Eric’s fool is wondrous and wise

"I feel led by my own life in response to the questions that I hold, whether they’re consciously or unconsciously asked."

We’re always asking questions and the outer world is a reflection of those questions being answered, unfolding in linear time so we have the time to experience the answers.

-E.T. Allen, author, musician

Eric’s story is one of embracing the unknown—of stepping into the Fool archetype, that curious wanderer who trusts that each twist and turn is part of a greater, unfolding mystery. A multifaceted individual, Eric is a storyteller, musician, world traveler, father, fiduciary, and farmhand, with two decades of experience in commercial banking. But his path doesn’t fit neatly into any one box, and that’s precisely what makes him such an inspiring guest and profound human being.

My conversation with Eric was filled with warmth, insight, and the kind of passion that arises from someone who has learned to deeply trust the mystery of life. His charming southern accent, paired with the rich personal stories he shared, invites you into his world in a way that feels both intimate and expansive. Eric’s stories have a unique way of drawing you in, making you reflect on your own journey in the process.

In this episode, we dive into how Eric’s life was transformed by unexpected occurrences that led him to explore new ways of being. His debut novel, Coincidence Speaks, is a testament to this journey, blending the personal and the universal in a powerful exploration of synchronicity and the spaces where our inner and outer worlds meet.

Eric’s journey is a beautiful reminder that we don’t always need a clear path to follow. Sometimes, the most transformative experiences come when we step off the map entirely, open to the surprises that await. His reflections on serendipity, creativity, and the "indescribable reconciliation" of holding opposites will leave you feeling inspired—and perhaps even more willing to trust your own uncertainties.

Transcript:

Kimberly
Eric, it is so awesome to have you here with me today. I've been enjoying your work, both literary and musical, for quite some time. And I'm excited to introduce you to our listeners. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of listening or reading Eric, he is someone whose life and work embody the beauty of living unfixed, embracing the mystery, the transformation, and all the rich intersections of a multi-dimensional life. He's a storyteller, a musician, a world traveler, a father, a fiduciary, a farm hand, and also two decades of experience in commercial banking. So I would think it's safe to say that your journey doesn't fit neatly into a tiny box. We're going to dive into all of this today, especially focusing on his debut novel Coincidence Speaks, a powerful exploration of synchronicity and the character Paul Endrum, who is loosely based on his own life—or maybe not so loosely. We're going to explore his leaps of faith, the transformative power of serendipity, and how he stays grounded while living in the unknown. Because I think you have a lot of unknowns going on.

So, I'm going to stop talking so we can hear from you. Eric, welcome.

Eric
Wow, Kimberly, thank you. Thank you so much.

Kimberly
So, I’ve got some questions for you today. We'll dive in first into your book because I love that I didn’t know this, but your main character in Coincidence Speaks is Paul Endrum, which you just told me is a play on the word “palindrome”, which is just perfect because, as you said, it's like a nod towards the ability to read time both forwards and backwards. Tell me, what was the process like writing Coincidence Speaks, and how did it clarify some of your own inner journey?

Eric
Wow, yeah, writing Coincidence Speaks was, I think I said this in the post-note epilogue, I thought it was going to be a lot easier than it was. Having written your own memoir, you know exactly how soul-bearing and challenging and frustrating and amazing it is. But yeah, I wrote Coincidence Speaks as a response to a promise. A promise that I made to myself back at the beginning of my 30s. I'm 44 now, 44 years young, and back in my early 30s, I was living, by all counts, a very normal life, striving to be the best "normal" person on the planet. But yeah, it's really an account of the decade of my 30s told in novel form.

To answer your initial question, what was it like? The original draft was 128,000 words of pure garbage. It was more memoir form. I tried to explore time from both a present tense and would switch tenses intentionally within different storylines. It just came out as a total garbled mess that didn’t make sense to anyone else, let alone myself at the time. All the groundedness and practicality aspects—it's definitely a work in progress. But since then, I revamped the entire 128,000-word count pile of steaming crap into a shorter novel form. I turned characters from my own life into, you know, in the past tense, third-dimensional characters, a typical novel. I asked myself, "What kind of a story would I want to read? What would entertain me at the same time as sharing some of the things that I went through?" But it came to the very last chapter, I changed the genre. I was going to release it as autobiographical fiction or autofiction and decided to call it what it is—creative nonfiction. So all the events within the book are true to varying degrees, but much more true than I think some of the things that a reader might think are not true. What they might think is true is told within a linear framework to make sense in the context of a novel. Anyways, lots of word salad from me. Just getting settled in here.

Kimberly
It's very cool to hear you say that it’s nonfiction, because there are some incredible moments of serendipity in this story that as a fiction piece, we'd go, "Fun, fantastical." And for us to now look at this and go, "Wow," you were being handed some pretty powerful medicine in that decade of your life that you're talking about. So tell me a little bit more. Can you share, just for anybody that hasn’t read Coincidence Speaks yet, one of the more profound moments that felt like a real signpost in your journey?

Eric
Sure, absolutely. I'll begin with the start, which was, I had just turned 30, and by all accounts, I'd been living a traditional middle-class American life, complete with the Southern accent that you remarked upon earlier before we started. I didn’t realize it had gotten that profound. But I remember turning 30 and I was at my parents’ house. I believe it was my actual 30th birthday. And I had this wave of gratitude just crash through me that I'd never experienced before—for my parents, for my life. I recognized the fact that even though I was a very busy vice president of a bank and had been married for three years with a young child, a little girl named L who was two years old at the time—no, she had just been born—I told my parents, "I want you all to know I've lived an incredible 30 years. If anything were to happen to me, it's not that I wouldn’t care, but I want you both to know that I'm okay and I've lived an amazing life, and thank you for that." Which, at that time in my life, was out of character for me. I wasn’t in tune with my emotions, besides the day-to-day ones, I was reacting to life. And so, unfortunately, with that—for better or for worse—as soon as I acknowledged that and how grateful I was for how my life was to that point, everything just went haywire. Like, everything from then on became this massive challenge where it was almost as if my life had said, "Okay, well, we're going to show you a different side that you're not aware of."

I wasn't expecting for the gratitude to show up like that, but also for that to be the response. The first major coincidence in my life that I recognized was about a year or so after that, when I’d been diagnosed with an unfixable neurological disease—Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, otherwise known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. I went through the entire Western medical system. My wife was an acute care nurse practitioner, went through all the specialists, all the kings, men, and horses, all of it, and was basically told that it was something that I was going to have to just medicate at best. So I was on a significant amount of painkillers just to get through the day. To characterize Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy—it’s a chronic pain syndrome that manifests typically in one limb, like a leg or an arm or a hand, and it feels like burning pain from the inside out.

It got so, so bad at a certain point, I wasn’t working, I couldn’t walk. It was my right leg that was affected. Everything that I'd strived for just crumbled around me, and I was looking at a future of… certainty, to be honest. I was certain my future was going to be having this mystery condition spread to different parts of my body, which was already happening. The burning pain spread from my leg into my shoulder. I started researching amputation because I thought, if I can't fix this, I can't take it anymore. The drugs weren’t even helping at that point. I was totally—literally—floored when I researched amputation for reflex sympathetic dystrophy, and it wasn’t an option because even in amputating my leg, the pain signal would still be generated through phantom limb pain. And so, at that point, I was just done. I just gave up. I couldn’t fix it myself, the medical community couldn’t fix it. I curled up in a ball, completely by myself in the middle of the workday, and lost it. Totally. That was a moment where it was worse than anything I could imagine—not just for myself, but I saw my daughter growing up with a father who was completely incapacitated, in extreme pain all the time, and withering away. And me being powerless to stop that.

So, I was on the floor, and I can laugh now—it's a decade later—I dragged myself up, popped some significant opioids, and propped my leg up on the couch. I tried to distract myself with just mindless TV channels. The first channel that popped on was a documentary on none other than phantom limb pain, and ways that amputees were healing themselves and having significant improvement through a lot of different modalities that I had no clue about. And that coincidence started me on the path of recognizing myself not just as a chemical reaction and a physical body, but also a bioelectrical being, an energetic system, an energetic, correlated, connective living creature like everything else.

As terrible as it was, being on the ground, I reached out to whatever concept of God I had at the time. There was bargaining—anything, anything, anything, just take the pain away. And I didn’t get it taken away. In that crazy coincidence, I view it as a response to that: "It's not going to be taken away, but I'm going to show you what you can learn from it."

Kimberly
That just reminded me of something someone said in the Unfixed docu-series who had a version of extreme pain, it was facial pain.

Eric

Trigeminal neuralgia?

Kimberly

Well actually different. I think it was morphing into that throughout our work together. But she ended up having facial reconstructive surgery to help with the bone/nerve interruption. Anyway, she said at the end of one of the episodes, “I've learned to look at not what this has done to me, but what it's done for me. And I hear that in what you're saying, but that takes a tremendous amount of trust and openness for you even to see that documentary and have an ounce of like, wait a minute, let me look at this differently. Makes me think that, I mean, I know plenty of people that would have just been like, “Fuck you, this is just stupid,” you know? But something in you was really ready, right?

Eric
Yeah, absolutely. I was actually, to go from where I was on the hardwood floor to, I was suddenly excited, if that makes sense. Not only that the documentary seemed to respond, but it opened up this new line of questioning in my, just opened up my mind. And every new question that I had was immediately answered by that documentary. Because my first skeptical question was like, “Okay, great. So you can do mirror therapy if you have one afflicted limb. What happens with somebody who has, you know, like it's already spreading to my shoulder. What if it's whole body?” And as that thought hit, the documentary shifted to show patients that were using software programs to immerse themselves in full body experiences that allowed them to feel themselves as if they had four functioning limbs. And that was kind of when the light bulb really started going where I was like, this is an inside job. And I was still thinking in terms of “job” at that point too. It didn't feel like “fixing” at that point, but it felt like I'd been given the tools to apply to create an environment where healing could then occur, if that makes sense.

And I know you get that having read your memoir, and the work that you do.

Kimberly
There is so much available to us when we do the inner work. And I'm not saying that it fixes, but to quote somebody else in the docu-series, they said, who actually did have Trigeminal Neuralgia, that she got to a certain point in her journey where she felt like her body didn’t need to be healed because her spirit had been healed.

Eric
Beautiful.

Almost as if at a certain point maybe the disease actually is the teaching. To show that the body is a part of us but it's not us. And it doesn't necessarily make any of it easier, but hey, true learning is seldom easy.

Kimberly
Man, I am so glad that you were able to capture all of this so beautifully in your novel. I mean, it's a real gift. I hope that there's ways that we can get this novel out there more for, even send them to various pain hospitals around the country that are working at those higher levels of the maps in our brain that hold that pain, even if the limb is removed, et cetera.

So I know that writing became a really important part of your journey. Meanwhile, you were still banking. So I want to ask a little bit about like, you were having this incredible awakening and pain simultaneously, and also running a household and bringing home the bacon. So what happened? How did, where did that all go?

Eric
Well, after applying a lot of alternative techniques to rewire my nervous system, the pain, the pain signal gradually subsided, subsided, subsided until eventually one night it disappeared for good, and I knew it. I could feel… I could actually feel like my leg again in the old way. So that made me feel like Scrooge on Christmas. I wanted to just shout it out. Life was 100% brand new, new perspective, I had a second lease on it. To go from, you know, contemplating suicide, just based on not being able to handle it, to having the opportunity to live a normal life again. I mean, banking? Wow. It was the best thing in the world. Everything was the best thing in the world.

For a good year or so after that, I just had such an enthusiasm for everything that I did because there was a natural gratitude permeating every single moment after having somehow come out the exact opposite side and not having to deal with the pain anymore. And granted, there were certainly spots when, you know, I sprained my ankle once and I had to do some rehab, but I never again had the issue of Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy again. With that enthusiasm and that energy came.. life started speaking to me or I started hearing it in ways that would just, it took me very much out of my traditional, I was in a cookie cutter suburban house with a dog and a fence and eventually moved out to the countryside, kind of like outside of your window. So now I live a much quieter and more reclusive life, which is hard, which is also why Substack has been so incredible to connect via electrical resonance with people all over the world. But yeah, it was easy to start, and then it got very challenging after that as the next lesson presented itself.

Kimberly
And so much so that eventually you decided to leave banking.

Eric
Yeah, I got to the point where I was just naturally questioning everything, all the different things that I used to do. What kind of life do I really want to lead? What am I meant to be doing? Am I meant to be doing something? And I transitioned from living life from the outside in to being more aware of my inner world and how that is shaping everything that's happening externally anyway, so why not focus on the inner world? And in doing so, I could feel my lack of resonance with banking as an industry. So, I was bringing home the bacon, so to speak, I was the market executive for my hometown, actually. And we were successful to the point where I was being taken away from family. And I had this beautiful land that I never got to enjoy at all. And my son had been born and I wasn't seeing him at all. So I started getting feelings and inklings that, you know, but I didn't—I had no idea what I was going to do after that. I knew I wanted to write a book at some point, but that was it. Because that was the promise that if I ever made it through, I was going to write some kind of book about it, in an effort to serve in some way, shape, form.

Kimberly
To the world and the archetypes that we live by, many people would say that's the fool and you've identified with the fool. I mean, like to leave your career, it's not anything that our culture really exalts unless you already have something waiting for something else, you know?

Eric
Right, exactly.

Kimberly
I know I shared with you my dad was a heart surgeon and he left his career just up and left. And when he came back a year and a half later, he was basically like an intern underneath his other surgeons that were once his partners. I mean, he just really dove deep into the fool. And I want to explore that with you because when I say fool, this is not a negative thing. I mean, it can have the low side. But I love you wrote to me, you said,

The fool is who falls in love. The fool is who acts out new ideas in ignorance (willful or unconscious) of the ramifications. The fool is who makes us laugh. And the fool is the part of us who sees things for the first time. The biggest pretense being how we all pretend that we are these busy, insignificant mammals screwing around, living un-patterned, haphazard lives filled with uncertainty and fear and doubt without greater meaning when we are an irreplaceable thread of the divine fabric of everything. The fool is who creates novel experience!

I mean, that's just such a wonderful approach. So tell me a little bit more about your relationship to this archetype.

Eric
Yeah, I appreciate you bringing it more to my attention too, Kimberly, because it's really helped me flesh out understanding, bring more self-awareness and then understand the positive aspects of the fool and how it's really been a primary archetype for me throughout life. I can remember being a little boy, freezing up in class, trying to communicate on a science project and not being able to get words out at all and feeling complete shame because all these kids in my class now saw me as someone that like couldn't hack it, couldn't do it. But my relationship had changed so much to where I'd crystallized this life around me to protect myself from being the fool. Up to probably age 30 and there's nothing wrong with the life that I was living. Ignorance was bliss to a certain extent. But yeah, it was definitely a foolish thing to step back from a career that was providing not just for myself but my wife and two children. And we’re not independently wealthy by any stretch, it’s not as if we had retirement funds hanging out, so there was a powerful financial risk as well. But I started becoming disenchanted with money as a concept, how money was being diverted and channeled in banking as a fundamental hijacking of human creativity and power.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with money, but I just saw within the banking system how money in the position that it was set up to be, as everyone knows, make the rich richer and the poor poorer. But to see it on a balance sheet and a P&L and to understand how it works, not just at a local level, but at national level and at international level, global level, it was very crushing for me because I was stuck between making ends meet for my family, providing a house and food, and doing something that I no longer believed in. And so it's a true fool would just jump without even thinking about the ramifications. And I've done that in the past with plenty of things. That's just how children learn anyways. But there's a responsibility as well when there's your own children and your own family. And balancing that and communicating where we are to our loved ones. That's been an ongoing challenge.

But it just got to point where I had to. And I'd love to share a story eventually about it—I started to innovate from where I was. Like just taking one step toward doing something different. And then just gradually those steps compounded until finally I was like, it's time, I know it's time. Coincidence spoke and it's time to roll.

Kimberly

I do want to hear that story. I want to reflect on something—to me, and maybe you can validate or tell me I'm wrong—but it feels like to allow the fool archetype into your life also means that you are willing to trust the inner voice. You're willing to go into relationship with that inner voice. I don't think you can sort of work with the higher aspects of the fool archetype without that trust. Am I right?

Eric

You’re 100% dead on. Or life on. It's spooky actually. The inner voice is exactly… I was at a banking retreat and this is in the novel, Coincidence Speaks. Verbatim, this is one of those things that's exactly detailed as it happened. But I was at an upper management strategy retreat. Third quarter several years ago. We were doing this team-building exercise on a grass volleyball court. And so bank executives came out with boxes of water balloons for the management employees to just chuck water balloons at one another on this volleyball court. And one of the women, in the process of throwing the water balloon, just chucked her family heirloom ring, which was precious to her, off of her finger and into the grass somewhere. And everybody just... she was very upset, and there were 20 different bankers combing through the grass on their hands and knees trying to find it for her.

For whatever reason, my world just lit up from the inside out, and I became extremely sensitive in general. I could feel... feel is a better word because I didn’t hear it. It was more feeling, an inner voice that was like a compass that I could translate the feelings into words. It was, "Close your eyes." So now, I’m in a trust exercise. I’d close my eyes around all my coworkers. Then it was like, "Get down on your hands and knees and walk seven feet this way," and then I’d pause and wait. I’d feel my inner compass speak again, "Turn 90 degrees to the right and go 10 steps." And I would go 10 crawling steps—all with my eyes closed. At this point, I’m feeling like a total idiot, right? Like I’m a fool among all my coworkers. Thank goodness they’re all doing the same thing so they don’t see me just kind of... But it was a sequence of maybe 10 different directives. It was a wild goose chase. I mean, I was doing circles. It made zero sense, but I was following the compass because I could feel in that moment. And it’s not every moment that’s like that. When they are that profound, it’s much easier to trust. But it got to the point where my eyes are still closed. It’s been at least two minutes of this wild goose chase with my eyes closed, and I get the feeling to point my finger down into the grass and then open my eyes. And I do. And as my eyes readjust, damned if it’s not pointing right at her ring, and it’s under this clump of grass so deep, you wouldn’t be able to find the thing for months of searching without a metal detector. So I couldn’t... I mean, I’m just flabbergasted. I’m in a strategic business retreat, and here I am crawling around listening to an inner voice, and I find this ring. I’m just like… I’m totally tuned in. I’m working hard just to contain my joy or gratitude. Like, "Are you kidding me?" So I walked back and gave it back to the rightful owner, and the rest of the business retreat was a complete daze. But I will say this, Kimberly, the moment that I saw that glinting of that ring was like, that’s when I knew I had to leave, and it was time.

Kimberly
Wow. The affirmation that you were receiving from your inner/outer universe is so profound. I don’t think many of us go through our lifetime with such clear signals. I have a couple things. One, it reminds me of the remote viewers that the U.S. government hire. I mean, you might have a future career as a remote viewer because you basically did that. Over Thanksgiving I was sitting with somebody who does film work and explores this phenomenon that is completely legitimate. And it's how I think we found Saddam Hussein, through a remote viewer? Essentially, you just did, that, you closed your eyes and followed the coordinates. I was sitting with somebody who does film work and explores this phenomenon that is completely legitimate, and it’s how I think we found Saddam Hussein—through a remote viewer. Essentially, you just did that, you closed your eyes and followed the coordinates.

Have you had anything like this before in your life, or did you have little moments where you feel like you’re channeling things, even as a kid?

Eric
I’ve had definitely... a lot of my childhood from seven and earlier just because that’s when we’re most open. So I know there were experiences like that. Nothing before or since that have been that... I mean, that was like driving around a car with no gas. That level of, so, nothing very specific like that, but I do feel like life itself can be a real-life treasure hunt. And I do feel led by my own life in response to the questions that I hold, whether they’re consciously asked or unconsciously asked. I feel that life is like an organic answering machine.

Kimberly
What a cool way of putting it—that life is like a treasure hunt, but it’s dependent on the questions that you ask. I mean, I guess if people are listening and going, "I want that," what would you say to them?

Eric
I would say that we’re always asking questions, and I’d say the majority of them are unspoken. A lot of the questions that we hold within, we might not even know that we’re asking, we’re just feeling them as an emotion. So, saying that life is a treasure hunt in no way shape or form is to say that it’s just rainbows and puppy dogs, right? But I think that if you take me as an example, when I hit 30, I may have been expressing an intense gratitude for my life and my parents, but the unspoken question was, "Is there more?" And I wasn’t asking it, but there was a part of me that was like, "Okay, well, if you’re truly ready to say it’s been 30 years and it’s time to check out, or you’d be okay with that—like you feel like you’re done? Really, dude?" But I do feel that, yeah, we’re always asking questions and the outer world is a reflection of those questions being answered, unfolding in linear time so we have the time to experience the answers.

Kimberly
That is a very profound statement you just shared. I’m going to put that in bold when I go through the transcript. So you are, as we all are, you’re saying, we all are asking questions and willing to live in the not knowing. You’re listening to those questions and willing to live in the not knowing and then listen to the answers that life is offering. I want to know a little bit—how do you stay grounded in this living the not knowing? Because it can be liberating, but also really disorienting. Tell me what anchors you in this.

Eric
I wouldn’t call it a ritual, but what’s really been coming up for me lately is frustration and anger. And even to the extent of rage at its extreme element because of a lack or resistance to being in the unknown, which is where I am right now. I think we all are to varying degrees, to different extents, at any given time. And I do feel that life cycles—there are human biological life cycles to where you are in a reclusive or accumulative or a clearing space. And I’m definitely in one of those, but it doesn’t make it any easier at all.

So every time that I feel myself getting angry about something, I do a practice where I just bring my attention right here in the center of the chest. And that helps me obviously stop projecting anger outwards, but it also allows me to not judge myself for being angry and to be okay with being frustrated because that’s obviously... like, I want change to occur, or I wouldn’t feel frustration. So it’s that balance of holding where I am, and also a future aspect —a future me—that hasn’t materialized yet, a future world, future life, and how that interconnects with everyone else and everything else. So yeah, bringing awareness just into the middle of my chest. That’s what I try to do right now. But there’s been lots of different things over time, I’m sure you do as well.

Kimberly
I like that it’s in the middle of your chest. And for me, my interpretation of that—and it’s the way that I hold my anxiety, the disorientation I get from the physical symptoms of dizziness—all of that. The only way I’ve ever been able to work with it is through love and through kindness and allowing. Allowing is my word instead of accepting because accepting feels a little bit more resigned.

Eric
Kimberly, I love that because I’ve been working to reframe acceptance, and I felt it, but that’s the word. I mean, “allowing” is the word. It’s allowing it to be there because accepting, it doesn’t mean that like, "I like it being here" or "It’s all good," but allowing it to be there is a great way to verbalize it. Awesome.

Kimberly
Yeah, yeah. It’s like Rumi’s poem, "The Guest." It’s like inviting them in, "Come on, have tea, I might not like you, but come on in." It reminds me—I just read yesterday—I don’t know if you read Shy Guy Meets the Buddha. He’s on Substack.

Eric
Mm-hmm.

Don Boivin

.

Kimberly
Yeah, yeah, and it was just a short essay, but it was just perfect because he was talking about the assumptions he had of awakening and that someday once he was awake, he wouldn't have all those aggressive feelings or angst or whatever. And now is realizing that “No, the only thing that's different with awakening is that you allow those experiences to exist.”

Eric
Perfect, exactly. I read that and was thinking the same thing, like, go Don!

Kimberly
So you are absolutely living the question right now. And so, and I know that anger and that frustration of like, “what's next” is huge for all of us, but in particular, the creatives, you know, that really want to feel like they can sink their teeth into something. And what’s surprised you most about yourself as you've stepped into the unknown of your career life?

Eric
That personal anecdote that you shared about your father and he came back and was working as an intern with the same people. I've experienced that—stepping away from my career in banking has unlocked the music in me, which was latent and I didn't really know that I had. And it's another way that I can exercise or unleash the fool archetype or unleash the fool archetype by being on stage and performing either solo or part of a band, part of a duo with a really good friend. And I'll find myself like on stage or a corporate event with people that I would work with at some point. I'm thinking, I actually was thinking, okay, so “with what I'm making monetarily as I sit here and play this song that's impacting, that’s enabling people to experience joy, I’m making less than 10% than I was making in banking, but at the same time what’s occurring within that enclosed space of resonance with music and the connection between people there and the music that's coming through me is 100% priceless. Playing music has been the very first thing that I've ever been paid for that I've loved doing. So that's one thing!

But it enabled me to finish writing Coincidence Speaks and to release it on Substack and to do all these creative things that I would have never done in a million years because let's face it, the corporate world from an energetic standpoint, there's not enough bandwidth to truly immerse oneself and all of the different mental attachments that come with full-time career and then also tap into your innate natural self. It’s really hard.

So I actually I went back into banking after I left for… for a year. I took a year sabbatical and I went back into it. This time at a much smaller bank. It was a rural bank and the coincidence that led me to this bank was even more insane than anything I'd experienced because probably to me it was on par with finding that ring at a bank strategy retreat, the way I was guided to this next bank. And that's how my book ends, pretty much. I don't wanna give away too much for anyone out there that hasn't read it, but I spent another three and a half years at a new bank working on setting up my own life, my own boundaries and merging all of the mystical aspects with the practical pieces of banking and putting it together in a new way until it was time to leave for that.

Kimberly

So was that somewhat fulfilling for you in those three years?

Eric:
Yes! The day I got back into banking was the day that the state shut down for the “mysterious coronavirus.” So I became an essential employee on April 1st, April Fool's Day.

Kimberly
No way, oh man.

Eric

So instead of the traditional banking that I was used to, it was all hands on deck. I'm at this tiny bank and we're trying to get funds on the street to help families and small businesses survive coronavirus. So that was the most rewarding time in my career financially was through the Paycheck Protection Program, the SBA, we put $85 million worth of funds out on the local streets for people and businesses to survive the coronavirus at the time. So I was not expecting that either. I was just thinking I'd been guided to go back to this bank, to this particular bank of all things.

But after that first year and then another year, COVID became more endemic. It became more of getting back to the same old, same old business as usual. And even though I was the top producer of my bank, a little bit before last year, I was shown the door. Because—I think it's because—I didn't show the investment in the company because I wanted to carve out my own life and be independent. And, I probably wasn't a very good model for the other folks I was working with, you know, doing what I wanted within a corporate environment. So I was shown the door and that was another exercise. I'd never been fired or let go. I mean, it was called a restructuring, right? But this is corporate speak for there's a new team being brought in or whatever.

So I remember walking out the front door of the bank. It was a shock. I wasn't expecting it. Thank you, life. But that was the first time when I really, it was in the moment and I had just been informed I was being let go and I had like zero severance. So at that point I'm like, “Okay, how are we going to do this?” And I walked out the front door of that bank and I had my awareness right here and I knew that it was going to be challenging and scary, but this was going to unlock, you know, the next level of how I can create and serve and do the things that will truly help, instead of moving money around.

Kimberly:
Well, like you said, when you were 30, the statement was gratitude, but the question was, "Is this it?"

Eric:
”Is this all there is?” Yeah, I didn't know I was asking the question. That's for sure.

Kimberly:
And it seems like that question is continuing to push you on your path and open up new and thrilling and fascinating...dare I say genius ways of seeing the world. So just I'm glad that that question continues to move you forward. I want to know, what's the perfect convergence of all of this?

Eric:
What's the coincidence of all these things that would result in a functional career, right? I don't have the answer yet. I'm living in that question.

But I do want to say that, again, I am so appreciative that you thought to invite me to have this conversation and you are super tuned in. You have an uncanny knack to hone in on the exact words that are perfect to either stimulate new questions, new journeys… but multiple times in this conversation, while I've been doing all the pip pip pip talking, you hone in on the exact word that's perfect. Whether it was “remote viewing,” remote viewing was one where the reason that I changed at the last minute the genre of my book from autobiographical fiction to creative nonfiction was because that day I just read a book called The Metaphysician by a gentleman named E.M. Nicolay, I believe, that was exactly like mine, told in a novel format but from the first person. And he called it creative nonfiction. And the stuff that was in that book, Kimberly, like, I mean, some extreme, like definitely remote viewing at a governmental level. And since then, yeah, I think he subscribes to Coincidence Speaks now.

Kimberly:
No way. That is so cool. I'm going to make sure to tag him in the show notes too, so that he can circle back to you.

Eric:
Yeah, I don't know how active he is on the actual platform, but I reached out to say that I read his book and found it just really amazing. And it was cool that that was what inspired me to change it to nonfiction instead of fiction. But the line is blurred. The line is always blurred.

And then “allowing” was another one for you that was ideal. And then one that just escaped my mind that you literally just said… it'll come back to me at a certain point.

Where does it all converge? This is gonna be a bit weird, but I've, I got, I have an image of how they converge and back to the concept of time flowing forwards and backwards, once in a while I will have conversations with my future self. And there's a future self about five years from now that is extremely... that music is involved in this guy's life. And I saw specifically an outdoor venue, like kind of a stage, but not quite a stage. And I was part of a group of people. And I don't think I was a lead musician. I can't even say there were instruments, really. It was a strange thing. But there was an outdoor venue with probably 5,000 people and I was part of a group. And what we were doing was creating this resonance through music, through sound, that was having a positive impact on the field, so to speak, on the greater interconnected field. So I don't know specifically what that means, if that's even career-wise, but that was a very, very clear, clear image of a place that I'll be in five years. So conversing with my future self has been a good exercise—because you can ask questions, those same questions, right?

Kimberly:
Well, and as you've learned, you get answers. I mean, okay…

Eric:
If I'm ready for them, if—

Kimberly:
Part of me thinks that you have a grandmother, deceased grandmother just loves the hell out of you. And she's just like, whispering.

Eric:
Yeah, definitely. I definitely have one of those. Yes.

Kimberly:
Do you? I mean, sometimes it's like, how does that happen to some of us? How do some people tune in like that...Or channel or understand or trust. And maybe, my answer to that is that maybe there's an ancestor that's just like, “I adore this person so much and I'm just going to be their little guide, planting the treasure hunts notes so that they can find them.” But who knows what that is.

But I do have two things and I could just share this in an email later, but I'll just share it now. Have you heard of Damanhur? Damanhur, D-A-M-A-N-H-U-R. It's in Italy. It's a community of thousands of people spread out, but the main structure is there. I lived there for three months, and it’s a bizarre human experiment. Within that experiment, there are temples built under the earth where they perform music. One of the things they perform is music solely to raise the vibration of humanity. It’s pretty out there, but it’s wildly awesome that some human beings have gathered to do this kind of work.

Another thought I had, a more practical one, is the silos. Have you heard of some of those music gatherings happening in silos around the country here?

I’ve got some links to share with you.

Eric:
Cool, I’ll check it out. That sounds really cool.

Kimberly:
I want to end with you on the music, because you've shared two very moving pieces, and I’ve read the comments. This is such a cool place you’re taking your music talent. The composition "Freebird Unfixed" was the first one you shared, and it beautifully captures the tension between opposites—the freedom and the staying, the leaving and the acceptance. Tell me a little about this journey of "Freebird Unfixed" and some of the work you’re doing now.

Eric:
Sure. I like that. The reconciliation of opposites means allowing them both to exist simultaneously. And with that allowingness, maybe they’ll resolve themselves. But the understanding comes with that allowing, I find.

With "Freebird Unfixed," and that’s part of the reason why we’re having this conversation, right? I reached out to you because I wrote it back in May, and I didn’t want to impinge upon your namesake at all. But that was the name that came to me. It’s a mashup of Coldplay’s "Fix You" and "Freebird," of course, by Lynyrd Skynyrd, which hey, suits my southern accent. So, I had just been thinking about different ways to use Substack as more of a full media platform.

There’s so much more we can do with Substack. I love the writing aspect, and I don’t want to see that be compromised in any way. But at the same time, I thought, well, how can I share and express to connect and move in a positive way? So, "Freebird Unfixed" came as an idea. People know "Freebird" and a lot of people know "Fix You" by Coldplay, which has personal meaning to me. So, I could hear it mixed up in my head, and I knew I wanted to record it. The problem was I had never recorded anything in my life. But I had gotten my 13-year-old daughter a Christmas gift, an inexpensive laptop for Christmas, loaded with recording software that she’d never really used. And so I thought, again fool archetype, this is going to be easy. I know how the song goes in my head. How hard can it be? I’ll just record each instrument one at a time. But like writing a novel, perfectionism kicks in, frustration, and finally after about a month of putting it together and not being satisfied with the results, I tabled it. I’m never going to release this. It doesn’t sound that good. But the cool part was I brought my 13-year-old daughter into the recording with me. So we did a duet together. She sang the Coldplay parts of "Fix You," and I sang "Freebird," which speaks to the elements you’re talking about, between staying and going, leaving and coming. The father-daughter aspect really struck me hard. That’s probably when I thought, I want to send this to Kim, just because of how much I appreciate her work and I think she would appreciate it. That was my first song that I’d ever recorded.

My second song, which I just released about a week and a half ago, is another mashup. This time it’s Tom Petty’s "Learning to Fly," which is all about the fool archetype “ain’t got wings”, and then “Little Lion Man” by Mumford and Sons” which is all about courage and when you’re courageous at the start. And then “look at you now little lion man, you are not as brave as you were at the start.” I mixed those two up, with my daughter as well, now 14, and am in the process of thinking about the different things I could do, an entire catalog of songs—sounds—I don’t want to say downloaded, but I hear them all in my head, the same way I “heard” that ring being in a certain place, I could hear this album of songs. Now I’m trying to ground them, which is painstaking work, and I really don’t like it. I like the finished product.

And the same with writing Coincidence Speaks. I didn’t enjoy the writing process, and I really didn’t enjoy going through Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. But all these things I don’t enjoy are just friction that helps polish something into something impactful, something good enough. So, that’s the story behind the music. Hopefully, we’ll have an album out with my daughter, which is another fun dynamic—recording with a 14-year-old teenager!

Kimberly:
Yes, I’m sure she shows up in every way you want her to show up!

Eric:
Hahaha, it’s the best. With her busy schedule, I get 30 minutes to lay down a track with her, and I just try to create an environment where she feels like she can… Oh man, it’s a “nice” dynamic.

Kimberly:
Looking back on this someday, the creative process of sharing this with your daughter and finding that this listening that you keep fine-tuning is now turning into music, it’s just so beautiful.

Eric:
That’s what I keep telling myself. Like, oh, it’s going to make ends meet.

Kimberly:
Where can people listen to these? Are you sharing them publicly yet, or holding them a little? I know you’re sharing on Substack…

Eric:
Eventually, I’d like to release them on Spotify. I’m planning to create a YouTube channel, maybe even a music video with my daughter singing with me. But I’ll definitely be releasing them on my Substack, Coincidence Speaks. I’m very new to social media, and the media world in general. Substack's been my first entry into any kind of social media. So I have a limited knowledge as far as how to get these creations out into the wider public. So I'm learning as I go.

Kimberly:
I think this is just the start, sharing here, and then everyone listening can share. It just takes that one person looking for the next project or “hey this duo here has something to offer,” they’re moved by it. I know I’m moved by it greatly. I’m moved by all of your work.

Eric:
Yeah, thank you.

Kimberly:
And I’m moved by your willingness to—that very moment after watching that documentary in the midst of your despair—crack open that window just a tiny tiny bit and follow it. And just keep following. You’re just willing to go with it. That is such an inspiring path. I know those listening today will feel that as well.

Eric:
Thank you for seeing me that way. That's very, very, very much appreciated. I can't even tell you. Like, again, you have an unbelievable gift in seeing people and seeing in people what they don't see. So you're the one that's lighting up the unseen bridges. And you're doing that with this very conversation. So I cannot thank you enough.

Kimberly:
Thank you. When you need a pep talk, you’re waking up and feeling really frustrated, you know how to call.

Eric:
Alright, I’ll put you on speed dial. It’ll be every day.