Latest / Intentional Guy / Competency Cancels Fear: From Pulpit to Bureau
Transcript
- Eric Robinson: the only fear I had in those dangerous moments was being afraid that I might make a mistake and let my buddies down. Otherwise, I'm there for them. When I would make a movement and I have exposure to a dangerous area, I would see guys slide into place, putting their plates and a rifle to, direct at any threat. where might get shot in the side of the head. So I knew that was coming. I knew they were there for me and I knew I was going to do the same for them. Michael Chestnut: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Intentional Guy. I'm Michael Chestnut, and it's so good to be back with you guys doing an interview. And today we're bringing Eric Robinson into this. And Eric brings a totally unique perspective because you one, you've been a pastor for several years, and then you've done two decades. In the FBI, if I'm correct. Eric Robinson: Yep, twenty four years. I I always say recent really tired, but it's getting further from recent. It was in January. Michael Chestnut: In January. Well, I I'm gonna have to send you a copy of my book. I I I wrote a book called Exposed and it starts off with the knock of an FBI agent at my door. And I I won't say I don't have a little bit of anxiety today that takes me back to that moment. But that was the that was the moment in my life where God said, Okay, I got your attention now. And and and I went on a fifteen year path of restoration from that. So anyways, but they've heard me, they've heard my story. And today I brought you on here and we would love to know a little bit more about you and and your path. Eric Robinson: Yeah, I grew up in a Christian home where it w religion wasn't forced, it was just authentic as part of our family. Robinson's went to church and followed God, that's what we did I for generations. So I grew up in a in a strong family that was supportive. And I was that kid in Sunday school who was always raising his hand 'cause I knew the Bible answers, but it wasn't until I went to college That I started making my faith more personal and through that went on a mission trip and thought, okay, leading into my senior year, I think this is what I want to do. So refocused, finished my degree in religion and set out to be a missionary to Muslim countries. after I'd gotten back from the mission trip, my junior year in college, I noticed a group of some cute Christian gals that I knew from our ministry sitting at a frozen yogurt shop and I had been to Turkey over that summer and I had a ring on my finger that I bought at the bazaar to symbolize my promise to go back to Turkey. And I took the ring off and I put it on the table and I said, Who wants to marry me and go to Turkey? And this cute, curly headed girl picks it up, puts it on her finger, and she says, I will. And I thought, Well, I wasn't talking to you because you have a boyfriend. I was talking to the available girls. And then two years later I put a better ring on that gal's finger as we were set to go overseas as missionaries. Some difficulties happened in family life. And I thought, well, I don't know if it's the best idea with family difficulties and then the hardship of going overseas, newlywed couple. So we changed gears, stayed stateside, and then I went through that usual path of youth pastor, assistant pastor. Until in the mid nineties, the church that I was pastoring at said, we'd like to plant a new church in Western New York. And I said, I'd love to do that. Went through the vetting process, got cleared, and then started a church with a core group of Christians. And I told them off the bat, we're going to be a church of outreach. We want not to just shuffle new Christians from those pews and Have them giving their tithes to us. We want to bring in people who have stayed away from church for whatever reason. So we wanted to have a message that was attainable for them. And also we wanted to be welcoming. I told them if we're going to make a mistake, we're going to err on the side of grace. And if God's going to judge us, let him judge us for being too welcoming. And I gave them a flinch test, which was If you see this person walking into our church, can you greet them with nothing on your face? No, no flinch, no judgment, if they're not wearing church clothes, if they smell like alcohol, tattoos, weird piercings, interracial couples, homosexual couples, can you say, I'm glad you're here? And there's no no look of on your face. And people said yes, and so we sat at it and we were very successful. People coming in, lives being changed, church was growing. I enjoyed it. I was finally getting due ministry the way I thought it should be done. But I found out I also had a problem, which was I could not separate myself from my people's issues. So when they came to me in a normal pastoral sense of saying, Pastor, I've got this problem, you know, my wife's leaving me, my son's got an addiction, I'm going through these troubles, I carried those. So that led to stress and that stress led to two years where every single day without fail I had a headache. And it came to a point where I told my wife, I've got to find a job with less stress, and that's when I joined the FBI in two thousand and two. Michael Chestnut: So th that's what you call less stress. Eric Robinson: It it absolutely was. So I I endured those headaches. I fought against them because I thought this is what I should be doing until I got to a point where I thought, my body's trying to get my attention. What's it gonna do next beyond the headaches? And I the day that I got accepted into the FBI, headache stopped. So that was good cue to me that this was the right choice. That now I could just be a good agent. not have to worry about being that perfect pastor who's always carrying everybody else's troubles. Michael Chestnut: Mm. So was that hard transition over from a pastor to that and also a man of faith within to the FBI and some of the things that you had to deal with? Eric Robinson: Well, what was good and and I get that question a lot and I understand it, but the understanding the FBI and who who was made up who makes up the FBI. So you've got a past background, you have to have a clean record, no drug use. So that doesn't mean everybody's a good person, but it definitely makes that pool of people heavier to be good people. So the folks I worked with were tremendous. Not just Dedicated to the Constitution, but dedicated in many ways to doing what they thought was right. So I encountered and engaged in this many times of asking not just can we do this, but should we do this? Like, is this gonna ruin someone's life and it doesn't need to? you know, is this an investigation we should go forward on? Is this a person we should charge? Or are we gonna try to get some type of diversion into it? So The morale and the attitude, the atmosphere in the FBI was from the beginning definitely one of we're trying to do what's right. So that that part I appreciated from the start. in ministry I had people coming to me, this is part of Christianity, and saying, Pastor, I've sinned, I've done something wrong, help me to change. I I recognize that this isn't the way I should go. And we call that repentance. They're turning around. And in the FBI, this was forced repentance, where you've had people who say, I'm doing something I know is wrong. That's cool. I'm in. And we had to now step in and say this has to stop. And what's interesting, I I would be curious, I think by the time then they come to you in corrections, that, you know, in a sense, repentance is either setting in where they go, Yep, this is a mistake and here's what I'm paying for it. I need to change, or it can, as you say, harden them towards life and think, you know, society's against me. So You know, when when we would come with that forced repentance and say, You need to Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. Eric Robinson: change and we're gonna lock you up to do that, I'd be curious how how often that does have that impact of people coming to terms with their actions. My time in ministry, obviously I'm I'm dealing with folks who are pretty much like me. They're gonna come from a similar background, class status, and then getting into the bureau, now I'm interacting with teenage prostitutes, Chicago gang members, Michael Chestnut: Mm. Eric Robinson: high level drug dealers, Muslim terrorists, white supremacists. And so that now goes gave me a better understanding of human nature and and knowing that and knowing okay God loves this person, God interacts with this person, it just helps me understand everything, myself, the world, God better, because the these are this is what is going on in the world, not just these white middle class people in in western New York that I was working with. These are this is more to everyone where you know I've got Muslim informants. I've got people who come from other countries that I'm working with. And that allows me to broaden my horizon and and also shows me, okay, I didn't grow up in wealth, but I had a strong family. I was able to go to college. So I I have more options than some of these people do. Michael Chestnut: You you said something earlier. You're talking about your church where, you know, you put that face on w are you gonna be able to if this person comes to you that, from a different lifestyle than what we preach in Christianity I know going into the prison, I met people I would never have met any other time in my life. And I did have those moments where I had a tough time. sitting across from this person, especially the non repentant one, Eric Robinson: I a and for me it was simple because I had and and maybe this was something that you could have focused on too, I had a an ultimate goal and that is if I am not judgmental in this interaction, it was going to create a larger judgment in the future. So if I come to a sex offender, a drug dealer, whatever whoever it might be, and I'm not displaying disdain for them. they value this moment much more than the heavier one in the future because going to trial standing before a judge, Michael Chestnut: Mm. Eric Robinson: that's a bigger deal than than this simple interaction. But if I don't have that judgment on my face and I'm interacting with them kindly, professionally, trying to find those kernels of commonality that I can connect with, that allows them to feel comfortable and now tell me things that they shouldn't. which I'm gonna use against them later. So I could I could do that no matter how despicable their their crimes are. And I think I could do it fairly authentically too, so that it didn't come across as obviously I'm playing good cop just to get them to tell me stories. Michael Chestnut: Right. how do you keep that from jading you at the end of the day? Eric Robinson: Well, one is if successful that helps. So we would see bad things, we would see traumatic things, disgust. I mean that any FBI agent you talk to, you know, you can say, Hey, like what's the smelliest house you've ever been in? I and they'll have they'll be able to tell you, like, yeah, disgusting. You know, like we go into this place and et cetera. so there's hard things that we see. And obviously, if you grabbed me out of the pulpit And just put me right in there, that would be difficult for me to handle. But we had been waiting in that water for a bit. So you get accustomed to some of these things, you experience it. But mainly it is just talking about it. So agents tell stories. And if you're not bringing those experiences out into reality and speaking them, and it's not crying on shoulders, but it's just talking about it. And often talking about it and laughing, dark humor, you know, just recounting stories. That's what helps bring it out. Instead of just having it in there where it's never reflected on. And if I get that mud splatted on me from all these traumas and I never look down and and wipe it off, it's gonna it's gonna cake pretty heavy. But now talking about those stories helps make it it diffuses it. So In many ways they were survivor stories because we would very very literally be often telling a tale of, hey, this is how we all could have died. Yeah, but we didn't. And so now we're gonna laugh at death because here we are and death missed us this time. And and that helps get it out because it it is I mean, I and I could tell you one of those where like this is how you handle it leading up and even after of just saying, didn't get me this day. So we're gonna laugh. Michael Chestnut: Well, I think that's how our our our faith walk should be too. I mean, you s one of the things is you can't touch darkness and expect dark dark it's gonna touch you back. And if you don't bring it out to light, it it can consume you. And so what I'm hearing you say is the same way with the FBI, if you if you just keep those things there, the trump traumatic th cause man, you had to see traumatic things. You've had to see, you know, that the that the normal people doesn't see. We get to see on law and order. We w you know, we're not seeing the victim child that's been a part of pornography ring and the evil that's behind that. in where you came from, you've seen that evil, had to touch that evil, had to handcuff that evil Eric Robinson: Yeah. Michael Chestnut: so I think it's the same way I'm I'm watching I told you before we came on here, I I work with Celebrate Recovery Women and that. And a lot of them it's the same way. I'm like, you know, when you can release that and tell your story, tell tell the stu it no longer owns you and it can't it's like you said, you you can wipe it off and now it now it's kinda gone. Eric Robinson: And what was good, so part of the stress that I had in ministry was I you know, I didn't have it early on, but when I was in charge of the church, I was the singular pastor. So my fault, I didn't have around me men that I could trust that would say that would promise me, you tell me anything, won't judge you, just gonna support you, help you through this. I I failed to have three or four men that I felt safe with. Again, a lot of that was me imposing this, but I also didn't actively have it. So I was bearing that on my own. No one else to share this with. Getting in the FBI, I I mean, s you know, swing a sock and you're going to hit an agent who understands what you're going through. Because they were either there themselves or they go, yeah, I I know about that. You know, I've seen this too. And so right there you have built in support system with people who speak that language, who have that experience, and that is an important thing to have. Michael Chestnut: Yeah. Well how would how would you talk to to listeners listening right now that I mean, me and you went over that, you got the tattoo. Iron sharpens iron, man. I mean, it it and it really does. Eric Robinson: There's my tattoo. Very proud of it. Michael Chestnut: I love it. If I didn't l hate needles, I'd get one. Eric Robinson: It's not a needle thing. It's it's like it Michael Chestnut: Ha ha. Eric Robinson: feels like you're scratching a sunburn. So it doesn't feel good, but th that's that is in in retrospect what I missed. I did not have men that I picked to say and and as we discuss even before we get on, I'm also going to show that I'm that person. So I've got a few guys now that even in retirement, they're ones that I have shared And it's amazing, like when you share something vulnerable with a person that you think you can trust, they're there's they are now locked in with you. And there's guys that I I otherwise maybe wouldn't be that close with, but now they're sh when they're sharing something that's very intimate. You know, and the idea of vulnerable is you're you know, you're exposing your neck. Like I trust you enough that you're not gonna strike me. And now in return I'm showing, yeah, you're right, I'm I'm gonna give you a hug. And so having demonstrated that to colleagues, you know, maybe I have the record f in the FBI for most people who've been who called me into a private room and cried to me. So but that's I feel like a badge of honor that FBI agents don't cry, men or women. And yet they'll say, Hey Eric, can we talk? And then boom, you know, here comes something difficult. often Unrelated to the work, but you know, the work is always part of that stress too. Michael Chestnut: you made two points that are really important. First, having that person in your life. Because if you don't have that person in your life, There's no way of releasing all all that stuff gets built up and it gets it comes out one way or another. And sometimes it comes out unfortunately my family gets the brute end of it because it comes out in me blowing up or something else. But I like what you said too was I I need to be that man too. I need to be that man for someone else. Eric Robinson: Well, I I think that often demonstrates i it it's almost like discipline. I I'm showing you first what I'm looking for. I'm I'm being available for you to be that person that you can call at any moment. The the person who is gonna listen when you say, I've done something that I'm ashamed of and you're like, Yep, I can see why you'd be ashamed of. I'm not gonna support that, but I get it. And let's let's work to be that better person. Michael Chestnut: Yeah. And and it's it's difficult. I I come from this background where I was taught and modeled that men don't show emotion, fear, and you you you you carry it. That's what a man does, right? And And that's what I did. And then I ended up with someone like you at my front door because Eric Robinson: Yeah. Michael Chestnut: I I didn't have a place when the enemy was getting me to say, Man, I need help. I'm over my head. Right? And so I've learned now that, man, that was wrong teaching. masculinity is I I hate the world's take on masculinity and I don't like the Christian's view on masculinity either. what I've learned is I get the chooses in my life. And in return, I I to me it was easier being the guy to reach out to have re people reach out to than it was to be the guy to reach out to. Eric Robinson: Yeah. And you when you discuss the Christian view of masculinity, and and I've heard the the warping of of Christ so much to say, yeah, he's the guy who got angry and flipped table tables, y he did that because these were people perverting kindness, perver perverting religion. And if you want to hold up Jesus as the highest level of masculinity, which think there's a good argument there. It it's showing kindness and quietness and support, confronting his disciples when they've done wrong, but not condemning them. And the I mean his hand is always out. I think so much like one of the things that I think of is Jesus was so willing to give and be accessible and healing that when a woman who you know was bleeding for 12 years, whatever it was, just touches his garment and is healed. Like that, that was flowing out of him. And I think that is being masculine. It is the availability to be present for others and create a supportive community. So that's your family, that's the few men around you, that's into your community, and that is not tearing down. That is not. speaking the truth in love, where I'm speaking truth to you. And the love part is I'm condemning you actually and trying to get you to turn from your sins. It's it's just loving. So maybe we can work together to get to that truth, but I'm not standing on I know what's right, I know what's true. I'm standing on I love you and let's be curious together on what this truth might be that could help you. Michael Chestnut: Right. And then that leaves that person with the the choice of okay, I can either choose the right path and listen and listen I think of one who he was in an affair and was approached and he approached in love, approached with every option to make it right, but ultimately his choice was not to make it right, I learned a long time ago, it's not my job to fix anybody, nor is it anybody's job to fix me, to give it to God. But I think too, a lot of men, we live in fear. And maybe you can address that a little bit because I have to imagine being in the FBI, there was some fearful moments. And afterwards, you see you probably saw the danger You were more courageous in s situations you didn't think you ever would be. Eric Robinson: Yeah. So this is an amazing thing that I learned through my years, especially I spent fifteen years as a SWAT operator. And that is competency cancels out fear. So Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. Eric Robinson: I knew how good I was. I'd been on the range. I knew I could hit my shot every time, even in a stressful moment, and I wasn't the best shot on the team. So if I if I knew I could do it and these guys were even better than me, then Now I it's not just me, but it's these men covering me. And then we do the tactical work, you know, the foot works and the movement. And it it would almost, you know, give me chills to see like this is how without words many times guys were solving these problems in difficult spaces. So I felt comfortable in what I'm doing. I knew that I could carry out my task, and these guys next to me were at least as good as I was. And what resulted in that is when we would go to hit a house and here's a violent offender and we don't know if he's going to oppose us with violence, there was nothing in the back of my head that said, Hey, Eric, y you might die today. You gotta be careful. It there it just wasn't there. There was for me no fear because I knew what we could do. Doesn't mean I might not get shot, but I wasn't afraid of it. I knew we had the tools necessary to carry out the task. And when there's no fear and you can just focus on what's in front of you, that makes you an even better operator of what you have, the task that you have at hand. So being in those situations, both in training so often and then carrying them out in real life with these men made it so I could approach these things without fear. And, you know, if there ever was any fear, well, we're just gonna go push through it anyway. So I mean, honestly, the only fear I had in those dangerous moments was being afraid that I might make a mistake and let my buddies down. Otherwise, I'm there for them. When I would make a movement and I have exposure to a dangerous area, don't even have to say it. I would see guys slide into place, putting their plates and a rifle to, you know, to direct at any threat. where you know I might get shot in the side of the head. So I knew that was coming. I knew they were there for me and I knew I was going to do the same for them. So that for me is the iron sharpening iron. Like that going through life threatening situations at a high level of competency. So the author Miha Chick Sent Mihai calls that flow where you're you're doing what you're meant to do at a high level against stress. So it's not like playing on level one mode. It's playing at the hard mode, and yet you're still carrying it out despite that. That gives a sense of euphoria and purpose. And I don't think there's anything that can create that more than doing tactics well against the threat of death and carrying it out. And so we're all experiencing this together and bonding in a tremendous way because, you know, it it is. a a threat to life. Many times the guys just come out with their hands up, so okay, you know, that's not very threatening, but you don't know until that happens what's gonna what's gonna transpire. So that that bonds men together quite a bit. Michael Chestnut: Well I I love that because I it fear can fear can be paralyzing it affects all of us differently. And I think you gotta be aware, because let's just be honest, not everybody could be an FBI agent and and go into those situations and do it. You so one, you gotta know yourself going into it. But what I liked about it was hearing you say there were it it's it's about the practice, it's about the preparing yourself. And I think that's probably about exactly where life as husbands and fathers as we're listening to this, a lot of the the battlefield that we're going through and dealing with is it's exact same scenario what you're just talking about is preparing. Eric Robinson: Right. And if you get to that level of competency. So if you ask me to speak on what is what is it like to handle an FBI investigation in front of a thousand people, I I'm not scared because I've done it a lot of times. Michael Chestnut: Right. Eric Robinson: You ask me to talk about playing piano, there's gonna be a lot of fear that I'm gonna look like a fool because I have no idea how to teach that. But if I'm in my competency, then I feel comfortable. And so if you ask me to To speak on playing the piano, but the speech isn't coming up for two months. I'm doing my work so that I can get to that best place where I'll still have fear, but it's, you know, maybe it's less than, hey, can you speak to my men's group tonight about that? Michael Chestnut: Let me let me ask you what so out of all that experiences that you've had the with the FBI and in ministry in all the aspects, because of course the FBI is the most interesting part because that you you know, you not everybody's met an FBI agent, unless you do it like I did, you know. and so you got that aspect, but then you got the ministry part of it. pastor's part, which to me, that seemed like that was your hardest struggle in life was being a minister versus what we would have thought the FBI was being at. What are the some of the stuff that you would you've learned that you would give as a takeaway to the listeners? Eric Robinson: Well, some of the difficulty I had in ministry, as we talked about, was not being prepared with those around me who could support. So that was a failure. And as I went through the years of having headaches, and I I'm gonna emphasize it was every single day, every day, I I fought against it, and part of the reason I fought against it was I enjoyed ministry. Also part of the reason was I thought, what if I make the wrong choice? As being a pastor is something I'm comfortable with otherwise. It's something I know how to do. What if I choose to leave this? And I didn't really feel like, you know, I was going against God's will, but like what if this is what I was meant to do and now I'm gonna go ruin my life doing something else? So I had a fear at that time of making the wrong decision. That was in my early thirties. I'm fifty seven now and I've made a lot of wrong decisions. I've made a lot of things, mistakes. I I've been through traumatic things. And what I failed to recognize then, and I need to continually remind myself now, is that no matter what I do, poor decision, stressful situation, traumatic event, that will not ruin me. It might change my life, but I'm going to recenter. and come back with resilience. So part of my reluctance to leave ministry was fear of failure. And yet I realize now I'm undefeated. Even in my mistakes, I'm still here. I get through them. You can point to them and say that was objectively wrong, Eric. And I'll go, yep, you're right. And I moved on. I apologized. I you know, paid back what I needed to and now we are moving into this life that just recenters and goes on. Michael Chestnut: Man, I think that's important because a lot of men stay stuck. A lot of men stay stuck in their failures and then let that create their identity. we don't have to allow the worst moments of our life to identify who we are. Eric Robinson: So one thing that I saw on the SWAT team, we would do after action reviews after each operation, which means sitting down and talking about what did we do right, what did we do wrong, where we're, you know, how can we improve. And this attitude was built in and handed down such that new guys would see it and go, that's what you're supposed to do. So part of it is, you know, getting called out for mistakes. And no one ever got called out for mistakes. Why? Because they were the first to say, guys, before we even start, I I screwed up that event. I know that put people in danger. And I take ownership of that. And new guys would see that and go, that's what we do here. We own our mistakes immediately. And and it was I mean, it wasn't even that that took away shame. There was honor in that now. Like if you were the guy who said, I'm I'm Standing up first to say, this is how I screwed up. I'm going to let it eat me up, and then I'm going to let it go. That's it. And that was then contagious to everyone else, where no one's getting called out because they were owning their mistakes right away. And if men can understand that, like it it's it's almost self-honoring to be forward and say, this is how I screwed up. And I'm gonna tell you this before you even tell me. Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. Well, I I like that. I think I need to start having some after action reviews with some men in my life, right? A as as training. Like I think of some of the guys of my celebrate recovery, because I think one, we we don't even give people the opportunity to say, I made a mistake. let's let's sit down and talk about what. what went on, right? And if we did that more as Christian men with our walk, because none of us are perfect. Man, we mess up all the time. I love the authentic of a man who can know his mistakes and own it because that's a man who then isn't stuck. The man who's stuck is a guy who cannot own his own mistake. And that's, you know, we were talking earlier about the guys in prison. The ones who failed Eric Robinson: Yes. Michael Chestnut: were the ones who who were, it was the judge's fault. It was a dirty cop. It he had a bad attorney. It was now how about you were not doing what you were Eric Robinson: Right. Michael Chestnut: supposed to do, right? Eric Robinson: Yeah. Well, and by definition, these men are gonna be stuck because if you don't own how you've done something wrong or even look into it, well, then that's just what you will continue doing. So yeah, you'll be in the same place. And so yeah, do that after action. Your guys come to you and say, Hey, I got I got in a big fight with my wife. Okay, what did you do right? What did you do wrong? What are some takeaways? What can we change? Anytime you're talking about your wife, I don't want to hear it. We're talking about you. Like so Michael Chestnut: Mm. Eric Robinson: in SWAT, after action is like, okay, here's where we did it well. We need to keep doing it that way. This showed up, you know, good. We're not talking about, yeah, man, and then the bad guy did this. Like, what a jerk. You know, okay. Well, that's on me to figure out how to handle when a subject acts like this. Not I can't expect w I mean honestly, bring it to that. How can you expect that person to change? Or in the next scenario. So now when we say, Hey, these guy guy jumped out of the second story window and we didn't think he would, okay, well now we know that's a possibility. That's on us to change, not expecting the Michael Chestnut: Hmm. Eric Robinson: the criminals to change. Michael Chestnut: Man, I love that. And that is something that I think we will also put in our our notes, is what you just diagrammed, what an after action looks like. Because how great is that to put into motion, especially with the things in life that we struggle with the most. You know, because there's a couple guys that I walk with who have different struggles in their in their life. And, Often we may have a failure or something, but what do we do with that failure? And I just watched someone just this week be able to, they had a plan, went into this situation, and came out victorious. And it was all because, you were willing to talk about something that was difficult to talk about and and come up with a plan because you talk to someone who'd been there and done that. Eric Robinson: Yep. So we had an after action a few years ago. We're we're searching a house, we're clearing it so that a search team can come in. And those are agents and also support staff who don't have guns. And they're casual now because SWAT has said it's safe. And part of it is going through closets, you know, underneath couches and beds. And someone failed to go through a closet enough and there was someone hiding underneath clothes. Everyone was safe. Which which is the best result of a catastrophic mistake that didn't end in harm. And that made a change. You see the floor and you see the wall. Like you're pulling things out. You're not lazy. And that so it that after action led to an adoption of a new practice. Later, same thing, but we miss somebody who is hiding outdoors, like on the property, but like underneath some materials. So that brought about a change. So now we're searching s primaries and secondaries outdoors as well. Thoroughly. It's stuff we would do, but now it's by the book. And that's something where you go, okay, here's here's the after action. Here's where I screwed up. Okay. So now what's the plan to remedy that? How are we gonna do that better? Rather than losing Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. Eric Robinson: your temper when this happens, rather than going to the bottle when you've got some type of draw to it. Okay. That's that's your failure. That's where you screwed up. So what do we do instead of that? Michael Chestnut: And I love that because how are we going to change it? It's easy to to focus and stay fixated on the mistake and beat yourself up over the mistake, but doing that's not going to change anything. It's not going to change the results of what took place. But what can change is how you address it and implement so that the next time you can be successful. Eric Robinson: Yeah. Eat it up and then spit it out. Michael Chestnut: Man, Eric, thank you so much. I love that. I think that's some great stuff for our guys. Before we go though today, I I do want you to tell us about your book. Eric Robinson: Well, my book is a story of what happens if you take a young Baptist pastor who's never handled a gun and you stick him in the FBI for about a quarter century. And along the way so I I I tell that story with the thread of I was always a pastor. I had this attitude. I was in pastoring because that's what I was it was part of me, and now I'm taking this into situations where I'm trying to reach out to teen prostitutes where I'm trying to get a confession off of a Islamic terrorist. And I realized as I was writing this that so many of the stories that agents have, and I could get any any of my buddies on the phone and say, tell me a great story and they would have one. They're they're amazing. They're they're they're normal everyday cases. Some are significant. But they're just regular cases, and yet there's a remarkable aspect to it. So I've read books about by FBI agents where they do some amazing things, infiltrating groups, you know solving these, you know, decades old cases. And I've read ones where it talks about the the broad aspect of the FBI as an institution. I think when people read my book, they'll They'll go, that that's an incredible story, and they'll laugh a good bit along the way. But they'll also say, I think I could do that because I was nothing special. I I worked alongside guys who were special forces before. I worked alongside guys who were cops, you know, decorated. And I was a Baptist patch pastor from a small town in western New York and got to be part of that along the way. So I didn't lose the fascination in twenty four years that This is pretty incredible that I get to be in the FBI. And part of that is you know, through a story I tell where I had a buddy who graduated from Princeton. And he tells me, yeah, I'm going through social media and I see all my college buddies and their doctors and their CEOs and they're they're running, you know, these groups. And I said, Hey man, you're on the FBI SWAT team. They all wish they could be you. And and it was true. Like I didn't say it in arrogance. I'm like, do you not recognize how awesome it is to say, I was a breacher on FBI SWAT team and I was part of, you know, this this many arrests along the way. So hopefully that comes through in the book that people go, that's that's a pretty cool job. Michael Chestnut: Wow. When's it c when's it gonna be available? Eric Robinson: Scheduled to drop in October. So right now, my wife's company, Weaving Influence, is set to publish my book. I will be their third author to publish. They've been promoting authors, marketing them for 14 years and said, heck, why don't we publish too? So I am working towards that. At the same time, we've got some traditional publishers looking at it, which would be great because it'd be better traction, more exposure. Michael Chestnut: Mm-hmm. Eric Robinson: But if that's the case, it would mean probably pushing back the data a good bit, which is fine if you know if we can get some more publicity to the book. So we'll see how that goes. But if folks want to follow along for when the book does come out and see some of the stuff that I have to put out there, they can go to my website, which is preacher to breacher dot com. Michael Chestnut: Awesome. We'll make sure we put all that in the description as well so you can just link to it and everything. Eric, thank you again for being here today. It's been great talking to you. Got some great stuff from you. And to my listeners, if this reached you in some way, please let us know in the comments below. Until next time, just keep being intentional.