Eric was born & raised in Vancouver, WA, a blue-collar town on the border of Washington & Oregon.  He grew up in a typical middle-class family, was an avid basketball player, and always had an affinity for business & personal finance.  There is a story he shares in the podcast where he "leases" a chunk of his sidewalk as a kid, to his friend selling lemonade.

After graduating high school, he was accepted into West Point, The United States Military Academy.  About three weeks after being in the program, Eric felt like he had hit a low point in his life emotionally.  He made a bold decision to quit and move back home to decide what he was going to do next.

He saved up some money from working a minimum wage job and paid for his first year of college at Portland State University to get his career in Finance kick-started.  Through working hard to be a great student, and building great relationships with professors at the school, Eric was able to land an internship at Sequent Computer Systems (acquired by IBM).  From there, Eric's career would move quickly as he not only worked hard, but he was able to build genuine relationships that paid off.

Today, Eric is the CEO of Nintex, a company that helps people digitize their business processes, with over 600 employees and has raised a total of about $150 million.

Make sure to listen to the entire episode to really get into Eric's mind and extract valuable wisdom from one of today's top executives!