Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Welcome to From Caving in to Crushing it. The podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney and I'm your host. Today's guest is Eric Severson.
Eric Severson has reached over 1 million people through his public speaking and live courses and he has helped over 300 people become best selling authors. Eric has visited 95 countries in all 50 states in the USA and has climbed the highest mountain on 4 continents, 15 countries and 18 states. Eric has published 12 best selling books on topics of mindset, success, success and peak performance. He is a full time writer, book consultant and speaker. And he lives by the idea that success is available to everyone. That living an extraordinary life is a choice. Enjoy the show. Eric, so great to see you.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: Great to be here. Drew. I'm really excited to be on your show.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: I'm excited to have you. Thank you. And one of my favorite parts is before I hit record, getting to catch up with my guests and we hadn't spoken in a while and I just learned more of what you've been up to. So this is going to be a fascinating discussion and I always like to thank the individual for introducing me to my guest or acknowledge how we met. Now with you, it's been unique. LinkedIn. We met on LinkedIn, you reached out to me and we struck up a conversation and got to meet each other on Zoom. And you've got a fascinating story. And so it just goes to show you that when you reach out to people authentically on something like LinkedIn, there's something that resonates and there's a reason why you reached out to me and there's a reason why I answered you, because we don't respond to everybody who reaches out to us. So this is going to be fascinating. So thank you, LinkedIn, for having that platform that enabled Eric and me to get to meet.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. So you're a superstar. It was easy to want to reach out and touch base. And I'm glad we did. And I'm glad we're having this conversation now because of it.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. So we'll get into it. You know, we talk, we, we talk, you know, in life and, and we probably do it as new parents too. When we're young, we're told life is linear. You know, our parents tell us if you do A plus B plus C plus D is going to happen. And we believe it. It's not malicious, it's them protecting Us or they hope it's going to for them or whatever. And you know, life is linear until it's not. And something happens in life, an external circumstance that kind of gets in the way and then the fun starts and we have to make a decision.
I, I firmly believe there's three types of men. I believe there's man number one who has so many blind spots, Eric, he doesn't see anything. He just listens to that belief system of the world and of himself that was taught to him and he just goes about his way through life and nothing changes. And that's unfortunate. Then there's man number two, a little more a heightened self awareness. And he notices there's adversity, yet he's sure that he's the victim and others are to blame for what's happening to him. He doesn't make any changes because he doesn't believe he has any control over it. And he goes about his life the way it is and there's nothing, nothing changes. And then there's man number three. And those are the men I have on this show. You are man number three where adversity occurs. You have a more heightened self awareness. Your mindset has, is shifting from a fix to more of a growth and you notice something and you say that's not a barrier, that's an opportunity where Eric, there's another way, a better way to live and I'm going to find it.
And now that man number three, I always say there's like a subset of men number three, man number three is ready to do something and has no clue what to do and how to start it right. And then there's subset number two where he know he has an idea how to do it. He reaches out to people, but he doesn't have the audience or, or the people in his community who are the experts and have gone through what they did. So he asks the wrong people and he gets the wrong advice and he gets taken advantage of and whatnot. And then there's man number three, subset number three, who has the right people in his community and knows who to go to and who have executed and he reaches out to them and there's some success.
So you know, I believe you're number man number three and subset number three. So I'd like you to reach for as reach back as far as you need to and capture that defining moment, that moment that was either the tap on the shoulder, the whisper in the ear, or like I needed 6 years ago, the 2 by 4 up upside the head where you said to yourself, geez, Eric, there's a better way to live. This is an opportunity. I'm changing things, right? Indulge us, my friend.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: So many, because it's like a stepping stone where. A stepping ladder where their adversity after adversity, dialect of materialism, you know, you've got, you know, it goes up with. Through the conflict. And I've had a lot. I'm going to start way back, okay? And it's going to. In high school, I was a poor student growing up, you know, CC minus student. And in my junior year of high school, I decided, I want to become a college professor. And I decided college professors don't get C minuses. And I immediately went from a C average to an A average. And then now I've been crushing it for quite a while. My last two years of high school, right? And my brother and sister were both good students. And when they come home from their half hour, their, their. The school counselor meeting about what you're going to do after school, they both had armfuls of brochures of colleges and things. My brother ended up going to Stanford undergrad, Harvard for grad. My sister did really well. And so I'm excited for my meeting, right? They're three and a half and four years older than me. And so I have my meeting and the counselor's looking down at my transcript and she sees C minuses and then A's. And she said, eric, what do you want to do with your life? And I said, I want to go to ucla. It was my only option.
And she focused on the C minuses and she looked down, pushed herself away from the desk and said, eric, you'll never get into a school like that. Walked out and that was my whole meeting. I was sitting there for a half hour wondering if she's going to come back, trying to fight back the tears. And then I applied to UCLA and I didn't get in.
They rejected me. And that was the moment, that was the kick in the stomach where I could have believed her at that moment. Oh my gosh, she's absolutely right. And I didn't have a backup plan. I applied to one school only, and that was ucla and they rejected me. So I get through the summer, did some things, and then now it's approaching fall. I, I called my friend Kirk Rao and I said, hey, Kirk, what are you doing this year? And he said, I'm going to Green River Community College. I said, okay, hung up the phone and got out the big yellow pages. If anybody remembers Those. Yeah, yeah. Called the community college with a dial up phone. Gotten. They mailed me an application which I filled out and mailed back to them and, and I ended up excelling in community college. I realized that straight A's aren't going to get me to ucla. So I did some extraordinary things at that school. I went to Africa, I hitchhiked from London to Zaire actually.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: And in the end, two years later I applied to ucla and this time they were happy to accept me. So I went to UCLA and graduated highest honors.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Good for you.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: So that was.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: And you called the counselor after that and told her.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I hope she found out at some point. But, but. So that was the big moment where it really could have gone either way. But there are many moments of adversity in my life that like you said, I chose to accept, not to be a victim. I chose to pull up my pants and figure out my next step to absolutely. To succeed, excel.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: You know what? I, I can, I resonate with that with a, A somebody who's a mentor who says something that CR could crush our spirits.
Now there's a potential for. You have to have done some stuff. The self fulfilling prophecy that caught that, you know, enabled you to get rejected from ucla.
There are things you probably could have done to change things. So you could have gotten into ucla or perhaps there was a reason why you didn't get in the first time. I recall I had a first grade teacher who I admired who told my mother that I was a follower, not a leader, and didn't talk to me about how to become a leader. She told my mom, my mom told me what she said and that set me for that path of I turned into a follower.
I believed it. I didn't have enough, you know, seven, eight years old. I didn't know enough about myself to believe anything otherwise. So I commend you, regardless of your age, the fact that you persevered.
So with that transforming moment, what did you do with it?
[00:09:46] Speaker A: I fully went to work and I had that goal and I've envisioned myself. I didn't even know what visualization and meditation and all these things that you work on now were. I did have a goal that I was seeing in my head and I worked towards that. But you know what, Like I said, it wasn't all peaches and roses once I got into ucla.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: I get into UCLA and I'm loving it, by the way. Day one, I loved it.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: But I'm.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: I got accepted to this honors anthropology program, Undergraduate anthropology program. And now this is near the end of my junior year and I'm sitting in this, in this conference room with eight other honors students in the professor and me. And I'm looking around the room and, and actually it's a little earlier than that was my junior year though. Yeah. And. And I think every single one of them is better and smarter than me. And I believe that I belonged in that room. It was, I didn't know it at the time. That was, it was imposter syndrome. And thank God my professor, Peter Hammond's his name. He recognized that, had lunch with me, took me under his wing a little bit Beautiful. And by the end of, by the, the next year I won best undergraduate research at UCLA cash prize.
Never have happened without you said surround yourself and listen to advice from the right people. So he, he initiated the first conversation about me being in that room and belonging there.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Man.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: But then I'm the one who had to continually believe that and work towards it. And in the end it worked out really well. But it would have been a struggle if I wouldn't have made that again choice.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Right? Absolutely.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Absolutely right. Being the victim. And how did I get in this room that I don't belong in? It would have been a whole different story. And so that really started. And Peter Hammond, he, he helped me through graduate school, through other things. He, he stayed. We, we remained friends until he died many, many years after I graduated.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Oh boy. That is. That's a phenomenal story. And, and you know, the mentorship is so important and many boys the right now in our country don't have that mentor. And you're teaching us a very good lesson. I'm looking forward to the audience listening to you. That mentorship is important. And even though you had that initial mentor that wasn't right for you.
You had that. You, you were able to discern between the mentor who's right for you and not. And Peter Hammond was there for you. And thank goodness he, he saw something in you and didn't and acted on it. The whole embodiment piece. Right. Knowledge is, you can only go so far with knowledge and a desire. You have to act on it. And he did and you did. I'd like to reach back a little bit to your community college where you mentioned you did some amazing things. And I don't want to just gloss over that you went to Nigeria and all that stuff you did, because that's going to connect to a story that I'm going to want you to tell us that you told me before we Hit record. So please tell me a little bit or tell the audience a little bit of those amazing things you did in Nigeria that really, most likely really helped you go from even a fixed mindset, even to more of a growth mindset that expanded your world, right?
[00:13:05] Speaker A: So I decided. So first thing I did is I showed up for class. I was a front row seater. I went to office hours and just really worked hard to get the grades to do that. So that was step one. But then I realized, like I said, I didn't think I'd get into ucla, even the straight A's. So I decided I had to do something radically different. And I always liked animals like zebras and giraffes and elephants. So I thought, I want to go. And. And it started by. I read a book in high school. I. We talked about Africa in my geography class. And I read a book by Chinua Achebe called Things Fall Apart. And my eyes were wide open. I'm like, oh, my gosh. This book tells a different story than I learned in my geography class.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Interesting life, okay?
[00:13:46] Speaker A: So I wanted to see it for myself. And I thought it would be a big, huge. It would separate me from other students who hadn't been to Africa. I couldn't afford to get there. First thing my parents did is said no.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:13:59] Speaker A: So I did two things. For eight months, I mowed lawns to make money. And I tried to convince my parents why it was an okay idea. And I still couldn't afford to get to Africa. So I had to fly to London. It's the only place I could afford to get to on that side of the world. And I hitchhiked. The first night in London, I stayed at a runaway shelter and I hitchhiked all the way down through Europe to Gibraltar, in Spain, took a boat across to Morocco, kept hitchhiking and walking, and sometimes I take trains, and actually only in Morocco. But I worked my way all the way down into what was then Zaire, now the Congo.
And the best part about it is I walked huge stretches and I. It become dusk and I'd be walking and I'd be entering a village and I'd be scared. Every single time I'm entering an unknown village. They don't know me. I'm really, really remote. And I just went humbly. And I asked if could I put my tent in the village. And in every single time they'd either put me in a hut, they'd let me put my tent in the village. Food for, I mean, people, two chickens, that's all they own. They own a little mud hut.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: And they would slaughter one chicken to feed me for that night. And it was just amazing. But that me being nervous every time, having to be vulnerable.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Right.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: That, Drew, is the part that really, I think, made me learn a lot, that. That being vulnerable is a power when used correctly. Because they wouldn't have told me if I came in and said, hey, my name's Eric. I need a place to stay in some food. No. They would have literally beat me out of the village. And none of the things, that's great. And we'll talk about that in a minute. I mean, I had rocks thrown at me. I had knives pulled out on me twice. I was pushed as so. I mean, I had a few things happen. But in the big picture, the people were so wonderful, right? It was that constantly being out of my comfort z after day, having to, you know, survive. I was only spending $50 a month going, doing, wow. But. But like I said, not everything was perfect in Nigeria.
You can't get, go, go from Benin into Nigeria without a. I couldn't walk across the border, okay? So I got a shared taxi. And getting through the border was a little bit of a nightmare.
Then there were these checkpoints. And at every checkpoint, they get me out, search my bag. Want a little bribe sometimes. But it would take, you know, a half hour to an hour every time. And then finally, after about the third or fourth time, the cab driver decided he's not going to stop at a checkpoint. In fact, he's going to try and speed through it. And that didn't go so well. One guy ran out and threw a spike board in front of the car. We slide to a stop. Another guy's shooting his gun in the air behind us. And then he came up to the car, puts the gun in my head, pulls me out.
Excuse me. And. And so he.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: And he's pointing the gun at my face, and he said, what are you doing here? And I'd been speaking French in Morocco and North Africa for a month and a half. Okay.
And he's. He's speaking now in English. English with the common language in Nigeria, right. And. And I'm in such shock. I answered, just, we in tourist. I'm a tourist. I said in French. So that made him go into a rage. He said, I'm speaking English to you. Why are you speaking French? You're a spy. And he stuck the machine gun liter my mouth. It was still warm. It was the same gun that had been fired minutes earlier. Sticks the gun into my mouth and I'm paralyzed with fear. And I, I'm looking around to see if there's blood and on the floor and to see if this has happened before. And finally, you know, he, he integrate. They, they unpacked my pack, My pack's now laying all over the bottom of the hut. It's about an hour later. And then finally he says, you know, you're not a spy. I know you're not a spy. In fact, I like Americans because they give me gifts. And then he wanted me to give him a bribe. And it was either my hunting knife or my tent. And I ended up giving him my tent. But. And then got back in the cabin, you know, made it back to Lagos. But that moment, wow, was a really defining moment of fear. And then when I got back to community, the community college, six weeks later, now I'm back at Green River Community. I took a quarter off and then I doubled up on my time so I wouldn't lose time. But I took a quarter off to go to Africa by myself. Then I saw this application for a job in Japan and I really. Now the travel bug had hit me, of course.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean, if you're able to go through Nigeria and a near death experience, you're, you're game for anything. Okay, for sure.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: And I desperately want this job. And I applied, got an interview. And then the morning of the interview, all of a sudden, I'm driving to the campus for the interview. I wore a suit for the first, first time for an interview in my life. And, and as I got out of the car, my hand is shaking so much. I'm having a hard time getting the key because I'm so nervous. Yeah. Then I'm walking towards the building and my hands are just pouring with sweat.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: And I had studied a few Japanese words because I know the job in Japan. I wanted to impress them. And I tried to think of the Japanese words and I couldn't think of them. And then I couldn't even think of. I couldn't tell you my name. I was so paralyzed here because I wanted this job so much. And I'm now in the hallway, you know, maybe 30 or 40ft from the door, I have to go in for an interview. And then all of a sudden I just. This voice in my head said, you know what, Eric? Six weeks ago you had a machine gun in your face. Yeah, you really want this job. But in the big picture, it's not that big of a deal. And I took a deep breath, I wiped My hands off. And I felt wonderful, Drew. I felt so relaxed and in tune with myself.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Beautiful.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: I went in, shook hands, got the job. And it wouldn't have happened if I wouldn't have put that fear in perspective. And so then afterwards, even in business, when I had a big negotiation coming up, whenever I'd feel that heartbeat start to go, my blood pressure start to rise, I'd take a breath, I'd smile and say, you know what this is? That this is your good place. This is where you want to be. And I would translate that fear into excitement. And I think that. That to multiple. Multiple successes in my life once I harnessed that fear, that. That.
[00:20:01] Speaker B: That's huge. And then the lesson there is you do things scared.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: You may fail and not see it as failure. Turn that into success because you try again. Right. If you win and you learn. Right. And then. And then what? You tell me what you did during that time when you stopped before that door and whatever that was, that good voice there that had you anchor that feeling and thought into your brain. Did you do something? Because I've learned. Because I ate fire once, you know, okay, cool stick, you know, and then. And then I was told to anchor the feeling I had there so I wouldn't be scared. And I. I did. I do something now, like underneath the table, I'll do my fist so hard that the fingernails go into the palm of my hand to anchor that feeling. And so if I get it when I get scared to do something now, I'll do that under the table, and it'll get me to do it. Did you subconsciously or consciously or anything, how did you anchor that feeling to take that forward in life? Because that's. That's a lifelong lesson that everybody can do if they know, if they're aware of it.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah. So for. At that time, I just. I just. It just kind of happened naturally that I was able to take. But taking the breath, I think was key.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: That is big.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: Taking that deep breath. And I took a few deep breaths, and that was key in that moment. And I didn't know what an anchor was. Now I have an intentional one from NLP Neuro Linguistic Programming.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:34] Speaker A: It's the Ring of Fire, where I. I have this imaginary ring on my finger. And if I'm going to speak on stage, for example, I take the ring off and I expand it to fit my body. I throw it on the floor, and I've already anchored a moment. That was hilarious in my mind. And I anchored. I anchored a moment when I felt Confident. I anchored a moment that I felt proud. I got it. And so all of these things are in that ring. And I. And I visualize just this energy and lights shooting through the ring. And then I step into the ring as soon as I do because of the anchor, I feel that confidence, that power, that joy, humor. And then I walk on the stage with that beautiful being, you know, nervous.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: I love it. And then the lesson there, Eric, is the. That natural power is within each one of us.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: And it's. It's a matter of finding the people and allowing that experience to grow your mind so you can feel that confidence because the natural power is within us. And it's all about self discovery. And all the stories you have told us along the way is all about self discovery. And each step of the way, you're learning about Eric Severson.
I absolutely love this because the thing you said about the breathing, there is science behind it. Because that deep breath. We talk about our ego. Our ego's there to protect us.
The emotional ego is. No, this is dangerous, Eric. Don't do it. Don't do it. Your deep breath put you into a rational ego state and enabled you. You don't have that flooding in your brain of all the synapses going crazy, and you were able to put yourself in that rational state. And then the voice came in, said, dude, you just had a hot rifle, the head of a rifle in your frigging mouth six weeks ago.
So thank you for sharing that story. There's so much in there.
Tell us a little about the job in Japan and that experience.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: That was wonderful. So basically, they were my community college. Green river was starting a branch campus in Japan. So it was a community college in Japan in English with mostly Western professors.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Okay.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: And I was sent over to startups. I was. My. My title was student program specialist, but I was three tasks. One was to start student government. Two was to start student sports. And three, I was a liaison between the students who spoke English even though they were Japanese.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: And the professors who were from Western countries. And I had multiple months. I had three months of cultural training before I went over. And. And so I was kind of like that gap because I was the student age. I was the same age as all the students.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: But at the same time, I had, you know, a job within the university, and I communicated with the professors. Right.
Wonderful. And that actually was my first big public speech.
I was asked to speak during the ceremony, the opening of the school ceremony. So it was all of the school Administrators and anybody linked to it. It was all of the students and their parents. And there were probably at that point, 150 or 200 students, and then all their parents, and it was all of the officials in the town. It was called Kanuma as the town.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Okay.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: And. And so I was asked to give a speech, and it was. It was. It. It went horribly in. In one respect. My note cards. I had note cards, and they got all mixed up. I had a translator a tiny bit, and then people were closing their eyes in the front row. And I'm thinking, oh, boy, people are asleep. My first speech ever, and half the room is asleep. A room. It was outdoors, actually. But I found out later that that's a sign of respect, that they're actually closing their eyes to absorb the words and really pay attention to what you're saying.
So I'm not gonna say it was a flying success, but the applause were huge, which is very respectful.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: That's wonderful.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: But it was. It was a good. Also, the keynote speaker was this American guy who was one fluent in Japanese, lived in Japan, and his speech was so great. And I remember he had these really radically funky glasses. And I Then, many years later, 2016, is when I decided to become a professional speaker.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: My first book was published, Ordinary to extraordinary, in 2018. And I just started getting speaking requests.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Right, Right.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: And then I left a job as vice President of International Business Development to speak full time. Okay. And. And. And that was in January 2020. But. And when I started speaking, I thought, I need to do things, something to set myself apart. And I remembered that. That speaker with this.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah. With the glasses.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: And so now I decided it was red pants. So when I do public speaking, 100 of the time, I wear bright red pants.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Red pants. Yeah. Why did. Why did you choose bright red pants?
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Of all the things that you couldn't mistake that. There's something different about me that wasn't clownish. Right. And I thought my. I thought bright red pants would work. And in the end, those bright red pants have led to things. There was one thing. I. I used to go to China every two. For two weeks a year to do workshops.
[00:26:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: And one time there. There was a company that wanted somebody to design, build, design and lead these online courses.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: And they asked Communication University of Beijing of China in Beijing if they knew of anybody. And evidently, around the room, one of the administrators said, nobody remembered my name. Eric Seberson.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: But one of the admin administrators said, what about the guy with the red pants?
[00:27:16] Speaker B: I Love it. The guy with the red pants.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: And they contacted me and I ended up working. I still work with them. I still do classes for them to this day.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: That's amazing.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: All because of the red pants.
[00:27:25] Speaker B: You know what? That, that, that's a very good. Another lesson that you're providing us is we are all unique in our own way. Other people don't know that.
So if you need to grab attention, there's no harm in doing something out of the ordinary because they're going to learn that you're extraordinary. They give you that and that. And you wrote that first book.
It's fascinating stuff. So Eric, you said you're doing public speaking full time now.
What are the topics usually speak about? About ordinary to extraordinary. Do you have some other keynote speed topics?
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Yep. And I'm focusing a lot on book production and book consultation and then I speak when I'm asked. But my main topics for speaking are overcoming fear. I did a TEDX on overcoming fear and I draw that from what I learned living for anthropology. I lived in that deep in the Amazon indigenous tribe called the Guayana for six months.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: And I, I spoke about how they handle fear. And they're hunters and gatherers. Their biggest fear is not having food. How they handle fear as a community effort rather than an individual burden. And I say, even though we're not hunters and gatherers, we have refrigerators and microwaves.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: What can we learn from them about using. Using community as a way to overcome fear? So overcoming fear is one and also one of the ones that I give quite often because companies like it is how to create super fans who want to come back. And it's about building that's good. Owners and managers building rapport with employees, frontline employees. That's one half of this, the talk. And the other half is for frontline employees to build rapport with customers. And how do they create super fans that want to come back to their company over and over again? So that's another.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: Wow. I love, I love that topic that, that reminds me of like where you want to create owners versus renters in terms of your employees. You want them to really feel like that's their home versus. Yeah, because there is a difference on how people work if they believe they own the place versus rent the place. So I love that topic.
Geez. There's so many questions I have for you. All right, you know what, folks? This can go on for like four hours. I, I know that you certainly have captured the essence of Eric Seon and you're Going to want to get in touch with them. You have to get in touch with them. Strongly suggesting it Go to Eric's website, Eric severson.com that's E R I K S E V EE r s n.com or on LinkedIn. Very, very active on LinkedIn. Obviously we met through there. Definitely worth having a conversation with Eric.
Anything else I know you're. You are working on. I know you showed one book I know on LinkedIn your banner has like not a million books but you know, you have a nice little series there. You're working on something now which is why you get got in touch with me. Tell us about the anthology you're working on.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Yeah. So the first the one I contacted you about which is the Life Coaches Toolkit. It and it's ready to use strategies, principles and activities.
This one's done. But I'm working on the Life Coaches Toolkit Volume 3 actually and the reception has been really good because I, I'm not a trained life coach but people ask me to coach them. Right. And so it's a book I wish I had and so I created it with, you know, 27 expert life coaches or people who understand things like you. You work with people about having. Having them find their best lives.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: Finding their best lives. So I get. I reach out to people like you to create this wonderful book with different perspectives and things like that. The next book I'm working on, which I'm still gathering authors for actually. Okay.
Radically excited about, it's called the AI Mindset. How to Thrive in Civilization's Next Big Shift.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: Basically, AI is here to stay whether you like it or not. Want. I think people are going to be on the AI bus and really do well and people are going to be left behind who either avoid it or afraid of it. And I want people to at least understand it so they can choose to be on that bus or not. You don't have to love AI to agree that it's going to be here to stay.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Absolutely. That book is going to be amazing because the sooner you embrace AI, you don't have to embrace every aspect of it. You just, just like in life barrier versus opportunity. Right. There's going to be a piece of it that's going to resonate with you and you're going to learn from it. So I love that approach and I'm going to definitely support you on that.
All right. Before I ask you the two final questions I want to ask you, I don't want to gloss over why I had you Tell that story about you being in the indigenous tribes in Nigeria. Because before we hit record, you told me a story that happened recently with your 18 year old son. And I'd love for you to, to tell that story really quickly before we get to your. The final two questions.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: Yeah, so my one, one of my biggest goals in life, and this is for my wife too, we're on the same page, is developing our. We have two boys. They're both. One's just 19, one of them's 18 and they're. We. We want them to be, to develop into strong. We don't want them to think of themselves as victims. We want them to be strong men who have good core values and, you know, try and be as good of people as they can and be great to others.
Part of that is kind of like when my son graduated from. My first son graduated from high school. We went to Kilimanjaro, went to Tanzania and climbed Kilimanjaro together. My second son this year, he wanted to go to the Amazon basin. And so I got a contact with the Kofon tribe. I went way, way, way up river with them.
And so we spent. We didn't even bring food with us. We brought a bunch of bananas and a bunch of plantains. And then we had to hunt and gather all of our food with these Indians forest. And to be able to see my son survive and, and enjoy being in a very, in, you know, difficult environment. Rained a lot. There was, you know, we're the, the jungles, there's lots of sticky plants. You know, there's things to avoid. We're hunting, we're fishing piranhas. But to see my son, you know, really, really engage in a totally different environment with a totally different culture was amazing. And the biggest part wasn't about where we were. It was about that relationship with my son.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: Off to college and be on his own next year.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: And, and, and I shared with him, Drew, it wasn't all, you know, rainbows and unicorns.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:00] Speaker A: I told him about mistakes I made my life.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: He didn't know about. Because I want him to learn from my mistakes and he can make his own choices and hopefully avoid some of the things I, I did wrong. And it was a really great time of helping him develop into a, A strong man.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: Well, I mean, you did definitely a strong man. You did a lot. You, you created memories.
You guys have a connection and a bond that that will never, won't be severed. And the respect I'm sure he has for you and Your mistakes you made, he's listening to that. And he's not going to be afraid of making his own mistakes because he's going to, he's learned from it. And what 18 year old can say he's done what he's done with his father, that I'm telling you, man, that, that is, that is beautiful, beautiful story.
Geez. All right, so final two questions. Are you ready?
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: All right, so give you the opportunity to use your imagination. You're sitting with Eric, 7 to 10 year old Eric right now, and you want to give him some advice about life. What are you gonna tell him?
[00:35:07] Speaker A: I'm gonna tell him one, I'm gonna say things are gonna work out. And I was a pretty anxious kid, I think, like you, based on your earlier book, I'll have what she's having. I was a little bit over the top people pleaser. And it's exhausting sitting in class, you know, trying to please your teacher by saying the right thing or please your friends by, you know, acting the right way. And, and so I would say it's really good to make people happy, but don't get stressed over pleasing them too much. I mean, right. A little bit of stress to make, to make people happy is a good thing. But I, I spent so much, I had anxiety of trying to make sure everybody was happy. So, so I was too much. And I found that balance. I'm still, I still want to be good to people, I still want to be kind to people, right? But I found a better balance that's also more healthy to me. So that's the first thing.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: That's what Beautiful, beautiful, Love that. Wish I had that advice when I was younger, but you know, we can't regret. So I use it now.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: Good.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: All right, so switch hats now. You're sitting down with young Eric, the young businessman, young entreprene entrepreneur, and you want to give him advice about business. What are you going to tell him?
[00:36:20] Speaker A: So that one is because I went in, I was teaching for a while, I was UCLA teaching, esl, loving everything. But I, I couldn't support my family in LA on my teaching salary, right. So I went into business begrudgingly thinking that I wasn't going to like it because I didn't think it was my personality, right? And I loved it.
And so I would tell my earlier Eric, business can be very fun as long as you do things you enjoy, you know, And I did, I went into an area of business that I, I did enjoy and I, I thought of it as a game Even when I was managing people, you know, I made games out of how I could manage them. And so that would be it is engage it and you're going to really, really enjoy it. And so I think it came with the right time though. So I, I went into business in 202027 and loved it for 12 years and now I'm 100 self employed still. Still in business but not in the corporate setting.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: Right, right. Love it. Great advice.
I pray that people take your advice, people who are listening. Eric, I want to thank you for coming on, for coming into my life, for reaching out on LinkedIn, for just for being the human being you are. Because you could have easily gone, had all those experiences and kept it to yourself. You shared your story and you're sharing your story and you're giving people that confidence to share their own story. Because people need to hear people's stories. And what I found is we, you and I need to hear our own story. Because by telling my story out loud, I healed myself from within. Great. There's a power in sharing your story.
So that's, I guess that's how I'll end this. So again, thank you Eric.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: Thank you Drew. I really loved speaking with you and I look forward to being in touch for a very long time.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: And as do I, my friend. Hey everybody out there, please take care of yourselves.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it.
I'd like you to answer this question. Are you living the life you want to live or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my website at www.prophetcompassion.com.
feel free to also email me at drewrophetcompassion.com I'd love to have a conversation with you. Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: For.
