From Baptist Pulpit To FBI Raids With Curiosity

A Baptist pastor walks into the FBI Academy, and somehow the values don’t break. I’m joined by Eric Robinson, who retires after 24 years in the FBI and brings a rare perspective on leadership, stress, and integrity from both Christian ministry and federal law enforcement. We start with the church he helped plant, built for people who felt judged or pushed out, and the “flinch test” he used to see whether a community could truly welcome someone who looked different, loved different, or showed up messy.

From there, the story turns fast: Eric preaches on Easter Sunday and is in Quantico the next week. We talk about why his approach stayed the same, how curiosity opens doors in investigations, and why kindness can be a tactical advantage during arrests and interviews. He explains how de-escalation works when you already have authority, how people respond when they feel respected, and what it’s like to operate in SWAT environments where timing and control matter.

We also dig into the cost of carrying other people’s problems, the difference between ministry stress and casework stress, and what it means to live with risk without living in fear. Eric shares plans for his upcoming book, packed with real FBI stories and after-action reviews, then we land on his core three values: curiosity, love, and loyalty plus a grounded take on masculinity where vulnerability is courage, not weakness.

If you enjoyed this conversation, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more men in progress can find it. What’s one value you refuse to compromise?

Chapters

00:00 From Pulpit to FBI: A Unique Journey

02:25 Embracing Curiosity and Kindness in Leadership

05:18 Transitioning to the FBI: Values that Endure

07:49 The Power of Respect in Law Enforcement

10:29 Crazy Stories from the Field

13:12 The Importance of Justice and Redemption

15:49 Life After the FBI: Writing and Reflection

18:19 Core Values: Curiosity, Love, and Loyalty

Transcript

Welcoming People Without Judgment

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Man in Progress, Forging Manhood.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I'm your host, Travis Murray, and I've got a special guest today. Eric, go ahead and introduce yourself. My name is Eric Robinson. I recently retired from 24 years in the FBI, but before I joined the FBI, I spent 12 years in Christian ministry and left the Baptist pulpit for Kwanico, Virginia to be an FBI agent.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Wow, that's impressive. So let's talk about that. In the in the beginning there, you said you were a Baptist church minister. What was that like for you?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Well, the church that we planted, uh you know, I I went through the usual progress of youth pastor, assistant pastor, and then my wife and I, along with some core Christians, planted a church in Western New York. And our intention was to make a church where people who may not have felt welcomed in church, maybe judged, could come and be free. Like they they wouldn't have those secondary rigors of dressing the right way or acting the right way imposed upon them before we could win an audience. And what I had done with that group of people that we planted the church with was I gave them a flinch test. How can you handle someone walking into the church wearing a concert t-shirt? Which you don't do that in the Baptist church. And what about piercings? What about a gay couple, interracial couple? What about smelling alcohol in someone's breath? Are you okay? Can you relate to these people and not have that look on your face of I am judging you? And we did that. We and we did it well, and we were successful, and people were coming in, and I loved what we had. But unfortunately, I had some health issues that necessitated a change.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yeah, fair enough. And that does happen. So going back to that ministry, yeah, I mean, in the Bible, it does teach that you are not the judge, right? You are not the one who's supposed to be the judge. So you're supposed to accept everyone as they are. You're supposed to, you know, lead with kindness, lead with love, be that type of leader in that community. So it sounds like you were you were doing just that.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Well, and and that was our goal. And I people have people smarter than me who know the Bible better than me have different opinions than I do. But I told our congregation, if we're gonna make a mistake, we're gonna err on the side of grace. So if God's gonna judge us, it's gonna be because we were too welcoming to people. But my feeling was we we have a good message, we have good people to surround them and disciple people with, but we need to win an audience. So one of my favorite passages in the Bible is the parable of the treasure in a field, where Jesus says, look, if you want to join the kingdom of God, it's like this. It's about it's like a man who finds a treasure hidden in a field, and so he sells everything he has in order to buy the field. And and we're telling people, we've got something pretty good here, but you're gonna have to give up your old way of life. That's a big ask. And so you can't you can't start with that. You have to get let people get to know you, you have to be curious about their lives and where they're coming from, and and show the kindness that's necessary. And we did it.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

That's amazing. It really is. I I remember growing up in inside of a church, I won't name which one, but I was the type of kid that had lots of questions. And I had this this uh leader of the church who was amazing. He he would answer my questions, he would sit with me and all of that stuff, and then that changed, and we got a new leader, and that guy was a little bit older, and he didn't tolerate my questions as much. But being in that being in that role, I bet you went through a lot of helping other people. How did that sit for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Well, I enjoyed it. I've told people many times that I definitely have helped more people move than I have led to Christ, because you know, it's just part of what we do, like we're taking care of folks. But one of the issues we had was like you grew up in a church where every generation on down, like in my family, came from a church environment. You have problems, but it's usually a bit less, more stability in the family. Well, we're we were reaching out to people who didn't have that, and so they brought with them a lot of their problems too. And what I failed to be able to do is separate myself from those problems. And so when people came with their life issues and I was helping them with them and talking it through, it just became more and more of a burden on me to the point where I had stress-related headaches every single day of my life for two years. And I told my wife, I've got to do something else.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yeah, fair enough. I I know that as a coach, there are there are things that I need a coach for, my coach needs to coach for. And so it makes sense. I've I've even seen therapists who have therapists because you need somebody to kind of offload all of that so that you can compartmentalize all of that information. What kind of values does a minister like yourself bring to the church? What kind of values did you have at that time?

SPEAKER_00 4:56

I just wanted people to hear the message that I knew and believed to be true, but I knew it had to I had to start with curiosity of finding out where they came from. I knew where I was going to come from. So no problem there. But otherwise it's just a one-sided conversation where I'm telling you what you should be believing. And we'll get to that. But how much better is it for someone to say, I have these gaps in my life, I know I need something else. I understand you have some answers to that. Can we discuss it? As opposed to the usual method, which is I just come forward and let you know, like, hey man, here's the guidelines, got to follow them, or you're going to hell. So I just tried to be open to people. And I I saw that carry over to my work in the FBI, too, that much of that is working with people. Like we can get subpoenas and bank records, and that's gonna help make the case, but eventually we're gonna have to deal with people, whether it's victims, informants, or even the criminals themselves.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Yeah, fair enough. And so then you transitioned from ministry work to where did you go after that?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

I preached on Easter Sunday, 2002. The next Sunday, I was in Quantico, Virginia at the FBI Academy. And then the Sunday after that, I preached in the Academy because they did not have a chaplain and they needed someone. So I said, I I can do that. That's awesome from one to the next.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

That's awesome. So so then you went into a career in the FBI. So what kind of values did switch or change for you from being a minister to being an FBI agent?

Pastoral Stress And Emotional Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 6:27

None. It's fortunately the FBI is very professional. I've had people many times comment on mine or or my partners, like it's regular, like, hey, appreciate you guys treating me this way. Like they know they broke the law. Here we are. And I've done search warrants with other agencies, and you see guys just like tearing stuff off the shelves for no reason. Like, okay. So I could come with the same kindness, showing people humanity. I can be bad cop when it's necessary. That's easy. But if I'm coming to even the criminals in a way that respects them, they responded similarly. And that ended up having them open up. It de-escalates situations and it also creates an atmosphere where they end up telling you things that they know they shouldn't be. But, you know, here we are having that conversation.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Yeah, fair enough. I uh I did an interview with an attorney from New York, which was hilarious because you know, he tells me in that in that interview, always ask for an attorney. Always, always. And I mean, it's it's fair. You you don't want to give away something that you didn't realize was a crime or something like that, and you want the help right then and there, but you also like you know, we're all people, we're all trying to be respectful to each other. And if we lead with that respect, I think things go better. I know that when I've been pulled over in the past and I was calm and nice with the officer, he was calm and nice with me. Absolutely. And and that goes both ways. If the officer approaches and he's got an attitude, it shuts everything down. And so I like that you you led with that same kindness you had in the ministry uh in in the FBI, FBI world. So in that, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Well, I I mean, I when we came to like if I come to your house and I break down your door and I've got me and 15 guys with rifles, I've already shown that I have authority over you. I I don't I don't need to yell at you and insult you as well. Like I've already shown you I'm in charge. So I could then relax and say, you know, and I know. And if you want to mouth off at me, I can take it because I still know I'm in charge. But here, you know, let me try easing this situation.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

You know, the funny thing is that actually tracks in parenthood. It's the same exact way when I'm talking to my when I'm talking to my kids. I I have the authority, I have the control. And if they want to mouth off or whatever, I'm just gonna tell them, hey, if you're not gonna be respectful, then this is not gonna go in the way you think. And, you know, it kind of it kind of translates in that way for fathers out there. Like, you have to know that you are the authority. And no matter what, what the kid says, what they do, that you are in control of that situation with, you know, punishments and things like that. So fathers listening at home, that's something that I recognized with my own children. It used to be, you know, when my kids were younger, I would yell or I never I never swatted, I never disciplined with with violence because I never thought that that was the way, but I always tried to talk to my kids and in that in that same way, they would talk back. Of course they're gonna talk back, dealing with all that new emotion, that new feeling and all that stuff. So I assume that it's probably kind of the same with with criminals who just got found that they were guilty and you're busting down that door.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Well, absolutely. And you know, the question we get most is what's this about? And there were two kinds of questions with that. It's what is this about? And the other is I've done a lot of crime, which one which one are you here for? But but but when I'm in charge, like also this is now the worst day of your life. I uh I'm gonna put you in prison, you've got to face all this. And I would often come to the criminals with the demeanor of, I'm gonna help you through this, which got them to talk. So if I come to your house and I'm arresting you in order to break that barrier to get you to start having a conversation and confession with me, I'm going to tell you, I'm sure you have a lot of questions, I'll answer those and I'll help you understand what's going on. Here, sign this waiver of rights and we'll have a conversation. But also, I let them know anytime you want to stop talking, you can stop talking. And I'm not going to be offended. And I'd prefer if you didn't lie to me. If you don't want to answer a question, just say, I'd rather not answer that question, and I'll honor that. And the issue there, manipulative though it is, these guys are criminals. Once we're talking, they felt an obligation to keep going. Like, all right, well, now I've already said this, and and he actually has helped me out. So that got that got people to open up.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, and fair enough. And it and it is nice to to be able to locate the crime inside of the documents, inside of the evidence, and all that stuff, and then go to them and say, hey, look, we we know that you've done this. Let's make this easy on everybody and let's let's just out it at this point. And that helps a lot because it speeds up the process, and then you guys can move on to more dangerous criminals or whatnot. Yeah, exactly. The next person. So in that FBI world, what was some of the the like I just want to ask, what's the some of the craziest stories that you've got? Like, just tell me one.

From Easter Sermon To Quantico

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Oh uh so we had one case where there was a unknown criminal who had taken over a woman's Facebook account and then was using her account to sextort other women. So he would he extorted the first woman saying, I've got these pictures of you, I'm gonna post them unless you give me this. And then he would use her account to then do the same to others. And now that woman was getting death threats and police investigations because other victims thought it was her instead of this other unknown individual who had taken over her account. Well, uh, one of our teams at headquarters figured it out. This guy had been saying, Nobody's gonna catch me, not even the FBI, and here we are. Well, the the young man in his mid-20s happened to live in our area, and he was an adjunct professor at a local university. So when we go to make the arrest, we have to make an announcement at the door of a police presence. The contrary to that is what you hear is a no-knock warrant, and those are extremely dangerous for everybody. So we announce our presence. Well, the computer team told us, look, this guy's likely, he's very sophisticated, he likely has a kill switch on his laptop, so we need to separate him from his laptop as soon as we can. So I was the breacher that morning and I had the RAM, and I told my buddy, you announce our presence on my backswing. So as I come back, you say, FBI search warrant, boom, and then we're gonna get in there so that we can separate the two. So it was a small apartment, and we quickly cleared to get to the back bedroom where he was laying on his stomach with his arm hanging down and his laptop right next to him. And so I approached him and I screwed my gun to his head and I said, If you move, you'll die. Which wasn't true because you can't kill somebody for destroying evidence. But he didn't know that. And so if you can imagine what your reaction is, if the first thing that you hear in the morning and feel is a gun to your head and somebody telling you not to move or you die, I don't know what your reaction would be, but his reaction was to evacuate himself. And from there I moved on and and I we had to go to the range for other stuff, but my friend who was a case agent was quite angry with me because she had to interview him in the back of a police vehicle while he was sitting on his own poo.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Oh my gosh. That is crazy. And oh just yeah, waking up like that would be would be wild.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

It's not ideal. I can think of a couple dozen ways that are better.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Yeah, I mean, I hope he's wearing his brown pants. That's all I'm saying. That's crazy. So with that, I mean, you probably have a a plethora of stories as far as that goes. I do want to bring up something that I that I correlate with that is the uh the Adams County incident with Afro Man. Have you seen that? Yeah, I've seen a few of them, yeah. That's that's just funny to me. Has anything like that happened to you where you know they've they you know there wasn't a crime that was being committed, but the person was, you know, at least calm and and kind of did something funny with it at least?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Well, so I was a SWAT operator for the last 15 years of my career. And when we would get called to other divisions, other cities to assist on maybe a large takedown. So they've got a number of dangerous targets, and so hey, Cleveland, FBI, you're here in this division. We need you to to do this house. I remember us hitting one house and the family was just they said, What's this about? And their what's this about was clearly, I have no idea. Well, they had moved into the house two weeks prior, and and the case agent had not freshened surveillance to make sure that the warrant was still going to be valid, that the subject lived there. And that's that's not a pleasant thing to be a part of.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yeah, I bet. Oh my gosh, man. So you moved from FBI into FBI SWAT then?

Kindness As A Tactical Advantage

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Well, it's it's an ancillary job. So I was a field agent doing investigations, and then once a week going through training, and then once or twice a week being called to an operation where here's a subject whose threat matrix hit a couple points enough where okay, SWAT needs to handle this rather than just agents. And the reason for that is we've got more bodies, we've got more tools, we have more training, armored vehicles. So now if it's a complex breach, we might use the boom from the bear cat or myself or another one of the breachers knowing how to get in there, drone operators, whatever else is needed.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Okay, that makes sense. So moving from ministry into the FBI, you said that the the tail end of your ministry work, you were getting headaches quite often, probably due to the stress of the work and that sort of thing. How did that transition into the FBI work? Did you experience the same headaches? Did did it feel like more of a purpose for you?

SPEAKER_00 16:20

The day that I was informed that I was accepted into the FBI, my headache stopped. And I remember and I remember thinking, I don't have to do this anymore. So it it was I tell people, and if you're involved in church, you kind of get this, but I tell people as a joke, I needed to find something with less stress. So I joined the FBI, but it was less stress. It's I didn't care. I'm I was embarrassed and I felt bad for the people whose house we hit that morning and it they weren't the criminals, but it I didn't like stew about it. And if we go to do an arrest and the guy's not there and he gets away and he's a fugitive, I don't care. It's not the same as someone saying, I think my kid might be a heroin addict, and that's not going away with me praying with you about it. So it was just much easier. And along the way, being an FBI agent felt like a cleaner fit for me. The difficulty with church, at least for me, again, other men are better than I am, but I felt like I had to be perfect and I had to wear a mask and I couldn't, I couldn't be authentic. And so that's hard when I've I had to think through my words to see what if I'm saying this properly, am I being the person I can be? Instead of just being me, being nice, being kind, being supportive, and then oops, that joke I just told was inappropriate. And I had a few buddies who would like take me aside after a sermon, like, yeah, I don't think you should have said that. Like, thank you.

unknown 17:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

But just being in the FBI, just it seemed natural. And and and I'd never met someone who came from ministry into the FBI, but I started seeing early on in my career, I had a squad mate who was on SWAT. Guy looked like stone cold Steve Austin, like, big dude, shaved head, goatee. And I said, you know, hey Dana, what did you do before the FBI? And he said, Oh, I was a banker. That's surprising. Like I would never have seen that. And when folks meet me and I do the training and I get the beard, and you're like, hey, you're all SWAT geared up, I have him guess. What do you think I did? And I had one guy guess, pastor, but he saw my tattoo, so I think might have given it away. Fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

That's pretty funny. Yeah, you you wouldn't expect, like, okay, let's go from ministry where where you know God will judge you to FBI work where we're gonna judge you kind of deal.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Well, and I felt it's not the same, but I did feel like I was doing God's work because obviously in the church, but with the FBI, God wants justice, and there's only so much a church is going to do. You know, we can have an offering for you, people pray, support, bring over food, but ultimately that actual justice isn't going to be done unless there's someone who can step in. And so I felt good about playing that role.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Yeah, I think that the justice of the ministry is to is to get people to either stop doing the bad things or never start doing the bad things. And in the FBI, you're you're stopping them from doing the bad things because they can't stop themselves. And so it's kind of that role switch there.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yeah. I mean, if if your child is harmed or something is stolen from you, you're all even if the church takes up a collection and and gives you all the money back, you're still gonna feel that violation that you're someone out there continuing without any type of any type of payment that he he has to give for living a life that's inappropriate, and then who's he going to carry it out against next to?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, when you're wronged like that, you you know, as the person being wronged, the victim in the situation, you you tend to want justice. And so you do want a cop, you do want, you know, an FBI agent or law enforcement, if you will. You do want them to get involved in serious offenses like that. I remember when I was 18 years old, just fresh 18, and my friend took me to a party, and I was a little confident man, and I was talking to every girl I could I could talk to because I was just building up that confidence, building up that. And one guy thought I was talking to his his girlfriend and didn't like that, and he came up and pulled a knife on me and and went from my stomach. Lucky for me, I did some training with boxing and martial arts, and I was able to stop him from actually injecting that knife into my stomach, aside from the tip of it. And, you know, at that point, I just reacted and I I broke his arm. And the cops showed up and they, you know, he ran away, of course, but they showed up and they're like trying to figure it out. And I was glad that they were there because that means two things. One, they're they're good, they're gonna find the person that's involved and they're going to, or they're gonna try to and they're gonna bring him to justice. Two, he's not gonna come back. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yep.

Sextortion Case And SWAT Realities

SPEAKER_01 20:48

And so I don't have to worry too much about it. He's not gonna ask around and figure out who I am and come find me later. I I didn't have that fear. I did learn later that they did put him behind bars for a little while, and I learned recently that he got out due to good behavior. So that tells me good things. Like I'm hoping that that good behavior, you know, prevents him from doing something like that in the future. We were young, we were dumb, and he did something stupid. And I don't think that, in in my professional opinion, which doesn't hold a lot of weight there, that he shouldn't spend all of his life behind bars. He should be able to recoup and move on. And that is that kind of something that you hope for as an agent who finds these people that they turn a better leaf and move on?

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Absolutely. And I had a case on one kid who was very likely to be a mass shooter. NCIS came to me and said, Hey, we release this kid from the Navy, but he's dangerous, homicidal, suicidal. And so I worked up a quick case on him with a county prosecutor, just trying to avoid a slower federal process. And my recommendation to the prosecutor was look, this is a good kid, but he's got problems. Let's have him mandatory psychological assistance. With prison hanging over his head if he doesn't. Unfortunately, the judge looked at him and said, No, this guy's a threat and put him away for a year. And ever since then, like ever since the time that he got out then and he would send quasi-threatening letters and phone calls, uh, and and there wasn't a month that passed that some uh some new agency would contact me about this kid. He's a he's the reason why whenever I came to work and parked my vehicle, I would scan the garage first before walking inside because I figured he was just you never knew which day he was gonna break. Yeah, he was just yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Oh man. That must have been uh an odd feeling to have for quite some time.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Well, it was, and I had a good friend that I worked with in Chicago who then transferred to Terre Haute, Indiana, and one of his partners was ambushed like that, shot in the back of the head outside, you know, in a parking lot, and that really brought it to the fore for me. Like, I need to just spend that moment looking because I'm not afraid, but I prefer not to get shot in the back of the head.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

And you can't live your life in fear. The day's gonna come and it's you know it's gonna be that day. And you can you can cower in fear or you can live your life and try to help as many people as you can before that day comes. And hopefully that day is long off, obviously. But you know, that's that's just the way it is. There's so many statistics out there that show that we can we can die just by driving our vehicle to the grocery store. Well, yeah, but people still go to the grocery store.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Well and and when I first worked in Chicago, my wife was always worried because this was a new way of life for us. She she'd tell me how she's concerned. I'd say, honey, I'm not getting shot. I'm gonna die from a car accident in Chicago. People drive crazy here. So you know, it went from her like being very nervous and concerned, and you know, text me as soon as you guys are clear to I would say, like, uh, yeah, so we've got a uh SWAT operation on Tuesday. And she's like, Okay. Like, well, yeah, the guy's kind of dangerous. She was like, All right, like, yeah, but I he's got a homicide conviction already and a lot of guns, and he he says he won't go back to prison. She's like, I put it on the calendar. What more do you want? So it really transitioned from being very nervous to like, yeah, you come home every time, everything's fine.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yeah, and it and it it kind of has to, right? So you can live your lives and be, you know, with each other in those moments instead of worried all the time. So that being said, so you went from ministry to FBI and now you are retired?

SPEAKER_00 24:28

I am retired two months in. It's nice to get rid of some of those things that always weighed me down.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Nice. What's your plans now?

Justice Work And Living Without Fear

SPEAKER_00 24:34

What do you what do you got going on for you? What I've got going on now is uh as I was nearing retirement, wife said, What do you what do you want to do? And I said, I don't know. She said, Why don't you write a book? And I said, Sure. So I sat down and I found that the stories came so quickly and easily. When agents are sitting around and you got downtime, we're always telling stories because I've got dozens. That guy's got a dozen, you know, and and some of them, like I I never lost that awe of, wow, I'm in the FBI. This is pretty cool. And when guys would tell these stories, I'm like, do you have any idea how crazy that is? That's that's an awesome story. And so as I sat down and recounted some of these things, like in detail about the kid who was going to be a mass shooter, I'm like, well, here's some of the insider look at it, and boom, now on to the next one. So, you know, I've worked with runaway teens and pimps who manipulated them. I've done high-value financial crimes, organized crime, years of national security, working human intelligence. So with that and SWAT, I boy, I've got a bunch of stories. So I I wrote a book and it's to be published in the fall. And I already have jotted down on my phone another two dozen stories. I think I forgot about these. Write another book, right? Right, write another book.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

So that's coming out in the fall. So what's that? So that book's gonna be about the stories that you experienced and others experienced in the FBI?

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Yeah, from the perspective, like it's almost as if some mad social scientist said, Hey, let's do an experiment. What would it be like if we took a Baptist pastor who's never handled a gun and we stuck him in the FBI? Let's let's see what happens now. And so it's it's that transition, but the cases that I work came from that position of, hey, I was a pastor, this is who I am, this is how I relate to people. Then after each story or case or combination there, I do an after-action review where we look at what worked, why did it work, how did we follow up and succeed anyway, and then maybe a few other funny stories that pertain to it as well.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

There you go. So, I mean, I can't wait to read it. You said the fall. I also can't wait to watch the movie that comes out afterwards. Absolutely. Right? So, in in that sense, I'm gonna ask you what values do you think are your core three that you hold on to no matter what?

Retirement Plans And Core Values

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah. Uh number one, and I've preached this a lot, is curiosity. So even when we had a long-term investigation and I knew facts, I've still had to come with curiosity to the investigation to think there has to be more. What else can someone else can a teammate input? And even in coming to the criminal, like I need to be open to what this person has to say. Because at the very least, they're going to give me more information on their mindset. Even in their denials, I can understand them. Uh I I I'll say this as well. This is kind of I read in about your podcast, you're like, you know, hey, none of this alpha stuff. So this is definitely not alpha. I say love. So one tenant scripturally for Christians is to speak the truth in love. And I found that many times that is a phrase that just means I'm gonna tell you how I think you should live. And the love is I'm saving you from doing wrong things, when really it was just judgment. So now I just love. So you're gonna be you, I'm gonna love you, and hopefully, whatever problems you run through because of your behaviors that I might disagree with, I'm gonna be there to support you. And lastly, I'd say loyalty. So I I always wanted to be the guy that if you called at any time of the night or day, and and that happened a lot in the FBI, if you're calling me, that means you need me. And so I will be there, I will be available. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Those are big three. Those are, I mean, top notch, really.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Try to argue with them. Try to argue with them.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

I love the the love aspect of that because I I preach kindness, love, and honor inside of your own self so that you can, you know, build up the other ones like courage, loyalty, and and those, because you need courage to love. A lot of people nowadays they don't they don't love enough. They there's too much hate. There's too much, I'm different from you, so get away from me type stuff. I heard a saying a long while ago that I that I absolutely love. And it's I want you to eat and just not at my table. There are there are people out there that I don't agree with, but I still want them to have food on their table for their family. I just don't want them at my table. And that's that's right.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

And then if you go back to curiosity, maybe you find out, okay, you know, I still may not want them at the table, but I understand them better now. And I I get where they're coming from. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Exactly. And that that's those values are they're I would like to like share on those values more through through my later podcast because I mean, I try to preach love as much as I can, and and that is important. And like you said, you read my thing, no alpha, no alpha energy. The thing with it is is no one can be that alpha as they claim. Like, yes, you may beat me in a fight, but I might outsmart you. Yes, you may outsmart me, but I might beat you in a fight. Like, there's there's there's no definitive way of saying that somebody is better than somebody else. We all have a collective knowledge that we've built up through our own experiences, and some people may know more than than others. And that's that's the joy of life. That's the journey of life.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Yeah, if if I am vulnerable, which literally means to expose my neck to you, that that's courage. Like I am believing that no matter how you strike me, I'll overcome. I will be resilient, I'll get past this. And that is alpha. So if I love you and that leads me into some type of difficulty or makes me look bad, I believe in myself that I'm gonna be okay. That is alpha. That is a man who says, I can be vulnerable, I can be exposed, I know how I am, I know I'm tough, I know I'll overcome. So these things that people complain about, petty. We'll get by.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

Eric, it has been an amazing journey with you on the podcast today. I really appreciate you jumping on and telling your amazing story. And everybody that's listening right now, you can get Eric's book in the fall. So I would suggest following Eric on his social media. I'm I'm gonna have the links to his LinkedIn and Instagram in the description and notes of this podcast episode. And, you know, if you're looking for some coaching because you want to prevent yourself from Eric knocking on your door in the future, come find me. I've got a link in the description. We can set up a time where we can just quickly visit 15 minutes to see if my coaching is good enough for you. And you, I hope that you have a great rest of your day. Eric, thank you so much again for joining the podcast. And I'll ask you to leave a final note that you want to leave to the viewers today. So please go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

I think what we ended on was great. I I mean, I love talking about that with you because it just emphasizes to me like, yep, those are the things that I need to follow. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

And then I'll just end it on this you're not late, you're not broken, and you are not behind. You are a man in progress. Keep forging.