page title icon Erik Seversen

Erik Seversen Ordinary to Extraordinary

149: Erik Seversen: I realized part of the problem was myself

Erik Seversen Show Notes Page

Erik Seversen had a horrible string of hiring the wrong person. That’s when he needed to do something different. He decided to totally change the interview process and his leadership style. Erik started focusing more on using emotional intelligence to move forward and applying it to his new English as a second language startup.

Erik grew up in Parkland, Washington, which was a quasi-meeting ground between really rural and the “big” city of Tacoma. He was the third of three children from a middle-class family, and Erik’s biggest decision every morning was whether to take the bus or walk to school.

It wasn’t a bad childhood, but Erik struggled with math and spelling, and although he had a loving and supportive family, he often felt out-of-place. However, Erik had a very large imagination and very large dreams, and he focused hard working toward them.

When things began to click, Erik decided to go to UCLA. He applied and was rejected, but Erik didn’t let this stop him, so studied at a community college and got into UCLA two years later. Erik had been to over 30 countries by the time he re-applied to UCLA. After graduating near the top of his class, Erik went on to get a Master’s Degree in Anthropology at University of Virginia, and he followed more opportunities teaching English as a Second Language in France, Thailand, and universities within the USA.

While teaching, Erik started a Motorcycle Touring Company and went into business for ten years. Erik is currently Director of International Business Development at EagleRider, a company he helped grow from a valuation of $7MM to over $100,000,000, but he is also applying the success formulas, motivational leadership, and entrepreneurial strategies he learned in business to Language Linq a company Erik created which aims to make lives better for English as a seconds language professionals who need to improve English for their career.

Erik lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two kids of eleven and thirteen, and he’s now learned from people in over 80 countries.

Tweetable Quotes and Mentions

Listen to @ErikSeversen to get over the hump on the @FastLeaderShow Click to Tweet 

“If you’re helping somebody, you’re not afraid of anything.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet

“Fear goes away if you’re helping somebody.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet 

“Doing things for employees, that made them give back more.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet

“You don’t have to be confident, but appearing confident goes a long way.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet 

“Knowledge is awesome and action is way better.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet 

“Pull the trigger before you’re absolutely ready.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet 

“The time is never, ever going to be perfect.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet 

“We need to create our own paths, often.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet 

“Give more and it comes back to you.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet 

“Getting past fear leads to really good things.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet 

“Turn fear into positive motivated energy.” -Erik Seversen Click to Tweet 

Hump to Get Over

Erik Seversen had a horrible string of hiring the wrong person. That’s when he needed to do something different. He decided to totally change the interview process and his leadership style. Erik started focusing more on using emotional intelligence to move forward and applying it to his new English as a second language startup.

Advice for others

Getting past fear leads to really good things.

Holding him back from being an even better leader

Time, not time management, but time.

Best Leadership Advice

Give more and it comes back to you.

Secret to Success

Praying every single day and meditating everyday.

Best tools that helps in Business or Life

Loving, compassion, and gratitude.

Recommended Reading

Ordinary to Extraordinary: http://erikseversen.com/fastleader/

The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness

The Magic of Thinking Big

Contacting Erik Seversen

website: http://erikseversen.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-seversen-56ab9b10/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ErikSeversen

Resources and Show Mentions

Erik Severson’s Fast Leader Legion Resources: http://erikseversen.com/fastleader/

Developing a Better Place to Work

Increase Employee Engagement and Workplace Culture

Empathy Mapping

54 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Competencies List: Emotional Intelligence has proven to be the right kind of intelligence to have if you want to move onward and upward faster. Get your free list today.

 

Show Transcript: 

Click to access edited transcript

49: Erik Seversen: I realized part of the problem was myself

 

Intro:  Welcome to the Fast Leader podcast where we explore convenient yet effective shortcuts that will help you get ahead and move forward faster by becoming a better leader. And now here’s your host customer and employee engagement expert and certified emotional intelligence practitioner, Jim Rembach.

The number one thing that contributes to customer loyalty is emotions so move onward and upward faster by gaining significantly deeper insight and understanding of your customer journey and personas with emotional intelligence. With your empathy mapping workshop you’ll learn how to evoke and influence the right customer emotions that generate improve customer loyalty and reduce your cost to operate. Get over your emotional hump now by going to empathymapping.com to learn more. 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader Legion today I’m excited because I have the opportunity to talk to somebody who has a really interesting perspective on the customer experience, the human experience and really globalization as a whole. Eric Seversen grew up in Parkland, Washington which was a quasi-meeting ground between really rural and the big city of Tacoma. He was the third of three children from a middle-class family and Eric’s biggest decision every morning was whether to take the bus or to walk to school. It wasn’t a bad childhood but Eric struggled with math and spelling and although he had a loving and supportive family he often felt out of place. However, Eric had a very large imagination and very large dreams and he focused on working hard towards them. When things began to click Eric decided to go to UCLA he applied and was rejected but Eric didn’t let that stop him so he studied at a community college and got into UCLA two years later.

 

Eric had been to over 30 countries by the time he reapplied to UCLA. After graduating near the top of his class Eric went on to get a Master’s Degree in Anthropology at the University of Virginia and he followed more opportunities teaching English as a Second Language in France Thailand and universities within the USA. While teaching, Eric started a motorcycle touring company and went into business for ten years. Eric is currently director of International Business Development at Eagle Rider a company he helped grow from a valuation of seven million to over a hundred million dollars. He’s also applying the successful formulas of motivational leadership and entrepreneurial strategies that he learned in business to Language Link a company Eric created which aims to make lives better for English-as-a-second-language professionals who need to improve English for their careers. Eric currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two kids of 11 and 13 and he’s now learned from people in over 80 countries. Erik Seversen are you ready to help us get over the hump?

 

Erick Seversen:   I am absolutely excited to go over the hump Jim. How are you doing?

 

Jim Rembach:   I’m doing great. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve given our Legion a little bit about you but can you tell us what your current passion is so that we can get to know you even better? 

 

Erick Seversen:   Yeah, definitely. My work passion is just that, you mentioned a little bit about taking business strategies. For the for the last 10 years I’ve been reading every business book there is from Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill to the more contemporary ones Brendon Burchard and I’m using these in business and its really been successful and I realized not a lot of people are using these same strategies that are successful in language. So, I created Language Link and my goal is to take these students mostly ESL English as a second language students coming to the United States. They’re smart people but they struggled and because they know more English in their head then they think they do so their confidence is broken a little bit so I’m taking these business success strategies applying it to language and allowing them to speak confidently and better and their lives really improve by it. It’s just exciting for me to see their lives improve. 

 

Jim Rembach:   You talked about you talk about these concepts and people not really applying them to English as a second language or language learning but there’s companies like Rosetta Stone huge company grown like crazy, what do you mean by—you don’t see these models? What’s the difference?

 

Erick Seversen:   Oh, yeah. Rosetta Stone is actually great, I really enjoy it. And it’s got a very nice formula for how to learn a second language independently on a computer, what I’m going for is the student who’s coming over from a different country maybe an intermediate level, advanced level even some high intermediate but they don’t know how to connect with the language. On Rosetta Stone I can learn how to conjugate a verb all day long I can learn the pronunciation all day long but what I don’t know is that there’s a difference in teaching styles in Japan and the United States for example. In Japan the difference between a teacher’s level and a student’s level is a lot wider there’s not supposed to be as much direct engagement it might even seem rude in classes in Japan. Whereas in the United States you’ve got a really smart student who doesn’t say a word in class because they don’t want to act impolite towards the teacher the teacher gives them a bad participation grade because they’re not engaging in class. So, there’s a little thing to do to just understand the difference, making friends with people in a different country so a strategy—the best way to learn language often is just familiarity and speaking it with people. 

 

But you get so many students who come to United States or Australia or the UK to learn English and they find a little bubble of either aloneness which is a problem in itself, I address homesick on being alone or they get a small group of people from their country and have a good time together but they’re still speaking their native language and they don’t know how to break out and meet another student who speaks English only. One strategy for example is to know exactly where your class is about 10 minutes before your class get across campus and start walking towards your class and then just look for somebody who’s walking alone who look walking the same direction and he looks like a person you’d be interested in speaking with and say, “Excuse me, do you know where this classroom is? Chances are they’re already walking in that direction they’re going to hear your accent they’re going to want to speak to a foreigner as well they’re going to walk with you and talk with you as they get you to your class and by the end of the eight minutes it takes to get to class there’s a good chance that you have a meeting for a coffee and become friends after that. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Gosh. Thanks for sharing that, that perspective was really vital. I also started thinking as you were talking about the growth that you’ve had at Eagle Rider and that to me listening to you talk and whether or not it’s intentional per se it sounds to me like you’ve got to focus on the customer that others just fail to possess.

 

Erick Seversen:   Oh, my Gosh. One of the models of the company is we provide dreams, we rent dreams, we rent motorcycles as the pith of the company and we sure do. We provide experiences that change people’s lives. I literally can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard somebody say, “This trip changed my life or best trip of my life” and about 50-60 percent of our customers are people who come from Australia from Europe from Japan, Germany to come ride in the United States on a motorcycle, they’re on a Harley-Davidson riding up Route 66.  I’ve seen big huge bikers, tattooed bikers, almost weeping at the end of the trip talking about what a great life-changing experience they had because they’ve been dreaming about it since they were kids, it really is a beautiful thing. So, for the customer service directly we have that and also we have somebody in accounting or somebody in IT who’s having a bad day sometimes we say, Hey, walk out front on the Saturday don’t go to your desk until 11:30 on a Saturday or Friday morning I want you to go back and see the customers for a little bit just go interact with the customers. Always it gives them that revived life to get to work and just really enjoy what they’re doing knowing that they’re doing an accounting spreadsheet but what they’re doing is they’re providing dreams for people, real people.

 

Jim Rembach:   That’s a great lesson that I think many organizations can learn from a customer focus, customer centricity. Knowing that people have to have that connection with the consumer, our customer even when they’re in the back office and don’t necessarily interact with them daily. They do need to understand where their purpose is and how they’re making a difference to the overall health and wealth and viability of the organization.

 

Erick Seversen:    Absolutely.

 

Jim Rembach:   When you start thinking about all of the things that you’ve been working on for the past couple years and where you’re headed right now, I think we also talked off mic and you have a new book coming out which is, Ordinary to Extraordinary, what is that all about? The title seems easy but what’s inside?

 

Erick Seversen:   Yeah. In the bio you read at the start I was an average kid in an average neighborhood and my favorite quote is Elon Musk and is this, I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary, and simply I did that myself. I’m an average kid don’t know big support I ended up mowing lawns when I was 19 years old. Flying to London and hitchhiking down to Africa, because I wanted to see elephants and giraffes basically really I wanted to see what Africa was about as a 19 year old, and nobody helped me do that but I had a big dream big goal I worked hard to make that happen. I don’t really consider myself extraordinary but in the end I’ve been to over 80 countries lived in five, I’ve done some great things in business as well. But my actions are extraordinary because I didn’t let people say things that they thought were impossible weren’t possible, I didn’t listen to them. So that’s where the title of the book came from and the funny thing is I ended up writing 42 first-person true narratives about things that have happened,. I’ve had a machine gun in my mouth in Nigeria. I lived with the Indians in South America for a while. I’ve climb some mountains around the world. I’ve had a girlfriend in Paris and that was a great story, and so I wrote these stories and my editor said, “You know what Erik, you’re ten friends are going to love this. And I go, “That’s not a compliment is it?” He said, “No.” So, I had to restructure it with what do we get out of this? And what the book does is it groups all of those stories and some of them deal with  being in an outlaw bike Clubhouse with tattooed monsters of AK47 sets tattooed on their necks and what life is like with these people and it was engaging I learned so much from them and there’s a section in there on that. But I just had the stories as they were which was neat but what I did is I added a component of, what can we get from this? And there’s a book called The Power of Meaning by Emily Isfahani Smith, which is genius, it came out this year. It talks about four pillars of meaning—they are belonging, our purpose, transcendence, and storytelling. I grouped all of those 42 narratives into one of those four pillars and I kind of show the reader how that influenced my life, how it gave meaning to my life and it will let the reader recognize where they’re lacking. Are they lacking in belonging? Are they lacking in purpose? Are they lacking in storytelling? It’s been really fun to create a narrative throughout this book of a bunch of narratives. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, so for me listening to you chat about your escapades and your travels I started thinking to myself—and you start talking about having some struggles as kid in school, applying to UCLA not getting in but not stopping, for you it seems like there’s no fear that you’ve got this  resiliency. But I when I start looking at the majority of people is that fear handcuffs them it keeps them from sticking their neck out it keeps them from doing that trouble because—you know what? I might get a gun stuck in my mouth. So, how do you push yourself past the fear or is it that—you know what? That’s just something that doesn’t fire in my head. 

 

Erick Seversen:   No. I was actually quite nervous growing up. I was nervous during my travels but I learned I’m going to say two things about fear, the first one is I definitely felt fear. Every time I walked huge sections in Africa, sometimes 60 miles in a row, and when I’m getting into evening sometime  I’ve been walking all day alone out in in the desert and all of a sudden I’m approaching some small village, I don’t know if they’re going to like me. I don’t know where I’m going to stay this night I don’t—so this nervousness is there but I overcame it and I realized that by just asking people and helping people smiling I consider to be even some helping somebody. Adam Flores he’s a guy who does business seminars down in San Diego, he says I just learned this two weeks ago from him he said, “If you’re helping somebody you’re not afraid of anything.” Fear goes away if you’re helping somebody. The quick example of this was he said, Hey would anybody—if I say, can you go give a dollar to the homeless guy out in front of the hotel? Who would not be afraid of doing that? Everybody raised the hand then he said, “Hey, who would like to go up to the man in a business suit standing in line checking in and ask for a dollar from him?” And everybody was feared they don’t want to go there and be embarrassed. The point is when you’re doing something good for somebody the fear goes away.

 

Jim Rembach:   Now that’s a really good point and I never really thought about. I know now for me talked about having kids is that maybe I need to do more of that because one of the things I do and I’ve shared with this before on the show you can call it brainwashing or whatever you want—yes it is and it you don’t like it send me an email and I’ll delete it. When I ask my kids, why did God put you on earth? To help others. 

 

Erick Seversen:   Oh, great, that’s beautiful. Jim, that is so awesome. 

 

Jim Rembach:   If you just focus on that, it kind of removes you and your fear and your ego and you’re—you talked about kids and there are people that are saying and speaking up in a classroom here in the States is there’s a lot of reasons because they don’t to look stupid.

 

Erick Seversen:   Exactly. 

 

Jim Rembach:   –so I just keep my mouth shut that way I don’t look stupid. I think that’ll allow you to bring a lot of those humps down and you’ll be able to get over a lot easier, so thank you for sharing that. 

 

Erick Seversen:   In business one of my “aha” moments was realizing that doing things for people who work below me, for employees, that made them give back more. I wasn’t being nice to them and I wasn’t giving—when I say giving sometimes it’s teaching them something highlighting an interesting quote that I think will make this particular person’s life better that day, bringing in a small module to make them think about something different that might be better that way, focusing on the why so they can understand the big picture, so I consider giving them these things and they give back tenfold. I’m not doing it to get the bigger return but it always happens. 

 

Jim Rembach:   That’s a good point. For me it’s trying to make sure that I’m not trying to do that intentionally because I want the return it’s just doing it just to do it. 

 

Erick Seversen:   Exactly right. 

 

Jim Rembach:   You talked about quotes. You talked about quote that’s important to you and we always asked for those, and thanks for sharing that, you got to that point before I did. I know you shared a lot of stories talking about your travels and things like that talking about work but can you focus in and give us some details on one particular time where you had to get over the hump and it made a difference for you? 

 

Erick Seversen:   Let me think of a time—this is when I was trying to hire somebody and the role was–I’m kind of an assistant role they had a reporting role and I had a horrible string of three people in a row didn’t make it past their 90-day probation, in fact, they didn’t make it past three weeks. And so something was wrong and so two things happen, the first that thing happened was I decided to have a working interview where I’d choose the one I liked out of the fifty people are who applied and I’d say, Okay, you’re not hired but I like you I want to pay you for a full day’s work on Monday and you’re going to come in and you’re going to get paid for this day no matter what but you’re not hired at the end of the day we’re going to have a discussion and either you’re hired or here’s your money have a great life and it helps so much. The first guy I hop in an hour half into it I walked by he was in a cube I walked by his cubicle and he’s on his phone that just didn’t fly if you’re on your phone an hour and a half into a job that you’re going to have I don’t think that’s going to work very well. 

 

I actually did a probing question just to make sure it was an emergency, it wasn’t. And then the next the next one, full day working interview, he had great Excel sheet all over his resume how good he was at Excel. I had a very basic Excel work that I wanted him to create and it wasn’t nearly as polish—he was a nice guy and I thanked him very much I paid him at the end of the day and that was it. The third one she came in she was good with the people her Excel skills were adequate and I saw her work and she did really good and so she was hired and that’s when I mentioned giving that it was her that I actually started working on to really be intentional about—I realized part of the problem was myself. I was trying to lead a millennial by giving a directive and expecting it be done in a certain amount of time and I realized that wasn’t right. The way I proposed something to get done changed, I didn’t talked about why I talked about how this report, that somebody was creating, is going to benefit some of the people that I’m going to show it. So my leadership style changed a lot—yes she’s still with the company eight years later which is awesome.

 

Jim Rembach:   That’s a great perspective of the differentiating and treating people differently it’s also as giving people an opportunity and kind of debunking some of the things that you would actually perceive when you’re going through an interview process as well, just to find out that those Excel skills were what you said.

Exactly right. So when you start thinking about her and her development I would dare to say she’s not doing the same things that she doing when you first—what is she doing now? 

 

Erick Seversen:   Now she’s got into—we have about 4,000 motorcycles and now it’s about 2,500 we become more efficient with them, and she’s titling. She has to be the intermediary between the B and B to make sure all those bikes are titled. She worked at the fleet department to make sure bikes all over the country get—can you imagine how hard it is to get your little slip in DMV and check if you have a smog check or not and get it paid and get a sticker on your license plate? She does that to 2500 vehicles at a time.

 

Jim Rembach:   Oh, my goodness. 

 

Erick Seversen:   That’s pretty impressive. 

 

Jim Rembach:   It is pretty impressive. Okay, so when you start thinking about this current work that you’re doing in regards to English is a second language and you start talking about the differences in how people learn the cultural differences and all of those things, how do you separate the learning or focus in on the learning piece and the individual piece? Because you even mentioned it with the young lady who said, hey, your Excel skills weren’t that great but it’s these other things that were important and we’ll teach her the technical Excel stuff, how are you actually focusing in on developing and getting people to gain some competencies in the language speaking piece but then also gain some competencies and skills and their emotional intelligence and becoming a more effective person?

 

Erick Seversen:   Actually, I focus more on the latter on the emotional intelligence of the language learning there are a lot of good schools out there. The community college I went to was Green River Community College now it’s Green River College so that’s a four-year things up in Washington State, they actually have a huge international program and they really work on cultivating the student and acclimatizing them and helping them build friendships and bonds and teaching them some of the differences between culture and how language and culture are the same but a lot of other schools don’t. There are a lot of very, very good skills taught at different universities at different community colleges at different language skills but not many are focusing on the integration the emotional intelligence of the speaking and a lot of the students they have things in their mind but they can’t release it because they’re scared to speak and make mistakes. So, I try and eliminate that fear. I take some things from certain books and one of them talks about—you don’t have to be confident but appearing confident goes a long way and you can do that by looking somebody in the eye, you can do that by a good handshake, you can do that by walking 25% faster than you normally would. Those little things I would focus on more than the actual language skills. I do focus on—I know the language skills I’ve taught it for ten years and I do that as well but that’s not the biggest focus. I try and get into things like meditating in English. I’ve got a 15-minute meditation I’ve created where somebody can listen to it. It’s a guided meditation and it basically says, your English will be easy today and it allows them to be relaxed in their own head and have a conversation with a fictitious character in their own head in English and they’re always shocked about how good they speak to themselves in their head they can speak better to themselves on their head than they can to somebody on the sidewalk. They can translate that into real English because they now they know what’s inside of them.

 

Jim Rembach:   So, as you are talking and explaining that to me I started thinking definitely about the whole Napoleon Hill influence and having your affirmations and being able to really shape your mind. And you start talking about choosing now it’s coming full circle for me and I appreciate it we’re having this conversation long enough you know how people can choose to be extraordinary.

 

Erick Seversen:   Exactly.

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, so when you start talking about building a particular organization, you’ve done it with the motorcycle ride share company, you’re trying to do it with the current company, if you were to say, I am trying to do the same thing either within my own organization as an entrepreneur or do my own gig, where do people really need to focus their efforts and activity?

 

Erick Seversen:   Oh, yeah, so I’ve got a great answer I’m going to clarify something. I started a company called Ride Free Motorcycle Tours, that was my company I owned it and I ended up selling it and then and I worked for Eagle Rider, I wasn’t one of the founders Eagle Rider but I was instrumental in helping it grow and I’m still with Eagle Rider as well. For starting up entrepreneur it’s this—knowledge is awesome and action is way better. I’ve seen so many people who have read the Brendon Burchard stuff who’ve read Tony Robbins they know it inside it out they’ve listened to Napoleon Hill stuff and but they’ve got all of this knowledge and they’re not really doing as much with it because learning it is exciting in itself and I think a lot of people get caught up in to the learning aspect of it but it doesn’t mean anything until you absolutely start to apply it. So the one thing is always keep learning but know when it’s more important than to take action towards beer business on something it’s scares you maybe which is making a call to a potential partner rather than reading the next chapter of a self-help or a motivational book.

 

Jim Rembach:   For me as you were talking I started even going back to that whole fear thing. I don’t want to look like a fool, I don’t want to make a mistake, I don’t want to—and so therefore it’s got to be perfect and I’ve got to study it to the nth degree  before I take a chance.

 

Erick Seversen:   Yes. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Are you saying to me, as I was listening to you, that I just have to practice execution?

 

Erick Seversen:   Absolutely. I’m kind of laughing to myself because we had an IT guy once who in a boardroom he was in a high-level meeting he was a little bit nervous and he said everything’s going great but I’m having a hard time executing myself. Every time I hear that I think of that—absolutely I say pull the trigger before you’re absolutely ready. So many people want all of the stars to be aligned perfectly they want to know of everything in the book, they want to have the plan mapped out. I used to be more guilty about myself too and what I’ve started doing is I’ve started going when I was totally scared when I felt half prepared and I figure things out as I go and that’s really made a big, big, big difference because the time is never ever going to be perfect. At some point you need a little base but you got to go.

 

Jim Rembach:   Yeah, I think that’s a good point. Also too when you start talking about an organization, if you’re in a particular organization where you don’t feel safe enough to be able to move forward you never will move forward. 

 

Erick Seversen:   Right. It was a professor in grad school who said this to me once, she said, good classes aren’t given they’re created. If somebody has a good idea they have an idea that I’m going to propose to teach this class that doesn’t exist yet same thing with jobs even at Eagle Rider there are few jobs that I’ve had it wasn’t a position that I moved into it was a created position because it made a lot of sense. I think we need to create our own paths often don’t wait for somebody to do it for you.

 

Jim Rembach:   Very true. Okay, so talking about creating that own path—you have a book that’s going to be released, will actually put a link on your show notes page to get more information on that, I even get a discount and some other resources and tools we’ll do that—

 

Erick Seversen:   I have a landing page also that ericseversen.com/fast leader and some of the things we’ve talked about, some pictures of the places I’ve traveled, like you said the book will be up there for 50% off for you nation and so that’s good. 

 

Jim Rembach:   That’s awesome and that’ll also be on a link line of show notes page, so you can always come to Eric’s episode on show notes page and get a direct link to that if you can’t remember the URL—you got the kids, the business you’re starting, the business you’re working for, the book you release, you’ve got a lot of things going on.

 

Erick Seversen:   Oh, yes I do. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, we have to narrow and focus because we know that’s an important—Napoleon Hill too as well as many of those other guys to come up focus, right? What’s one goal that you’re focused on? 

 

Erick Seversen:   The first thing that pops to mind is one-third of a triangle. The first thing that popped to mind is is climbing Mount Elbrus, it’s the highest mountain in Russia and climbing mountain is my passion outside of work. I conquered Gowen South America’s another big one, so that’s the self in this triangle. I need to take care of myself even if it’s selfish away from—my kids are too young to climb Everest, my wife in not going to go to Russia with me for two weeks so that’s one. The other side of the triangle is my work. I’m balancing the Eagle Rider and my language link and that’s just been a blast working hard. I wake up really early in the morning so that I have time to do both and I love it. I can’t wait to wake up every single morning when I’m going to bed. The other part is family. If my kids have a soccer game I’m going to make a choice, do I miss this Wednesday afternoon soccer game and work, because I know I need to? Or do I take work off and go to the soccer game? Whatever I choose to do I don’t focus and dwell on the other one. My kids not going to cry if I miss his soccer game and I’m not going to cry about missing it if I chose to work and if I go to the soccer game I’m not going to be worried about those three phones that I might miss. 

 

Jim Rembach:   That’s good perspective.

 

Erick Seversen:   So balancing that triangle of self-life and family is my biggest goal right now. 

 

Jim Rembach:   The Fast Leader legion wishes you the very best. Now before we move on let’s get a quick word from our sponsor.

 

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Jim Rembach:   Alright here we go Fast Leader legion it’s time for the Hump Day Hoedown. Okay, Erik, the hump day hoedown is a part of our show where you give us good insights fast. So I’m going to ask you several questions and your job is to give us a robust get rapid responses that are going to help us move onward and upward faster. Erik Serversen, are you ready to hoedown?

 

Erick Seversen:   Yes I am. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Alright. What do you think is holding you back from being an even better leader today?

 

Erik Seversen:   Time. Not time management because I’m pretty good at it, it’s time. I try like Jockey Will Nick does and wake up early but I can’t do this—4:30 in the morning, so I do the best I can, but it is time. 

 

Jim Rembach:   What is the best leadership advice you have ever received?  

 

Erick Seversen:   Give more and it comes back to you.

 

Jim Rembach:   What is one of your secrets that you believe contributes to your success?

 

Erick Seversen:   Praying every single day and I also meditate every single day. I pray multiple times throughout the day and I meditate and that time really I think helps me get more done in my 24-hours of a day.

 

Jim Rembach:   What do you feel is one of your best tools that helps you lead in business or life?

 

Erick Seversen:   Loving and compassion and gratitude. Loving and gratitude—

 

Jim Rembach:   What would be one book that you’d recommend to our listeners it could be from any genre, of course we’ll put that the link that we had mentioned to your upcoming book Ordinary to Extraordinary, and the landing page as well.

 

Erick Seversen:   It’s going to be, The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz. This book is written in 1959, every single time I read it I get more out of it and it just has so many gems on how we can be more successful with small changes in our life and thinking absolutely huge with big tall goals. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Okay, Fast Leader legion you can find links to that and other bonus information for today’s show by going to fastleader.net/ Erik Seversen. Okay, Erik, this is my last Hump Day Hoedown question: Imagine you were given the opportunity go back to the age 25 and you’ve been given the opportunity to take the knowledge and skill that you have now back with you. But you can’t take everything back you can only choose one. What skill or a piece of knowledge would you take back with you and why?

 

Erick Seversen:   I would take back the piece of advice that—getting past fear leads to really good things. I was pretty good about it when I was 25 but I was still experimenting and I was fearful of what’s going to happen in my future and so now seeing where it’s come and that strategy has paid off, so work through fears turn fear into positive energy, motivated energy. 

 

Jim Rembach:   Erik, it was an honor to spend time with you today can you please share with the Fast Leader Legion how they can connect with you? 

 

Erick Seversen:   Erik at erikseversen.com, the website has links to all that and the easiest way to get to me is just through there.

 

Jim Rembach:   Erik Seversen, thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom the Fast Leader Legion honors you and thanks you for helping us get over the hump. Woot! Woot! 

 

Thank you for joining me on the Fast Leader show today. For recaps, links from every show, special offers and access to download and subscribe, if you haven’t already, head on over the fastleader.net so we can help you move onward and upward faster.

 

END OF AUDIO

 

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