Unlock Public Speaking Confidence: Lessons from Military, Survival TV, and TEDx with Terry L. Fossum

Tim Newman [00:00:10]:
Welcome back to Speaking with confidence podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results. Communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I’m Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach and and I’m thrilled to guide you on your journey to becoming a powerful communicator. Make sure you hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Today’s guest is Terry L. Fossum. Terry is a survival reality show winner, number one best selling author on Wall Street Journal, Amazon and Barnes and Noble. His TEDx talk debuted at number two in the world and is named one of the top 30 TEDx talks that has made impact in the country.

Tim Newman [00:00:51]:
He’s a highly successful keynote speaker and has raised millions for charities across the country. His award winning book, the simple guide to public speaking without losing your lunch has been lauded from everyone from astronauts to beauty queens, business and military leaders, even academia. He’s even taught at the MBA level. After his TEDx talk reached well over a million views and completely changed his world and many others around the globe, he developed a program to help others land and rockette X Talk so they can use the power of their voice to change their world and make a lot of money while doing it. Terry, welcome to the show. Yeah, I enjoyed our pre interview talk and I know this is going to be just as much fun.

Terry Fossum [00:01:33]:
Well, Tim, it’s great, great getting to know you. Absolutely. And yeah, I did feel that, you know, really related to you right away. Of course we’re both prior military, you know, that helps a bit.

Tim Newman [00:01:43]:
It does.

Terry Fossum [00:01:44]:
And yeah, no, but I appreciate what you’re doing to, to help people find their voice on this podcast because everybody has a message and if they’re on this podcast, they want to know how to get it out there better and make a difference in the world and in their own lives. So I really appreciate what you’re doing to help them do exactly that.

Tim Newman [00:02:02]:
Well, again, you know, I hope that it’s reaching people and helping people. You know, the feedback that I’ve gotten has been really good and you know, it’s primarily because of, of guests like you who are coming from all walks of life and bringing in, you know, their experiences and really showing people that doesn’t really matter who you are, where you are in life, what, you know, what your lot in life is. Everybody has a voice and everybody can share that. It just, you just have to be willing to do the work because you know, if you have some of those hang ups, doing the work is Hard.

Terry Fossum [00:02:40]:
Yeah, absolutely it is. But if you focus on why you’re doing the work, why you want your message to get out there, then suddenly it becomes less of a chore and more of a passion.

Tim Newman [00:02:52]:
Passion.

Terry Fossum [00:02:53]:
And when you come across with that, with that attitude and understanding, you do have passion within you. Do you think you do or not? Whether you cried when Old Yeller died or scream at your favorite football team or not, you know, you do have passion within you and you’ve proven it before. You just don’t remember. So that’s part of what I like helping people do when, when I’m working with them myself.

Tim Newman [00:03:14]:
Well, let’s get, get right into this. You know, we’ve talked about this. You’ve built yourself an amazing career. You’ve been a military officer, a business owner. You know, we Talked about the 10x talk and the speaker in the books and all these great things that you’ve done, but invariably everybody wants to talk about kicking and screaming.

Terry Fossum [00:03:34]:
Yeah, the survival show. I get it.

Tim Newman [00:03:38]:
Screaming. You know, we talked about this a little bit, you know, in the pre call and you know, I get it and I don’t get it. But why don’t you give us a little bit of, you know, insights into that experience and let’s look at it from a communication perspective. How important was communication in that experience with, with your partner in actually winning that contest?

Terry Fossum [00:03:58]:
Oh, baby. Oh, baby. Only critical. Only critical. But let’s give a little bit of background. First of all, I did not ask to be on any survival show. I did not want to be on any survival reality show. Have you seen what they make them eat?

Tim Newman [00:04:13]:
Exactly.

Terry Fossum [00:04:14]:
So I come down to my computer here one morning and I get this email out of the Blue Metals Flyer media casting company. We’re casting a brand new TV survival reality show pitting 10 of the top survival experts in the country against each other while dragging along a complete novice. He’s never even camped out in their backyard before. And we think you’d be great. Like, okay, wait, which one am I? But then also, Tim, if you get an email like that out of the blue, what do you think?

Tim Newman [00:04:45]:
It’s a scam. It’s a. Either it’s a scam or somebody’s messing. One of your best friends is messing with you.

Terry Fossum [00:04:54]:
And I do have those friends. We all do. But. So, yeah, it’s got to be fake. But there was a phone number on there and by the way, I called my wife and I told her about this email. My wife, by the way, runs a law firm and I said, okay, I just got this email. What do you think? And she’s like, I don’t know. There’s a phone.

Terry Fossum [00:05:09]:
So I call the phone number. It ended up being real. Okay, now I’m going to fast forward quite a bit to get to a couple of points here. Number one, I find out that I’m going to be the oldest competitor on the entire show. Show. So I’m like, oh my God, my wife’s making fun of me. She’s like, oh my God, you’re the tog. Like, tog? What’s that? You’re the token old guy, dude.

Terry Fossum [00:05:33]:
So I was going to be the guy that everybody’s like, oh, so cute. They’ve got the demographic on there, you know, but he gonna die. Now let’s add into that. They wanted me to represent all of Boy Scouts of America in my scoutmaster uniform. You know, they put the token Boy Scout on these shows these days. So once again, it’s like, oh, he looks so cute in his little neckerchief and everything, but he gonna die. Exactly. And when I got into the location, the first two people I met, one was a Marine scout sniper.

Terry Fossum [00:06:04]:
This is the dude that goes behind enemy lines and takes people out and tries not to die. One of the baddest dudes I’ve ever met in my life. The second one was United States military survival instructor. And I called my wife and I told her who I just met. Cause I could still call her at that point. And I said, hey, guess what, dear, I’m gonna die. So communication was critical because now I had to, because I was, you know, now scouts are better than we think we are. You know, making shelter, survival, you’re roughing and all that stuff, watching the weather, first aid, all that kind of stuff came in really, really handy.

Terry Fossum [00:06:41]:
But I’m still the underdog for the whole show. So I had to start, first of all communicating with my fellow survivalists, but especially with my novice, right? My novice was a pink and blue hair, fully tattooed up, tongue ring, atheist, admitted sex addict, online video gamer. Now why would they do that? Why would they pair her with me? Well, because I’m the Boy Scout, so it’s perfect to cause conflict, Right?

Tim Newman [00:07:12]:
Right.

Terry Fossum [00:07:13]:
With conflict necessitates communication. Which brings us to your point both ways. Because, you know, let’s be fair, she comes, they came, all the novices come up on a boat and all of us survivalists are standing there trying to look cool and everything, you know, for the camera. And you know that she is coming around looking all seeing all these studs, you know, men and women, young, tough, and the fat, old scout master, you know, she’s going, please, God, do not give me the old boy scout. Please do not. And. And then, of course, we’re paired together. So communication was key.

Terry Fossum [00:07:47]:
And we indeed did get into it at one point because we’re starving. I lost £25 on the show. Don’t worry, I found it again. And. And it came with some friends, and we’re sleep deprived. We’re stressed. You know, we got into it, but that’s where the real communication had to go. So communication is key, and absolutely everything, not just survival shows, but everything you.

Tim Newman [00:08:09]:
Do, you know, And I’m glad you brought up the point of how important it is when times are stressful, because it’s real easy to have this back and forth when it’s fun and games. Right?

Terry Fossum [00:08:21]:
Right.

Tim Newman [00:08:21]:
But when. When it goes down and stuff starts happening, that’s when, you know, communication has to be. It’s critical. It has to be clear, has to be concise, and it has to be immediate. Right. We’ve got to go. There’s no bs. There’s no fluff.

Tim Newman [00:08:39]:
It’s. This is what we got to do. This is the direction we need to go. Here’s why. Let’s get off to making it happen.

Terry Fossum [00:08:46]:
Well, in this case, I mean, that’s absolutely true. And in this case, first of all, I separated us, you know, because we were going at it. Of course, the cameras loved that. And by the way, Kicking Scream is currently showing, I think, still on prime video. So we’re fighting, we’re going at it. Cameras are on us. Okay, we need to separate because this is not going well from my standpoint, too. All right? You know, blame goes both ways when you’re.

Terry Fossum [00:09:09]:
When you’re doing those things. But then I remembered some scout training I’d been through as an adult. We had this adult leadership training program called Wood Badge. Funny name. The best leadership training I’ve ever been through. It taught us the four stages of team development. Forming, storming, norming, and performing. It’s out there in the corporate world as well.

Terry Fossum [00:09:30]:
So I came back and said, guess what? Guess what? I got great news. We are in. There’s four stages of team development, and we’re right in the middle of number two. She goes, we sure are. No, that’s not what I mean. Not that number two, we are at the storming stage. We want to perform. These are stepping stones.

Terry Fossum [00:09:49]:
They are not roadblocks. As long as we go through it with Love and respect. And Tim, after that big blow up, we became the most winning team on the entire show because we communicated with love and respect, both directions. We both admitted where we were screwing up and apologized where we did screw up, me included. And from then on, like, okay, now we’ve got a whole different vision now. We’ve gone through that storming stage. We could norm and perform. We did the communication, right?

Tim Newman [00:10:22]:
And that’s also part of leadership. Owning it, I mean, right. I mean, because the reality is we’re not perfect. We make mistakes. And part, part of that is if, you know, to build credibility, to build that leadership, we have to own our mistakes. And on the flip side, we have to give grace for other people to allow them to make mistakes, allow them to clean it up, to be able to fix whatever it is and again, move forward just like what you all did. And I think a lot of times that that is just. It’s forgotten.

Tim Newman [00:10:53]:
Let’s either not take accountability, not take responsibility, or blame, blame, blame, blame, blame, and never give the other person a chance to correct and move forward. That’s what we have.

Terry Fossum [00:11:10]:
Absolutely. The communication’s gotta be. First of all, like you said, owning what you did wrong and not making excuses for it. You know, maybe, you know, here’s the reasons, but that’s not an excuse, you know, owning it. Apologizing. Amazing what. What can happen with an apology. You know, an admission of guilt.

Terry Fossum [00:11:31]:
Not judging them because, you know, they’re. They’re going through the same starvation and stress and everything or outside of a survival show in the world. We’re all stressed. We all. You never know what somebody has going on. You don’t know. You have to have that grace. So give them that grace, right? And then work together on.

Terry Fossum [00:11:49]:
Okay, we know where we’re at. That’s in the past. How can we build from here to make sure that doesn’t. Those misunderstandings don’t happen anymore and that we can build and work together. What’s our common goal? Our common goal was to win the show. I want. I was representing all of again, Boy Scouts of America, now called Scouting America, and she was representing an organization as well. And we are both going to be judged by those organizations forever.

Terry Fossum [00:12:15]:
And those organizations would be judged by our actions, by every viewer around the world. So we both had a goal. And when we focused on the goal and not on ourselves and not on our pride or how terrible the other person is, everybody has good in them. Don’t focus on their bad, focus on their good and build that up. We the underdogs against all these people ended up winning the entire stinking show.

Tim Newman [00:12:41]:
And here’s what I want my audience to understand. Okay? You kind of led into this. Two exact opposites came together, worked together, and achieved great things. We can do this, and this is not. It doesn’t have to be us against them all the time. We can come together with our differences and our differences sometimes a lot of times make us stronger together, no question. Work on it and become great. Yeah.

Terry Fossum [00:13:15]:
Yeah. And I’ve got to give scouting a little bit of credit because, you know. Yeah. They put us opposites together as a scout leader. It’s what we do. You know, I take kids from all different backgrounds. Race, color, creed, religion, socioeconomic. I don’t care.

Terry Fossum [00:13:30]:
My job is to find the good in them, and there’s good in every child and to enhance that. And the goal is honorable. Men and women. That’s all I care about, you know?

Tim Newman [00:13:41]:
You know, and I also. I also think that, you know, the military does the same thing. I mean, because I don’t. I mean, we didn’t care. I mean. I mean, seriously. I mean, we want the best people surrounding us because when. When it happens, I mean, and you were.

Tim Newman [00:13:58]:
You. I mean, that show had some. Some tough guys in there. Some. Some guys. Some guys that did some real serious war fighting.

Terry Fossum [00:14:09]:
Absolutely. 100.

Tim Newman [00:14:10]:
Those are the guys. That’s what you want. People like that around you. So I don’t care who it is. I mean, if. If doesn’t matter. We want the best people, all walks of life. Let’s go off and.

Tim Newman [00:14:21]:
And do this together. And. And that’s, you know, I think that’s another thing, just kind of as a side that makes our military one of the best in the world, is you have people from all walks of life side by side all the time.

Terry Fossum [00:14:35]:
And if we could. If we could do. And we made a point of that at the end of the show, actually, that if we could come together with all of our differences and focus on a common goal and win, you know, against all the odds, when. If we can do that, so can everybody else, and that’s what we really wanted. Natalie and I had talked about that before the end of the show, you know, before they filmed the end there, that. That’s the point we really want to get across, is we can’t do that. So, I mean, so much political fighting right now and all sorts of fighting right now within our country, not to mention outside of. But, man, we gotta.

Terry Fossum [00:15:14]:
We gotta get back to. Okay. Except that people are different Than us. That’s okay, right? It’s a great thing because, let’s face it, we’re different, too.

Tim Newman [00:15:23]:
Exactly. So.

Terry Fossum [00:15:24]:
Exactly. Let’s find the good in that.

Tim Newman [00:15:26]:
Work together, you know. You know, it’s funny because, you know, somebody said to me the other day as I was talking to them, they said, well, I’m a little weird. They’re talking about themselves. They were calling me weird. I wouldn’t have been upset if they were. If they call me weird. They said, well, I’m a little weird. I said, you know what? I think everybody has their own little weird.

Tim Newman [00:15:42]:
So you’re just. You’re just you. I mean, it’s. We all have our own quirks. We all have our own little things that we have, you know, so you’re not weird. You’re just you. And it is what it is. Anyway, did you ever have any fear or challenges or reservations about being a public speaker? I mean, because, you know, I’ve seen a lot of what you.

Tim Newman [00:16:06]:
What you do, and you. I mean, you’re a natural at it. But. But I think. I think you’re a natural at it for any number of different reasons. But when you first started, did you ever have that fear? Did you ever have that. Those nerves? Because we talked about how I threw up, and that’s one of the reasons why, you know, I said, you’re on. Because, because the title of your book.

Tim Newman [00:16:24]:
But, but how about you?

Terry Fossum [00:16:26]:
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it’s funny, I make it look easy because I work so hard at it, and that’s usually the way it is. What? God. Who was it? The. The quote out there? Don’t, don’t work. Don’t, don’t Keep working until you get it right. Keep working until you can’t get it wrong. So if you see, like, if you watch my TEDX talk, I can’t tell you how many times I practiced that and practiced.

Terry Fossum [00:16:55]:
I got it right. I got it right. I got it wrong. Oh, man, I screwed that up. So I got it right. I practiced that. Got the night before the thing. I got a hotel room near the venue, and I’m still practicing it that night.

Terry Fossum [00:17:05]:
I’m still practicing it that morning, and I probably gave it at least 100 times perfect. It’s not the point. Keep going till you can’t get it wrong.

Tim Newman [00:17:13]:
Right?

Terry Fossum [00:17:13]:
And I think that’s part of. And we can talk about confidence and things like that, but that’s part of when I can go on stage and I’ve got a little trick we could talk about. As well. But I’m not worried about am I going to, you know, not remember what I supposed to say? Am I going to blank out? Whatever. I could fall down unconscious on the ground and I would still be saying the words because I’ve said them so many times. And that takes a lot of the fear out of it. Right, because you’re not worried about that if you’re only doing it until you got it right. Well, but I might get it wrong.

Terry Fossum [00:17:44]:
So, yeah, I make it work, make it look easy, but only because I’m the duck’s feet under the water, man.

Tim Newman [00:17:53]:
Have you always been that way in terms of preparation? Because I’m with you. I look, I tell people I’m definitely. I’m not the smartest person. I’m not the fast person, not the strongest person. But you know what? I’m going to prepare and I’m going to work hard and I’m going to make sure that that’s. So has that always been in your, in your system?

Terry Fossum [00:18:13]:
Well, it. Absolutely, absolutely. To me. Yeah. I don’t care how smart somebody is. I care how much how hard they’re going to work. That’s a whole different podcast. But there’s some things that I think would.

Terry Fossum [00:18:22]:
May help your audience right now in that. And you know, I teach a lot of things, these things even in my TEDx program. But first of all, your audience. Let me talk straight to you, audience, listener, right now, okay? You have spoken passionately before. Without question. You have spoken very passionately. If you question this, just ask your children. Because if you have children, you have spoken passionately to them before.

Terry Fossum [00:18:52]:
If you don’t have children, if you’ve ever been in a relationship, odds are you’ve spoken passionately. If you’ve ever been pissed off at anything or anyone, you’ve spoken passionately. What’s the difference? There shouldn’t be any difference. The difference is when you’re speaking to them to get your point across, you don’t care if you’re going to say the right words. You don’t care about what your background is or how they’re going to judge you or any of that. All you care about is they are going to hear what you have to say and they are going to take action on it. Right?

Tim Newman [00:19:24]:
Exactly. Exactly.

Terry Fossum [00:19:25]:
When we’re going up on stage, all too often we’re worried about, am I going to get it wrong? Are they going to judge me? Am I going to screw up? Are they going to hate me? Are they going to think I’m stupid? Are they Going to get rid of that. It’s not about you. It’s about the action you want the audience to take. It’s about the audience, the action you want the audience to take. And what is that? It’s on your cause, right? If you’re speaking about something, in my opinion, you never speak to inform. You always speak to inspire, to inspire them to take action. So if you believe enough in your cause, where you believe the audience should take action on it, you’re not going to care as much about. Oh, my God, it is a slide, right? Did I stammer? Did I do.

Terry Fossum [00:20:11]:
You don’t care because, by God, this cause is important to you. It should be important to them, and they’re going to take action. Does that make sense?

Tim Newman [00:20:18]:
It makes a ton of sense. See, here’s. Here’s where I come in here, right? Because it’s simple. It doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

Terry Fossum [00:20:30]:
Right, Right.

Tim Newman [00:20:31]:
It’s. It’s. It’s simple. It’s. It’s, you know, why are you there?

Terry Fossum [00:20:35]:
Yeah. And what do you want them to do? Because it’s all about. Again, you’re there to make something happen, whether it’s to buy your product or service, which you better believe in, because it’s going to improve their life. Otherwise, you’re with the wrong product or service or the wrong cause or whatever. If you believe in what you’re talking about and believe the audience should believe that as well and take action on it, you’re doing the right thing. If not, cut it out. Do something else.

Tim Newman [00:21:01]:
Do something else. That’s right. That’s right. So what is the trick that you have to. I say a trick, and it’s not. I mean, it’s. It’s not a trick. It’s.

Tim Newman [00:21:10]:
It’s a. It’s an. It’s a method. It’s an action. It’s not a trick. So I don’t want people to think that, you know, we’re magicians up here, because it’s not. Again, it’s not what it is. You have to learn it.

Tim Newman [00:21:22]:
You have to actually put it into practice. So, so what. What is the method? What is that action to help people get over those nerves right before they get on stage?

Terry Fossum [00:21:30]:
Okay, let me tell a quick backstory on this one. Okay. I’m at Squadron Officer school now. As you probably know, it’s the top captains in. In this case the Air Force were there for many weeks and were being taught leadership and warfare and organizational stuff and all that part of it is public speaking. Now, one of my friends in my flight, a flight is about 12 captains, in this case was Scott. Captain Scott, I refer to him as. And this guy, Tim, you know, this kind of a guy, okay, because we’d be in this serious briefing room, we’re talking nuclear warfare.

Terry Fossum [00:22:06]:
And Captain Scott is sitting next to me muttering things under his breath that is making me try my best not to laugh out loud. You know what I mean?

Tim Newman [00:22:16]:
That’s me.

Terry Fossum [00:22:17]:
I believe that is you. Yes, I believe that’s you. So we get time. Our assignment is to pick a military leader, historical military leader, and do three speeches on them. And so. Okay, cool. I got up and did my first one. Yeah, I’ve been doing this for a while.

Terry Fossum [00:22:34]:
Did fine and. But here comes Captain Scott. Here he comes. Oh, geez, Tim. All right, here we go. And Captain Scott gets up, but I’m noticing he’s not looking around, he’s looking at his feet. And those feet are just kind of shuffling up to the front. He’s holding a stack of 3 by 5 cards.

Terry Fossum [00:22:53]:
And those 3 by 5 cards are vibrating because he is so nervous. And he gets up there and he’s not. He’s looking down at his feet, he’s muttering something. We couldn’t really tell what he was saying. He was so. Tim, he was so nervous. I was waiting for that little line of pee to go right down his flight suit. You know what I’m saying?

Tim Newman [00:23:13]:
I do, yes.

Terry Fossum [00:23:15]:
And at some point he finally just shuffles off. I don’t think he finished what he was saying, but nobody knew if he did. He comes up to me outside the barracks that night and says, terry, can you help me? Because we had about three days there’d be another round of speeches. Yeah, I can. So I asked him, okay, Scott, and we’re gonna do this real quick right now. Tim, is that cool? Are we good?

Tim Newman [00:23:33]:
Absolutely.

Terry Fossum [00:23:34]:
Let’s do it. Okay, So I asked him. So, Scott, tell me a time where you have felt the most powerful in your entire life. And he go, well, yeah, I don’t really know. You know, there have been a few, like everybody does. I teach this around the globe. Actually. It’s kind of cool.

Terry Fossum [00:23:50]:
And everybody comes. Well, there’s few. Okay, I need you to narrow it down to 1. Need you narrow to think. Think through your whole life. The time you felt the most excited, the most powerful, the most pumped, the most in control. Okay. Okay, now get this.

Terry Fossum [00:24:06]:
Captain Scott was electronic warfare officer on a nuclear equipped B52 bomber. Each one of These things fully loaded is approximately the sixth most powerful nation on the face of the earth. And he was the electronic warfare. Scott’s got some stories, all right. He’s got some times, and this is during the Cold War. Now I finally asked, so what is it? He said, I got it. What is it? What is it? Okay, get this. It was a softball game.

Terry Fossum [00:24:34]:
It was a soft, a squadron softball game. He hit the game winning home run. So all I did is I asked him. Okay, tell me about that. Well, you know, game hitting real. Okay, so what happened when that ball hit your bat? Could you tell? Well, yeah, I kind of. Kind of really could. I got to read that.

Terry Fossum [00:24:52]:
Okay, so tell me, you’re going around the bases and how’s everybody responding? Well, they’re kind of freaking out. So you go, I brought them back there. You got into home base. What happened? Everybody’s cheering, they’re jumping up now. They’re freaking out. They’re going crazy. Scott, how do you feel right now? Well, I feel great. I feel amazing.

Terry Fossum [00:25:11]:
Bingo. All too often when we get ready to go up on stage, we’re that person who is worried that we’re going to screw up, we’re going to blank out, we’re going to forget our lines, we’re not going to come across like we want. Like the audience is going to hate us. That’s what’s in our head as we’re going up there. What I taught Scott is next time you’re about to give that speech, you go back to that home run. You’re just coming into the home plate. I want you to see it, I want you to smell it, I want you to hear it, I want you to feel, feel it. Now, Tim, when he got up there to give that second speech, it was amazing.

Terry Fossum [00:25:43]:
They called on him. I’m like, well, here we go, let’s see he gets up standing straight, baby. He’s looking at the audience while he’s walking up there. He’s got a three by five card, one three by five card and it’s rock solid. He never even looked at it. And he gives a speech. He had us, he owned us. And we’re all tripping out because he was in what I call and I teach this in my book and again as part of my training, his position of power, right? And it’s so much fun working with people in person on this because when they start, they’re kind of, if you’re watching a visual of this, they’re kind of hunkered down, you know.

Terry Fossum [00:26:18]:
Well, I don’t know by the end of it, man, they are sitting up straight. You see that fire in their eyes. They are ready to roll.

Tim Newman [00:26:23]:
Right?

Terry Fossum [00:26:24]:
So that is the method I call the position of power. Getting in your position of power to be the most powerful you’ve ever been in your life. Every time you get on stage, make a sales call, whatever it is, you know, and it’s.

Tim Newman [00:26:35]:
It’s. I think it’s so important for people to understand, you know, Captain Scott, I mean, he, like, he. He’s a leader of men. I mean, he’s. I mean, he’s. He’s in charge of. Of all this stuff. And he let stand up in front of the.

Tim Newman [00:26:54]:
A group of 10 other guys of his peers do that to him. And it was. He was doing that to himself.

Terry Fossum [00:27:00]:
Absolutely.

Tim Newman [00:27:01]:
And it doesn’t take much. You know, I think a lot in life that we go through is about just a little shift in mindset, everything. And it doesn’t take much. It’s a little shift. And if we can, like you said, pull. Pull that string and we know. Okay. Wow.

Tim Newman [00:27:19]:
This is where I’m at now. Let’s get back to this point in my life. Put that back. And what that does and how that drives us forward. It just takes us noticing that and knowing how to do it, knowing how to channel that. That energy and that momentum and that feeling.

Terry Fossum [00:27:36]:
Yeah. And if you ever see me speak as they’re doing my introduction, I go into the state very quickly now, as they’re doing my introduction, blah, blah, blah. He’s the greatest person that ever lived. You know, all that kind of stuff. I’m not even in the room now. I’m standing there, My body’s there. My mind is back at the place that I felt the most powerful in my life. So when I go up on stage, I’m that guy and that guy you better not get in the way of.

Tim Newman [00:28:02]:
And, and. And it’s obvious in your speaking style, right? I mean, it’s. People can’t. Realistically, people can’t watch that and can’t see your passion for what you’re talking about. Right.

Terry Fossum [00:28:18]:
Right on.

Tim Newman [00:28:19]:
Because it’s, It’s. It’s on display. It’s right there. And, and it. And it draws you in and also almost gets you to feel that passion as well, which is really what you want to have happen. You want people to. To feel your passion, and for them to start to have that same passion that you do, to be able to do what you want them to do.

Terry Fossum [00:28:39]:
Absolutely. Emotion, not fact is, is the driver of all action.

Tim Newman [00:28:43]:
Right.

Terry Fossum [00:28:43]:
Emotion, not fact, is the driver of all action. If you want them to take action, don’t tell a bunch of facts. It won’t do it. Get them to have an emotional response to what you’re talking about. I know you talk a lot about storytelling in this, and that’s exactly correct, because that gives them, if you do it right, that emotional response to get them to take action.

Tim Newman [00:29:05]:
Right. And with that, you have to have that emotion in that story. You can’t just tell a story.

Terry Fossum [00:29:09]:
Right? Right.

Tim Newman [00:29:10]:
You can’t just tell the factions. You have to. It’s like you just told that story about Captain Scott. There’s emotion. There’s ups and downs. There’s a flow to it that really gets you drawn in. You didn’t just say, well, this is what Scott did. This is what I did, and this is how it turned out.

Tim Newman [00:29:27]:
Right. There’s that other passion piece to it as well. So you have to make sure that you bring it all together so that it actually works the way that you want it. Want it to work. Let me ask you this question, because, again, to me, this is. It’s simple. How did you learn this? How did this come about for you? Because, again, to me, it’s simple. And it’s one of those light bulb moments, as I hear you talking about.

Tim Newman [00:29:57]:
Yeah, it’s so simple. Why can’t people just do this? How did you learn. Learn this process?

Terry Fossum [00:30:06]:
Well, probably by failing a lot.

Tim Newman [00:30:11]:
Oh, boy. What he said. You failed. You’re allowed to fail. Huh?

Terry Fossum [00:30:18]:
If you are going on any path where you are not failing, you are not on any path at all. You’re sitting still. Every single person who’s ever succeeded at anything in their life of any substance has. Has failed and failed and failed and failed way more times than they ever dreamed about succeeding. So if you and this were a little bit different subject, but very important to everybody listening on. If you’re. In fact, I was just coaching somebody this morning on this. If you are at a point where you’re going, oh, my God, I keep failing.

Terry Fossum [00:30:54]:
I keep failing. I keep failing. Things are not going right. I keep screwing up. I want you to go, yes, right on. I’m on the right path because I’m on the path that every single successful person took. Yes, look at it that way. Like, I just got to keep beating my way down this path.

Terry Fossum [00:31:12]:
Look for ways to make it better and succeed. But understand that is not the path to failing, to failure. That is the path of success. Failure is the path of success. It’s an ingredient in bacon and success pie. You can’t bake a pie without it.

Tim Newman [00:31:29]:
Exactly, exactly. I mean, it’s, that’s why I kind of chuckled, you know, because not only do successful people fail, we, we pretend that they’ve, that they’re perfect. We pretend that they’ve, they’ve never hit any road bumps. They’ve never lost anything. It’s, oh, they woke up on Tuesday and by Saturday they were a billionaire. And they just, it just, it just happens.

Terry Fossum [00:31:55]:
Right? I was, I was speaking to a group of realtors not long ago and I put up the, the Path to Success. You know, so again, if you’re, if you’re listening to audio, I’ve got my arm up at about a 45 degree angle and I asked them, and these are really successful people. I said, this is your path to success. Right. And they all started snickering. I said, yeah, I don’t know about you, but my success looks more like this. And picture a fly going around, leaving a line behind it. That’s the path to success.

Terry Fossum [00:32:22]:
All the ups and downs for all of us.

Tim Newman [00:32:26]:
And as we look at this from a communication perspective, as a public speaking perspective, people want to see the failure.

Terry Fossum [00:32:36]:
Absolutely.

Tim Newman [00:32:36]:
And they embrace your failure. They look at you in higher regard because of your failures. So it’s okay to share the failures because it’s going to teach them, it’s going to help them, it’s going to bring them into your circle. It’s going to, it really does get that credibility.

Terry Fossum [00:33:01]:
Yeah, yeah. People don’t want to hear from some silver spooned imposter who’s never been through the challenges. They want the person that’s been in the trenches has got the mud, got the blood, got the cuts, got the bruises, the heartaches and the pain, the stories that everybody else is going through as well. That’s when everybody else knows you can help them through it because you’ve been there before.

Tim Newman [00:33:24]:
Exactly. You know, I recorded a solo podcast on something very similar to this the other day. And as I was doing the research and put my thoughts on paper and practicing, I was kind of over the time limit that I wanted because I wanted to keep them under 15 minutes. And one of the first things I took out was my failures. And I went back and looked at it, I said, no, that has to stay in because it’s so important for people to understand that, number one, failure is good. Number two, that they can see some of my past and some of my failures and maybe it’s a connection to the them, maybe they’ve done the same thing and on top of it, maybe we can laugh a little bit about it.

Terry Fossum [00:34:12]:
Right, right, absolutely.

Tim Newman [00:34:15]:
And that’s okay too because we don’t have to be serious all the time. I mean, if you can’t laugh, if you can’t laugh at yourself and laugh at your failure, sometimes, you know, I just think that you’re doing it wrong, but you do.

Terry Fossum [00:34:26]:
Well, I know other people are going to laugh at me. I might as well laugh along with them.

Tim Newman [00:34:29]:
Exactly, exactly. So let’s talk a little bit about your first book. What does simple stand for in the simple guide to public speaking without losing your lunch?

Terry Fossum [00:34:40]:
So it’s an acronym and I’ve got again, if you’re watching the video of this, it’s an acronym that S, I, M, P L E. There we go. And I’m going to have people, if you want to know what that stands for exactly, go right in there, get the book. It’s on. I think it’s both digital and print as well. And yeah, it’s going to be full of, but a lot of amazing information for you, God willing. But the, each one of those acronyms stands for a different part of the training of how to put together how to write your speech, develop your speech, how to memorize your speech and how to perform your speech in a, in a way that’s going to get the audience’s attention the second you walk up on stage, which is critical. If you don’t get them within the first five seconds, you’ve lost them forever.

Terry Fossum [00:35:37]:
And how to do exactly that, how to make it about them that makes them beg you to give them the information you’re going to give them? How do you keep their attention throughout the entire half hour, hour, four hours? How do you, what are the tricks to doing that? Because there are some tricks to doing that.

Tim Newman [00:35:53]:
Yeah.

Terry Fossum [00:35:54]:
And then how do you make it where at the end of your speech they can’t wait to jump up on their feet, give you that standing ovation most every time, but more importantly, jump up on their feet and get out there and take action on what you talked about.

Tim Newman [00:36:09]:
Right.

Terry Fossum [00:36:09]:
So the acronym simple takes you through all of those steps and really helps you craft that and make an impact with whatever your idea is. And again, we do teach that as part of my, my TEDx program as well.

Tim Newman [00:36:24]:
You know, in terms of getting stand innovation. And I used to give my students a hard time all the time about this. At the end of class, they never clapped, they never told me. I did a great Job. But we had a guest. Anytime I have a guest speaker come in or students would give presentations, always clapping. Everything I said, you guys starting to hurt my feelings here, right? So what. What does it take to be able to get clapping and stay innovation when you’re giving a presentation, what do you got to do?

Terry Fossum [00:36:56]:
First of all, you’re never a prophet in your hometown. Okay, let’s start with that, bud. But okay, so I’ll give you an example. So I recently I opened for a major manufacturing conference. This was so swima Central Wisconsin Manufacturing alliance. And I’m the opening keynote for a manufacturing conference. Now, how do I get that passion going and that emotion going? And I was teaching them leadership steps for Industry 4.0, getting robotics, AI, et cetera into the industry. That was my leadership steps for helping them do exactly that.

Terry Fossum [00:37:36]:
Really, really cool stuff. But now how do I get that emotion at the end? Well, there’s always a tie. Look for that emotional tie. And that’s what I want everybody to hear. Look for that emotional tie. Whatever it can be. So at the end now, why it’s got to be honest. It’s always got to be honest or never do it.

Terry Fossum [00:37:57]:
Okay? Don’t ever be us people. Never do it. But I have a deep belief that manufacturing is the future of our country. It is the future of our nation. If we don’t have manufacturing, we die. Okay, now let’s tie that to something, Tim, that you can relate to. We’re both prior military. I can’t speak for you, but I probably can.

Terry Fossum [00:38:20]:
I’ve lost buddies, okay? I’ve had my friends die for this country. So my emotional tie at the end, I actually get a little bit emotional. Even just saying it right now is you, manufacturers are the future of our nation. You are the future of this great country. Don’t let. On behalf of my fallen brothers and sisters, thank you for continuing holding that torch. On behalf of my brothers and sisters in arms right now, thank you for continuing the fight to bring and build manufacturing in this great country so we can continue to be a beacon of light around the world. And their deaths were not.

Terry Fossum [00:39:01]:
And their lives were not in vain.

Tim Newman [00:39:04]:
Right?

Terry Fossum [00:39:04]:
And ended up something like that, right? And walked off the stage. And for the first time ever, they don’t have standing ovations at a manufacturing conference, but they did this year.

Tim Newman [00:39:17]:
You know, I think, I think as, as, as we’re talking, the whole idea of emotion is really the theme of.

Terry Fossum [00:39:26]:
Everything that we do.

Tim Newman [00:39:30]:
Good, bad or indifferent. Right? I mean, if we embrace that and lean into it with who we are and how we are with whatever that emotion is in whatever situation or scenario that is. That again, builds our credibility. It builds our connection with the audience. It allows them to lean in and do again, the things that we want them to do in our call to action.

Terry Fossum [00:40:03]:
Yeah. Be vulnerable, be real. Be somebody they can relate to. Because if you’re not, then you’re not going to reach them.

Tim Newman [00:40:10]:
No.

Terry Fossum [00:40:11]:
And then you don’t speak to the brain, you speak to the heart.

Tim Newman [00:40:14]:
Right. And I know you. I’m sure you’ve been in these situations where you’ve been in the audience and you know you’re lost within the first five minutes. Yeah.

Terry Fossum [00:40:26]:
Oh God, yeah.

Tim Newman [00:40:27]:
Or whatever. And it’s okay. I’ve just wasted, wasted this hour. Wasted 25 minutes, a half hour, 45 minutes. What have you. You start, you know, digging in your phone, doing, doing everything else and you know, it’s, you’ve got, from the speaker perspective, if you lean into that emotion and you’re touching people, you’re not going to have that.

Terry Fossum [00:40:52]:
Right. And, and if, and you know, I’ll show, show my cards on this too. I mentioned in the first, you know, few seconds, you’ve got to get them. Yes. How do you do it again? You got to make it all about them. Why? Why do they want to listen to you? How is it going to help them? How’s it going to help their lives do a better job, whatever it is? Because that’s all they care about. They don’t care about what you care about. Exactly.

Terry Fossum [00:41:15]:
They care about them. So make it all about them. You can work that. Just like I did that manufacturing slash military story. You can work that to them. You just have, I mean, spend your most time on your entire speech on that opening and how you’re going to grab them and on the end part, how you’re going to leave them waiting to take action.

Tim Newman [00:41:37]:
Right.

Terry Fossum [00:41:37]:
That’s the biggest parts of your whole speech. And forget all your charts and graphs. Nobody will remember and nobody cares.

Tim Newman [00:41:45]:
Exactly. Exactly. I just, I just had a thought in my head. How many times we’ve been up there. We’re, we’re in a conference room, we’re in a presentation and somebody puts up a spreadsheet where the, where the cells are so freaking small you can’t. Number one, you can’t even see the numbers. Stop. Just turn it off.

Tim Newman [00:42:07]:
I’m begging you. Right, Just stop. Because number one, nobody can see it. Number two, nobody cares. Unless you’re going to tell me whatever numbers you’re Talking about impacts us or why that number is important or what we need to get to or where we’ve been or tell the story, Tell the story of the number. Don’t show me a box with a number.

Terry Fossum [00:42:29]:
I don’t care if you can get those charts, those stories, those numbers to cause an emotional response. Now you got something. If it gives them, and pardon me for saying this, pardon the profanity, if it gives them an oh, shit moment, you know, okay, bam. Then it’s worth putting up there briefly and big, where they can see it, etc. If it does not give them one of those moments, it does not belong anywhere in there because they’re not going to remember a single thing you said. Sorry, y’. All. Even for me, for anybody, they don’t remember a dang thing I said 30 minutes after I said it, but they will remember their emotional response forever.

Tim Newman [00:43:05]:
Exactly. Exactly. Now, I don’t want to give you, I don’t want you to give away too much information, but I do want to talk about your program and how you get people to, you know, to land TEDx talks. Because again, you know, they’re not handing them out on street corners. I mean, you go to Vegas, you get, you get a business card, they’re not giving them out. So, Terry, I don’t go to Vegas anymore. Stay away from there. I’ve heard that that’s what they do.

Terry Fossum [00:43:35]:
I’m holding back on so many comments, my friend.

Tim Newman [00:43:39]:
So, so, so tell people about, you know, the process of landing TEDx talk and talk a little bit about, about your, your coaching on this, because I think it’s fascinating.

Terry Fossum [00:43:52]:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, you know, why does anybody care about doing a TEDx talk to begin with? If you are a speaker or an aspiring speaker and you want to be known just as, not as yet another speaker, but as an expert in your field and as an established speaker. Because you’re a TEDx speaker and you want professional footage from a TEDx stage that you can use in your speaker reel or on your website or anything, forever. If you want to elevate your speaking immediately, you do a TedX talk. And we’re going to help you on exactly how to do that. If you want to sell more books, you’re not just another author. I’m sorry. They used to say that’s how you get credibility.

Terry Fossum [00:44:35]:
Be an author. No, not anymore. You’re a TEDx speaker. It’s the world’s biggest stage. If you’ve got a coaching program, if you’ve got a cause that’s important to you. Whatever it is, if you want to get out of the whisper in the wind, nobody’s listening, and become suddenly bang, you are the expert. You want to book a TEDX talk. Now, like you said, though, they’re not handing out business cards on street corners to do so.

Terry Fossum [00:45:01]:
But here’s the deal. Look at it from their perspective. I can tell you. And again, I was really, really blessed with my TEDx talk. And I’ve helped a whole lot of people, TEDx organizers, and first of all, TED is the big one. That’s the national TED X is somewhere else, like TEDX Spokane, TEDX Copenhagen, whatever it might be, okay? That’s TEDx and that’s what I refer to. Now the TEDx organizers want butts in seats. They want people to come to their thing because they’ve got a budget, they’re working.

Terry Fossum [00:45:34]:
Also, this is the background of it that a lot of people don’t understand. Okay? So they are looking for speakers and TED overall is looking for speakers that are countercultural. It’s not what everybody else is teaching. It’s some big new different idea or perspective on something. So if you want to go up there and talk about homelessness is bad, you will never book a talk. It ain’t going to happen. But if you can find an angle with that that seems counterintuitive or different than what everybody’s heard before, now you got their attention. And that’s a huge part, part of it.

Terry Fossum [00:46:10]:
So as, as I, you know, again, very blessed and that’s the way I look at it, to have my, my TEDX talk debuted at number two in the world, actually named one of the 30 most impactful TED talks of this century, something like that, et cetera. I learned a lot and I’ve worked with a lot of people and I put together, I’ve also very blessed to become an expert in AI and AI programming. So I put together this AI that will take your idea, you know, even if it’s a small idea, or fill it in with your stories or whatever, you put it in there and it will come out and it will give you five different TED worthy angles. It will let you know, okay, it’s honest. I programmed to be brutally honest. You know, that’s what you want. Okay, that’s not going to work, but this angle will. It’ll give you five different ideas and, and your, your bylines to help you book that thing now.

Terry Fossum [00:47:07]:
And I’ll give you that URL. In fact, I’ll give you the URL right now. And at the end, ideascore AI. Ideascore AI. Because it’ll give you a score now within the program if you. If you. And it’ll lead you to a webinar that explain all this, but it takes all the guesswork out of it. I don’t know how to write a speech.

Terry Fossum [00:47:25]:
I don’t know how to write a great speech. I don’t know how to get the audience’s attention right away. I don’t know how to where all the TEDx events are and they’re not all equal. How do I find the right one after I’ve done all that? And give me marketing materials based on my idea. They’ll help me get me booked after I’ve done all that. How do you get thousands of views or over a million views? How do you do it does it all for you. It’s really, really amazing. You just got to work like we talked about.

Terry Fossum [00:47:51]:
You still got to work.

Tim Newman [00:47:52]:
Still got to work. You still got to do the work. Come in.

Terry Fossum [00:47:54]:
Still got to do the work. But it takes out it. It really honestly takes out, oh, geez, 90% of the effort. So anybody’s going, I don’t have time for that or I don’t know where to start or whatever. Go to a IdeaScore AI or if you want to just see the webinar on the program, it’s the viral state. Viralstageinfo.com theviralstage info.com theviralstageinfo.com There we go.

Tim Newman [00:48:19]:
Yeah, I’ll put those in the show. Notes.

Terry Fossum [00:48:21]:
Yeah, there you go.

Tim Newman [00:48:22]:
I did want to let you know it works. I put in a couple. One of them said, no, that’s not a good idea.

Terry Fossum [00:48:31]:
Right on. I love that.

Tim Newman [00:48:32]:
And then I put in another one and it said, well, you’ve got to develop it a little bit more. And I didn’t immediately go and put something else in. I took a step back and I thought about it for a couple of days and I developed the. The idea a little bit more because again, you have to actually do the work. You have to actually think about it. You have to actually. You got to have some knowledge and some. You have to have some knowledge there.

Tim Newman [00:49:01]:
Just put that way. And I put it in and it still said, I still need more work, but it’s getting better. So I think it came back with a score of like 85% or 85, whatever that number, whatever that number is. And obviously, obviously, we need to get up into the 90s, but there’s growth there and it tells you the things that you have to do to be able to, to, to, to get it into that next level. And that’s just the idea, right? That, that’s not, that’s, that’s not the actual talk.

Terry Fossum [00:49:32]:
So, but, but again it’s like having me, it’s like having me or some other expert on TEDx helping you for free develop those ideas and to go back and forth, that’s, it’s, it’s pretty spectacular. I’m really proud of.

Tim Newman [00:49:48]:
Really is. Terry, I really do appreciate you spending some time with us. You’ve given us those two websites. Where else can people find you and get in touch with you to maybe work with you?

Terry Fossum [00:50:04]:
Yeah, absolutely, Terry. Lfossum.com is probably the biggest one. I’m on all social media, of course, pretty much all, I think except for TikTok because I’m old, but I think I’m on pretty much all social media. But terrielphossum.com is a great place to come find me.

Tim Newman [00:50:22]:
Well, you say that you’re old. Okay. And I just got, I’m going to plug a previous podcast here. Had a guest on who’s 86 years old.

Terry Fossum [00:50:32]:
Nice.

Tim Newman [00:50:33]:
And is a TikTok influence. Happened when, oh I love it. Happened when she turned 80. She was.

Terry Fossum [00:50:39]:
Love it.

Tim Newman [00:50:40]:
She was a doors Doris Klompus from the Seinfeld Show.

Terry Fossum [00:50:47]:
She would say that again.

Tim Newman [00:50:48]:
She was, she was a recurring actor on the Seinfeld show.

Terry Fossum [00:50:51]:
Oh, no way. No way. How fun.

Tim Newman [00:50:53]:
She. And I’ll tell you what, this interaction that we had, same 86 year old, loved it. But you’re not 86. So I’m not saying, I’m not saying you don’t take either. Nobody wants to see.

Terry Fossum [00:51:07]:
I love it.

Tim Newman [00:51:08]:
No, you want to see me on TikTok. But anyway, Terry, again, thank you so much for, for spending some time with us. Thank you so much for your service to our country. I really do appreciate the conversation what you’re doing.

Terry Fossum [00:51:22]:
You bet. I guess I should end up saying also you can find me on the the Comeback Chronicles podcast dot com. The Comeback Chronicles podcast. That’s mine as well. So come join me as well. As well as Tim. All right, Tim, thank you for your service to country, for your service to the public, helping them find their voice and use it to make a difference in the world. I really appreciate you, man.

Tim Newman [00:51:40]:
Thanks, buddy. You take care. We’ll talk to you soon.

Terry Fossum [00:51:42]:
You got it.

Tim Newman [00:51:44]:
Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com to get your free ebook Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers. And how to overcome them. You can also register for the Formative Public Speaking course. Always remember, your voice has the power to change the world. We’ll talk to you next time. Take care.