What happens when the badge comes off?

When the mission changes, but the heart that served still needs a place to go?

In this second part of a powerful two-part conversation, Heroes Behind the Badge host Dennis Collins continues his discussion with David Berez, Dave Howe, Bill Erfurth, and Craig Floyd—exploring what comes after awareness: rebuilding purpose, identity, and joy beyond the uniform.

They share stories of recovery, leadership, and rediscovery—how faith, family, and service become anchors in a life that once revolved around duty.

This episode isn’t about what’s been lost—it’s about what can still be found

Guests:

• David Berez (author, retired police lieutenant)
• Dave Howe (U.S. Army Lt. Colonel, Comfort, Peace & Freedom Foundation)
• Bill Erfurth (retired Miami-Dade detective, filmmaker)
• Craig Floyd (Citizens Behind the Badge)

Topics include:

• Finding identity and purpose beyond law enforcement
• The power of life planning and gratitude
• Leadership as service, not authority
• Healing through faith, family, and freedom
• Building a culture that values wellness over silence

Presented by: CitizensBehindTheBadge.org

Podcast Series: Heroes Behind the Badge

Timestamps:

00:00 – Shifting Gears: Life Beyond the Badge

03:45 – Stewards of the Badge

06:10 – The Power of a Life Plan

13:45 – Leadership Isn’t About You

16:40 – Leadership Is Service

23:50 – Faith, Family, and Freedom

27:15 – Learning to Re-Love

30:00 – Closing Reflections

#HeroesBehindTheBadge #BeyondTheBadge #PoliceWellness #FirstResponderResilience #PoliceLeadership #LifeAfterPolicing #PositivePsychology #OfficerSupport #PoliceMentalHealth #LawEnforcement

Previously on Heroes Behind the Badge, we opened the door to a

difficult truth, the weight our officers carry, and the cost of keeping it inside.

In this episode, we move forward toward recovery purpose and the work of

building a joyful life Beyond the Badge.

Here's part two, beyond the badge, the path forward.

That's- I wanna shift gears for just a moment.

we know, uh, bill has adjusted very well to his

post-law-enforcement career life, uh,

supposedly

involved in so many great projects.

Depends on who you talk, depends on who you talk about.

Well, that's true.

it's subject to subjective, but, I, wanna go to David Berez.

Because one of the things that, Dave Howe's program a life plan,

deals with is the transition mm-hmm.

From either a military career to civilian life or a law enforcement

career to civilian life.

I mean, as we've alluded to a. That's your identity.

for 20 or 30 years, you're a cop and with a gun and a badge, and you

had all this authority and you could change people's lives in a second.

and now you're a civilian with none of those powers.

Your identity is lost.

You don't wear a badge anymore, you don't carry a gun.

Um, so David Berez.

What was your transition from law enforcement career, 20 years to civilian

life, and how did you deal with it?

Well, it was a bit tumultuous and I did not deal with it with grace.

so for me it was a bit of a, a rough go.

And when I left it 20 years, I thought I had the greatest plan on the planet.

I was gonna be a stay at home dad.

I was gonna just do everything with my kids, which is awesome, by the way.

I, I enjoy every moment with my family.

And if I needed to work or wanted to work, I was just gonna be a greeter at

Walmart and say, Hey, how you doing?

Here's your weekly flyer.

But you know what?

That's not how I'm programmed.

That's not how my brain works, how my body works.

That would not be enough stimulation for me.

I quickly learned that being a stay at home dad as honorable and as awesome as

that was, I needed more immediately and, but I had lost everything that I knew.

I lost the ability to be that community influencer through

the platform of policing.

I lost the ability to have a say in an organization that I wanted to

take in maybe a different direction.

I've lost the ability to have any sort of meaning or mattering in my life.

And therefore the other parts of that equation went away too.

What was I accomplishing?

What was my relationships like?

I had to rebuild my marriage.

I had to rebuild my relationship with my kids.

I've lost all of the positive emotion or that I, I should say, I never gained any

of the positive emotion that I thought I was going to get upon retirement.

So for me, that un that transition was, was not graceful.

I became depressive in a way that I didn't really see coming.

I thought it was gonna be a good thing, but it actually went the other way.

And I didn't realize how bad I was until July 29th when my

buddy Danny took his own life.

And let's look at the timeframe that we have COVID mixed in.

We have.

Uh, you know, the civil unrest had all had just begun a couple weeks before that,

uh, following the George Floyd stuff.

So the timing was, was wild.

But when Danny died, I realized, you know what?

That may have been me, if I didn't catch this.

So I caught myself as a result of his death, and I realized I needed to make a

transition that was beyond the transition from law enforcement to civilian life.

I needed to identify what my new needs, my new purpose was.

Finding your why is so important and that why cannot be attached to the uniform,

the badge, the gun, the status, the title.

So when we think about.

Rank when we think about the uniform, those positions don't belong to us.

We are stewards of them along the course of our career.

I don't care if you're a patrolman that for life or PFL as we used to

call them, or if you rise to the level of chief of police in a major, you

know, metropolitan area, Miami-Dade, New York City, Chicago, any of them,

that position does not belong to you.

That job, that badge.

That honor does not belong to you.

You are steward of it.

So when that is no longer yours, you need to find something else to put that energy

into, or you're gonna run into trouble.

And I think the idea of life planning before you get to that stage of

retirement is super important because you can identify what your purpose is.

Your purpose may be service to others, but how are you going to

do that without the badge, the uniform, and the gun, or the title?

Wow.

Let me just say, David, that, uh, you have become incredibly purposeful,

maybe more so than you were as a cop with the work you're doing, the book you

wrote about resiliency and, and the, uh, training that you're giving other officers

to deal with the stress of the job.

Uh, you are literally saving lives, and, and I commend you for that, my friend.

I, wanna turn though to Dave Howe.

You've heard David Berez talk about the transition.

It wasn't an easy one.

You've seen it with yourself in your military career.

You've seen other soldiers, uh, deal with it.

how does a life plan help, address, the, transition from being a

military officer or a law enforcement to officer to civilian life?

Tell me about that.

Well, again, uh, having a life plan is good at all points in your life.

there are certain milestones in life where it can be the difference

between success and failure.

Beginning your life as an adult is a critical milestone.

Transitioning out of the military or out of law enforcement is a massive change,

and a lot of people end up literally losing their identity when they take

that uniform off for the last time.

So having a written plan in advance that is holistically looking at all of the

aspects that make for a joyful life.

So not just what are you gonna do, make money, but you know.

Make sure your relationships are all where they need to be.

Make sure you have some kind of way of tapping into some kind of inner spirit.

Um.

Obviously you need to be solid financially.

You know, you have all these different components that go

into what a successful, plan is.

And as you transition out of, a community like law enforcement, it really is

that much more important because unlike most of the civilian jobs, you know,

you were a shoe salesman for 20 years.

Okay?

We need shoe salespeople, but.

You're not suffering the same kind of loss of identity when you have sold your

last pair of shoes and you're moving on to whatever you're moving on to.

So this is a great way to make sure that people don't end up

in the situation that David has.

So, brilliantly described in his own life, where you suddenly literally start feeling

life is slipping away and you start.

You find yourself on a path that's, becoming darker and darker with each day.

And that's, that's ultimately how people end up, committing suicide is they

literally get to a point where living another day pain that is more painful

than the thought of ending their own life.

And that that's a truly, uh, difficult place for those that aren't.

Having any kind of suicidal thoughts to even understand much less,

uh, uh, see that something like that could happen to somebody.

But it happens in the law enforcement community, almost every two or

three days happens in the military community almost two dozen times a day.

So it, it's, it's, it's a very simple way of making sure you end up on the right

path rather than on a path that leads ultimately, uh, potentially to nowhere.

So Dave Howe, tell us, tell the audience we know, but.

Really put it in detail.

How are you bringing this together?

Who are you working with on this?

How is it going to be implemented?

Or how do you think the best possible way is to implement this, not only for

the military folks, which is where you started, but how it can it be integrated

into the law enforcement circles?

Sure.

So there's a lot, uh, to unpack in, in that question, but

I'll focus, uh, initially, on.

The best way, I believe, to bring this to, and it's the way I'm presenting

it to, uh, the members of Congress and members of the military to bring it,

uh, as part of the Transition Assistance Program, uh, for the military, is

to create sort of this opportunity.

It wouldn't be a formal program like what the military has

necessarily, but before you leave.

You've got your retirement papers in, or you've indicated that you're gonna go do

a different career, that this would be part of that process to make sure that

you are leaving on good terms, not so much with the department, but you're leaving

on good terms within your own self.

And one of the things that I would emphasize on the way that this

program needs to be implemented is it's designed for the family too.

because if your family is in support of.

What you're doing and they realize that there is light at the end of the

tunnel, whether it's a 20 year career or you're about to walk out the door

for the last time, you are gonna be in a much, much better place to deal

with that transition than if the family, the wife, wants to go one way.

The kids want to go another way and you're charging in off,

uh, in some other direction.

And I truly believe, 'cause the data supports it, that having a, a

life plan that brings in the family.

into that, crafting of the, the actual written document, you're gonna see

a, a much lower, uh, divorce rate.

You're gonna see a much lower incident rate of children

acting, and obviously the,

in a much place, emotionally, mentally, financially, every other way, by

having a written plan that's out there, uh, that they can look at.

David Berez somebody.

And if an officer though, uh, just to finish that point, if an officer

individually or a department, maybe a chief or sheriff wanted to, implement such

a program, wanted or to develop a life plan within their own department or within

their own lives, who can they contact?

Uh, give us some.

Is there some person yourself perhaps that they should go to or your organization?

Yes, actually, um, the, uh, best way to get additional

information is to just send me a simple email at, daveHowe@kenrusk.com.

Ken Rusk is the, uh, architect of the program.

Uh, he created it, uh, not for the topic that we're talking about

today, you know, mental health and suicide prevention and so forth.

He created it, uh, when his young daughter.

Uh, was going through a case of melanoma, uh, while she,

and he wanted to.

To leave her a roadmap so that she could continue, uh, assuming she

survived, uh, a very serious illness, she could have a successful life.

And that was the thing that was the catalyst that created this

program in the first place.

So again, it, it's program is not focused to make people that have

mental health problems better, that is merely a additional benefit

of people way earlier in life.

Developing the, plan to make sure that they're really squeezing

every drop of joy that they can out of their time on this earth.

and if when you're doing that, you end up having a life that looks very much

like, uh, Bill Erfurth rather than people that, uh, we all know that, if,

if they won a million dollars, they'd complain that it wasn't 2 million.

The glass half empty people, uh, are really the ones who,

this isn't a negotiable thing.

They really need to have a written plan for how to get

back into a joyful existence.

Wow.

Um, those that are the half full kind of people, this is a nice to have

thing that really ensures they are getting every last drop of gusto,

uh, that they can out of, uh, however much time they have left on earth.

So maybe we can drop your email into, uh, into

the podcast here at the end so people can see it and reference it.

David Berez.

So you heard what Dave said.

I know what both of you have been talking about.

tell the audience, tell the police chiefs, tell the police administrators

out there, how do we implement this?

How does this happen?

So I think it needs to come from leadership.

There has to be buy-in from the top to understand that there are ways to

satisfy your, the people that work for you to be able to give you the best.

Nobody.

Leaves their job because of money.

Nobody leaves their job because they don't like the work they're doing.

People of most often leave their jobs because leadership is terrible.

So if you can show your people that you care, which is what leadership is all

about, there's a distinct difference between being a leader and being a boss.

If you're just a boss of your agency.

This is gonna be troubling for you to to implement because nobody's

gonna have the respect for you that this means something to you.

So if you are a leader of your agency and you implement an amazing program like this

where you're showing that you care for your people, which is what leadership is

all about, leadership is not about you.

Leadership is not about your title.

It's about how you show up for your people.

And if you implement a program like this for your people,

they will get that from you.

They will get that you care about them.

They will get that.

Caring for you is the best thing for the agency.

So yes, if we put leadership in a place where they embrace this and

lead by example and do a program like this for themselves as well.

'cause I don't care what kind of stars, bars, or whatever you got

on your shoulder, if you're not doing it by example, nobody's

going to trust your authenticity.

So get in there with your people, lead by example.

Show them that at any stage in your life.

Having a life plan will only make the rest of your life better no matter where, what

point you start from and bring it down.

Let the youngest guy or the youngest girl in your department be part of that with

you and show them the path, model the behavior you wanna see from your people.

And it starts with giving people a good life.

Well, what do you need?

What what?

do you need to get behind this?

Do you need sponsors?

Do you need money?

What do you need?

Money's important, Dave, right?

Oh, absolutely.

yeah.

And actually, uh, well, again, the program is designed for every

member of, uh, the law enforcement community to include family members.

there are lots of money that are, I know are out there because I

know they're definitely there in the military, uh, community.

Or suicide prevention, mental health issues, wellness programs.

Um, and there are probably other buckets of money that are available

at the local, state and federal level.

So that, that's one funding source.

there's also the foundation, uh, which we're trying to, uh, uh.

Put a campaign together so we can get the funds necessary to provide

this program free of charge to those families that suffer that worst day when

their loved one goes to work as a law enforcement officer and doesn't come home.

So subject to the availability of funds, we would like to be able to provide

the program free of charge, where people from our uh, organization would

literally be part of the grief management.

Scheme, whatever that looks like for that particular, uh, law enforcement agency,

we would plug into and support their efforts to support that family so that

they can take that horrible, negative energy, you know, what do we do now?

And turn that into how they can truly envision positive life moving

forward that their deceased loved one would want them to have and not

get stuck in the grieving process.

I haven't really heard

yet how you plan on this being presented.

Is this gonna be in service training at a police academy?

At at the police headquarters?

It gonna be conferences, conventions.

Talk about that.

Basically just like no cops, no two cops are the same.

No two organization law enforcement organizations are the same.

So the program is very customizable to fit the particular needs and

operations of a particular department.

So there is no one size fit all, but it ranges everything from an online

version, which I actually don't recommend because what I've seen is.

The people that do well with the online course are the billers first of the world.

So yeah, their life becomes maybe a little bit better, but they were gonna,

they were gonna do really well anyway.

People that really, really need this are the ones that probably aren't

gonna get through a self-paced on your own, no outside accountability.

And you just sort of give them an online access.

And they hope, and hope that they make it all the way through and

come up with a, a role viable plan that they're gonna commit to.

So the way we recommend doing this is for an organization, uh,

department to contract with us.

We figure out what the right way is to do it, but mostly it's probably

going to involve a train the trainer model that I take from the military,

background that I have, which is we would come in, the department would

identify one or more super, uh, users that would then become the trainers for.

Future members of the department, we could do the initial training

at the same time so that you get a cohort of law enforcement officers

through the program at one time.

But then the plan would be we would take one step back, leave the train

the trainers there to, to train people as they come into the department and

or as they're leaving the department.

Whenever you think the critical milestones it are for that

particular, uh, agency and then we.

Provide quality control to the trainers to make sure that they're

providing the instruction exactly the same way that our people would do it.

And most importantly, we would review a number of the plans to make sure that

we're seeing the kind of quality that needs to be there for the plan to really

have the lifelong, support that the plans are decided, designed to provide.

You know, the plans are, are.

Written, but they're also designed to be updated as things in your life change.

So it's not a static thing where you do it, you know, when you're 20 something

years old, first day on the job, and that plan looks exactly the same 30

years later when you're walking out of the department for the last time.

There's a lot of interaction that needs to go on to make the plan a living

document, which is where you really get, the return on the investment or.

Putting a program like this into place, and Dave, lemme say, so train the trainer

is really the right way to do this.

I have, um, had a discussion with Dave Howe about

how we can maybe help amplify, uh, the availability of this program.

And I'm gonna be, uh, sending it out to the State associations of

Chiefs of Police, the state Sheriff's associations across this country, and

encourage them to share this program, availability to their membership.

So hopefully we citizens behind the badge.

We'll be able to help get the word out.

And in closing, Dennis, I wanna pass it on to you, but let me just say

that, uh, Dave, how hit on something interesting, he said, there's a lot of

officers like Bill Erfurth and I would suggest the overwhelming majority of

officers who probably end their career.

On a high note, they feel like they've accomplished something very,

uh, honorable, having served, uh, in the law enforcement profession, and

they go on to lead wonderful lives.

and this program will just make it that much easier for them, that much

better for them, uh, than it already is.

And yet there are officers who are struggling, and this would be a minority,

of the officer population, I would suggest having met so many of them.

But, uh, we need to make these types of programs positive

psychology, uh, resiliency training.

Uh, life plan.

Uh, those are important tools in making sure that our officers, uh, get through

their careers healthy and well, and, have a great life afterwards, a joyful life.

So, uh, thank you David and Dave for sharing all of this with us.

And Dennis, I'll turn it over to you to close.

Thank you, Craig.

I can't wait to get the transcript to this episode.

You guys drop gold nuggets all throughout this, episode.

And I, I, I, our listeners and viewers can get the transcript as well along

with, when they view this or listen to it, please get the transcript and look at it.

There are gold nuggets throughout from these two gentlemen.

I just have one more question.

A lot of police chiefs, a lot of sheriffs, a lot of, police management,

law enforcement, management have this little phrase that they use.

I want your opinion on this.

It's okay not to be okay.

I hear that from our sheriffs here in Florida.

I've heard of from police chiefs around the nation.

They do little videos for their troops.

For the guys, David, the two, Davids particularly and perhaps

Miller for can weigh in on this.

Is it okay to not be okay in policing today?

I'll, I'll just, I'll tackle that real quick and say, yes,

it's okay to not be okay if you're going to get the support to be okay.

I would add to that it's also okay to be okay.

We don't have to be victims all the time.

Correct.

We can be in good shape.

We can be the best version of, we should be the best version of ourselves for our.

Agencies for our communities, and most importantly for our families at home.

That's where we need to be, is for our families at home.

The job is a job.

It's a good one.

It's an important one.

Our communities depend on us, but it's okay to be okay and if you're

not, figure out how to get there.

There are avenues, there are programs, but it's okay to not be okay, but only

if you're gonna do something about it.

If you're not doing anything about it, it's time to go.

We talked earlier about the stigma.

Bill Orford talked about that.

We all discussed that.

is there still a stigma to not be okay?

Are you in fear of your job?

Are you in fear of, uh, your reputation, et cetera?

Is there still that stigma?

Uh, either I would say, I would say yes.

but I would also add that.

The leadership has a responsibility to make sure that what you have

is not going to be a problem for the agency or the community.

Absolutely.

Uh,

and this ties back, uh, Dave Howe, uh, about leadership.

This goes back to leadership.

We talked about this a lot during this episode.

Yeah,

absolutely.

A program like the, uh, Program to develop a joyful life, plan of action,

it has to have the support of the senior leadership, for a number of reasons.

One, they have to emotionally believe in this or otherwise no one belong.

I mean, you can force people to sit and get another death by PowerPoint

experience, uh, uh, that I'm sure they're being subjected to all the times

on a wide range of ridiculous topics.

And, and in which case it's a waste of everybody's time.

This, actually can be a total game changer in so many ways.

I mean, everything from, you'll have not just better law enforcement officers,

but you'll have better law enforcement families to community does well.

The retirement community will be in better shape.

and you can actually see by finding an avenue.

Of creating a positive plan forward to get rid of a lot of that stress

that oftentimes leads to officer involved incidents, which when the

lawyers hear that, they're like, yeah, if I can bend the, the cost

curve of lawsuits and other, legal.

Trouble, through something like this, you know, it, it's a huge return

on the investment of the time and whatever money it might take to,

to implement a program like this.

Excellent, excellent.

So, Dave Berez, we're talking about things that are okay.

It is okay for you to go ahead and promote your book.

So why don't you hold your book up for everybody?

What a segue.

What a segue,

self-promotion for me is actually not very easy, so I

appreciate you putting that out there.

Then I'll do it.

A resilient

life, A cop's journey of Pursuit and Purpose, A Resilient Life

by David Berez, B-E-R-E-Z, Berez, right?

That's it.

Uh, no thank you for, for doing that.

It's, uh, it's.

It's my life story and the tools I've used to overcome some of, some of the things

that have encountered throughout my life.

Uh, it ends before I actually got my education in all of this.

So I think somewhere along the line, there may be a part two,

but Sounds like the sequels.

Yeah.

We'll see.

But yeah, it's, uh, I, I appreciate you putting that out there.

It means a lot

me say I've read it.

I read it before it was even published.

Uh, I was given that honor.

It is powerful, it is riveting, and it is courageous.

Uh, he put himself out there.

you, you know everything about David Berez when you finish this book.

Uh, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And uh, and he's using it for a good purpose now as he, um, serves

as a master resiliency trainer.

God bless you, David.

It's authentic.

It's, it's real.

It's not some, uh, performative bullshit.

It's real.

So Craig and, and Dennis, thank you for mentioning that.

I appreciate that.

Uh, what I would add is, Craig, you have mentioned to me over the course

of our time since the book has come out about your shock on how I forgot

how to love and I learned how to ReLove, following my experiences.

And I would say love is the most important.

Thing that we do in life.

And if we forget how to do that, everything else begins to fall apart.

Uh, so a program that Dave is talking about with building all of these life

skills gives us the ability to focus on how we love each other because we're

not so concentrated on the little things that this life skill program will be

able to build for us naturally, where these things become natural for us.

So if we can have those items work for us, we can f. Get back to

loving each other in a way I don't think we're all doing right now.

And it, I know it sounds a little hinky, a little corny, whatever,

but the um, ability to build those relationships is so important because

that in the end is what matters.

Who cares how much money you made?

Who cares what your title was?

It's irrelevant if you don't have those relationships in

your life that support you.

And building a program like Dave is, is talking about, gives us the

ability to get back to those basics.

Well said.

And if you want more about, uh, the program that Dave is working with, uh,

the entrepreneur is named Ken Rusk, RUSK.

Did I get that right?

Ken Rusk.

you got that right.

And book.

This is

his book.

Blue Collar Cash.

Blue Collar, which is a terrible title.

Yes.

And it's very confusing about, we've been talking about, uh, today.

Um, but.

he really wrote two books.

One is the virtues of blue collar work versus having to Go to College.

But mo half the book is a, a step-by-step description of how to craft your own,

uh, holistic plan for a joyful life.

Good.

And you can pick that up wherever books are sold.

And, uh, I, have done a little deep dive on that since meeting, uh, Dave

yesterday, and it's worth the dive.

So guys, we could go on and on.

I appreciate your being so vulnerable and transparent and so forthcoming.

With ideas on this very, very difficult subject.

Uh, I know that what Dave Howe does is more than just dealing with

police suicides, but I think that, I think Dave Berez would even agree

that is part of what has to happen and the blend between the positive

psychology and resiliency and a life plan, that's where the magic happens.

Happens, and that's the word that we as citizens behind the badge must spread.

Let me remind everyone, number one, thanks for listening.

Thanks for watching.

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You can get involved, you can show your support.

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Okay.

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We do us a favor.

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