What do pastoring a church and serving as an FBI special agent have in common? Far more than you might think.

In this engaging and eye-opening episode of Becoming Bridge Builders, we sit down with Eric Robinson, who made the extraordinary leap from 12 years in pastoral ministry to over two decades with the FBI. From SWAT tactics and counterterrorism to protecting children, Eric’s work required him to connect with people in their most vulnerable, intense moments.

Join us as Eric shares how the heart of a pastor—empathy, active listening, and genuine human care—became his greatest strength in high-stakes law enforcement. Whether you’re navigating difficult conversations at work or seeking to build trust across deep divides, Eric’s unique journey offers practical wisdom and unforgettable stories on what it truly means to build bridges where you least expect them.

Links referenced in this episode:

• preachertobreacher.com

What do pastoring a church and working as an FBI special agent have in common? More than you might think.

Today's guest spent over two decades in the FBI, working everything from counterterrorism to crimes against children, serving on swat, training others in firearms and tactics. Before all that, he was a pastor.

And what he learned about people, trust and human behavior might completely change how you approach difficult conversations.

If you've ever wondered how building trust in high stakes moments or how to connect with people from radically different worlds, this conversation is for you.

Today we're going to dive into some really interesting conversations, and we're looking forward to being you as a guest on Becoming Bridge Builders, the podcast where we help you build stronger relationships, lead with clarity, and navigate life's toughest conversations with confidence. I am your host, Reverend Dr. Keith Haney. Today's episode is one you're not going to want to forget.

And our guest today is Eric Robinson, recently retired after 24 years as a special agent with the FBI. Eric worked across a wide range of cases. White collar crimes, counterterrorism, gangs, drugs, public corruption, crimes against children.

He also served as a SWAT operator and instructor in firearms and tactics. But what makes his story truly unique is what came before.

Eric spent 12 years in Christian ministry, including serving as a pastor in Western New York before transitioning into federal law enforcement. And now he's preparing to release his first book, a memoir filled with humorous, surprising, and powerful stories about his career.

Eric, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Keith. I'm not here to talk about me. I'm here to recruit you into the FBI. We need more pastors. You need more ministers in there.

You know, I think. I'm pretty sure I'm past the age limit.

Probably so. Probably so.

There we go. Which will make my wife happy. So, Eric, your story is fascinating. I have to tell you from pastor to FBI agent, which probably is a. Is a nicer shift.

If you were a pastor, you know what it's like to go from doing that to the FBI. Not a typical career path, I would say. So take us back to what led you from ministry into the bureau.

I grew up in a Christian home, went to church, a Lutheran church, every Sunday. Wasn't pressured. It was just what the Robinsons did. This was part of our life, and it was really organically and authentically part of our lives.

So I go to college. I'm applying my faith to be more personal, studying the Bible more. And I get to a point where I think, you know what?

I. I think this is something I should do. Full Time. So the story goes back to college where I was. We were in Campus Crusade for Christ now crew.

And coming into my senior year, I just gotten done on a mission trip to Turkey. And I purchased a ring while I was in Turkey as a promise to go back to be a missionary.

And I see four cute little Christian girls, young women, sitting at a frozen yogurt table. And I take off the ring and I put it on the table and I say, who wants to marry me and go to Turkey?

And this cute brown haired, curly haired girl says, I will and puts a ring on her finger. And I was like, not you, you already have a boyfriend. I was thinking about somebody else. And then two years later, I put a better ring on her finger.

As we embark to be missionaries to Muslim countries, that didn't work out. We had some family issues that kind of made that maybe not the best decision.

And then I went through that normal path of youth, pastor, assistant pastor.

And then in the mid-90s, the church where I was assistant pastor in western New York said, we'd like to plant a new church just in the next town over. And I said, I'd love to do that. Went through the process and we started a church that was meant to be one of outreach.

I didn't want to just shuffle people from other pews. We took a core group of about a dozen Christians and I said, if we're going to make mistakes, we're going to err on the side of grace.

So here's a flinch test. If somebody comes, you can smell alcohol in their breath. They're not dressed like they should be for church.

You know, wearing a concert T shirt, piercings, tattoos, interracial couples, homosexual couples. Can you say welcome and there's no disgust or shock on your face and people feel welcomed. And we did that and we did it well.

Unfortunately, the stress of ministry just became too much for me. And I'd be really curious for you.

And we talked a little bit before and I kind of get this sense I couldn't separate myself from people's problems when they came and said, pastor, I've got an issue. Whatever it is, it wasn't anything special. It stuck with me. And better men have been able to handle it, but I just couldn't.

And that resulted in me having headaches every single day for two years. And I just, I couldn't do it any like I had.

I was afraid of what my body was going to say, like, hey, I'm trying to get your attention here and you're not listening. So you know, now I'm going to whatever, you know, ruin your liver. So, told my wife, I need a job with less stress. So I joined the FBI.

There you go. Mine's a little different. For me, part of what drove me into the ministry was my father. My father was not a believer. Well, I said it.

He was a believer, but he didn't take faith as seriously as he should have, in my opinion. He didn't go to church, and his lifestyle was one that was a lot of brokenness, a lot of pain, a lot of misery around it, a lot of alcoholism.

And I just had this deep sense in my heart that if my dad truly came face to face with Jesus, like in a Moses burning bush experience, it would transform his life. And that could not shake that idea of getting him to church so that the word of God could transform him into a better person.

And I finally got him to come, and the first trip he made, the church said, oh, this is your long lost prodigal father. He never went back to church again after that. And then my dad died on Christmas Day, like 15 years ago. So I had to do his funeral.

And I remember having to do this funeral going, I don't want any other family having that sense of uncertainty over someone's death. So for me, it was this misery of how many.

I couldn't go into a mall or a store and not see people and go, how many of these people are like my dad that are just going through the motions in the world, not in connection with Jesus Christ, whose lives need to be transformed. And the weight of that just drove me insane. I'm like, I can't do this every right. I can't look at everybody like that.

It's like the burden is too much.

And so that it got easier to kind of help other churches to reach out and have that passion and that me kept pushing my congregation to go, you got to do more. You gotta. You gotta care about this as much as I do. So.

Yeah, and what you talk about too, is like, the unfortunate circumstance of the church standing in its own way of doing that outreach. Like, so here's your father, someone who needs to be welcomed in. And.

And yet, you know, some foot in the mouth statement keeps him from maybe living a fuller life. That's unfortunate.

So, yeah, pastoral ministry is hard.

Hey, man, I'm telling you, there's all these factors that go into it as well. And so the shorthand that I tell is like, yeah, the stress was there.

I took on people's burdens, but mingled with that too, is I felt like I had to be perfect. And I know that's not. That's self imposed, but it's also. It's not made up either.

Yeah, you know, maybe the detail or the depth of it is from me, but people expect their pastor to not be sad. You know, say the right things, never mess up. You know, can't see you in the liquor store. You know, whatever it is, like, well, you are Lutheran.

You could be in liquor store if you're a Lutheran.

Oh, Lutheran, for sure. Guys would smoke outside the door. I know.

See?

So, I mean, I would tell people this, like, well, what's the difference? I said, well, in the Lutheran church, they said, well, if God didn't want us to do it, he would tell us not to do it in the Bible.

And the Baptists, they said, well, if God said it was okay, he would have told us it's okay in the Bible.

So that's right. Well, after all, God said about. He talked about the wheat, didn't he? And the harvest. So it was all about. I was all about beer.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm curious, as a pastor, though, how did the lessons you learned as a pastor shape who you were as an FBI agent?

Well, I mean, we joked about it that I'm trying to bring you on in the FBI, but if you came onto the FBI, that's how you would be, because that's how you are as a person. You know, the ministry shapes you, the ministry teaches you some things, but you're in it because of who you are.

So I was in it because I wanted to reach out to people. I wanted to offer kindness and help. So, you know, that was part of me as a pastor.

And then the FBI, okay, it changes a bit, but still, all those ministry principles that I had learned, I like to tell people, like when I got in the academy, I'd never handled a gun before. So here's me skipping rounds off the ground.

Here's me trying to learn this huge, staid institution, 100 years old, the FBI on top of learning how to do policing.

But by the time we got into the field, all that catching up that I had to do, now I had to leg up on everybody else because I'd spent 12 years sitting down with people and trying to make them feel safe and comforted, knowing how to draw them out, being open to what they had to say. And like I told you about our church talking to criminals without judgment.

And what I had adopted along the way is this notion of the judgment's going to come from the court, okay, the jury judge is going to get them.

And now when I talk to you and I'm talking to sex offenders, I'm talking to pimps, I'm talking to killers, dope dealers, and if I can reserve that judgment for later, but just talk to you and you tell me like, yeah, this is what I did to this person and they're going to be much more open if I show disgust and if I show anger. Now people start closing up and it's Keith, it's just like the, I mean, it's the same practice you would use of being open to people.

And it, it worked very well.

So what we talked about when you, that you leaving the pastoral off ministry, you felt the weight of all the people that you were interacting with. I'm guessing as an FBI agent, the stories of, from the victims that you ran across had to have similar impact on you, didn't they?

They didn't. So what's interesting, the day I got accepted in the FBI, that two years of headaches stopped. So.

And I remember thinking very clearly, I don't have to do this. I don't have to keep pushing. So that was a cue that I was doing the right thing.

But what was great about the FBI for me and with what I lacked was it wasn't my responsibility.

So you've got this young girl who's coming to your church and she's going through troubles like that, carries on like she's yours to whatever degree your responsibility to care for. In the cases where I've got victims, you know, here's a same teenage girl who's a prostitute.

My job is to find the guy who's promoting her, who's pimping her out, get a conviction, and I care what happens to her, but it's not my responsibility like it was as a pastor. Okay, so, so if that girl's going to your church, you still are upset, you know, you're still caring. Whereas I'm moving on. Like, I got trial now.

I, you know, we got to convict this guy and after him we've got more. So I was able to, to be successful. Like I'm going to bring justice against this guy. And that's. And that's what I'm responsible for. And that's all.

And now I can move on.

That makes sense.

I have heard from people in FBI who are dealing with a particular type of investigations, like those who are dealing with child sex predators and how they have to be in these chat rooms and how that impacts some of them. Have you Run across people in that thing who maybe had some of the same PTSD that you had as a pastor.

So when I worked crimes against children, I had some cases like that. I didn't work it for as long as some of my buddies who've been in there.

And now it has developed more to being in those chat rooms and the trading of images and the more heinous like we were. Our mandate was to go after sex traffickers, which was, you know, finding the guys promoting teenagers.

And so that definitely had some trauma and disgust to it. But the things were my buddies are involved now online undercover, claiming that there's someone who has children that can come and be offended.

That stuff's really hard.

Yeah.

And. And there's a process where guys get baselined and everybody knows how to fake it, and everybody knows what to say and not to say.

I think the issues there are having people around you. And again, this is where the FBI was better for me than the church was because I was the pastor and that was it. And I couldn't talk to people here.

Yeah, obviously, that's disgusting. That's hard, and it's awful to be around, but I could talk to.

And these guys can talk to other agents or task force officers who are in the same thing, and they get it. Like, they know either the exact case or they've been in other ones.

So that availability, and it's not like, you know, I'm putting my head on your shoulder and crying, but just discussing it and getting it out into reality will so often diffuse some of that. If you just, like, live your life and do it and, like, never address it or reflect, okay, now things are going to blow up.

So you've just given me kind of a view into what's really kind of missing in the pastoral ministry, and we talk about a lot, is that pastors don't typically have that kind of support so that they can share that load that you take home with you. Except unfortunately, sometimes for our spouses, who they have to be the ones that were crying on their shoulders all the time.

And so we've ruined ourselves and our spouses.

Well, well. And Keith. And like, again, if you're talking to, like, the wife of the pastor in this example, they're held up to the same standard.

They have to be perfect. They're usually doing, you know, a third of the ministry as well, so it's no better.

Right.

Man.

Well, that was depressing.

Yes. We just talked about trading in child sexual abuse material and got more depressing than that. I know.

So, Eric, I'm going to ask you my favorite question. What's the best piece of advice you ever received?

You want to say, like, FBI related?

You can pick. It's your best advice.

So what's crazy is, I mean, I don't know about best advice, but this is the one that stands out. When I got into the FBI, we have to work 10 hours a day, so eight hours and then an extra two, always available.

And I remember when I came on as a new agent going, hey, how does this work? How do I put time in? And a senior agent is like, don't worry about it, Uncle Sam will get his time.

And it didn't take too long until I was putting in way more than that in a week.

But just coming to the understanding that in the FBI, so we were told the cheapest thing in the world is an FBI agent's time because you're available 24 7. So if you're called on, it's cheap. We had a case once where a kid called in a fake threat for a church shooting.

So we had to stay up all night on surveillance, had a plane out, and we ended up charging at state. And so one of our task force officers said, hey, how much do you make an hour? Because that's going to go into the charging.

Like your hours cost were cost by this guy. And I told him, like, bro, that's free. My, my time is free to the American people. He's like, shut up and do the calculations.

I don't know how well that applies to your normal people.

But in, in light of that, by the time I was getting to be on, I would talk to some of the younger agents who were like, putting in time that they shouldn't. And I was advising them, look, always be available. Put the time in when you need to, because there's going to be days like that.

But otherwise, you got to be selfish too. Like, save yourself for that week where you're working seven days and putting in 12 hours each day. And on these days, save yourself.

So I think just being aware of your time and how you burn out.

Yeah, that's good. So you spent years working at recruiting and developing informants. Tell us what it's like to build trust on those high stakes situations.

Yeah, I always had it in mind. So there's some informants that are like, hey, this guy is gonna work off time.

So there's dudes like that, of course, but otherwise, when I'm recruiting informants that are providing positive foreign intelligence or working into guys that we want to Target I always tried to recognize and keep in mind, like, these guys had no reason to do this. I mean, the money wasn't that great. It didn't change your life, that's for sure. And so they had to know, like, I'm, I'm going to take care of you.

I'm not going to put you somewhere that's dangerous. If it is dangerous, I'm going to let you know everything I know about the danger.

And so these were ended up being just good men and women who really were motivated by patriotism, like wanting to do their part.

And then some of it was like, this is kind of cool working with the FBI, like knowing that it's hand in hand, like I feel valued, that my information is being told that it's valuable. And I get to work for the FBI. Like I get, I can influence the world. And in some ways they're doing it just on individual cases.

I had one informant who was a, just a huge pain in the neck. And so because of that, he was one of the best informants in our division. Like, he was always bugging me on stuff.

And you want those guys because, you know, he's just like a yippee dog, always going at you. But then he would come up with some good things.

And he calls me one Saturday and he's like, hey man, I've got this kid online who's threatening Muslims and immigrants overseas. And I'm like, brother, give me five minutes, I'll find somebody like that. Like, you know, these guys are all over the place.

And he says, no, actually he's got a deadline for when he's going to do it. And he's already done a scouting video and everybody online's urging him to do it in this chat group.

And that's when I go, okay, let me pull over because I'm going to start taking notes.

And then in a 24 hour period with emergency orders, trying to get names, usernames, just hunting these guys down, we finally find the kid who's in Ireland. And in a 24 hour period, the police get him as he's on his way, walking out the door with a balaclava pulled over his head looking to kill Muslims.

And this, I mean, this was an amazing job that he did. And I'm like, hey brother, we, we need to know this. Like, I'm getting pushback. Ask him this.

And, and there's that fine line of like getting information without going, why are you asking me so many questions? It's a hard one. And this guy just did A great job at it.

So, and so in return, when that happens and I, I got, I'm coming back, I'm like, buddy, everyone's talking about this. The head of the division's talking about this. You did an amazing job. You know, he needs to be told what you did. Saved lives.

You know, pat on the back.

Wow. So, so I have this view of that work from watching like Chicago pd and usually the informants don't always seem to be reliable.

And so how do you as an agent know those who are reliable? Because the way they always pictured it, of course, on television is, you know, they're, they're sometimes they're strung out.

So they're not reliable because of that. They, they may be former people in the gang.

And if you, like you just said, if you push too hard, you, you reveal yourself and you, you get yourself made. So as, as someone who's working with, how do you balance those things out with like, you talk about the safety of your informer and.

Yep.

But also trying to get the job done and save lives.

Yeah, you're hitting all the points there. I mean, those are not, those aren't things you're just making up or like, oh, I watch TV and I have idiot ideas.

Those are all the, those are all the concerns. And so like, there's some times where you're like, hey, I'm going to go pitch this guy from this white nationalist group.

And you're like, but if I do, and he says no now the whole group's tipped off and they're going to change it up. Like there's that balance. Like, you gotta get that feel for it a little bit. Some guys that I would recruit, you ask about reliability.

So we're looking for access and reliability.

So does this guy have a place where he can get into people we want to know about or somebody we already do know about and we need to get, you know, someone who can get up next to him with a wire. And the reliability, sometimes it's just shown over time. You know, here, here's number one.

I want you to, you know, give me some information and nothing's going to be harmed in this. Like you could be a complete rat, you could turn on me and it doesn't matter. So we're going to kind of ease into it.

Very few people are, you know, tossed in high level until they've shown that they have reliability. And I had one guy who ended up, he was presented with the robes of the former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. He got in so well with them.

And his first in person meeting with them, like they've been talking online so much, he got jumped because they were going to jump him in to just see how he reacts and fights. And I was like, dude, I'm sorry. He goes, ah, that guy's gonna be breathing out the side of his nose for a while. That was awesome.

You know, and, and so that's just showing me that this guy, he's not, he, he can take it. And I, I already knew that. But like he's gonna get jumped and it doesn't matter. He can handle himself physically and it doesn't scare him. No problem.

And now you're gonna elevate him. It's like, oh, I can. This guy's gonna be cool under pressure.

Wow. I'm assuming over time they teach you how to read people. What are some keys if you're like for the common person when we're trying to figure out.

Because I think I have a pretty good sense of. I don't. This guy gives me the willies. You know something? So I'm right with him.

They don't teach us how to factor the willies in, Keith. It's not part of it.

There's no class of. This guy gives me the willies.

No.

So how do you do it? How do you, I mean, what do you look at, look for to say, okay, there's something not right here. There's something that gives me concern. Is it a.

It's just a behavior? Is it, is it just. How do you do it? How do you discern? Can I trust this guy or that guy?

A couple of things is, one is the FBI is fortunate because we can run long term investigations. And because of that, then maybe I can spend time like on their social media, seeing what they're posting about, what they say, maybe videos.

I can spend time having interviewed people again, being close to. Careful how close to the center you nibble. And then they might find out.

But then now I can learn a little bit and do my own ad hoc analysis of personalities.

But the question of like now when I'm confronting a subject and we're having that either interview or post arrest interrogation, it's not like he touched his nose or he looked down and to the right.

Right.

Because I haven't baselined that yet. I haven't standardized like this guy, you know, always touches his nose. I don't know that. But it's the listening for consistencies and the responses.

Because humans, unless you're a sociopath, want to tell the truth, or some variation of it. And so you're listening for that. And so when I ask, hey, Keith, where were you Tuesday morning when your neighbor went missing?

And you say, typically on Tuesdays I go to the gym about 7:00am I'm like, okay, well that didn't answer my question. That says what you normally do. And so those are the things like the cons.

You try to find the consistency of what they're saying, how they kind of sand the edge off their answer. Because if I ask you that same question, you had nothing to do with it.

And you know, you're like, oh, I was eating breakfast with my wife until 7:30 and then I can show you on the GPS I left my house, you know, soon afterwards. And that's very clear.

And so when we would do an interrogation, it's usually going to be two agents where one is the main questioner and the other one just kind of takes notes and watches what's going down and kind of keeps tabs of what I might have missed because I'm locked in. You know, might pass me a note and say, hey, come back to this or is ready that when I have a break going. Hey, you got anything to add?

And like now this guy's got a few things on his line of questioning.

Oh, so you don't, they don't automatically go to let's take the lie detector test and see if you're telling the truth.

Well, we, we do that with the sex offenders.

Oh, okay.

We'll always try to get that because we're going to get guys on the trading online and even if we have allegations of in person acting out, we're still going to want to ask and find out who else. Like now we're going to find out if there's other people involved. So with the sex offenders, always do that.

And I had one guy, I mean this guy thought he was the most brilliant person and you know, like he, I could not figure him out somehow. And when we finally went to talk to him, I'd asked if he'd be willing to take a polygraph. And he said, well, I'll have to ask my attorney about that.

I go, buddy, save your time. Your attorney's gonna say no. Like, if you don't want to just say no, don't tell me you're gonna ask your attorney.

And he's like, oh, no, I'm gonna ask my attorney. He calls me later. Like, my attorney said no.

Okay. Oh my word. Let's get into your book. Because I could talk about this all day. I watch a lot of cop shows.

I don't because they're frustrating.

I can imagine. It's like watching pastors on television.

Oh my gosh, that gets me upset too.

My youngest kid went through this spree where she's watching Criminal Minds and she'd turn it on and then she'd pause it and she'd say, you get five complaints and then shut up. And I'd run through those so fast, like, that's not what we would do. And that's not even legal.

So it'll have you writing. You writing parts of the show. So let's talk about your book though. What inspired you to write this book?

I was getting near the end of my career and I asked my wife what should I do? And she goes, you should write a book.

Well, my wife and her company has been marketing authors for 14 years, so it seems like an obvious thing that she'd say. But she gave me a book from one of her clients who's a ghost writer. And from that I learned there's two types of people writers.

There's ones who just seat of their pants just start going. And there's ones who lay out the skeleton and start adding it and have diagrams. And I thought, I'm probably going to be the seat of the pants guy.

So let me try to get some more structure to it. So I sat down at the computer. I'm like, okay, I'm going to get the framework of this. You know what, Let me just write the first chapter. And then.

And then it just went. And it's telling stories. It's so like I just started going through cases of like, this is an amazing case.

Let me start telling it the way that you have me over for dinner. And you go, okay, Eric, tell me a story. And I go, okay, here's the case of. And I open the.

I tell my story of how I got into ministry and then into the FBI and that's the beginning of it. And then I get into telling cases.

And the first investigation I get to is kind of that transition as I talk about ministry to the FBI where I'm sitting down at the table of a pastor who he and others were charged, other pastors were charged in the sex trafficking ring.

And this is me having been away from the ministry for a while, having put together a very literal come to Jesus message where I'm putting together Bible verses on like, hey, what's good for like confessing your sins, getting right with God without being too heavy handed. And I've got all the evidence too. And I'm studying that.

But I sit down with him and I tell him who I am, what I've done, and I tell him why he needs to come right with God. And he says, brother, I'll talk to you, but we're not going to bring Jesus into it. And that was so obvious that that was his life. Here's the pastor.

We're going to bring Jesus into this. When I'm at church. Here's the man who's having sex with a teenage girl. Well, Jesus isn't in that.

And so if we're going to talk about that, there's no Jesus involved in this. And that is how he had bifurcated his life.

Wow. So, thinking about all the stories in your book, is there one story that you says captures your journey the most?

Well, for me, that was one of them. Of like, even though that wasn't my case, I was asked like, hey, here's a pastor. Bring it in.

But one of the most meaningful cases I had, I'd worked a long term financial investigation on a businessman who had stolen millions of dollars from investors. And then the cast of characters that were glommed onto him were just crazy as well. One of them was another pastor in Corona, California.

Oh, this is great. I get to talk to a reverend. Here we go. So this, you have to appreciate this. This is awesome. I hope you do.

So this pastor, Lonnie Remmers, was engaged with trading fake bonds, and he was running the money through this company that was called the Ananias World Fund. So he was lying about money and it was named the Ananias World Fund. Does that ring anything for you? See, you're laughing, right?

Because Acts chapter five like the most best known ananias in the Bible is about a guy who strikes any other.

Ananias except for that one.

I mean, I didn't get the, you know, I didn't get my book out to say, oh, you know, let's see who else there is. He's struck dead by God. He's judged by God for lying about money.

And this guy calls it like, come on, man, you're, you're hiding Easter eggs in your crimes. So, like, it's like you want to.

Get caught sometimes, right?

It's like, let's just, let's just name this the most obvious thing because in the end, I know I want to get caught, so it might as well be obvious that I'm doing something.

Well, he, he didn't plan on a former pastor being the guy investigating him. So, like, he'd get away with it. He. He ended up one of the mothers from the church brought her son to him. I think he was like, 13.

And she claimed he had assaulted his younger sister.

So this guy who was like 6, 4, 2:50, he and two other adult men tied the kid down and tortured him and then drove him out to the desert to dig his own grave. And that was. That was him giving godly punishment to a kid and scaring him straight. So he ended up spending, like two years for that.

And then he got charged in our case, too.

But all this comes around to one of the other men involved in this huge deal was a gay, openly gay realtor who convinced a disabled elderly woman that they might get married and was stealing money from her. And it was just the most despicable thing. And I. Oh, it made me angry. And the case wasn't that big on this guy, but I felt.

I felt so good getting convictions against him because it came to a place where I was afraid he was going to kill her. He had taken her to her attorney to get power of attorney, and she thought that just meant, like, oh, so you'll handle my will if I die?

When it was like, complete power over finances and medical, and I, you know, given time, he may have just killed her and taken all of her money. So there were smaller cases like that that ended up kind of meaning quite a bit.

So give us a title of your book that's coming up.

It is entitled Irreverent From Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners in the FBI.

Wow, cool. And when's it coming out?

It's coming out in October. So my wife's company just started publishing books. As they marketed authors, they were like, we can do this.

Why are we pushing people off to other places? So Weaving Influence became Weaving Influence Press, and I will be their third book published.

Cool. Well, I'll have to get you to publish one of mine. There you go.

Absolutely. Yeah.

So lightning round stuff. We've had some heavy stuff. Let's get some fun stuff here.

All right, here we go.

Early morning or late night?

Brother, if you knew me, you'd know how silly that is. I was up at 4:45. 4:30 This morning.

Oh, no, that is crazy. Actually, I was up too. I know that. Coffee or something stronger since you're a former Lutheran?

Well, I have an energy drink every morning. I do enjoy stronger things though, too. But yeah, I love coffee. Black coffee is good.

There we go. Favorite way to decompress after a stressful day.

Oh, after I listen to books I probably listen to 100, 150 books a year and now that I'm retired, it's not going to go down.

So I'm sure you've listened to Cash Patel's book.

No, I haven't listened to it. It's like 22 pages long. I have read it, though.

There you go. One word that describes your FBI career.

Oh, unexpected. Keith, you know, I, I'm well aware of how you go, oh, Baptist pastor to the FBI. That's crazy because I think that too.

I look back and I go, how did that guy do that?

Right? Biggest misconception about FBI agents,.

That we have this goth chick in the office with a supercomputer and we'll call her up and say, give me the phone records for Joey Jojo Johnson. And, you know, she just gives it to us. And dude, it takes.

A movie about an FBI investigation would be, you know, a docu series that no one would watch because it's boring and it'd be rated R for profanity because people are yelling at the computers because they don't work. Right. So.

So all the stuff we see on TV is just not right.

Well, I tell you so I wouldn't want to watch normal stuff.

But if you take like in my book, like, here's a case, it was like two and a half years long, but here's the exciting parts and I'm just going to put those in there. Like, let me get rid of the stuff that you don't want to hear about. But then it's exciting, right?

Exactly. Best leadership trait you've seen in action.

Oh, I had a boss who would end every conversation with, what else do you need? Every conversation.

And my, my opinion on leadership is, especially when you have something like the FBI, you've got intelligent, talented, creative, motivated people. So leadership is just giving them the resources. Like, I want to get out there and do stuff, just help me do it better.

And that statement that he would make of what else do you need? Was right in line of, clearly you're doing what's right and I'm just going to help you and I'm going to clear the path.

So what resources need to come your way?

Awesome. One habit everyone should build.

I try to do this. I think I'm fairly good at it, and that is to be curious rather than close minded. And it's not even closed minded. But having decided.

So when people would come to you, Keith, and they say, I've got a problem. And you're like, yep, I know the answer here's some Bible verses. They're not coming back to talk to you.

But if they come to you and they say, hey, Keith, I've done these wrong things, you're like, okay, well, tell me about it. And what. What does that do for you spiritually, like, and you're actually wanting to know about them. I try to do that.

I feel like that makes a difference in interactions with my wife. It worked in my FBI career, and I. It's. It's so transforming. It's amazing. It's like a frigging superpower.

If you can do this and be open rather than defensive, man, you're going to win every battle.

Awesome. A moment in your career that made you laugh unexpectedly. Oh,.

Look, I'll. I'll give you a general idea.

Agents tell stories, and one of the stories we'll tell, for example, this is a true one, is guys will say, hey, remember that time we were clearing a house for SWAT and two guys went up to the third deck and it was pitch black, and one of them stepped on the subject who was trying to hide under clothes, and he was laying there with a loaded shotgun in his hand.

Oh, no.

And everybody laughs. And it's the kind of thing where if you tell other people, they go, oh, my gosh, that's so tragic.

And you're like, oh, no, it's funny because we could have died, you see, but we did. And all these other stories, like, people will tell stories like, hey, remember when this happened? And you're like, yeah, that was disgusting.

And I burned my clothes. And then we all laugh like it's terrible, the kind of things we laugh at. You go, like someone else would go, I'm sorry you had to endure that.

And you're like, no, no, it was funny because we're on the other side because. Because we survived it. We can look back and go, oh,.

My man, that could have turned out bad.

That could have been bad. But it wasn't, so now it's funny.

There you go.

Yeah.

So, Eric, what do you want your legacy to be?

I. I think it is. And I want it to be that people say Eric was a good guy, always pitching in, always available. I. I know people will say he made me laugh.

And he, you know, told some funny jokes, too. And that's nice. But from the beginning, I tried to establish myself in the FBI, that I was available. If you were asking, I was saying yes.

And that got me into some situations, too, that were more interesting. If you're saying yes and saying you're. Regarding my time as necessary, then I'm there for you. So I think people in the Bureau will think of that.

At the same time, I want to be available for my family, and I tried to be available for them as much as possible. I missed some things along the way. It wasn't egregious.

When I was in the academy, we had an instructor say, hey, guys, be careful, because the FBI is hard on families. I'm on my fifth marriage, and I'm like, that's you, man. That's you.

And so when I had to miss some things or stay out late or leave early, I think the kids and my wife understood because I was available and present. Otherwise, I wasn't staying out late drinking. I wasn't golfing all weekend. I wasn't, you know, avoiding the family had to be away. I'm away now.

I'm home, and I'm with them.

Awesome. So on the show, we have something new, A surprise question. Pick a number between 1 and 10 for your surprise question.

9.

9. Ooh, I love this one. Which band or artist, dead or alive, would you want to play at your funeral?

Tyler Childers.

I don't know who that is.

Oh, my goodness. Then you just have your eyes open to the greatest Americana singer in our nation. Tyler Childers.

Medical. Take him out.

Do you enjoy country music?

I won't admit that on the podcast because my wife made fun of me.

So Tyler Childers sings country music in the way that real country is, and it's referred to as Americana. So it's not radio play country. It's not Morgan Wallen or Jelly Roll. It's meaningful. And he's a wonderful singer, so hopefully he's still singing.

Well, if he's dead or when I pass on.

So, Eric, where can people find you? Social media? Where can they pick up your book when it comes out in August? In October?

October, yeah. Instagram. I'm at Underscore Eric. Underscore Robinson, which Keith, that was available in January of this year, which amazes me.

Yeah. Because I only used her name.

I only. I only used Instagram to troll bad guys and see what they're up to.

And then all of a sudden, my wife says, you need to get an actual Instagram on LinkedIn. Put in Eric Robinson and FBI. You'll see a face like this one.

And if you want to follow me further or learn about the book coming out in October, you can go to my website, which is. Wait for this, Keith. Preachertobreacher.com.

There you go. Eric, thanks so much for taking the time and being on the podcast, it's been great.

Keith, thanks so much.

So Eric, thank you for sharing your story and wisdom you've gained along the way. This was an incredible, insightful journey. If today's episode challenged or encouraged you, here's what I want you to do.

Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. Subscribe so you don't miss future conversations.

And take one step next week to become a better bridge builder, whether listening better, seeking understanding, or choosing connection over conflict. Thank you so much for being on the show.