Behind the Numbers of Authority: How Smart Leaders Turn Stages Into Revenue - Terry Fossum

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Behind the Numbers. This is the show where we go past the surface level stuff and the stories to understand what truly drives enterprise value growth and execution. My guest today is Terry Fossum. Terry is a successful international corporate keynote speaker where he helps companies completely reinvent themselves.

He was named the Los Angeles Magazine's Person of the Year in 2024. And just for fun, he won a survival reality show on Primetime on Fox Network, which is now streaming on Prime. Terry is also a bestselling author, TEDx speaker. Terry, welcome to the show.

Is there anything I failed to mention about you? No, that's more than plenty. Thanks, Dave. Excited to be here.

Thanks for what you do on this podcast, giving everybody the real deal on how to advance their businesses. I really appreciate that. Well, I appreciate you and thank you for saying that. Let's get into the numbers and go behind the numbers as well.

I want to start with a staggering data point from your keynote throw the box, throw away the box, excuse me. I think you note that about 52% of the Fortune 500 companies from the year 2000 are now completely gone. Most people blame outside tech disruption, but your argument is that the biggest risk to a company's balance sheet is actually its own past success. I would love for you to walk us, say, behind the number and tell us how a company's internal success loop blinds them to market realities.

Absolutely. When we're on our high horse. We don't want to listen to anybody else. We don't think we should change.

It's the old don't break. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, a mentality. And that's some of the most dangerous words in the entire business world. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

That's the way we do things around here. And of course, when somebody brings up a new idea, those that are in charge having those successes go, well, it seems to be working so far. And that's what kills a company right there because the world is changing. Tech is changing.

Everything's changing. The market's changing. The customer base is changing. If you're not changing, then you're going to die, especially in today's business environment.

Yeah, it's interesting. In my first book, I do mention something about if your excuse is that's the way we've always done it. You're either stupid or lazy or both. But in terms of the companies that flamed out, one of the stories that always comes to my mind immediately was Blockbuster, and that whole business model.

And I guess part of it is a tech angle, right, with Netflix. But was there something deeper there? I don't mean to put you on the spot on that. I'm just curious.

No, no, not at all. Not at all. This is some of what I do. No, the deeper thing is they did not understand that their box and literally a box, whether it's their brick and mortar or the box their video came in, was no longer applicable.

What they attempted to do was slightly change the way they were doing things. They were thinking outside the box. The problem with that is the box was still there. Everything they kept coming back to.

If you were into a Blockbuster store in their latter years, they're selling everything, baby. You know, they've got all sorts of tchotchkes and everything else. They're still just barely thinking outside the box. The box, and this is important for everybody here.

Listen, if the box still exists, the box has a gravitational pull. Every idea, every iteration that comes out is merely going to be an iteration of the current box. It'll all go back to, well, with what we have, we could do this. You have to throw away the box.

Yeah, that's great stuff. So just to continue to unpack this further, if you don't mind, because this is really fascinating. In that scenario, if you've got a leadership team, for example, that is convinced that their box is the right box, they're totally blind and oblivious to the fact that maybe the box isn't the right thing in the current state. How do you beat that?

It's hard to do, quite frankly. I'm going to be blunt because that's what you do on this show. You get new leadership. If you are an owner, you are a board of directors, you get new leadership.

You have to today, especially with AI. Either they're on board and you try to find the early adapters. When you are the leader trying to do massive change like this, trying to throw away the box, you have to find the people that get it, the early adopters. Now, for those lower on the level, you don't have to throw them all away.

You don't have to fire them all. Some of them will take longer. They're not the early adopters. They're the ones that do the wait and see.

But once they see, they come on board. But if it's the leadership that's refusing to do the changes that have to do, you need new leadership. Yeah, well said, man. I want to talk about another number that you hit pretty heavily, and that's 73% of sales reps miss their targets.

And you tie this back to Nobel Prize winning behavior economics and your own ox cart techniques. I want you to explain the ox cart technique. And then also, if it's not a lack of training or intelligence, where's the breakdown in the execution that's costing these companies millions? Okay.

And this is a little bit of a different subject, but tied together. So the ox cart technique and why do people miss their goals? Because we're doing it wrong. And again, you like to be blunt on this podcast.

I appreciate that. I respect that. And I respect that your audience wants the truth. So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to tell the truth. Listen, especially when we're talking sales or our own goals, and it could be a financial goal, business goal, could be a weight loss goal, could be a marital goal, whatever the goal is, we're doing it wrong. We're only doing it halfway. Here's how.

A lot of times, especially let's talk sales goals, whether it be direct sales, real estate, insurance, whatever it is, it's a sales-based industry. We do rah, rah, rah, bunnies and unicorns. Here's how great it's going to be when you're on the beaches of the world. Here's your sales incentive when you reach it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Here's the problem with that. We will do more to avoid pain than to go toward pleasure. Everybody listening, you want to write this down. We will do more to avoid pain than to go toward pleasure.

Now, why do we not reach those goals? Because they require us to get out of our comfort zone, right? Everybody knows that. You got to get out of your comfort zone.

But if we give them enough bunnies and unicorns and incentives and everything, that'll pull them out of their comfort zone. It doesn't work that way. Prospect theory, which won the Nobel Prize when applied to economics, showed us without any question, no doubt at all, we'll do more to avoid pain than to go toward pleasure. So no matter how much pleasure you attach to that goal, it will not get you past the pain of getting out of your comfort zone.

Therefore, what the ox cart technique shows is not only do you have a success scenario, here's how amazing it's going to be when you reach your goal, which is critical. I don't want to completely downplay that. It's a critical component, but it's the weaker component. You also need to have what happens, wait.

If I don't reach my goals? What happens? Let's be honest here. Most people don't reach their goals.

It is a potential reality. We don't want to avoid that. We can't think of that. Yes, we can.

The universe will kick your butt and make you want to get out of your comfort zone and do it. That's why we set up both a failure scenario, as it's called, and a success scenario. But the method is absolutely critical. And that's where the ox cart technique comes in.

And you're so write about the universe kicking your butt and forcing you to do it, I'll say I'm living proof of that. But one of the things I want to talk about in terms of the universe kicking somebody's butt and getting out and doing something and getting out of their comfort zone specifically is this notion of public speaking. And I think public speaking is number one or number two greatest fear, certainly above death. And I've always joked that people would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy, which is kind of a frightening way to think about it.

Jerry Seinfeld. Yep. Jerry Seinfeld. Yep.

But before I, I wanted to get granular with this, but before we do, I got to attack it from 30,000 foot level. And you talk about maybe this, this fear of speaking and why it's so important to overcome it. Okay. Leadership is always from the front of the room.

Now I know there's different, and I've studied leadership for decades. Okay. I'm a prior military officer, business leader, philanthropic leader, et cetera. I'm a leadership kind of guy.

Okay. And I know there's the concept of leadership from the back of the room. Okay. I'm sorry, but leadership is from the front.

It is always from the front. You can elevate others, but you're going to have to do it from the front of the room. If you are going to lead, they need to hear the power of the human voice. There is no more powerful weapon on earth than the power of the human voice for doing both good and bad, as we've seen throughout history.

Listen, you need to get over it. You need to get up there. Whether you're leading a nonprofit, a corporate business, a sales team, whatever it is, you have to get up there. Again, it's knowing how to do it.

Yeah. Somebody once told me as I was, I'll say, reinventing myself in my career to learn what it meant to be more visible and more out front was you don't want to be the best person in your industry that no one's ever heard of. And I think you referred to that person as the invisible expert. Talk about that phenomenon and what that means in terms of the overall ability to either drive opportunities, close opportunities in terms of like the sales cycle.

And what are we missing? Well, here's the beautiful thing. And especially for all of you coaches, you people who are really trying to gain a following or gain people to buy something from you. Or it could be investors for your startup, whatever it is.

You've got two scenarios you can go with. You can be like everybody else, posting online, endless posting online that people click right through. You know, you can be advertising, you can be sending emails, you can be doing all that kind of crap, or you can be the person on stage showing your expertise. So when people, when you walk off of that stage, people are lined up to hand you their business card.

You're elevated on the stage. You're the expert on the stage. You're the celebrity. You're the person they want to work with.

Now they're chasing you instead of you chasing them. And it's a lot more fun. It's a lot more productive. It's a lot more lucrative.

Yeah, for sure. They always said that everybody trusts the person at the podium. So let's talk about, first of all, what defines the stage? Because it can be, you know, a conversation to a group of folks at a diner at a breakfast networking meeting, all the way up to the larger platform, the TEDx stage, which we're going to talk about in a minute as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And quite frankly, it can be one-on-one in a way. But yeah, it's what the stage is, is anything that elevates you, you are speaking, they are listening. So it can, it can be at a Rotary Club, it could be at B&I, or I'm about to speak, in two days to several thousand scouts, as I'm one of the keynotes at the Scout Jamboree in West Virginia.

So it can be thousands of people. Either way, it's amazing what can happen. I had, at one point, I was giving some free to very cheap speeches locally. Well, somebody was in that audience, and they said, man, we need you for this national stage.

Bam, by the way, for free. You know what? You're on a stage. You're the expert.

That's the best promotion you could get that you're not paying for. From that, I made, I don't even know, quarter million dollars, half a million dollars in different speeches from that one speech because they saw me on stage. They lined up afterwards to hand me their business card. You've got to be the expert on the stage, whatever that stage is.

It elevates you as the person they want to invest in, that they want to buy from, that they want to work with, that they want to listen to. Yeah. And for those folks listening as well, internally, if you're at a staff meeting, and like you said, leadership starts from within, right? So you've got to command the room internally to get the folks to buy into your own leadership style.

So I alluded to the idea of going from the networking chat in the diner all the way up to the TEDx stage. And I know you've got a program where you can help leaders go from basically zero to becoming strategic TED Talks, TED Talk applicant in a very short period of time. I want you to explain that process, but before you do, give me the psychology that allows somebody to go from zero to thinking that big. You know, I'll take you back to the ox cart.

In fact, here's a fun one. Yeah, my TEDx talk, and I don't know if you're going to say this or not, but debuted at number two in the world. It's been named one of the 30 most impactful of the century, et cetera. Very cool.

So I was at a TEDx audition the other day, just as an audience member, I wanted to go help out. And this gal next to me, I was talking to, she was so nervous. She was so nervous. And she had a cause that she believed in, an idea she believed in.

And she's talking about how nervous she is. So I looked at her, I said, so you don't believe in your idea, do you? She said, wait, what? Well, you don't believe in your idea.

I'm messing with her. I'm working with her is what I'm doing. She said, well, of course I did. Well, no, because you're You're so worried about yourself that your own fear is more important than your cause, apparently.

Well, no, it's not. She starts getting up in arms, right? She starts getting emotional. Emotion, not fact, is the driver of all action.

And so, well, tell me about your cause and who it's going to help. It's going to help these people. What happens if they don't get it? Well, this is terrible.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. She starts really getting passionate now, man. Okay, so what happens if they do? Well, then this will happen.

Okay, now, how do you feel right now? I'm ready to go fire it up. Well, get up there and fire it up. And indeed she did.

It's using the Oxcart technique on yourself to really develop that passion. Now, I've got different techniques I take people through that make them the most powerful they've ever been in their life. Every time they get in front of a microphone, get in front of a crowd, do a sales call, talk one-on-one, ask for a raise, ask for investors, et cetera. That's different techniques.

But the bottom line is. Get over yourself. It's not about you. It's about what you're talking about and the people it can impact.

Yeah. And that's the big mindset shift. I remember early on when I first started doing public speaking, I was afraid. And I think it was Simon Sinek, one of his talks kind of inspired me to the idea that forget about fear, what you're feeling is actually excitement and don't show up to make it about you show up to give.

And as soon as you do that, or I did that little mental mindset shift, everything clicked for me. Yeah, absolutely. When I'm getting up there, I'm thinking of that audience member right there and the impact I'm going to make on their life. How can I change their life?

And then it's when you're looking at it from that standpoint, it's not about, oh, they're going to judge me. They're going to hate the way I look. I'm going to forget what I'm going to say. No, no, it's not about that.

Let's face it. If you've ever been passionate about anything, if you are a parent, you have been passionate about something. When your kid is doing something they're not supposed to, you are not worried about how they think of you or you're not going to say the right words. You are passionate.

Or if you've been married or in any relationship, potentially same thing. Look at it that way, man. You're just there to help them. Ain't about it.

That's it. It's not about you. It's all about them. And I was working with a group of interns just last week and I told them if you ever get an opportunity to do any kind of public speaking, even if it's standing up in your staff meeting, do it.

You'll be glad you did. Terry, I want to talk about another way that business leaders can get their message out into the world, and that's they're maybe putting their ideas into a book. Again, people have a fear of doing it. I never intended to write mine, which made it easy because they were passion projects.

Because if you asked me today, I'd say, no way, writing a book is a lot of work. Because it was a passion project for me and I didn't have any deadlines, it actually felt like fun. So talk about how important, if at all, books still are today. And how do people get that same kind of internal motivation to execute on what's really a daunting project?

Yeah, absolutely. Are they important today? Yes and no. And again, I always shoot straight, good or bad.

When I'm working with my clients. One of the first things we do if they don't have a book is I have an AI book ghostwriter. Now, before anybody goes, oh my God, AI, no, it's there to help you. It's your ideas.

It's your stories. It helps you put it all together. Why is it important and why is it not important? First of all, if you're going to get on the stages, being a TEDx speaker does help and being the author of makes a huge difference.

Okay. So that's why you want to get a book out there, but you've got some really good help. Again, if you're working with the right people, Don't just go to chat GPT and say, write a book. It's going to suck, okay?

When you're writing the book, write it from this perspective, though. Number one, you want to help the reader, okay? Of course, you want to help the reader in whatever way it is. But listen, listen, use your book as a tool.

Now get this, it's not about the book. It's not about selling books. Now I'm the number one best-selling author on Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, best-selling author on USA Today. All that's nifty.

It was never about that. That book is a tool to help you get on the stages because the stages is where you convert people. So also built into the strategy of writing that book is you want that reader, as soon as they put that book down, if not before. To look you up and want to work with you, want to invest in you, want to hire you to work with their company, whatever it is.

You have to build that strategy into the book. Just writing a book to tell your story feels good. You got your story out there. That doesn't help people.

And listen, this is important too, as you're building your speeches, nobody cares about your story. Until you make them care about it because they relate to it in their story. If they can't see themselves in your story, you're talking just to hear yourself talk. If they see themselves in your story, now you're reaching them.

Now you're creating that emotion that causes action. Yeah. And underpinning all that is this element of credibility. I know in my world, when I'm talking to potential clients and referral partners and explaining what I do and who I am and so forth, the fact that I'm an author, people have said, well, then you must be a smart guy.

Well, that's a big assumption. But somebody actually also commented, and I've heard this more than once, actually, that it says you can get stuff done. If you can complete a book project, then you're capable of completing a project for me. Amen.

There is a ton of truth to that. It is a daunting task. And again, that's why it's good to be able to work with somebody who knows what they're doing with these things and with AI that is highly trained, which is so critical. Just regular AI isn't going to do it.

It's highly trained for that to help you organize everything in a way that's going to transform. It's what it's all about. Not sell. It's about transforming an audience, transforming a reader.

Critical. Yeah. I want to talk to you a little bit now about the power of persistence because it's so easy to surrender to fear and inertia and what have you in the day-to-day email inbox. But I want to talk about your brother a little bit.

I know you've talked about him and how he applied to NASA, I think it was seven times before he got to command the International Space Station. But you've said that he didn't just persist. He kind of leaned into the institution or learned the institution. So when you're looking at navigating these highly competitive systems, like getting onto a TEDx stage, how do you teach leaders to reverse engineer the institution rather than just hoping they're getting noticed?

I love it. Great, great research too, my friend. You do a lot of good work before these things. That's when I built the system I've got that helps elevate thought leaders through their book, TEDx, paid speeches, podcasts, etc.

I decided that, for one thing, I don't have to do this. So if I'm going to do it, it will be the best in the world before I launch it, or I won't launch it. And so how did I do that? I researched the world.

Now, I used the most highly powerful AI, of whatever era I was doing this for several years now, whatever era I was in, I always go to the highest AI to help me research, help me dig in what would make this the best. You don't want to go out there and just be mediocre. You don't want to say the same message everybody else is saying. How do you elevate yourself?

You've got to do the work just like Dave has done before every single podcast, this one included. Obviously, you have to do the work. You've got to do the research. Which so many people come to me and they have a great method, you know, that they have come up with.

And I'm always up front. Yes. Okay. That's cool.

There's at least 500 other people with a very similar method. How do you differentiate yourself and your method? So it rings true to people. That's the only way to elevate yourself with a message that will get you on the stages and get you in front of everybody.

But you got to do your research. Everything is work, folks. Ain't no easy way. Dave's worked his butt off.

I've worked my butt off. We both continue to, and you will too, or don't even dream about it. But how do you keep up that motivation to work your butt off? That's where that ox cart technique comes in.

And by the way, the latest iteration of the book is Never Miss a Goal Again. It's now available on Amazon, and it's certainly worth a read. That's awesome. And when we wrap up, I want to make sure that you tell the audience about where they can get it and a little bit more about it.

You bet. I want to get to the, I'll call it the fun part of the program for just a moment. I want to talk about the fact that you won Fox's Kicking and Screaming. Your words, you say the oldest competitor.

Yeah, yeah. So you led a digital gamer through the jungle. So in this show, we talk a lot about culture and human capital. And I want you first to tell the audience about the whole experience, what it is and how it all unfolded for you.

But what did managing extreme fear and panic in the jungle teach you about how corporate leaders should guide their teams? Well, you know, so let's talk about how I got on this show to begin with. I get asked that a lot, of course. I did not want to be on any survival show.

They reached out to me, OK? And I found out, indeed, I was going to be the oldest competitor on the entire show. So my wife is laughing at me. She's like, oh, my God, what?

You're the tog. What's tog? You're the token old guy, dude. You know, so it's like, it's really cool that they've got the old guy on there.

It's great. They've got that demographic represented, but he going to die. Now, let's add in, I found out my competitors were going to be special forces guys, a Marine Scout sniper, a guy who helped take out Saddam Hussein, a fourth degree ninja black belt I'd seen on Naked and Afraid All-Stars, except for the fuzzy parts. And who was I?

I was representing all of Boy Scouts of America in my Scoutmaster uniform. So again, it's really cute. They've got the Boy Scout on there in a little neckerchief, but he gonna die. I told my wife I had no desire to be on this show, but I felt like I was being called to do so.

So now, yes, when I got on there, the premise of the show, which is on Tubi now, by the way, just moved from Prime to Tubi, is 10 survival experts pitted against each other while dragging along a complete novice. Somebody's never even camped out in their backyard before, thus kicking and screaming. Who was my novice? My novice was pink and blue hair, fully tattooed up, tongue ring, atheist, admitted sex addict, online video gamer.

Now, why would they? Yeah, yeah, you laugh. Thanks. Why would they pair that with the Scoutmaster?

It's a great TV, man. Come on. But here's the thing that I learned in scouting that applies to business as well. We don't care.

We don't care about their background, race, color, creed, socioeconomic. We don't. It has nothing to do with any of that. In scouting, we take them all.

We don't care about their past. We care about their future. In business, it's not about those things too. Now we can beat up on DEI, whatever, and this is not that talk, I promise you.

But what we need to look at in business is, okay, how do we work those cultures together? Whatever the culture is, how do we work those cultures together? And listen, for the United States of America, y'all, let's focus less on our differences and more what's bringing us together. I promise you most of what we're seeing online right now about the differences and the hate is coming from other countries.

Here's an example. My wife is of one political party. I am of a different political party. We are both type AAA personalities.

How do we get along? Because we have more in common than we don't. If she believes one way about something that I don't, okay, she's allowed to have independent thought, and so am I. Same thing across the United States of America, y'all.

Same thing across corporate culture, organizations. It's critical. Don't focus on the differences. focus on the similarities, show the love.

Amen to that, brother. Well said. Exclamation mark. I want to have you share some, we'll call it actionable advice, if you don't mind, Terry.

Give us some thoughts on a metric or two that your stage readiness diagnostic tells you that a business leader is really underpositioned. Are you getting the clients? Are you getting the results from your employees for your company? The bottom line is, are you getting the results that you want?

Are you making the difference in the world that you want? Are you getting the clients that you want, the investors that you want? Are you getting the raises that you want? One of the reasons I did so well in the military, my military career was crazy successful.

Why? One of the reasons is I worked my butt off. The other one is I get up on the stages. If there was a ceremony that needed an emcee, they called Terry.

You know, if there was a change of command, we need to call Captain Fossum. You know, that's the way it is. So get up on those stages and you can then be elevated and people will follow a leader. They won't follow somebody who is not a leader.

Whoever's the loudest, whoever's the most seen, that's who they're going to follow. Be that person. Yeah, absolutely. Be that person.

So, Terry, for the folks out there who are listening, if they're tired of chasing prospects and want to turn their expertise into some kind of market advantage, tell them where they can find you, your books, and what it's like to work with you. Yeah, absolutely. TheStageAdvantage.com, because it is.

TheStageAdvantage.com. That's where you want to go for the program that helps elevate you so you can become that leader, that expert on the stage that you really do want to become. Your book, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

As far as the throw away the box concept and the ox cart technique, helping people actually reach their goals, I am, after my back surgery in five days, going to be back on the speaking circuit again. So I look forward to getting back out there and helping companies and organizations reach their goals again, throw away the box, give them the steps to do so. And that can be found at TerryLFossum.com, TerryLFossum.

com. All my books are on Amazon because I don't want to do fulfillment myself. And again, the latest one, Never Miss a Goal Again, is the one you want to get from that standpoint. Oh, and also have an award-winning speaking book, The Simple Guide to Public Speaking Without Losing Your Lunch, used by astronauts to beauty queens.

That one hit pretty hard as well. So, yeah, and follow me on social media. I am not hard to find these days. I can't hide anywhere.

That's why I have a ranch on top of a mountain, middle of nowhere, Montana. Did you mention the podcast and the litany of places people can find you, Terry? I've got the Comeback Chronicles podcast actually is something that we hit really hard on for a while with some amazing world-class guests on there. And that too, once my back surgery is done, we're going to be firing that sucker back up.

But there's some great episodes at the Comeback Chronicles podcast.com or wherever you listen to podcasts as well. Thanks for that, Dave. You betcha.

There you go. Nobody is ever going to accuse you of being an invisible expert. Nope. I'm out there whether I want to be or not, but that's how you get.

things done. Yeah. And I appreciate you not only doing the work that you do and helping leaders, you know, overcome their fears and getting out in front of things, but for spending time with us today and sharing your insights with the audience of Behind the Numbers. Dave, absolute pleasure working with you.

And again, thank you for everything you're doing, giving people the real information that makes the difference in their lives. A lot of hype out there, a lot of smoke and mirrors. You're the real, Dion. I appreciate you.

Appreciate the kind words, my friend. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you out there for going behind the numbers with us today.

If this episode sparked any kind of a new perspective, please take 10 seconds and leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really is the best way to help the show grow. And make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss another one. Until next time, I'm Dave Bookbinder reminding you that the numbers tell the story, but the people bring it to life.

Take care, everybody. We'll see you next time.