Joe Sanok 00:00:00 Want to know the secret sauce to skyrocketing your group practice? Whether you’re already a group practice owner or aspire to be one, the Group Practice Boss Conference in beautiful Traverse City, Michigan on May 6th and seventh, 2025 is designed just for you. This isn’t your typical conference. Expect TEDx style talks that are short, focused, and packed with actionable insights. But we believe the real magic happens when you connect with others in the field, so we’ve built in plenty of time for networking and deep conversations. You’ll leave not just with a clear plan for success, but also with new friends and a support system that will help you along the way. Don’t miss out! Reserve your spot today at practice of the practice. Com forward slash conference. Again, that’s practice of the practice. Com forward slash conference. This is the Practice the Practice podcast with Joe Sam, accession number 1087. I’m Joe Santos, you’re hosting welcome to the practice of the practice podcast, where we help you to build a thriving practice you absolutely love. Joe Sanok 00:01:21 We do that through interviewing authors, through interviewing all sorts of people that will help you level up. sometimes we do solo shows. It’s rare, but I actually just did one two days ago on September 25th, and it’s the ultimate roadmap to scaling your group practice in 2025. I covered strategies, insights, and actionable steps. So if you missed that just two days ago, episode 1085, make sure you check that out. We also just did our Level Up series where we talked about the busy brain care. We talked about body image and kids. we talked about, with Ted speakers about the secret of becoming mentally strong, treating trauma, parenting with less anger. Also leadership and culture, hiring team members. And then in the last episode, we talked about depression and music. So a lot of awesome episodes we just had. So make sure you check that out. Also, save the date. the group practice boss conference is coming to Traverse City, Michigan May 6th and seventh, 2025. Tickets go on sale November 4th. Joe Sanok 00:02:21 Publicly, we want to make sure that you get access to that. we gave first access. we’re giving because it’s September right now. We’re giving first access to our group practice boss members and to our consulting clients and to some of our sponsors who are probably of the 120 tickets going to have only about 50 or 60 available to the general public. So you’re going to want to make sure that you go over to practice of the practice.com/conference, to check that out, to be on the waitlist so that you can grab your spot in Northern Michigan is absolutely beautiful in May. I’ve lived here my whole life, you know, went off to college, you know, when on road trips, things like that. But, spring is just gorgeous here in northern Michigan, so you are going to want to be here. We’re going to be doing the conference in sort of a Ted style, where it’s shorter talks, and that we have lots of time for you to connect with other people. To me, that’s always the best part of a conference, is meeting people there and having these lifelong friendships of connections and colleagues. Joe Sanok 00:03:16 So, speaking of connections and colleagues, I am so excited to have Eric Severson with me. Eric is a TEDx X and keynote speaker who’s reached over a million people through his public speaking and live courses. He’s visited 99 countries and all 50 states in the US, and has climbed the highest mountains on all for content on four continents, 15 countries and 18 states. Eric has published 15 bestselling books on topics of mindset, success and peak performance, and he’s helped over 300 people become bestselling authors. He’s a full time writer, book consultant, and speaker, and lives by the idea that success is available to everyone, that living an extraordinary life is a choice. Eric, welcome to the practice of the Practice podcast. Erik Seversen 00:03:58 Thank you Joe. I’m really excited to be here. I mean, it’s pretty impressive to be on 1087 episode. not many make it that far. And I love what you’re doing. I’ve listened to a lot of your podcasts myself, so I’m really excited to be here now. Joe Sanok 00:04:11 Well, thank you so much. Joe Sanok 00:04:12 Yeah. It’s one of those things that, you know, we have enough sponsors that want to sponsor the show. And if listeners that participate in it, I get to be at the, you know, the tip of the spear and I get to have these exciting conversations and then the rest of the team, helps put it out and, you know, pay for it and all that. So, yeah, I definitely couldn’t do it without an amazing team, but thank you. Yeah, it’s funny, because I was I was just thinking how, like episode 87, you know, as I was approaching episode 100 seemed like such a milestone. And, you know, now we’re at, you know, 1087. It’s crazy. Erik Seversen 00:04:40 Oh, yeah, it sure is. It’s great. Joe Sanok 00:04:42 Well, before we dive into all this other stuff, which four mountains have you climbed? Erik Seversen 00:04:46 So the of the continents. So Kilimanjaro in Africa? Elbrus in Russia. Aconcagua in South America and and that one was in Europe. Erik Seversen 00:04:59 And then, Kieran Toole, I mean, Kosciuszko in Australia. I actually tried to climb Denali, the highest in North America this last year, in May. And I made it pretty high. But I made it through the crux of the climb, which is an 800 foot ice wall. And I proceeded to to pass out. And so I was with guides. So that was my mandatory turnaround time. So I’ll probably be back at that one at some point. But one of the reasons I love climbing mountains is it’s it pushes my mentally and physically and it’s very similar. Going into the mountains is very similar to how I approach work, where it’s the grind to to get the hard things done that make you most proud afterwards. Joe Sanok 00:05:43 Yeah. You know, I remember between undergrad and grad school, I decided to to take a year off and I spent that year traveling and one of the places that I went was to Nepal and did the Tokyo reroute to have what’s said to be the best view of Everest. Joe Sanok 00:05:59 So we could either have gone up to the base of Everest Base camp and said that we touched it, or, you know, go up to Goku and have a view of it. And man, like when you are at those heights, I think Goku is just under 20,000ft. it feels like no matter how much you train, the thin air just kicks your butt. like even some of the supplements that our doctors had recommended. it just made it feel like I could run, but, like, I couldn’t run because the air was so thin. Like, I had more energy than I could could do anything with. Erik Seversen 00:06:31 Yeah, it’s really crazy. So the highest I’ve been is about 23,000ft. And that was in on Aconcagua, the highest in the Andes in South America. And it’s another world once you get that high. I mean, it’s like taking ten steps and having to rest and ten steps and having to rest, and it’s pretty wild. And also when I passed out on Denali. I felt so strong that day, I was everything was going great and I’m roped to somebody else. Erik Seversen 00:06:58 And he was going a little, just barely faster than I was comfortable as we were going up the ice wall. And this is like on a fixed line with crampons, ice axe, all that. and then when we got to the top of the the ice wall, I just couldn’t get my breath and I felt so strong. It’s crazy. But I just said I need to rest for a second. Stabbed my ice axe in the side of the mountain, leaned against the mountain, and then that that was it. And so it’s it’s a whole nother world up there. But again, that’s it. I like to I like to get to those boundaries that, that I’m unfamiliar with. Yeah. Joe Sanok 00:07:31 You know, and I don’t know you well enough to know if this is going to be an offensive question or not. But sometimes people that talk about peak performance, they talk about, kind of optimizing your life. They have this like hustle culture, kind of do everything, push yourself to the limits all the time. Joe Sanok 00:07:47 And it’s at the expense of Expensive, oftentimes friends and family and like other things in life that maybe are a little bit slower. What do you think about kind of that critique of the peak performance world? Erik Seversen 00:07:58 Yeah, I love that, Joe. I’m so glad you mentioned it. When we were talking pre-recording, you asked if there’s anything that I would like to to share, and that’s actually something I didn’t mention, but I was actually thinking about that. I really strongly believe that there needs to be a life work balance, and I don’t even call it life work because I consider it life. It’s kind of like drawing from Richard Branson’s quote, I don’t think of it as work, as work and life as life. It’s all living. and that’s kind of how I do. I agree with your camp. I like the idea of the four hour work, the four day workweek. and I was actually inspired by, Tim’s book, The Four Hour Workweek. I put that to the test. I left the corporate world in 2016 is when I started my my this company. Erik Seversen 00:08:43 I’ve started other companies, but I basically tried to document what could I be financially independent with a with a lot of free time in a certain amount of time. And the fact as it worked right now, I work hard so don’t I hope this doesn’t translate as lazy, but I my workday is pretty much from six in the morning till 2 p.m. and with a long lunch in in there as well. because I want that balance so I could be more productive with more time spent, but I would rather go for a long walk or go surfing with my son at 230 in the afternoon than get X more done in my workday. So I’m right with you. I think we need that balance. And one more thing is I’m kind of on a roll. I, think that there’s three things to the balance. I think we need to balance work, family, life, but also the self. A lot of people neglect the self, so they’re the best husband they could be and then they’re best worker, but then they’re they’re lacking something in themselves. Erik Seversen 00:09:38 And that’s one of the reasons I climb mountains, because it’s a solo thing. I’ve done it with my sons a few mountains too, but for some of the big ones, it’s it’s something I’m doing for myself. Not for my wife, not for my work, but for myself. And I think that needs to be part of that triangle. Joe Sanok 00:09:52 I am so glad you brought that up. I mean, I’ve talked about this on the podcast a bunch. That’s why I do improv. For a long time, I was a curler. Every Tuesday I would do curling, and then, you know, found improv. And for me, it it just makes me laugh. Like being with all these other kind of theater kid like types that are just creative and come up with the wackiest characters. I just find it personally really entertaining. And for me, I’ve gotten to kind of longer form improv, which is where, you know, it’s 20 minutes to an hour long where we get a prompt and it just is this crazy story that unfolds. Joe Sanok 00:10:26 And to see people’s creativity on my team of how they weave things together. And then I add something and they had something, and it becomes something that no single one of us could have written or planned. and for me, there’s just something just magical for myself about that. And if the audience comes along and they laugh at it, great. But honestly, it’s just it’s one of those things that I think that we all need to have those hobbies that give us fulfillment for just the sake of fulfillment instead of that, oh, I’m doing improv to be a better public speaker or to help my business. There’s just no, it’s just for fun. Erik Seversen 00:10:56 Absolutely, Joe. I love that, and it’s for you. But like you said, there’s a positive wake. There’s a positive afterglow because of it. For both you, the people you’re you synergize with during this performances and also, of course, the crowd as well. So I love that when it’s just a win win win all around. Joe Sanok 00:11:14 So there’s a ton of listeners that are doing really good work, like trauma work, and they’re thinking, how do I level up beyond my practice or beyond my group practice? And they might be thinking about writing a book or things like that. Joe Sanok 00:11:25 Now you have a book on AI coming out. And I think that’s really interesting that you’re a public speaker, you’re doing peak performance type things, but then you’re getting into AI. So I want to start there, but then I also want to make sure we spend some time digging into how people can think through their own book that they might want to write and how they might want to find a publisher and things like that. But first, so how did you go from just like being a public speaker and doing these sorts of things to then writing a book on AI? Erik Seversen 00:11:52 All right. So the books that I produce. So I’ve written three solo books that are 100% mine. most of the books that I’ve, I’ve produced are co author books and I was and I was just coming up. It’s like sometimes, you know, things just start happening coming up in conversations everywhere. And then I was talking with one of potential author for a book called Peak Performance Mindset Tools for managers. And he kept talking about how if only managers understood AI better, they could do this. Erik Seversen 00:12:20 If only managers got that, I could help them with this. If only managers realized that if their their teams were using AI for this and and and I follow the theme of what’s popular usually mindset, holistic ways of looking at health and workplace, my the balance of our lives, etc. and I realized just the light bulb went off. Oh my gosh, AI is right now just entering the common conversation. It has been around for a while, quite a while, but it’s just now entering the conversation of people who aren’t in science, aren’t encoding, aren’t aren’t in things like that. And so I decided that needed to be the next book. And I’m not an expert in AI, Joe, but one of the best things about what I do is I get to meet all these wonderful people who are doing interesting things. And so I decided to make this next book about AI. And the reason is, I could very easily miss the AI bus and keep doing what I’m doing without using the tool of different tools of AI to bolster, to help me be more productive and save time. Erik Seversen 00:13:28 but I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to miss the AI bus. The whole goal of this next book, which is going to be called the AI mindset, and it’s basically thriving through society’s next big disruption, is to help people who are either afraid of AI or don’t understand AI, to realize that they can really grow with AI and be some of those people who are actually more successful and more productive than they currently are, or they might fall behind. I don’t think AI is going to steal jobs, but I think people who use AI effectively are going to have a huge advantage in Excel over people who don’t use AI effectively. Joe Sanok 00:14:05 Yeah. You know, I, probably six months ago decided to upgrade my, my accounts and to be able to kind of use, like, more a more robust AI, and to just start playing with it for as many things as I would think of, like, I wish I knew I had an assistant that did this or did this, and it’s been really fun and interesting to to just play with it in different ways. Joe Sanok 00:14:26 recently I was on a consulting call with one of my clients, and she’s going to be doing a podcast tour for a new therapeutic product that she’s launching and selling through Amazon. And, I, I said to the eye. I said, I want you to think like a podcast booker that specializes in getting guests onto high ranking podcasts. so reflect back to me what you’re going to do, and then it reflected it back accurately. and I said, here’s, you know, 5 or 6 of the types of podcasts in the mental health space that I think would be a good fit. I want you to find ten more that would be in a similar space. So I’m kind of testing it out ahead of time and give me ten more. and then when I got that right, I said, okay, I want you to make a list of 100 podcasts that would fit those criteria. I want their contact information. I want their website. I want a summary of the show. your guess as to how many listeners there are based on the data that you can find. Joe Sanok 00:15:20 and then I want you to put it into a Excel type spreadsheet so that we can keep track of it with a virtual assistant. It was amazing. you know, now, this this client of mine is having her executive assistant directly reach out to these podcasters because there is some kind of personal touch that you still want, but just thinking about that, that’s something that that would have taken 10 or 15 hours of research for an executive assistant to find a list of 100 good quality podcasts to pitch to you. what do you think about that process? And also, how are you using it just personally in your business? Erik Seversen 00:15:55 Yeah. So I have a lot of room to grow in how I’m using it. Personally. I use it. For example, sometimes I give people, you know, advice on certain like book production things. And now, I will spit out a lot of that. Just just general advice. Pretty good. I still think, though, there’s a human element that that’s not going to go away. Erik Seversen 00:16:14 and that’s another thing. But one of my good friends, he was doing his PhD, when I was at UCLA and we were roommates and still one of my best friends, and he’s one of the head scientists for Procter Gamble. And he said as the so he he leads the micro machinery lab for Procter Gamble, has for a really long time. So he started the lab back over 20 years ago and and he said now to keep up with everything that’s going on. He has to spend. I think it was 10 or 20%. I think it was 20 actually 20% of his his time, keeping up with AI or learning about AI just to stay relevant. And he but he used to spend a lot of time coding and now he said I barely code at all. I will give a prompt of what I needed, coded, go in through a bunch of tests, do a little bit of troubleshooting, and, and my, you know, 150,000 line code is done in minutes. and then of course, there’s like I said, the testing, and also one of his, somebody who is reporting to him had to give in, give this report, and he got it. Erik Seversen 00:17:17 And she’s English as her second language. And he gets this report and it’s the best report she’s ever written. And so he he emailed back, I smiley face and she wrote back. Yes. And that’s not cheating. That’s her using technology to make her reports better. and similarly, this is the same guy. We had a long conversation about this recently. there was a they were they after they launch a product, they will interview people about the they’ll give it to certain people to use. And then they do these long interviews. And so they had eight interviews and one day an hour each eight hours of interview. He had to miss that day for some reason. Normally he’s always there for those. And they said, don’t worry, we’re going to have somebody transcribe it and give you a report on it. And so he quickly downloaded all the eight hours of audio of these interviews and said, basically summarize each one of them. Four days later, he gets a human report by somebody who manually did the same thing. Erik Seversen 00:18:15 And he said the AI one was almost identical to the one that took a human four days to do, and it spit it out in less than a minute. Joe Sanok 00:18:23 Oh my gosh. As a therapist, I can tell you from experience that having the right EHR is an absolute lifeline. I recommend using therapy notes. They make billing, scheduling, note taking, telehealth and e-prescribing incredibly easy. Best of all, they offer live telephone support. It’s available seven days a week. You don’t have to take my word for it. Do your own research and see for yourself. Therapy notes is the number one highest rated EHR system available today, with a 4.9 out of five stars on Trustpilot. Com and on Google, all you have to do is click the link below or type promo code Joe on their website over at Therapy notes.com and receive a special two month trial. Absolutely free. Again, that’s therapy notes at Com and use promo code Joe on the website. If you’re coming from another EHR therapy notes will also import your demographic data quick and easy at no cost, so you can get started right away. Joe Sanok 00:19:30 Trust me, don’t waste any more of your time and try therapy notes. Just use promo code Joe at checkout. Yeah. So as you’re so you’re talking to all these experts in AI, and I love that you’re bringing together some of these amazing minds. What what themes are you noticing? What opportunities like we have all therapists that are listening. And I do think that some therapists are worried that AI is going to somehow create these like therapy bots that don’t do good ethical therapy. But, like, what are the things that you’re seeing that are are common threads, common discussions, common opportunities that as you talk to these people that are really in that field that they’re talking about. Erik Seversen 00:20:11 So one of the one of the things that comes up a lot is, is the regulations. as far as like therapy and things like that, I personally I maybe my this I’m somebody who changes my opinion with light of new information when it comes. right now I still think that there is some an essential human connection that cannot be replaced with AI. Erik Seversen 00:20:31 I think you can get tons of information. Like you said, you can say, I think like this type of therapist, give this type of advice, that advice is going to be there. But sometimes a touch on the knee as you’re looking to somebody’s eyes, you know, it goes a long way, I think. So I do think that there is going to be an emotional intelligence that AI is going to learn how to mimic, but I think they’re still going to need to be some human connection. But a lot of the conversations I’m having with these experts deal with things like regulation. So, for example, one person that I know of is literally moving from France to Ireland because I think it was France, Ireland. I’m not, don’t quote me in that part, but moving from one country to another, because the restrictions in AI are different and they’re being limited by that. I definitely think we need the bumpers on the on the on the bowling lanes. We need to have, regulations, restrictions and things like that. Erik Seversen 00:21:26 But there has to be that line of because technology is going to advance it. Technology is going to continue to grow with or without restrictions. And I think we need to find I don’t know what it is either. That line. I know quite a few people have said that working in AI in the United States is quite a bit easier than working in AI in the EU because of different types of restrictions. So that’s going to be a question that comes up and continues to come up, and somehow that we’re going to have to find that balance. But also this I was recently talking with one of the people who’s going to be in the next book, and he was like, seriously puzzled over the idea of AI generating a conscience, a consciousness like, and these, these things are going to be even more relevant in, you know, three or 4 or 5 years that I don’t think anybody knows exactly where AI is going to go. And the wild thing is, this is another conversation I had yesterday that for every societal disruption from the Industrial revolution, the invention of the internet, mostly in like farm equipment. Erik Seversen 00:22:40 mostly what we’ve done is we’ve figured out how to solve a problem, and we know it exactly what the result will be. if I’ve got a harvester, for example, that that picks pick picks, peas, it’s going to do the exact same thing on a bigger scale every time. This is the first time. Internet. Same thing. It’s basically we’re doing a similar thing only on a bigger scale with more websites, etc., etc. this is the first time with AI that we’re not just repeating the same result. We’re we’re having a giant disruption, but we do not know what the end result will be. yeah. Joe Sanok 00:23:14 Wow. So if you were to just say, like, here’s 2 or 3 areas that therapists should be really thinking about AI based on your interviews and kind of the research you’ve been doing, and then we’ll transition into some book writing kind of discussion. But what are just a handful of areas that you would say. Here’s where therapists should really be aware when it comes to AI. Erik Seversen 00:23:35 Yeah, I think like you said, if you just do a prompt, think like, what would a Tony Robbins coach say about this? What would a Bob Proctor coach say about this? What would a neuro linguistic programming coach say about this? I think we have access to the way of thinking of a lot of different fields that we didn’t before. Erik Seversen 00:23:57 I mean, you could read all those books I’ve read quite of. I’ve read books in every one of those fields. Right. But to just quickly, with a real issue get what would the way of thinking of this type of this, this field do? I think that adds so much value because we want multiple perspectives. One of the things, one of the recent books that I put out was called the Life Coaches Toolkit, and the whole goal of that book was to get life coaches who have been trained and usually one field, and they’re experts and they’re really good at it to to understand that there are so many different ways of looking at things, and they can borrow from the tools that they like, and they can not use the tools that they don’t like. But the AI is giving us quick, quick access to ways of thinking about individual problem issues. And I really love that and I think it’s very valuable. Joe Sanok 00:24:49 So awesome. Now you’ve helped people for a really long time to get book deals to help with their writing projects. Joe Sanok 00:24:57 when you think about therapists, why should they be thinking about writing a book? Erik Seversen 00:25:02 I think everybody has a story and or a message in them. And therapists particularly, I mean, we can we can do so much good. when I was on my TEDx stage, there were a few therapists that were also that I shared the stage with. And both of them have books. And so hearing their TEDx was wonderful. And I got, you know, 13 minutes of material from them that was just wonderful. But for them to be able to expand the reach and in with their book has been so great, and I was able to learn a lot more from their books. But for them the main thing was expanding their reach. And for me, that’s my main goal is is helping people on a wide scale. I love public speaking. I absolutely love it. My biggest stage was over 750,000 people in India. and that was pretty exciting. But that was, you know, I reached that was the exception. Erik Seversen 00:25:57 Most of my stages are few hundred, right? with my books, I’m able to touch such a wide audience. And also I’ve found because I’ve done, you know, blogs and other, you know, articles, shorter articles, somehow the, the larger book, the ability to reach a wider audience. And so my goal is to allow people to get their story out and get that message out. And so for a for a therapist who has a great online practice, a great face to face practice. I think if they don’t have a book, it’s kind of a missing piece of the puzzle for their practice, and I, I love the I love to be able to meet somebody in hand them my book, you know, meet somebody in a business situation was what I’m talking about usually and be able to hand them my book. They suddenly have a whole nother level of understanding about what I can do, what I offer. Joe Sanok 00:26:49 Yeah. And I think that it also opens so many doors when you’re promoting the book, you know, it’s like you and I wouldn’t have met if you hadn’t written a bunch of books and Josh had found you. Joe Sanok 00:26:59 Or however this interview came about, there’s a certain legitimacy, especially when a publisher says, yeah, we’re going to publish your book. even just seeing how since, you know, Harpercollins published Thursday as The New Friday. And then I was featured in the Harvard Business Review book about working smarter and boundaries and things like that, to then have that stamp of Harvard Business Review and Harpercollins. That’s just a different level of this guy knows what he’s talking about, because both those places have huge vetting processes. They look at what you’ve written and they, you know, challenge the research and, you know, make sure that what they’re putting their name on is the standard that they expect out of their own authors. And so I think that to to get those kind of seals, then you end up getting access to different levels of speaking and all that sort of stuff. Erik Seversen 00:27:47 Oh man, Joe, you nailed it. I my first book called Ordinary to Extraordinary, I published 100% just for fun. They’re true first person narratives about my life. Erik Seversen 00:27:57 But the whole idea is how do we if we see meaning in our life, we need to celebrate that because some people don’t celebrate what they the meaning they see in their life, or because they don’t see it, they don’t recognize it. And the whole goal was also, if you don’t see meaning in your life, you need to create it. And I give four ways how and that book, like I said, I did it just for fun. Thin Leaf Press picked it up and, it, it went gangbusters. and I led to my first. Oh, I did other people. Public speaking. But a public speaking request because of the book. Then a second one, then a third one. And in no time at all. It was multi thousand dollar speaking engagements being requested for the sole reason that I got that book out. It would have never happened without that. It went so far that I quit my job as Vice President of International Business Development for a company to speak full time. Erik Seversen 00:28:45 the good the good thing is it went great for two months. The bad thing that is, that was January 2020. So it disappeared in March 2020 because of Covid. And then I dove back into the books. But that that one book I went out led to a full time public speaking, career. But now I’ve changed back to the book since Covid 19. Joe Sanok 00:29:06 now, Eric, you know. Joe Sanok 00:29:07 If people are thinking, I’m not sure what, what I should write about, I’m good at all these different areas. I have all these different interests. for me, working with a coach helped me with my writing to just kind of puke up all my ideas, organize them. Very similar to therapy where you got all this stuff going on in your brain, and then you start to notice patterns when you get it out. that was really helpful in the brainstorming process. Now, would you recommend, like whether they’re working with someone like you or another writing coach? Should people have a good idea of the direction they want to head? Or if they’re like, I’m not really sure what I should be spending my time on in regards to writing a book like, is it helpful, in your opinion, to have a coach that early on, or should you kind of have your idea fleshed out a little bit? Erik Seversen 00:29:48 No, I, I totally think having a coach early on is a great idea. Erik Seversen 00:29:51 I love the quote and I can’t I’m dying to find out. If anybody knows. Please let me know where this comes from. I think it was one of the authors in my book, but I can’t find it. The quote is not all athletes have coaches, but all Olympic athletes have coaches. So if you want to write a good book, there’s no reason not to have a coach. and so and I think early on helps too. And when I coach, I tell people up front, I’ll usually have them send me their idea of what the book is and I’ll give like, you know, two cent advice on it. And then I say to them, usually, if it’s a good idea, which it often is, I say, you have the ability to write this whole book yourself, I said. However, in my experience, people who don’t have somebody keeping them accountable will drift off and get busy with other things and it’s not going to happen. So one of the main things I do is I meet with people and sometimes I meet once a week, sometimes I meet once a month, sometimes I meet, you know, even less than that. Erik Seversen 00:30:46 I meet as much or as little as somebody needs. But the main thing I’m able to do is just keep them moving, keep them, keep them going on the book. Because the easiest way to fall out of not finishing your book is to not have somebody keeping you accountable. But then there also also are writing strategies. For example, somebody I helped, produce her book recently. Her ideas were top notch. I was in love with every single word she wrote in her book. But then I said to her, this is all information I said readers need to connect with a story. So we went through every chapter and actually had her write a story or a true story about every point she was making. And the book was way, way, way better. And because of that. And so those are ways we can help as well. and then that, then when it gets to book production, that’s a big mystery unless you’ve done it. And so there’s where a lot of coaching takes place, is just producing the book. Erik Seversen 00:31:41 And then either hybrid publishing, self-publishing or going whichever route the author feels is best. Joe Sanok 00:31:47 Yeah. You know. Joe Sanok 00:31:49 For me, I think it’s really important to just start capturing ideas early in the process. And so, I set up a Trello board that, I just had a couple lists in there that was stories. And so this could be stories I saw in the news. It could be my own stories that I remember, like just not even knowing where they’re going to fit in. and then I had another list that was researched. And so if there was a research article I read or, you know, some stat that I saw that idea of kind of 40% being story, 40% being researched, and about 20% being. Here’s the big takeaway for the the reader. That was kind of the model I was looking at, similar to like a Malcolm Gladwell or Dan Pink book. what what things do you have that you think are good similar to that? early on to be just capturing all the ideas that we have around a topic. Erik Seversen 00:32:38 Yeah. And for sure, I encourage people to write about what they’re most excited about. some people say, oh, I could write about this, this or this. And my, my answer is, what are you most passionate about? Because for sure, that’s going to be the best one. And also I think, finding when you’re going to write makes a big deal to some people kind of try and write whatever they, they, they can. And I like to try and get into a routine. I’m, I’m a morning person. I like to write early in the morning. I work with people who like to write late at night. And. But finding that routine and being consistent is one of the one of the best things. But as far as the topic goes, what you’re most passionate about and of course you need it. You need it to be something. There’s a find the problem that you’re answering, and be very clear that you are not just excited about this topic for no reason. Erik Seversen 00:33:28 You’re excited about it because you’re solving a problem for people. And that’s that’s a big deal, is letting the people know exactly what problem that you can solve, because then they’re going to want to read more. Joe Sanok 00:33:39 So awesome. Joe Sanok 00:33:40 Well Eric I feel like we could go on and on. There’s so much information that you have and thoughts on this. The last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know? Erik Seversen 00:33:53 I think for in my experience, I’ve started three companies, sold a few and actually started four. Sold to, one failed. And, I still have one. And I think the last company I created, kind of early on, I got involved with three other business owners, and we made it a point to really keep each other accountable, because when you’re 100% self-employed, it’s hard to keep your direction right. It’s easy to get distracted by tasks that aren’t, as, as, fruitful. it’s easy to get, to, to not show up to, to work. Erik Seversen 00:34:31 so if you’re self-employed, if you’re a practitioner and you have a business or a practice or a coaching, coaching, business, I think having accountability is one of the best ways to just be consistent in working towards what you want to be your finish line, because it’s really easy to get distracted without that. So that would be it. It’s fine. People either coach, but that you pay which works way great, or find a few other business owners that also might need the same thing and can benefit from each other and find ways to keep each other on track and be accountable for what your goals are each year and each quarter. Joe Sanok 00:35:07 So awesome. Eric, if people want to work with you, if they want to learn more about what you’re doing by your books. Where should we send them? Erik Seversen 00:35:14 my LinkedIn profile. Eric Severson is, I’ve got a lot of stuff there. And then my website is Eric severson.com. and if anybody wants to get Ahold, I’m a LinkedIn message there or Eric at Eric severson.com. Erik Seversen 00:35:28 Those are those are the easiest ways. Joe Sanok 00:35:31 So awesome. Well Eric, thank you so much for being on the practice of the practice podcast. Erik Seversen 00:35:35 Thank you Joe. I really appreciated this. Joe Sanok 00:35:46 Well, I hope this was inspiring for you today. so often, especially when we’re making so many episodes, you might be listening to, you know, a couple of weeks that interest you. so often we listen and think, that’s the action. That’s not the action, that’s the information. you can consume, consume, consume. But if you don’t do anything with it, it’s the same as consuming food and not moving your body. So I would love for you to take some action on this. Start working on your book. Start playing with AI. Start figuring out how you can level yourself up in a way that aligns with what you want out of life, like we started with at the very beginning. This isn’t about hustle culture. It’s not about, just killing ourselves in order to, just somehow have that, I don’t know, that mentality where I just always have to be making money, I always have to be producing. Joe Sanok 00:36:33 But it’s also the world needs your brain. You’re smart at the therapy. You do. there are things you say and do that are intuitive to you, that to others is just mind blowing. And we need that work to be out in the world. And I would love to support you in that. If you’re launching things, you know, reach out. we’re always looking for podcast guests. We’d love to hear what you’re working on and see how we can support you more. We also couldn’t do the show without our amazing sponsors. Therapy notes is our sponsor today. It is the best electronic health record out there. whether you are doing billing or doing, all the other aspects of electronic health records. Doing, say telling me things like that. I just actually had a counseling session with my therapist, and they switched to a non therapy notes provider. And it was so frustrating. Took everything in me to to not say, why don’t you just switch over to therapy notes. but saying that to to a therapist, just not probably the smartest thing to do to, you know, someone that’s helping you out. Joe Sanok 00:37:30 you don’t need to be giving them business advice, but therapy notes is so easy. Go check them out. Therapy notes.com. Use promo code Joe at checkout. You’re going to get a couple months for free. And I thank you so much for letting me into your ears, into your brain. Have a great day. I’ll talk to you soon. Special thanks to the band Silences Sexy for that intro music. 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