About Eric
Eric Harris, Inventor of The Campfire Method®
I'm Eric.
I grew up in suburban North Texas, where the neighbors' sedans left in synchronized formation every morning and came home the same way. The concrete never seemed to end. But the moments my family really connected — the ones where we put the guards down and actually talked — happened when we left town. Around a fire. Under a sky. Somewhere humans were meant to be.
I chose the suburban life too. Went into advertising. Started a commute. Spent the formative years of my career as a creative director, learning the craft of helping people see the value in an idea.
What my ad agency years taught me, and what most presenters never learn: a high-stakes presentation is an advertising assignment. There's an audience with a challenge, a brighter future you can imagine for them, and an idea that bridges the two. The difference is the medium. In advertising, the medium is a thirty-second spot. In a presentation, you are the medium. That changes everything about what the work actually requires of you.
That's why I invented The Campfire Method. It's named for the oldest, truest place humans have ever gathered to share what matters.
My mission is not to improve presentations. It's to improve presenters.
Because autopilot is safe, but big ideas deserve better.
For a Living
The Campfire Method has been adopted by leadership teams at The Beck Group, Activision/Blizzard, Yum! Brands, and many other companies, spanning industries and sizes. I teach Executive Presence and Strategic Storytelling at TCU Neeley Executive Education. And I wrote this book because the gap between a great idea and a room full of believers is almost never about the idea.
It's about the conditions.
For a Life
I still live in suburban North Texas with my wife Sara, and my children Stella and Pete. We walk our goofball golden doodle, Bea. We watch SNL. We eat smoked meat. We love each other fiercely and fully.
I've played drums since I was eleven, and guitar very badly since twenty. I once played on the Dallas Cowboys Drumline, which is either the highlight or the footnote of my career depending on who you ask. These days I mostly jam with my kids, which is better.
When my family needs to reset, we go outside. We take a boat out. We hike. We light a fire. Not for the heat — for what happens around it. That's where this whole thing started.
I Believe
You don't need a better deck. You need permission to put it down.
Your ideas have the potential to move people. Not because you'll learn a new technique here, but because the ability to tell a story that matters — to stand in a room and make people feel something — has been in you since before you ever opened PowerPoint.
You just got conditioned out of it.
I'm here to help you find your way back.
