Eric Robinson spent 24 years as an FBI special agent, including 15 years in SWAT. Before joining the FBI, he spent years in Christian ministry - which gives this conversation a very different depth from the usual law enforcement interview.

In this episode, we explore what high-risk work does to a person, what elite teams can teach us about accountability and trust, and what years around criminals, informants, and interrogations reveal about human nature. Eric also reflects on humour as a coping tool, how his faith changed over time, and the challenge of identity after a career built around service, danger, and purpose.

Key takeaways

→ What 24 years in the FBI and 15 years in SWAT does to a person

→ Why accountability matters so much in high-pressure teams

→ What interrogations and informants teach you about people

→ How humour helps people cope in dark environments

→ How faith can be shaped by years around danger and deception

→ Why identity can become difficult when a long career comes to an end

Links

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_eric_robinson/

Website: https://preachertobreacher.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-robinson-9220053a4/

Hello and welcome to the Lonely Chapter, a podcast for people who are doing okay on the surface but quietly unsure how to live well.

Today's episode is with Eric Robinson, a recently retired FBI special agent who spent 24 years in the bureau and 15 of those in SWAT.

Before all of that, though, he spent his years in Christian ministry, which makes this one go far beyond tactics, arrests and operations.

In this episode, we explore what high risk work does to a person, what years around criminals and informants teach you about human nature and how someone holds onto faith, humor and humanity in a world shaped by danger and deception.

If you're new here, please do follow wherever you're listening.

It really helps the show reach more people who might need it.

Let's get into the conversation.

Eric, you spent 24 years as an FBI special agent and 15 of those in SWAT.

What does that world do to a person?

Well, it bonds the SWAT operators to each other.

That's, that's the most definitive result of being on a SWAT team.

When, not to exaggerate, but it is a fact.

When we regularly, and this would be once or twice a week, would engage in an operation where we are called to there because these are the most dangerous people.

FBI agents are well trained, and yet here's someone who hits certain ticks on a matrix that says, this is a little extra dangerous.

So let's get the better trained, better equipped people with ballistic protection.

So we go through that and I'm getting up at 1:30 in the morning and traveling across the state to meet and to prepare.

Now we've gone through this.

It's, it's life and death.

It doesn't feel life and death when we do it, but on reflection, those events bond the men.

And for us, we had one woman too, but bonded me to her as well.

It bonds us together.

We have that camaraderie that's beyond that normal friendship.

So I have met some of the best people in my life in the FBI.

And then the best people of those are my brothers on the SWAT team because we've been through so much together.

And with that also then, you know, we share the stories of, wow, wasn't that crazy?

What we went through isn't that remarkable?

And in many ways those stories are without the, without the sadness of it or the reflecting on trauma.

They are survivor stories.

They're stories of we were in a very dangerous situation and then we got through it and we all laugh.

So that is the very positive and most prominent effect of being a SWAT.

Operator when you're in the Moment, obviously, the adrenaline's pumping and you almost.

Your training kicks in, you're not thinking about it, and you say sort of afterwards, you would sort of maybe sit down and have that discussion and reflect on it.

What.

What was that like for you, sitting down and reliving with the people you'd been through that with?

Well, there's two ways that we would relive it.

So after every operation, we have what's called an after action review, which is our team trying to do.

Do things better the next time.

So we.

We walked through what we had planned, what went well, how are we going to maintain that?

What mistakes were made?

And what's also great about that is, no, my team leader doesn't say, hey, Eric, you made this mistake, or, hey, Sam, you.

You messed up here.

Me or Sam is first to jump forward and say, yeah, and then I should have covered that door and I missed it.

Each operator, it owns it.

And that just.

That creates that atmosphere where everyone is accountable.

And now someone new comes on the team and they see that, you know, here's a new guy trying to prove himself, you know, hey, I messed up.

Next time I need to do this.

So there's one aspect to that where we are always reviewing what we've done and trying to improve upon those mistakes.

And then secondly, when we're just chuckling and waiting on something to happen and telling crazy stories, it's.

It's cathartic.

It gets out those.

It's good because now we're remembering our times together.

I'm telling people stories as the older guy that they maybe didn't experience.

And so now we can have that history running through.

We can talk about guys that were the old guys when I came on.

And now it feels like you're writing a history of this civilization that we're passing on.

Here was our team leader back then.

He did this.

You know, these were some of his foibles and habits.

And then we had these guys.

And it builds into that oral history for the SWAT team.

And hopefully the guys keep doing that because I'm.

I'm gone now.

And hopefully they remember me by telling crazy stories.

What Eric did.

Yeah, I just want to dig into the first point you mentioned.

So that was sort of accountability is what you're describing there.

So the person would be the first person to stand up and say that they made a mistake and look at what they can learn from it.

And I think failure, or to use a word that I learned from a world record holder, to replace that with hiccup.

It's not so bad that word to use.

And when we make that hiccup, it's so important to reflect on it.

And it is the way we learn as human beings.

Right, from failure or from making hiccups.

Is that something that you can teach other people?

And, and how would you do that?

Is it just through seeing you do it?

Well, so we'd have our SWAT operators and we were the ones to get regular training.

And so most often we were the ones then to train the agents.

And they would often, you know, if they would watch us doing a run, sometimes we demonstrate in what we call a shoot house, which is, you know, building where we can shoot paintballs in a, in a sense.

And we'd, we'd do a run and the agents would many times go, you guys are so fast.

And we were fast, but it was that we were smooth because we knew our places.

And demonstrating that.

I think many times it engaged with the agents because then they would recognize, I want to be like that because that's safer.

I want to be like that because honestly, that looks cool.

That looks amazing.

How that person moved into place knowing then number two moved in his place, and then three covered an open spot.

But the accountability part, for me, it was always because I knew my capabilities.

I wasn't threatened by saying, yeah, I messed up.

I didn't need to be defensive because I had proven myself enough other times.

And so I'm not sure how that gets taught other than maybe just saying that, demonstrating it.

But if I screwed up every time, I would feel self conscious and maybe more defensive.

Maybe I would hide back, maybe I would count where I am in the stack of people entering and go, I'm going to get near the back because I'm not sure what I'm doing.

And I remember early in my career with SWAT of, you know, thinking that of like, oh my gosh, these guys are doing things I don't know how to do.

But as experience comes, I have confidence.

I know I'm confident.

I know I've done this a thousand times and I've done it right.

So this time I messed up.

Easy.

Easy to raise my hand.

And even the younger guys, again, they see that in the older guys, they haven't done it a thousand times, they've done it 12 times.

And they see this is what, this is what responsibility is ownership.

Because if I'm not recognizing what I've done, I can't grow, I can't get better.

Yeah, I agree, obviously, the word accountability we just discussed, but what other Things does it take to be good in a job like that?

Well, it takes the training and experience.

So having done, we had a.

We were in a shooting about a year and a half ago, and part of what happens after a shooting is we have a shoot review team come to discuss what you did and whether this was handled properly.

And it was.

But in that, I was asked, how many operations have you been on in your FBI career?

And at that point, I'd been in 23 years.

And it just struck me, I never thought of that.

And with quick math, it's probably close to a thousand arrests, search warrants, drug buys.

And so having done that so many times now, whenever we entered these dangerous situations with.

With men who are going to oppose us with violence, I never felt fear.

The only fear that I might have creep in is the fear that I might let my partners down, that I'm not going to do what I should.

And so the only, the only thing that I'm thinking is not, oh, my gosh, this guy might shoot us.

Oh, you know, this is dangerous.

My only thought is, what's my responsibility?

Do I have the tools for that?

Am I prepared to handle something that comes about that we didn't write into the script in our operation order?

So having done that so many times made me feel confident and ready.

And then I'd been training with these guys.

I knew, I knew I was ready.

These guys were at least as ready as me.

They were all very good.

So that created an atmosphere where things were calm and we're just going to do our job.

Yeah, training.

Training is such an important thing.

And being certain in the people that you work with, being certain of your own actions and your own abilities.

I've been asked before, I work as a firefighter in London, so I've been asked before how you sort of stay calm in that, in that moment.

And whilst it's not the active risk that a potential shooter is, it always comes back to training for me.

And it's that repetition.

You know, the people around you have trained.

You know that you've trained with them, you know that you've learned from mistakes in training.

And that's the place to make the mistakes, really, isn't it, and be honest about them.

Well, can, can you identify with that?

And I don't, I don't mean to create like a hierarchy.

Do you feel fear going into those moments?

No.

Because of your training.

Because you.

And maybe it's naivete, maybe it's foolishness, because I've always come home, but I. I Know, this is what I'm going to do.

And even if I haven't, you know, told my buddy that I'm going to do this and I've seen it hundreds of times.

I move and then he moves to cover me and there's nothing spoken.

And so I'm confident that they're going to take care of me.

Yeah, yeah, it's a nice place to be.

When people hear the words FBI or the letters maybe FBI and swat, they probably imagine intensity, danger, and the things that we see or movies or tv, what part of it do you think the public never get to see?

Well, especially later in my career, you know, we've got our headsets on and I'm listening to radio traffic and everyone's very disciplined and there are times when, when maybe I'm covering perimeter so I, I, I just have to, you know, watch a window and I'll, I'll listen to the traffic and I'll, I would think this sounds cool if, if, if I were a neighbor just listening into this, I'd go, wow, those guys sound very calm and, and directed.

So I, I think, and this may be because our tactics have changed.

We used to as a SWAT team many years ago, overcome subjects with speed, surprise and violence of action.

Which means we come breaking your door and we're standing on your chest before you get out of bed.

And now we've gotten to a place where we emphasize safety to the, the public and then safety to the operators.

So we set up a tactical L where we've got all angles covered, we know where lines of fire are and then everyone has specific jobs.

We're behind typically ballistic rated vehicles and then we're doing a call out over law, over loudspeaker and we're integrated with the negotiators where they are supporting us to set up the house for us make, making phone calls, drawing people out, hey, get the baby clothed, bring them out, put the dog in the bathroom, and then we're making entry.

We now have drones, we have better equipment.

So all of these things together are different than the day where first one of the door hits it and then everybody just piles in as quickly as they can.

So I think what people may be missing is the tactics are still there once we enter, but otherwise we are trying to emphasize to the criminal, if you look out your window, you will see that you are surrounded by men with rifles, with lasers pointed on windows and there's only one safe solution.

So if it's just you and me going to the door, he might think he can win.

But when you see 15, 17 men with armored vehicles, you know you have one solution and that's the safest.

Yeah.

How did you adapt to the change in approach there?

So going from that more straight in through the door to being a bit more reserved and being more sensible about.

It, potentially, I adapted like everyone else, which is, you know, we'd argue about it and I was a, you know, I was newer SWAT operator, so I would just shut up.

But all the older guys are like griping and moaning.

And I remember the first time we did a surrounding call out, which is just surround call out.

And you could watch the subject through the bay window, leave his bedroom and run downstairs and barricade himself.

And that's my first experience is we could have been in there, we could have been on top of him and we ended up getting him out of the basement with a number of flashbangs, some concussive devices.

And I thought, this is terrible.

All we're going to do is repeatedly have more standoffs, more barricades.

But since then I see the value.

I might tweak some things myself, but there is a purpose in what we do to say, look, changes come when people get killed.

And so let's keep those changes and not make those decisions after a tragedy.

So a few years ago we had agents go to a door and get sprayed with semiautomatic rifle fire.

We lost two agents, we had task force officers injured.

And that's where there was a wholesale change.

This is how everyone does it.

We're not just going to the door and we're going to use SWAT in certain search circumstances that might bring more danger.

We also created a calculus where we send the fewest number necessary to get the job done.

So if you're going to oppose me violently, do you want 12 people on your front step with your semi automatic rifle or do you want four?

You want the most that you can damage and create chaos.

So we'll send the smallest number possible, get it done, while the next wave of 3, 4, 5 guys are right on their heels and they can rescue the injured if necessary.

And another part of the work that you did was in your time in, you worked in informant recruitment.

So like also interrogation, surveillance, and obviously other high pressure investigations.

What did those aspects of the job teach you about human nature?

It emphasized to me that these are people and they need to be taken care of.

So I was, you know, there's always informants that you're going to work for me because otherwise you're going to spend More time in prison.

So that's fine.

And, and they, and those are people too.

But many of the informants that I had recruited and then handled were just good citizens who had good placement for intelligence or operations next to criminals and then had showed reliability over time.

And so I would verbalize to them, I'm going to keep your identity safe.

I'm going to keep you as safe as I can.

I'm going to be open with you about what are some of the negatives about this situation.

And you know, I, I had, I always laugh about this and it, because it reminds me of recent time.

I had one Muslim informant call me on Easter a few years ago and I'm thinking, come on man, it's Easter.

But like, okay, I asked him to do a lot for me, so I want to show him courtesy.

So I pick up the phone and he says, happy Easter.

I go, hey man, you don't believe in that?

And we got in a bit of discussion about it and eventually he says, how about if you just say happy Easter?

And I go, okay, Happy Easter.

What do you need?

So many informants can be a nuisance.

They're time consuming.

But they're also, those are the ones that bother me all the time and are texting, calling, are the ones who are also trying more and more to, I know this sounds negative, but put push that edge of what they're able to do.

So I'm here saying, no, we can't do that.

No, we can't do that.

Oh wait, that's an interesting idea.

Let's try that.

And they're the ones who are the most successful,.

The informants that are, like I said, maybe it's a trade off to get a bit of less time.

And they're already amongst crime themselves.

How easy or difficult is it to get them on board?

Well, to get them on board is easy because you, you've got to stick over them.

However, I found that the informants who are working out of patriotism or a sense of purpose really did much more, which is, it's contrary to understanding that this guy needs to do this in order to lessen his time, but he's going to do the minimum amount to lessen his time.

Just what I ask him.

And you can't argue with me.

I did what you told me and that's it.

The ones who were, who are profitable for the FBI.

I, I would tell them like, look, you're not gonna get, you're not getting paid for some of these things.

You're doing like this research you're doing this online contact.

These discussions you're having with white nationalists online, you know, I. I can't pay you for all of that.

And yet they are out there trying to develop their own resources and to see where these violent actors might be.

So, you know, the criminals, some of them were good people.

My last, the last informant I had when I was in Chicago was a former border patrol agent who was waving drugs through.

That was great because he was.

He was an investigator.

Like, he.

He was a cop.

He just happened to be dirty.

So I did many of the things I was instructing him to do is like, yep, no problem.

I know what to do next.

And that was great on the investigation side of things.

So when you're talking to someone who perhaps is lying or covering up information or trying to control the conversation that you're having, what are the things that you're actually paying attention to?

What are the sort of tells?

So there no agent with any respectability considers micro expressions or, you know, up and to the left or down to the right, whatever it might be.

We're.

We're listening for consistency in language.

So, for example, I asked someone, what did you do on this day?

And the answer they gave me was, well, typically I go, you know, to work after getting ready, and I can brush past that or I can recognize why I asked you specifically, and you said typically.

And so now we're going to come back to that.

But even if a subject's going to lie to me and I have facts in front of me and I've got evidence, I'm not going to.

One usual police tactic is, if you're lying, I'm going to stop you, and I'm going to stop you from lying, and I'm going to bring you back to what I believe the truth is.

But I believed in having curiosity.

Because if you want to lie to me, I will let you.

One is I can shame you because I can point out how you're lying, and I have proof of that, and that's going to have an effect upon you.

But secondly, I want to hear what you have to say, because what I believe is a lie might actually be the truth.

And I have it misunderstood.

If I say, you killed your neighbor and you say, no, I didn't, and I stop you with that, and I emphasize it, and you come back to me with, he, he had a rake over his head and he was rushing me, and I, you know, I pushed him down.

Well, now I'm understanding more of the truth.

But also, if I let you speak and I let you tell me these lies.

I'm understanding what your defense is.

I.

What your mindset is, what you think you can get over on me.

And there's exam.

In my time, the greatest example I have of how remarkable someone's stubbornness can be is I had arrested this gang member in Chicago named Dorian.

And I. I'm.

When you have an interrogation post arrest, you got you to start with the basics.

So I slide across a picture I had blown up from a drug buy where the informant had a little pin camera and a button, and it was his face like, you know, And I said, let's start with this.

Can you identify this person?

He goes, I don't know who that is.

And I said, well, clearly it's you.

And he goes, no, it ain't.

And I said, well, like, over your shoulder, you can see the address of the house.

2241.

No, I don't.

And I pull out his driver's license.

This is it right here.

So I told him, I said, look, man, the guy in the picture is wearing a necklace that says doe.

And you're wearing that necklace right now.

No, I ain't.

You're like, at that point, you know, it doesn't matter if you have the truth, you're not getting anywhere.

Yeah.

What'd you do in a situation like that when they're just being so stubborn and you obviously know the answer, but you need them to say it almost, don't you?

Well, the.

The benefit of working the FBI is the prosecutors aren't going to let us go arrest somebody unless they're going to win the case.

They could still go to trial, but we're going to win.

So a confession is great because that seals everything.

And a case like that, you know, I'm going to take a few more attempts, but eventually there's nothing I can say or do.

I can let him know, look, this is what we got against you.

It's to your benefit to admit to it.

You'll get, you know, points for that.

And whether they believe me or not, you know, now I'm just going to have to go back to.

All right, well, we had the evidence anyway, so that that drug buyer showed you a picture of that guy's going to testify and you're going to go to prison.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I suppose by the time it's already come to you, it's.

It's happening anyway.

Yeah.

Spending that amount of time around people who are deceiving you and Obviously doing loads of terrible things.

How does that affect your perception of humans?

Does it make you more cynical or does it make you more understanding?

I had to take time to be self aware.

I had to.

And there were times I recall actually doing this and confronting myself with a friend who is like minded and having a discussion.

When you clock in every morning and your job is to look for criminals, it makes you think everyone's a criminal.

When all you surround yourself is bad people, you start thinking, man, society's horrible.

And it's like being a bird watcher and going, wow, there's a lot of birds out here.

Well, that's what you're out there trying to do.

And so I had to confront myself with that of recognizing I know this is not true.

And I ran into that specifically in Chicago.

The first five years of my career I was investigating Mexican drug cartels.

So every Mexican I came across was either a drug dealer, was supporting the drug dealer, was helping him in way like knew he's a drug dealer and didn't care.

And so every Mexican I was interacting with was a bad person, was at best amoral.

But I know that's not true.

And so I had a conversation with a buddy.

We, we have to, we have to realize this.

You know, you and I working this, we have to recognize this is not all of this race, this is not all these people.

Yeah, how does that go when you start trying to.

Because it was easy to say and make that first step, but everything you're seeing in your work life is sort of counterbalancing that.

And is it as simple as just getting together with that person and like bouncing off each other and working through out loud?

Well, it's not simple.

And I felt that the conversation amplified what I was already trying to deal with in my head.

So speaking it to someone else makes it more real.

I can recognize, hey, this isn't true, Eric.

You gotta realize, you know good people, not everyone's like this.

But now it's, it's.

I'm confronting myself when I acknowledge this to you and you can reflect it back.

And I was purposely choosing a like minded, well intentioned agent, of which there are many.

But this was a good friend that we could have this discussion and be open about it.

And one thing that I recognized about human nature is having served as a pastor for years before, these were the same people.

The one group was saying, hey pastor, I'm making these mistakes, I'm making poor choices, I'm doing things that are against my values.

Help me change.

And the others were saying, I'm all in, I don't care, let's embrace this.

I'm going to profit myself.

So we all have that tendency.

It's, it's.

Without getting spiritual about it, is where is the repentance?

Where is there?

Where is the turning?

Am I turning only when you put handcuffs on me, only when I need to work off my time, or am I turning when I realize I'm getting into something I.

That's contrary to my values here.

So that's something I want to touch on.

Is your work as a pastor before.

So working in Christian ministry for, was it 12 years or so?

It was roughly, yeah.

So you did that before joining the FBI and quite different walks of life.

What was happening in your life at that time that made that transition the right choice?

It was a necessary choice.

I had worked my way up, as many do, youth pastor, associate pastor.

And then I was senior pastor of a church that I planted with my wife in a core group of Christians.

And we had established that church to be one that welcomed people who didn't normally go to church to the point where I gave that core group a flinch test and I said, look, if somebody comes in and they're wearing a concert T shirt instead of being dressed the way they should for church, can you welcome them without flinching?

What about interracial couples, homosexual couples, tattoos, piercings, all these normal things that Christians oftentimes say, oh, I'm glad you're here.

But they have a wince to them.

What if you smell alcohol in their breath?

This is the best place for them to be.

And we were successful in that, welcoming people, doing great.

Church was growing, but one of the issues I discovered about reaching out to people who don't normally haven't grown up in church is they had a lot of personal problems.

And when they brought those personal problems to me, I was incapable of unburdening those at the end of the day.

So for two years, every day, for two years, every day, I had a stress related headache.

Saw all the doctors, doctors said, don't be stressed.

So and so to find a job with less such stress, I joined the FBI.

And for me, the cue that I made the right decision was the day that I was accepted, my headaches went away.

Wow.

When you say people who come to that church, so they've not had a Christian upbringing, they've not had faith in their life up until now, potentially they come with more personal problems.

Is that something you notice looking at them versus people with a religious upbringing?

And why do you think that is?

Well, well, one with a religious upbringing, usually there's, I think, a number of factors.

One is you're taught morals at an early age, you're taught disciplines that you should follow.

And then there's also the guilt of, well, I do have problems, but I'm going to hide them.

I'm not going to tell them the pastor.

But these were people who like, in a lot of ways they may not have been welcomed in the traditional church because of their issues.

Single mom, divorced person, you know, drug addicts.

Well, drug, drug addict isn't going to go to the Baptist church because he doesn't have the clothes that fit in.

He looks strange, like people know that he's a drug addict.

So he's not going to go because he doesn't want to be condemned.

One of the, because I was reaching out to people and it was going to be a younger group, I thought I'd be doing more weddings and funerals, yet I had so many funerals and one of the funerals I had was 15, 16 year old girl who got pregnant and then the baby was stillborn.

And so it was things like that.

Especially since I was the only pastor, I didn't have someone else to lean on.

Those things really got to weigh on me.

Yeah, I can understand that.

In terms of the two roles, and I sort of mentioned how they would seem quite far apart looking at it from the outside, where do they come together, what the commonalities between those two roles.

That was easy for me.

Obviously in a church I'm doing God's work.

I didn't see that as a stretch to consider working in the FBI as God's work as well.

And we'd have chaplains who would emphasize that too.

One thing that God wants, I believe, is for people to have justice.

And so if you or your family is harmed, something's stolen from you, whatever it might be, there's a limited amount that the church can do for you, can support you, pray for you, maybe even raise money.

But you're not going to get justice and so you're not going to feel whole unless someone can bring that.

And I felt like I could do that with the FBI and have an impact that way.

So I've always told my kids, if, if you're earning money for your family, you're doing something noble just to take care of your family.

If you get to have a job that also brings a benefit to society, doubly noble.

Yeah, and I got to have that twice, which was great.

Had that with ministry and then in the FBI, triply noble, because earning money, helping the family, and it's super cool.

Yeah, absolutely.

There's an idea called Icky Guy.

I think it is from Japanese culture.

And it's like a Venn diagrams.

There's four circles.

And the way that it's.

It's basically like trying to find what you.

What you should be doing in life or how to look at maybe how fulfilling something will be.

And the four circles, if I can try and remember them, are something that you're good at, something you can get paid for, something you can.

That the world needs and something that you love doing.

So if you can find something that fits into all of those, and it sounds like those two do, then you're in a really good place.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I felt like I had that in the ministry here.

I'm in my late 20s, early 30s, like, I'll do this for 50 more years because you can preach in your 80s.

But my body wouldn't let me.

Getting into the FBI very early on, it felt more natural for me.

It felt comfortable.

I didn't have to perform.

I just had be the best me and didn't worry about making mistakes as opposed to being a holy man who had answers, you know, Now I just.

I presented the evidence in front of.

In front of me that I'd gathered.

Here we are.

Yeah.

What did your time in ministry teach you about people that you think then related very well when you went into the FBI?

Yeah, the.

So if you had a problem and you came to me or you've done something wrong, and my response is just to say, well, here's Bible verses, you probably aren't coming a second time.

If I'm not being open and curious to dig into who you are, what you're experiencing, even if you're not having problems, I need to understand you.

And so I never regretted having that curiosity as an FBI agent.

Even when I here's the evidence, I'm pretty sure I know what you did or what's going on.

I still needed to set that aside and listen to your story and draw you out.

Whether you're a victim, a witness, or even the criminals, as we discussed, of, you know, with informants, was much the same.

You know, I'd have informants.

I had an informant once, and this is maybe a year ago, who he was always calling.

He always had crazy ideas and he.

And yet he was very productive.

And he calls me one Saturday and he says, hey, there's this kid online who says he's going to kill Muslims.

And, you know, he and I had been doing this for years.

And I go, yeah, man, I can find that in five minutes if you want.

He says, you know, meanwhile, I'm doing errands on a Saturday.

And he goes, no, he's already posted a scouting video and he's got a deadline for when he's going to do it tomorrow.

And I said, hold on, let me pull over.

And so this, you know, I get all these naggings and these, hey, you know, this is going to happen.

But now, if I were to just shut him down completely, if I'm not curious.

We ended up going through emergency subpoenas, getting information and, like, to the deadline where.

This was in Ireland, where the Garda came and got him.

He had a balaclava and weapons and was about to go out the door.

Wow.

Got him right before that.

Yeah.

And it's all down to that curiosity that you've.

You've learned from that initial role.

Yeah, if.

If I there.

And he had wasted my time enough, he'd waste my time plenty of times, but also he had come through on other times.

So I'm gonna let him talk.

I'm gonna see where this goes, instead of just saying, I know, look, it's Saturday, man.

I'm.

I'm off.

Being open saved some people's lives.

Yeah, absolutely.

In the world of, like, getting information from informants and stuff like that, were there ever moments that felt morally challenging for you, even if it was legally the right thing to do?

No.

And I'm trying to think if that's.

I mean, that's my honest reply.

And I can't recall.

I had colleagues that I would discuss things with to make sure we were keeping each other straight.

I had.

There's not going to be much of that in the FBI.

I had witnessed on rare occasions where people were pushing the line.

They weren't pushing the line.

They went beyond the line.

And it wasn't egregious, but I didn't want to be that.

And so I had other agents where I would talk to them and say, look, if you ever see me losing my cool doing something that you don't think I should be, I'm asking you to please put your hand on my shoulder and stop me.

And I'm going to respond to that.

And then I'm.

Now I'm waiting.

And he goes, yeah, same here.

Okay, good.

And.

And then when he retired, then I turned to other trusted friends and said, hey, look, we need to do things that are right.

Let's make sure we are watching each other and immediately, absolutely, you know, and the bureau is full of good, competent, well meaning, law abiding people.

And then there's human nature that people do things that are, that are beyond.

So I always wanted to have somebody who was going to check me on top of what the Constitution checks me with.

Yeah, yeah, we spoke about accountability at the start and that we spoke more about accountability of yourself.

But holding other people to account is a massive thing as well, isn't it?

And it comes down to teamwork.

What does good teamwork look like to you from everything that you've worked through?

Well, so we have people who are leading, making decisions.

And then there's also those moments where I am outside of that and I have to now be a leader.

So I always felt like leadership, like individual leadership, initiative based leadership was important.

So I wasn't, I wasn't that guy.

I wasn't the supervisor or moving up in the FBI.

But there were individual cases where I was definitely a leader.

There are individual cases, countless, where that guy, that guy, you know, someone else is a leader and knowing that I could trust them and then also I'm going to be responsible to step up in those individual situations.

I think everyone working together, knowing we're going to follow a common voice and then also I am competent when that voice isn't around.

And we've got to make that snap judgment.

What makes a leader someone you can trust?

You said that you knew you could trust them and that sort of put you in a position where you felt more comfortable.

Well, there's always just the respect of the position where I've had bosses that they're terrible, but I will do what they say because I respect the position and it's necessary.

But I'll give you an example of like one leader that I very respected.

Ben, who was our SWAT team leader, didn't just show his competency by giving good training, by being successful, demonstrating that he's looking out for our safety, but always open to, to change, to criticism, learning.

You know, I'd see him with a book.

You think of SWAT and especially a SWAT team leader like, you know, let's just go in there and knock their teeth out.

But he was somebody who was trying to learn how to be a better leader and to bring a cerebral coding to what we did.

And I remember on one occasion we had an operation where the subject jumped out the window and escaped containment for a brief time until somebody outside of the SWAT team had to tackle him.

We then followed on to another house and I was monkeying with the thermostat and he.

He yelled at me to, you know, not mess around before the house is clear, which it was pretty clear.

Like, I had nothing to do.

You know, there's one room left and there's like eight guys on that room.

I'm like, okay, let me just turn down the heat because it's hot in here.

And he yelled at me.

And I'm like, I know why you yelled.

You yelled because you didn't plan well and it pisses you off.

Like, you didn't set us up on that first house to have proper containment.

And so I'm just gonna let it go.

And before I got home, he had already called me and apologized and recognized his failure.

And that's not just.

He wasn't recognizing tactical failure.

He was recognizing I wasn't the person I should be.

Mm.

That's a guy you follow?

Yeah, yeah, that's.

It all comes back to those.

Those same words that we've been saying throughout.

Self awareness, accountability.

Self.

Yeah, self accountability.

I spoke.

I sort of asked you about whether there was any morally moral complications before in what you've done on a broader scale across all your work that you've done there.

Were there ever any cases that sort of made you wrestle with your own sense of right and wrong?

Not with my own sense.

There were different cases where most.

The majority of cases that I worked and other agents would work.

It was simply a matter of this person broke the rules and so now he's going to be punished for it.

And that's why there's two classes of criminals.

There's guys who break the rules, and that's how it is.

And then there's horrible human beings who break the rules too.

And we've seen many of those.

We'd see that with the pedophiles and offenders.

You know, obviously, they're horrible.

We'd have men who would show up because.

And undercover online was saying, oh, I have a five year old child.

Do you want to come and exploit that child?

And they would show up for that.

You'd think this, this person is.

Is terrible.

Yeah.

And yet for me, when I would discuss that with civilians or even some other agents or law enforcement, they would say, I don't know how you do that because I just want to put a bullet in their head.

And I think, yeah, I mean, I get that, but really, we've got a job to do.

These people know they're disgusting.

They have shame already.

I don't have to grind that into them.

Most of them confess.

The, you know, the pedophiles are confessing immediately because they know they're guilty and they feel awful about it and they hate themselves.

They just have this disgusting drive that they're not willing or incapable of overcoming.

And so for me, it's.

It always came back to it.

It's still simple to.

No matter how awful you are, I can still just treat you normal.

So nothing that we had done that crossed my values.

And then also, even within those cases, it was easy to promote.

Like, we're just going to be professional here.

When you.

When you're seeing things like that and so many people over the course of your career, and we already spoke about how it may be.

Makes you more cynical sometimes, and you have to check yourself against that.

What does it do to.

What does it do to you when you leave and you're not that person.

You're not at work, you're around your family back at home.

I didn't feel much that it carried with me.

I had worked crimes against children.

So there's things I've seen and traumas that I've encountered and dealt with with the victims, even in some of the financial cases I've had where, you know, it's just a tragedy that these victims are now destroyed financially, too.

And I was able to.

This is what's crazy because in.

In the church, I couldn't give that up with the FBI, I think because there was an end goal that we could accomplish that was something that I knew was ahead.

So, you know, here.

Here we are in the church, and you say, my wife is leaving me.

Like, I don't know.

How can I solve this?

I can't, like, unless I convince your wife to come back and, you know, treat you well.

But with.

With these cases, here's a guy hurting children, okay, we can arrest him.

Here's a teenage girl who's a runaway and is working as a sex worker.

Okay, well, we can rescue her and charge the pimp.

Financial crimes, like, can't get your restitution, but I can charge this person and you can see some justice.

So for me, I was.

That didn't carry on nearly at all like, how my ministry did.

And then agents would sit around, we talk about these things, and we would release steam.

That way of just sharing about cases and how that went for us.

So the.

The opening up, nobody said, hey, I. I need to get this off my chest.

Yeah, here's time.

We're in between rounds at the.

At the range and guys are talking, so I think a Lot of that was how we would get things out.

Yeah.

So like a sense of closure, I suppose, is, you know, there's an outcome where this person gets charged and that's justice taking its course and that's.

It sort of solved in that sense, I suppose.

Well, and how is it for you?

Because do you lack that in.

In working as a firefighter because you see someone's life destroyed and.

Well, yeah, you can put the fire out, but maybe there's a total destruction.

How have you now find closure with that?

Yeah, I think it's something that a lot of people do struggle with because you turn up to an incident and you respond to the incident that's there.

And if the person's injured, they may go off to hospital.

You never find out really how, what happens beyond that.

You never find out if they.

If they get it all sorted and the house gets rebuilt and they carry on living their life or the alternative.

So there is definitely a sense of that closure, which I can totally understand how that would be beneficial because it does.

It closes that loop.

And I think a lot of people don't talk about things and then it comes back to bite them.

Do.

Is it just.

Do you just tell yourself, I did my job, this is what I was signed to do and I have performed successfully.

Yeah.

I mean, the way I personally would look at it is I've done the job that I was there to do, and they've now gone to hospital for that person to.

To do their job.

Yeah.

And we.

Yeah, we could.

We can look at the things that we did and work out if we could have done anything better, the same way that you were talking about you and your team would do.

We can reflect on the job that we've done and learn from it if we need to.

Yeah.

But ultimately we can't change anything that we did do.

And I would think you have to be.

You have to recognize as well, if I carry this, I'm not.

I'm less likely to be successful in the future.

I have a job where I may have to save a life or prevent destruction of a house of people and property.

If I keep carrying this, I'll be no good for the next round.

Absolutely.

And things relate to.

And you probably understand that as well.

And if you have something that's a little bit similar to something you've had previously, if you've not fully processed that thing, it can come back up and cause issues in that.

In that current one.

And you just don't need that if you're in the present moment, and you start thinking, well, last time I was in a situation like this, it didn't end very well.

So you're already in a negative situation.

So, yeah, you need to sort of process them as they come.

And yeah, like you said as well, sitting down and just having that chat with the people you work with, the people who've gone through the same stuff, is such an important thing.

Is that something that has only come in recently in that line of work,.

The, the talking things over?

No, I.

There's always stories.

And, and it's because even though no one says this out loud, we all know that these stories are remarkable.

Like, I, I, you know, I just tell, hey, this happened and that happened, and someone else can identify and go, oh, yeah, I had something like that too.

And we're not recognizing, oh, my gosh, that is incredible.

That's the kind of thing where if you told someone else, they'd go, well, I saw.

I think it was a meme where it says, when you tell somebody a funny story from your work and they go, I'm so sorry that happened to you.

You're like, no, no, that was funny.

Like, people, People have a different perspective.

But when you and I are in this, you know, we've gone through dangerous things, and it's, it's a remarkable thing that people don't get to do.

But that's your Tuesday.

Yeah.

You know, here's something where I saved a life.

I was in danger.

And that's why when we were in that shooting about a year and a half ago, our employee assistant program, the chaplain handled it perfectly, along with our team leader, where it wasn't mandatory, hey, everybody, meet with the chaplain or with a therapist, and you have to do this.

We had an after action review like we always do.

Everyone on the team, even people who weren't at the site, and we just went around the room and each person told about their responsibilities or what they saw, what they did, which was normal.

It was a little beyond normal because everyone was sharing rather than just those who were doing certain actions.

And, you know, hey, if feelings come out, feelings come out.

If reflections come out, they do.

And it was natural that people were doing this.

And even as we went around and one of my buddies was speaking, he wasn't there.

And I know I knew exactly what he was going to say, which is, he goes, I felt terrible that I felt like I let the team down because, you know, know, my kid was sick, so I had to stay home.

But here are you guys in a dangerous situation where you had to encounter this trauma, and I wasn't there to support or do my part.

So he gets to express that.

Yeah, it's really important to sort those sort of things through.

And that's the fear you were talking about before is fear of letting other people down.

And even though, again, it's out of his control, in that situation, he's going to potentially feel worse than some of the people who were there and lived through the trauma just because of that, the way we tell ourselves that story afterwards.

So you spoke about humor as well.

You mentioned humor.

And I want to ask how important that is in that sort of role.

It was important to me.

That's how I handle things.

I talked with one firefighter who said, like, they.

I think they had three shifts and he said they had.

The new captain, had a therapist come in and to watch them and analyze stuff.

And he said to them, this shift, you know, his.

You guys have the blackest humor of any of the workers, and that needs to stop.

And.

And then we talked over each other because I said, you have to have that.

That's how you process when you see images that we see or you encounter things.

Like, some people process it differently, but most are going to engage in some sort of humor.

And that's a way of, I think, switching that emotion.

Having work crimes against children.

For a time, you had to walk the edge of not letting it affect you the way you would expect it to, but also not becoming so cold that now you're useless to your family and the rest of society.

You can't shut out everything.

You can't cry every time you see it, and you can't be a stone.

And part of that, you know, almost code switching, is bringing humor to it.

And so, you know, now having passed on and not working crimes against children, when I would visit my buddies on that task force, there's always, you know, funny quotes or pictures up because that's how you have to deal with it.

Otherwise you just sit there and you're disgusted that here's grown men sending pictures and like, oh, it's terrible.

Like, okay, we're going to need to laugh about this or else it'll be detrimental to my health.

Yeah, well, as you say, the other two options are to either be very emotional about it, because if you took it at its face value in the fact it is not horrific and very emotional, the alternative to that is to be, like you said, a stone and just shut off everything and become numb.

And then you're use, like no use outside of work at Work, you're blocking stuff off, and that can affect your actions and decisions you're making.

So it's got a massively important part,.

And I think also being in that water all the time helps to not shock.

So you know that this is something you've got to do and it's part of your job.

But if somebody just came to a civilian and said, hey, look at these images, like, that's, that's traumatic.

If you've looked at them before and you know the things that you've got, and you've been in those dangerous situations, it's not like grabbing someone who's never experienced it, shoving them into it, and now it's going to harm them.

You've, you've been swimming in that water.

And so it's, it's not quite, it's not quite as a shock to the system as it might be.

You've, you've waded in, gotten used to the water a bit.

Now you can handle it more.

With the crossover that we spoke about before of your faith and the FBI, obviously, your work before, how did working in the FBI test your faith?

Did it make it stronger?

Did it make you question it?

Or a bit of both?

It didn't make me question my faith, though.

My, the way I practice has changed over time.

I, I, well, I'll say this.

Yes, it has.

In part of the last years of my work, we have had been investigating racially motivated violent extremists, which you would call Nazis.

And so seeing so many, and these weren't even like, subjects, they were just people in the groups, not someone we could open a case on.

But these are hundreds of people who are espousing Christian values.

So here's a nice Bible quote on their Facebook.

And then just below that is disgusting hate speech.

And then one of the issues that, and it wasn't so much to my faith, it was more the practice.

You know, then as I look into this person to see if they're dangerous, I see on their friends list, oh, that's an elder from my church.

So for some reason they're okay with, you know, they're not hateful maybe, but they're okay with this person because he follows Christ and hates black people and Jews.

And so, you know, at first I thought no, but now I realized, yeah, absolutely.

The practice of engaging with people, it's to the point now where I hear someone express that they're a Christian.

And I don't know how this is in your country, but it's certainly something in America when somebody is very forceful about their beliefs.

Now it makes me think, are you problematic?

Rather than the way I used to be is like, oh, that's awesome.

I believe that too.

Now I'm thinking you're probably using this to mask some hatred that you have and you justify it by the Bible.

Yeah.

It's interesting because, yeah, I think I wouldn't, I wouldn't look at it in the same way.

I just think that they're keen, they're really into it.

But I suppose that's the difference of your experiences and your perceptions.

Well, and maybe that's something I've got to come to grips with.

Like I was doing with interacting with Mexican cartels or other people of like.

Well, I know not everybody's like this in the faith, but at least here there's been a strong correlation with I believe in Jesus and he's great, and I'm going to put that foremost.

And also, I am unkind to other human beings.

Yeah.

Your upcoming book focuses on humorous, surprising and intriguing moments of your career.

Why was it that you wanted to tell the story in that way?

Well, part of it is because I like to tell stories because that's what I had been doing for so long.

And part of it is having finished my career.

Now I'm confronted with, looking back, going Baptist pastor who never handled a gun, joined the FBI for 24 years and was a SWAT operator and brought broke down doors.

Like, that's kind of unexpected.

And so I never lost the fascination that I had when I was first looking to join the FBI, going, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

And then when they accepted me, then I became suspicious of what's wrong with you.

But many times during my career, I would take moments and I would pause and think, this is remarkable that I get to be here not in something that would slow me down, but in something that I wanted to appreciate and be mindful of, of here I am, it's two in the morning, I've got a rifle, I'm hiding in the woods, you know, like this.

These crazy adventures are nothing I ever would have expected.

And it's much like a.

A crazy social science experiment to say, let's see what would happen if we did this.

And it turned out pretty cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And what do you want people to get out of it?

People who read that book and live those experiences with you?

Well, I think part of it is you get the insight into this is what the FBI is like.

These are moments that are, you know, some are very remarkable, some are very common, but Also had a great impact.

But along the way as we talked about the after action reviews with each chapter where I write about investigations I was a part of or initiated, I follow up with an after action review which is this is why this was successful and this is why it wasn't so successful.

Here's how we overcame it.

And so it's hopefully a learning experience of this is law enforcement from a Baptist pastors perception and then also some of what I brought from ministry into it and mistakes I made.

Lessons I learned too.

So looking back on it all now, 24 years in the FBI, who are you now without the badge?

So this is something I'm, I've had to confront.

And I talked to a buddy of mine who's close to retirement too and he said yeah, I'm talking to my therapist.

My therapist says how much do you identify with being an FBI agent?

And I go a lot.

And my therapist tells me well that's going to be a problem.

And I go yeah, Dave, I'm, I realize that too.

Like this has been me.

I've been that guy for a long time.

And again, not just that guy but like that guy, SWAT guy, that guy breacher, firearms instructor.

I had a buddy who went to Princeton and I'd always rib him like hey, I went to a state school, but hey, here we both are, same position.

And he said, oh, you know, so many of my friends are from college are Doctors and important CEOs.

And I said, Buddy, you're on FBI SWAT team.

They all wish they were you, they'd love to have that experience.

And so I went from that to okay, you know, now I'm done.

So part of it is the rest from long days, late nights, even though it was less stress, still stress.

The rest from that has been nice for the past couple months.

But that I have no answer for you other than that is now my next step to wrestle with, to see what will I be.

And I have ideas and I have thoughts of hey, last stage of my life.

Maybe we're moving to these kind of areas.

But we're starting with author.

The reason I ask, and it's not to sort of make you feel bad or anything, but I've spoken a lot about this idea, right.

Of identity.

It's a massive thing that we see in the fire service, the military, get it.

And these careers where you do such a long time doing something that you love, something that brings value to people and it gives you like a meaning and people identify themselves as that thing and people do this in all sorts of life.

So you go to a party and people are asking, what do you do?

They really mean, like, what you do for work.

Like, that is what they're gonna.

That is how they're gonna understand who you are as a person, which is totally wrong, really.

And we identify ourselves so as a firefighter.

If I am Sam, who is a firefighter, and I lose that, either through retirement or through other.

Other ways, I lose that part of me.

And if that's everything that I am, and I've really got to wrestle with that.

And I spoke recently to someone who was in the military here, and he left and became a psychotherapist.

And he was explaining that when we describe our values and.

Sorry, not values, our identity.

If we identify ourselves with a noun.

So like a firefighter, it's.

It's very difficult to reshape that.

If we can instead identify ourselves with adjectives or verbs and what are our values below that, that's something that can evolve into other aspects.

So if you're someone who likes to serve people, you've done that in ministry, in the FBI, and now through being an author.

Those things are just the method that you use and who you actually are, it hasn't changed.

It's below the surface.

So that's the reason I wanted to ask that question, because it's.

It seems to be a recurring theme for my show.

Absolutely.

And.

And you're.

I mean, I'm ashamed to acknowledge that you're exactly on.

And I had seen so many agents retire over the years, like, oh, yeah, that.

That guy was a good guy.

And then a few years ago, a close friend retired.

And that's where I had to struggle with this.

That's when I first encountered.

Wow.

John went from being the best shot in the Cleveland division to a guy.

And.

And he was fine.

He's like, ah, I'm mowing lawns.

Everything's fine.

Seeing the grandkids.

And I.

And I thought, I can't.

I can't do that.

It turns out I can.

But part of.

To your question, you say, you know, who are you?

And now how are you using those adjectives?

I've always been one that wants to speak, to train, to provide.

And the FBI gave me so much training and abilities that, yes, some of what I'm looking to do in the book, and then in what I'd seek to do after is, well, how can I pass that along?

Because it seems a shame to just put this in a box and say, well, that was cool.

There's people who can gain from this, I hope.

Yeah, absolutely.

Excited to see where it goes, Eric.

The way I like to finish my episodes is to ask my guest to leave a question for the listener.

So I like to listen to podcasts and go away and have a conversation with people around what we've.

Or what I've listened to.

So if you could give the listener now a question to go away with and start a conversation, what would that question be?

This is crazy because I was thinking of this in that I like to have questions that are ready for that maybe are a little different.

Icebreakers.

When I'm meeting with people and I was going to ask you, like, do you have one that you bring to people that's like, not like, hey, what do you do for a living?

But it's more like one that I like to ask is what is something that you could teach me in five minutes?

That is a unique ability that you have, and I like to share that.

And so for me, it'd be lock picking.

It's just a little thing that I picked up on my own, and I go through that.

But okay, in five minutes.

Well, I mean, I'll get you started.

Yeah.

Awesome.

For me, I'll think of how to form this into a question.

I have found that because of my experience, because of what I've been through, and now I've aged and I've seen this.

We humans overestimate the impact of trauma, poor choices, bad decisions.

And we underestimate the resiliency of ourselves, of humans, that we think if we make a bad choice, it will destroy us.

When even if it is truly a bad choice, it'll just change our path and we re center.

So I'll form that in a question of why are you afraid?

Do you not know that you will overcome your worst mistakes?

Everyone's got to where they are today.

And when they think back to the moments that they thought it was the worst moment of their life, it was the most difficult time.

They've overcome that.

You and I are undefeated.

We've never been defeated by our mistakes.

Undefeated, always successful.

Define it how you want, but we are undefeated.

I love it.

Eric, if people want to keep up to date with what you're doing, the book, everything, where can they find you?

So many places?

Instagram.

I am ericrobinson fascinated that that wasn't taken.

You can get me on LinkedIn as well, and you can follow progress for my book, which is called Irreverent.

From saving souls to chasing Sinners in the FBI.

And you can find information about that at the website.

Get this preacher to preacher.

Nice.

Very nice.

I will link all of those below so anyone listening can just scroll down and click on those links.

But from myself to the listener, thank you so much for listening.

If you have found some value from it, please do share it with someone who you know, who may find as much or maybe more value than yourself if you haven't already.

Please do follow the show wherever you're listening.

It really helps the show grow.

But lastly, from me, thank you for listening, stay curious and I will see you in the next one.