North Dakota. For those of you out there that do not know, this is Tatertown, USA, and it is certainly in the middle of nowhere, northeastern North Dakota. I love to take people on this initial journey because it'll really layer you into how we focus throughout our day, throughout our lives, and just completely reestablish ourselves if we've had certain times of trouble, certain times of struggle, and we really need a second chance at how we want to do business in life. Just like Rory said, I have two beautiful uh young girls. Uh, they're now 18 and 20 years old today, so they're young women. And I certainly am really looking to talk to the young men that are listening right now and really want to build their lives in such a way where they can focus. My journey takes you out of small town North Dakota to the University of North Dakota, where I ended up joining the Army. And I got to do 23 wonderful years of service to our great nation and retire as Lieutenant Colonel. Throughout that time, I've had multiple injuries, and therefore I started to have issues with prescription drugs and being addicted to those prescription drugs that were prescribed to me. And I also had a tendency to get low in the bottle. And so I am a recovering alcoholic and prescription drug addict, and so therefore it's very, very important to me how we focus and are very intentional on how we operate in our day-to-day lives. So after that military career, 23 wonderful years, I was able to take on an amazing role in Fortune 500 America as a risk management advisor, where I had a program that we, you know, looked over three and a half billion dollars for said company. And it was for us to make sure that we managed all the risk when it came to that supply chain. When we look at how we take on risk in life, it's something where it's in our day-to-day personal endeavors with our family, our friends, our community, and then it's also how we operate in our profession. And we can focus in all of these areas. And so this is where I love to break down what focus actually stands for. The acronym itself is faith, opportunity, consistency, unconditional kindness, and standard, which equates to the standard. And I like to start with the S first because from my mindset coach Ben Newman, he has the standard. And it's how we operate every single day of our lives because those that we know as the GOATs or you know, the greats, the Michael Jordans, the Tom Brady's, the Kobe Bryants, the Tiger Woods, all these guys out there in sports that we see as being extremely gifted and talented and everything else were just the ones that only operated with their standard. So they showed up an hour before practice. And so they were warmed up, ready to go when there was practice. It didn't matter what happened when they were on the court, on the field, on the course. They had operated in such a way that they had already won because there was nothing that was left on the table previously to that game, that match, whatever they were going into. And so this standard is how we need to look at our lives, you know, not as professional basketball players or football players or golfers, but as men, as those going out there, and how do we win every single day? And in that standard, I've established your three daily wins. And what that looks like is having a physical win, a mental win, and a spiritual win, allowing you to win every single day. And the way I coach it is what you do between five and nine, locks in your nine to five. So when you get those three wins in before 9 a.m., it doesn't matter what happens with the rest of your day. You've won. You're a winner. So if you take loss after loss after loss between nine and five, all those no's, let's say you're in sales and your goal is to you know have a win from nine to five, right? Someone taking on whatever you're selling and purchasing that, how many no's are you gonna have to go through to get to that one? And if you set that at 30, well, that means you got 30 calls to make. And it doesn't mean like after you get that one win, you stop calling people, you establish the standard as 30 calls. And so the coolest thing about it is your three-day wins though allows you to win before 9 a.m. And you start to do that with everything that you start to have happen in your life. Non-negotiable. Then we get into the you, the unconditional kindness. Unconditional kindness is something that really doesn't take that much when we're intentional and we create a habit. And what that looks like, it's a six-step method. We smile, which is step one. Step two and three normally go together. It's please and thank you. And just give you an example. You know, head over to the grocery store and you head in there and you're not sure where the coffee is, and someone's working there, and you say, Excuse me, would you please let me know where the coffee is? And they come and show you where that's at, and that leads you into step four and five, which is um, excuse me, I got ahead of myself. Uh, so that was uh please and thank you. So thank you. And then from there, you're able to go into step four and five. So it's possible where you know you end up bumping into somebody and you say, excuse me, I'm sorry, I ran into you. More so, you know, steps four and five translate into I'm sorry with those that are closest to us and really understanding that we need to say we're sorry. But on the day-to-day basis and being intentional in these habits, it's if you bump into someone, you know, maybe you have the opportunity, you go in front of somebody, you know, you say, excuse me, and uh, you know, I'm sorry that I was in a rush. And then you repeat this all day long. So our unconditional kindness has that ripple effect, that butterfly effect throughout the world, that we intentionally make eye contact with people, we smile, it brightens their day. We end up transforming that into those please and thank yous that continue to allow that kindness to grow and show as we move throughout our lives. And those, excuse me, and I'm sorry, where we don't allow barriers or walls to be built between us because of misunderstanding. And if we just continue to repeat and do that every single day of our lives, what we see is everyone has a more positive, enlightened way to share their story with the world. And we don't get things confused, which leads into consistency. If we establish that standard in our three daily wins and we're unconditionally kind, consistency in doing that every single day opens up opportunities. And those opportunities can look like promotions at work. Your family is so much closer and so much tighter. This doesn't go just for your immediate family, but maybe your extended family, the family that I always wondered, you know, Ryan, he's different. He just seems to be kinder. What's happened? You know, someone come into his life where they smile, they say please and thank you, they say, excuse me, I'm sorry. And they do that all the time. Could that possibly be what's going on? Not really sure, but so many different opportunities start to open up and you see your community grow. You see the gifts that are enlightened in life. Maybe you go on to write three or four books, you establish a course in a business that allows this community to see life in such a meaningful way that before when that F was all about finances or your fitness or your family, what you finally see is that F is faith. And so by going through the standard and unconditional kindness, which creates this undeniable consistency in your life, which leads to these overwhelming opportunities, where you have this unbelievable faith and it all started with focus. But that focus needs to be broken down in a way where you can really live inside that standard through unconditional kindness, and only in the day-to-day consistencies that we have will those opportunities flourish and allow your faith to come shining through. And I know everybody, it seems so simple, but we don't do it. We're not intentional with it, we don't allow it to be a daily habit. And that goes back to that consistency. So if we consistently focus in this way, these five principles of faith, opportunity, consistency, unconditional kindness, and the standard will allow you to have the most successful life that you could ever possibly imagine. So if we just focus together, we can have a world that is so unbelievable if we just focus together. I really greatly appreciate y'all listening to this today. I hope you take some of it home with you, create those habits, and just focus on what life can live and lead to. Thank you so very much. Have an amazing day.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

And Ryan Reichert, everybody. Uh Ryan, that was absolutely amazing. I appreciate you uh putting all that out there for everybody. The uh I do have a couple of questions, you know, if you don't mind a little bit of QA on uh on the topic. Uh I love the way it's organized. And from somebody who has a military background like you, I'm not real surprised that it's as organized as it is. Um, was uh did you have to draw on that military background in order to kind of put this together? How did that help you?

SPEAKER_01 11:12

Yeah, no, it's really interesting how it came to light, and only through my stubbornness, I would say it was probably about a year ago. I was uh starting to go down a TEDx journey. I want I wanted to take on a TEDx stage. However, this came to light, I do not know. It was probably shortly after finishing up the second book that I wrote, and it was like, maybe I have a story to tell now, and TEDx would be a perfect place to land it. So they sat me down and said, Well, we know your faith is extremely important to you. How would this story go? And I was like, Well, I get to tell my faith story, right? And they're like, Well, we have some limitations on that. When we create those storytellers or those speakers, it has a tendency to, you know, let's remove the real religion side of it. I'm like, okay, I'm very spiritual. I can go spiritual side. And they're like, Well, we still would like you to kind of hone it in a little bit more. And I was like, I won't do it. No, if I can't be me, I don't want your stage kind of thing. And they're like, Well, isn't there a message here though that you really want out there for the world? And I was like, let me think about it. And it was really interesting because I was transitioning to the third book, and I was like, maybe I'm just supposed to write this third book and not go down this road of TEDx yet. And so I kind of wrote out my my story, but it wasn't in such a way that it just seemed open-ended, and it didn't kind of rain through with this kindness that is what I talk about today in that unconditional kindness. I think that's the most important part of the focus, truly at the end of the day, is that. And it just started to come together as I finished the third book, and uh at the end of the day, it's you know, let's get spiritual, the six-step method to transform your life. And I'm like, huh. Okay, I can't say let's get spiritual in this TEDx talk, but what could it be? And it so the title of the TEDx talk was Kindness, the six-step method to transform our lives. And that's where kind of it came up with just the simple things that my mom taught me as a little boy, right? Smile, which got me into detention more times than not. So thank you, mom, for that. Uh, because everyone thought, you know, me being a little wise butt that uh was causing trouble. So I did spend a little bit of time and attention for the smile. But she was always say please and thank you, Ryan. And she'd never enable me if we're at like the dairy queen and I wanted something like ketchup or whatever it may be. She's like, well, go ask for it. Make sure you say please, and then make sure you say thank you. And I think I really struggled with the excuse me and I'm sorry. And I don't know if that was the stubborn Catholic upbringing in me, where I'm like, I don't need to apologize for who I am or what I am, even though it was a little different a long, long time ago. But today I realize how important that is in every relationship that I have. To actually, even you know, I might not believe that I should have to apologize. Like, I'm pretty sure that my side of the street is dirty from character defects that I have and so forth. And it's so powerful to actually want to change that and continue to have a relationship with somebody because you know, both of our feelings were hurt. And my pride, my ego gets in the way of me saying, you know, hey, Rory, I'm I'm sorry. I kind of was a little harsh the way I, you know, we talked earlier. You like, you know, the Minnesota Vikings, I like the Green Bay Packers. I, you know, it's one of those things. I uh, you know, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, that's just the way it is. But uh, I think we can still be friends. And if we just keep coming back to that over and over, that to me is kind of how this came. And that was the long story longer, but it was really a year ago where this all started, and it took a long time to curate it in such the principles and the methods together to have it land in you know less than 15 minutes and not be an hour and a half podcast kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Interesting, interesting. I mean, I can I can see the the evolution of it, you know, just to the way you're telling the story. So um, you spent uh quite a bit of time and and your focus, you know, for lack of a better word, was uh very much on the standard, you know, in the way that you spoke about it. And I could tell that that's a a big, big, big part of this for you is that standard. Um, where does that come from? And you know, uh why does that mean so much to you?

SPEAKER_01 15:58

I mean, it certainly comes from my military background. It even comes from my you know upbringing and then now recovery journey. But my mindset coach and and who I was certified with, Ben Newman, for him, very much so, and he's worked with the greats. And when I think about it, you know, he worked with Nick Saban for so many years in Alabama's unbelievable title runs. Uh, he was at North Dakota State, unfortunately. I'm a Sioux, not a bison, but still love him for all those years when they were winning, you know, trophies up there and uh the lineage that they had. And you know, it goes on and on. You know, now he's with the the fever and Caitlin Clark as you know their mindset coach. And he he took on in such a way, and he lost his mother when he was really young. And so he looks at every single day, is he's worked out for like seven plus straight years, you know, day after day after day. And it's this thing of that the standard that you established creates that intentionality in how you live, just like John C. Maxwell. It's like, you know, how do I write a hundred books? Well, I write every single day, like on Christmas, yes, on Christmas. On your birthday, yes, on my birthday. What about the third Sunday after Tuesday? Yes, I write on that day too. And so Ben's mantra to us was, you know, what is the standard you're establishing? Because everyone around you will look towards you to go, well, how how is Ryan, you know, a best-selling author? How is Ryan a mindset coach? How does you know Ryan do this, this, this, this, and this? And it it is literally created that in what was it, 2023, 2024. When I took loss after loss after loss, I it was like, I need a win. And how can I win? And it was just like there in front of me, where it's just like three daily wins physical, mental, spiritual. And I do that every single day. And I I haven't lost now in uh I don't know, a couple years, I think, you know, kind of thing. And that doesn't mean you don't have bad days, don't get me wrong. I mean we were joking before and we started about you know how's everything going. And there's there is a method to the madness in where uh today I wasn't able because of my day starting so early and a couple of uh community things that I had to put my physical right after this. And so that and there is a tweak in that where then I do I go the opposite route where I go like you know, spiritual, mental, or or coincide those together for me. That looks like is uh this little monster thing here called the phone for those that can't see it, uh, where you know I fast from it because otherwise I won't, you know, get my reading in, which is reading you know my Bible and then reading some other form of literature that educates me to allow to apply to the the next writing or next speaking that I'll be doing. Um here come April, even though I know we're recording this in March. And so it just is that way of doing business, and I I love Ben's way of how he just shapes it because he's had just an unbelievable way of seeing you just see everybody win out there, like because it's not talent, like we're all given gifts and talents, don't get me wrong, but you know, I'll use Michael Jordan just because he's the last one that I've been studying on for this next book I'm writing. And you know, he didn't start playing basketball until he's like 12, but he started playing baseball when he was six. And we know how that career, each of those careers went, right? Like obviously, he's the greatest basketball player ever, at least for my generation. And uh, you know, baseball kind of fizzled, but where did he have to put more work? It was on basketball, right? Because he had those God-given talents for baseball, so it was like no big deal. You know, for me, back before multiple injuries, I was um you know, endurance runner, and boy, I could run all night long, kind of thing. And uh, running was a talent. I was I was gifted. And I think when I look at mentally, I also ran mentally though, unfortunately. Like I was like, I can run away from this, you know, I can physically run away from this, and I can mentally run away from it. And so not until we have to brutally face some of those things that we've been running from our entire lives, will we be able to establish a standard that lasts day in and day out?

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah, for sure. All right, I love that. Uh, of these, you know, five uh in the focus, uh, these five points that you bring up, is there one that you think uh is sort of it may have the highest failure rate? What's the toughest one to overcome for people who were trying to change their lives?

SPEAKER_01 21:02

I think it's the faith piece of it. That's why I like to start with the standard because for me, when I started my journey and my recovery and sobriety journey, the my faith wasn't there. I'd been running in the shadows for years and years and years. So my focus was finances, my focus was my family, my focus was my friends, and everyone's going out there like those all sound like pretty good ways to start focus, Ryan. Like, you know, why wouldn't it be those? And what I tell people is what happens when all those go away? What happens when you lose your family? What happens when you lose your friends? What happens when you lose your your finances? People are like, I'll just get another job. And uh um my family, why would they why would they leave me? Um my friends, why would they turn and run away? And sure there's the physical like Death or removal of things. And so for me, it's a little different. You know, I went through uh divorce, and you know, your friends who believe you're friends, they're gonna pick a side to go to, unfortunately. Sometimes the families, like us one spouse goes with you know, the one and the other the other, and so forth. And so where I found myself in all of it to give people the full backstory is I lost those those three top F's for me. And you know, faith was somewhere way, way in the back. And so that's why when I coach, teach, and mentor people we normally start with the standard because that's the only way that you can see how your faith will come to light. And a lot of folks struggle with it because they haven't lost the family yet, they haven't lost the friends yet, and they haven't lost the finances yet. Well, that's just part of the dance. You know, I don't know if anyone's ever seen the last dance with Michael Jordan again, right? But by the by the end of it, it paints a different picture with people of of who he was, right? They're like Kyle Gray, you know, he was a you know what person. He was kind of a not not nice. And uh it's like, yeah, to achieve certain things, uh, that standard has to be upheld. And don't get me wrong, for for me, there's with certain people of my like today, the only reason why I deviated was knowing the first meeting that was extra, extra early this morning was you know, for the Minnesota Christian's Chamber of Commerce. So like, yes, I I will sacrifice and change that for him, but but no other kind of thing. Otherwise, then it's literally back to the physical, mental, spiritual wins, and everybody else, sorry, you get you got to wait. And uh, you know, we can have our our one-on-one later kind of thing. And so so that that is what it becomes. And so for me, that's why faith is so important today, because I've seen all those others. If we focus on those others first, unfortunately, uh when those are gone, what are you left with? And and for me, I I found that yeah, I had nothing. So the only person that I could turn to was my faith in Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah, love it. All right. I appreciate the way you answered that question too. Thanks for for that. Uh, very detailed uh for everybody. Um, before we finish up, I do have one more question I want to ask you. But uh before we get there, uh, how can everybody reach you? How can they reach out, find Ryan, find everything you've done, books, podcasts, I mean you name it, you're everywhere, brother. So how can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 24:40

I greatly appreciate that, Rory. Uh, our Protector Development.com is still the hub. That's the business and so forth of all of this. We are gonna transition our Protector Development.com will live on forever, but we are gonna go to uh Ryan T. Reikert.com as well. We're building a couple different communities out there that uh for those who just what it's gonna look like, uh, but we're still in the process. So down the road, you can look for Ryan T. Rikert.com, which feeds into all the social media and everything else, which is uh Ryan T. Rikert and or Army RT1978, and you can find me under the sun, under the stars, and I'd love to have a meaningful conversation with you.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Love that, love that, appreciate that. All right, uh, last question, you know, on our way out here. Uh, people who are listening to this uh are gonna be motivated, they're gonna want to hear this. I mean, they're gonna want to like charge out to change and change their lives and uh take action. So, in terms of an actionable step, okay, someone who really wants to say, I love this, I want to embrace these principles. Where do I begin? What is one actual actionable step that they can take right now to start down that path?

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's where I start with all those who'd like to pay for these services, and it's your three daily wins. Just literally, for those of you listening or watching, write this down. It's physical, it's mental, it's spiritual, and it can look so simple. It's not hard. Everyone's like physical, like I want to run a marathon. Okay, let's just focus on walking around your house. Just take a loop. So for me, I live in an apartment building, so it's like you know, probably a quarter mile to walk around it. So that's how it started with me. That's how simple it was walking May, my four-year-old golden doodle today. You know, she was obviously only a year old when we started this process, but we started just by walking around the building because I didn't want her to be on the floor. So then the mental started looking like reading a couple of books out there, which transitioned for me today, where I just I read the Bible every day. And then spiritual is for me, uh, meditation 30 minutes and praying. Uh, in in the beginning, it was literally my mental was reading whatever was important to me at the time. I I don't even remember what magazine it was, but it was just something outside of my own, you know, just getting outside of myself. And then uh from there transitioning into there was a lot of uh foxhole prayers in the beginning from my spirituality side, just you know, please God get me through this. Uh, you know, I don't even know if it was God in the in that beginning of my journey. It was probably like just please remove this pain from my life. So, so for me, I think the the the physical one's the most important one. So if you just if you just did one thing out there, just go for a walk. You know, if it's cold outside, which I live in Minnesota and it's finally, you know, the bipolar weather, it's like 70, uh, when it's you know still gonna be snowing tomorrow, uh, just walk inside your building if it's cold outside. Uh do laps up and down the hall. But find yourself that that's what changed is that mental kind of piece. Where before I would go to some form of prescription drug to try to fix the mental problems that I thought I had, and it really was just the endorphins that I was missing in my physical outlet in life. So yeah, start with the physical. Love it.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

All right. Uh, thank you so much for everything you brought today, man. Uh, folks, Ryan T. Rikert uh has been with us today. Uh Ryan, I appreciate everything that you brought, answering all the questions and just putting out a great talk for everybody. I know you motivated some people today, and uh, I appreciate you supporting this podcast and coming on here and doing something a little unique. Uh it means a lot, and thanks for being here, man.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Uh, thank you, Rory. Love everything you do.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Thanks a lot. All right, folks. Uh, this has been another spectacular episode of Step Up to the Mic. If you're an aspiring or current speaker and you want to bring your talk to the masses, message us today. Never stop talking, and let us help you to step up to the mic.