In this episode of the Business Blast Podcast, host Tyler Wagner interviews Erik Severson, a writer, speaker, entrepreneur, educator, and world traveler. Erik opens with a harrowing story of a border crossing from Benin to Nigeria where a police guard jammed a machine gun into his mouth, using the memory as a mental trigger to put fear in perspective during stressful moments. He shares two high‑impact pieces of expertise: (1) teaching English as a second language, where deep breathing helps learners speak more confidently, and (2) business lead management, citing a Grant Cardone statistic that responding to an online lead within five minutes increases the chance of closing by 500%. Erik emphasizes the importance of focus—pursuing one primary goal to completion before spreading effort across many projects. He advises his younger self to reframe fear as positive energy that can enhance performance. On happiness, Erik argues it is a byproduct of a meaningful life, cultivated through belonging, storytelling, and contributing to something larger than oneself, whether via nonprofit or purpose‑driven business. The book that impacted him most is The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz, which taught him to set extraordinarily large goals. His favorite quote, attributed to Elon Musk, is that ordinary people can choose to be extraordinary, a principle he strives to help others discover. The episode concludes with Erik’s contact information and a teaser for his upcoming book.
Chapters
Alright everyone, welcome back to the Business Blast Podcast. Today I'm with Eric Severson. He is a writer, speaker, entrepreneur, educator, and he's traveled to over 80 countries, and his mission in life is to help people succeed. And the first question I have for you today, Eric, is what's the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Thanks, Tyler Wagner. I'm absolutely happy to be here. One of the stories comes to mind during the travels of those 80 countries was crossing the border from Benin to Nigeria and getting a machine gun stuck into my mouth by an angry policeman, basically a guard. And the lesson that I learned from that is sometimes when I'm having a stressful day and there's fear pulsing through my veins over a business meeting, for example, I just take a big, big deep breath and I say, "Do you know what? I've had a machine gun stuck in my face. This really isn't that big of a deal." And for some reason, that's my trigger to just relax. Look at things calmly and move on. And one other kind of lesson from that experience was a guy in Nigeria, Nigerian, really helped me out later that day because he saw what had happened and he took me under his wing. And so, I had a beautiful experience in the end from the help of somebody. So, it was the start of my lifelong lesson of things work out in the end, no matter how bad something seems, things work out is one of my life mottos.
What's the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
All right, I've got two quick ones. So one industry is English language learning. I taught English as a second language for many, many years in different countries, especially at the intermediate level. People speak better than they think they do. So taking a deep breath and relaxing is one of the best ways to speak a second language better. And then the second one is in business where it's shocking to me how many people let leads float away. 50% of somebody on an online lead purchase a product from the first one that gets back to them. And then a staggering stat that I got from Grant Cardone is if you can respond to an online lead within 5 minutes, you have a 500% greater chance of closing that into a sale. So pretty amazing. A lot of people don't think speed is that important, but it really is.
Wow, that's— I did not know that. I actually live down in Miami Beach, so I'm pretty close to Grant Cardone. I just want to chime in there quick. What's your best piece of overall business advice?
Focus. It's so easy to see opportunities, even good ones, and start to spread ourselves too thin by chasing opportunities. And sometimes the kind of squirrel factor or chasing silver coins in bushes really gets us off point towards our main mission we need to accomplish. So I do believe in having multiple things going on at once, but I believe in having one thing that you're focusing on most Until that is done, everything else needs to be secondary rather than being 90% done with 10 things, being totally done with 3.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
This kind of goes back to the fear I mentioned earlier. I think fear actually is a positive thing for us sometimes. A lot of people become paralyzed with fear and become stopped because of it. But if we just take a deep breath again and translate that fear into positive energy, that's our body telling us that there's something special happening. We're in fight or flight mode. If we're in a negotiation, if we're in a sport or something like that, that fear actually makes us more alert, more strong, better. And so if we just focus on how positive that energy of fear can be for us, we can go a lot further than we can being debilitated by it.
And in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?
All right. So, I'm going to start by saying I think the pursuit of happiness is overrated. I've seen people think that gaining a lot of money was going to make them happy. And when it happened, maybe they were more than I could tell, but I didn't see it. I've seen people who traveled around the world and looking for happiness and maybe didn't find it exactly. So, I think happiness does exist. I think it's a byproduct of finding a meaningful life. And I think a way to do that is one, to surround ourselves by great people, to have to feel a sense of belonging with family and friends, to be able to tell our story whether that's writing a blog or doing a podcast for that matter. Getting our story out and sharing the stories of others is a way to find meaning. And ultimately, finding a purpose in life I think is the key to result in happiness as the byproduct. I think that one of the best ways to do that is to find something greater than ourselves to contribute to the world. And that can be a nonprofit, it can be absolutely a for-profit business. Some of— a lot of people I know have very successful businesses, and that is a business that helps other people, and they find purpose from that, and the result is happiness.
And what's the best book you've read, and what was the number one thing you learned from it?
That's a tough one. I read a lot, love a lot of books. The one that came to mind when you said that is The Magic of Thinking Big, and I think it was written in 1959 by David Schwartz. I was turned on to that book by reading Timothy Ferriss and really got into it. The thing I got from The Magic of Thinking Big is if you have really, really big dreams and big goals and big thoughts, great things happen. If you If you fail at a goal that is 20 times further than everybody else's goal, you might have surpassed their goal by 5 times. And so that's it, the magic of thinking big.
And what's your favorite quote and why?
This one is Elon Musk. I think it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary. And I lived that myself before I even knew that it was a quote by Elon Musk. In fact, I lived it before he created it. I'm an example of an absolutely average person I'm a regular person from an average suburb of an average town, actually Tacoma up in Washington. I'm in Los Angeles now. And I've done some things that I really am proud of. Been to 80 countries, helped grow businesses. And so I think it's a choice to choose to be extraordinary. And again, my mission to help others. One of the things I really try and do is help people find the extraordinary within them because they've all got it.
Dude, thank you so much for coming on. Last question is, what's the best way for people to find you online and connect with you?
Alright, so if you Google Eric Severson, you'll find me pop up. I've got a website which is ericseverson.com. I'm gonna make a landing page for your listeners, Tyler, ericseverson.com/businessblast, and on that there'll be some free resources. I've got a book that's coming out in July. Your listeners will get it for half price. So it's E-R-I-K-S-E-V-E-R-S-E-N, erikseverson.com/businessblast for your listeners. So thanks, Tyler. This has been great.
Awesome, man. Thank you for coming on, and we will talk with you soon.
Sure, appreciate it.
The podcast you just heard was made using Anchor. Ever thought about making your own podcast? Anchor makes it really easy for anyone to get started. It's a one-stop shop for recording, hosting, and distributing podcasts. Best of all, it's 100% free. Sign up now at anchor.fm/new. That's anchor.fm/new to get started.
