Episode 1465: Interview with Terry Fossum About The OxCart Technique

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining us on episode 1, 465 of the Inspired Stewardship

[00:00:05] Terry L Fossum: Podcast. Hey, I'm Terry L. Fossum. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to finally reach your goals is key.

[00:00:26] And one way to be inspired to do that, so listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:43] Take stock of the blessings you have. Stop feeling sorry for yourself for the things you don't. Stop comparing yourself to the rest of the American lifestyle or the people you see on Instagram or podcasts or TV, or maybe stop comparing yourself to them. Okay? [00:01:00] Do everything you can with the gifts you are

[00:01:04] Scott Maderer: given.

[00:01:04] Welcome and for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others.

[00:01:25] And develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:31] In today's podcast episode, I interview Terry L. Fossum. I asked Terry about his journey from growing up in McAllen to becoming a best Oxcart Technique. I also asked Terry to share what the Oxcart technique is and why it's different than many other goal setting techniques. And Terry also shares with you how you can overcome your own challenges to hit your goals.

[00:01:55] I've got a new book coming out called Inspired Living, assembling the [00:02:00] puzzle of your call by mastering your time, your talent, and your treasures. You can find out more about it and sign up for getting more information over at www. inspiredstewardship. com Inspired Living. That's InspiredStewardship. com, Inspired Living.

[00:02:18] Terry L. Fossum grew up in literally the poorest city in the entire United States, a small Texas town near the border of Mexico named McAllen, surrounded by gangs and drugs. He found himself on the wrong end of an assault rifle in Junior High in his own back alley. Despite the odds, Terry received his degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A& M University, and he then received a commission as an officer in the United States Air Force, where he became the executive officer for an entire group of nuclear B 52 bombers during the Cold War, and he received several awards.

[00:02:54] Next, he entered the challenging world of direct sales, and after years of failing, developed, and sold, The [00:03:00] Oxcart Technique and reached the top fraction of 1 percent of the entire industry in the world. After touring across the United States, helping raise millions of dollars for Boy Scouts, Terry became a highly acclaimed international keynote speaker and wrote The Oxcart Technique, which became a number one best selling book on the Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and Barnes Noble, and a best selling book on USA Today.

[00:03:23] He's performed TED Talks on the Oxcart Technique, and most of all, he enjoys being a smitten husband, a dad to three amazing young men, a buddy to three dogs, and a cat who won't leave his lap. and spending time on his ranch tucked far away in the mountains of Montana.

[00:03:39] Terry L Fossum: Welcome to the show, Terry. Thanks so much for having me, Scott.

[00:03:42] I really appreciate it. I love what you're doing. I love that this is faith based, so you let people go there and understand that faith is life is faith. And you're not going to be a good steward of anything unless you understand where all these gifts are coming from. I really appreciate being here.

[00:03:57] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. I'm glad to have you. [00:04:00] Terry's going to be heading out to the beautiful, wide open country of Montana here in a little bit. I mentioned you've got a ranch there in the intro. And obviously in the intro, I shared a lot of different things. You've had a pretty varied background. had a a life from living not too far from where I am in McAllen on into the military and doing other things.

[00:04:24] Would you talk a little bit, I always think of intros as like the Instagram photos of our life, we make sure we frame everything in a certain way. You don't necessarily see the pile of dirty laundry over in the corner, we make sure that's out of the frame.

[00:04:37] So would you talk a little bit more about your journey and what brought you to the point of working so hard to share the Oxcart technique to put this message out into the world?

[00:04:48] Terry L Fossum: Yeah, I'd love to. Thanks for asking. And first of all, yeah, all those accolades, number one, there's number two, those are things I've done.

[00:04:54] That's not who I am. And it's important to discern between the two, [00:05:00] and then aside from that is where I come from. My dad was a poor sharecropper, so they didn't even own their land, they worked for somebody else, and he got a job that took him to literally the poorest city in the entire United States of America, McAllen, Texas, indeed near you, and Yeah, everybody's heard of it.

[00:05:21] No matter who you are, you've heard of it in the news with the border crossings and the cartels coming across and kidnapping people. Oh, home. And don't get me wrong. I love my hometown. I really do. And it's changed a lot. As Scott and I were talking about before this, it's changed a lot. But back in my day, it was a little rough growing up there sometimes with all the gangs and the drugs.

[00:05:40] In fact, I was on the wrong end of an assault rifle in junior high in my own back alley. When I was in high school, my father, my dad, who worked so hard to raise this family, was killed. And before he died, one of the neighbors came up to him and said, I just want to make sure you understand something. I want to make sure you [00:06:00] understand something.

[00:06:00] Those three boys of yours, your three sons, not a single one of them will ever grow up to be anything. So that's my background. That's where I come from. People talk about yeah, he's been in movies and TV and reality show and all. I don't know who that guy is. All I know is I'm not supposed to grow up to be anything.

[00:06:20] But Scott, I tried. I learned all the positive motivation I could, man. I filled my brain full of all the books and the audio tapes and the seminars, everything I could pump in there that I could get my hands on because I wanted to break free from that. And I got into a direct sales business. I knew nothing about it.

[00:06:36] I sucked at it. It was horrible. I was terrible, but I tried and I failed. And I tried and I failed and I tried and I failed. I failed and I just couldn't fail anymore. I gave up. I walked into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I [00:07:00] guess he's right. You're never going to grow up to be anything.

[00:07:05] And I, wait a minute, no. No, for the sake of the memory of my dad, if nothing else, I refuse to let that son of a gun be right. That will not happen. And something happens. God, I got ticked off. Something clicked inside me, man. And I got up, I brushed myself off and I got back at it again. Now. I got back at it and I still hit the same disappointments and setbacks that we all do.

[00:07:32] This, the same time gets in the way and I don't have time, the same excuses, the fears, the self doubts that I hit before. But now I did it from a different standpoint. See, before I listened to all this goal setting crap that turned out to be incorrect or absolutely wrong. And, but they're telling me you have a dream board with a big house and a big car, beaches of the world.

[00:07:52] There's a few things wrong with that. Number one, I don't care about those things. I'm my happiest in a tent in the middle of nowhere. So they're not a [00:08:00] motivator. If somebody else's motivator, all too often we try to go towards somebody else's vision of success. The second problem is that's never going to happen to a guy like me.

[00:08:10] I'm never going to have a big house. I'm never going to have a fancy car and all that. Now I do now, but I never believed it at the time. Here's the biggest problem though. It doesn't work. Most of what we've been taught about goal setting doesn't work, which is why 92 percent of the people fail at reaching a goal.

[00:08:29] I was one of those 92%. We'll hit you with some science real quick and then we'll move on from there. But I found out why this worked for me. After I started succeeding and succeeding, I became part of the top fraction of 1 percent of the entire direct sales industry in the world. Me.

[00:08:47] And you know my background. Okay. People are coming to me wondering, what do you do? So I'm teaching them before I knew it. I had rooms full of people coming to listen to me. And then we started applying it to marriage because marriage is a goal. At least it should be that [00:09:00] 50 percent fail at. So I get these emails.

[00:09:02] You just saved my marriage. Applying to weight loss, world renowned weight loss coach in my audience. So when I decided to put this in a book, I wanted to prove myself wrong. Because true scientific research is proving yourself wrong, not trying to prove yourself right. I came across something called prospect theory, which explained everything to me.

[00:09:22] My jaw dropped as I read what I was reading. Because it's what I've been doing, I just didn't understand the science behind it. Prospect theory taught us. Without any doubt, we'll do more to avoid pain. This is important for everybody, for the stewardship of your time and your money and everything we're talking to.

[00:09:39] We're bringing it home right now, guys. You gotta hear this. You gotta hear this. We'll do more to avoid pain than to go toward pleasure. I say it again. We'll do more to go to avoid pain than go toward pleasure. When prospect theory was applied to economics, it won the Nobel Prize. Okay, this is real. This isn't some pseudoscience.

[00:09:57] We're in a lot of that stuff these days. A lot of it's [00:10:00] based on that. No bull. Okay. This is for real. All right. Here's the problem. We associate getting out of our comfort zone with pain. So no matter how much positive visualization, happy thoughts, dream boards, bunnies, unicorns, and rainbows that we want to go towards, it's not enough to get us out of our comfort zone.

[00:10:18] That's why we don't have enough time. Yeah, you do. So we do the things that are Comfortable for us. We spend our money on things that are comfortable. It's not that we don't have the money, but it's that we do the things that are comfortable with it. Time. We do the things that we're comfortable doing. So we don't have enough time left over to do the things that are uncomfortable.

[00:10:41] It's not that we don't have enough time or money. We waste them. We're bad stewards. We do it on things that are comfortable. So what do we do? Okay. We've talked about the positive visualization. That's important. That's good, but it's not enough to get us out of the pain of the comfort zone. What do we do?

[00:10:58] We create a [00:11:00] scenario in our minds that's more uncomfortable than the pain of getting out of our comfort zone. So it kicks us out of that comfort zone because we'll avoid pain. That's important to know. Let me give you an example. For me, again, I didn't do what I did. I didn't go through all the no's and the setbacks and you're crazy and the disappointments and everything to go for that positive visualization like we talked about.

[00:11:23] I did it and it kept me going because that son of a gun was not gonna be right. So I didn't care what anybody else thought. I put that visualization in my mind that gave me the carrot, something to go, or the stick, something to go away from, kick me through my comfort zone, in to the conquer zone. And at that point, the ox cart technique was in.

[00:11:45] was born.

[00:11:48] Scott Maderer: And we'll talk some more about the Oscorp technique too, as we go on, but I'll give you an example out of one of my coaching client situations back in the day. There was a client that was working on things [00:12:00] and basically was having trouble following through on some goals that they had.

[00:12:04] And one of the questions I asked them is, is there a group out there or an organization out there that you just, you absolutely you would never, ever want your name associated with this group. And he's yeah, and it happened to be a political organization. I'm not going to name it.

[00:12:19] And I said,

[00:12:20] Terry L Fossum: great,

[00:12:21] Scott Maderer: write me a check made out to pay that organization for 1, 000. And he's like, why? And I said, cause you're going to put it in a sealed envelope and you're going to mail it to me and I'm going to hold onto that check. And if you don't follow through on what you said, you're going to do, I'm going to mail that check to that organization.

[00:12:44] And he was. A little taken aback, but you know what, he mailed me the check and you know what, he followed through, and it was something that he'd been trying to do for, five, six, seven years. And it's a small example of what you're talking about. Really and truly, it wasn't that big of a [00:13:00] pain.

[00:13:00] Honestly, he could afford a thousand dollars, but the concept of that money going to that organization that he really did not agree with that much. Was just so untenable that it's okay, now I'll do it.

[00:13:16] Terry L Fossum: That's brilliant, man. That's brilliant. I love it. And the reason it worked you mentioned, it's not that big of a thousand bucks.

[00:13:21] You can afford it. The facts are, you can afford it.

[00:13:24] Scott Maderer: The emotion was not,

[00:13:26] Terry L Fossum: it's well, emotion, not fact is the driver of all action. Emotion, not fact is the driver of all. That's why this works. You create that emotion. If you're just going if I fail at my goal and I'll, it's not that big of a deal. I'll just set a

[00:13:38] Scott Maderer: resolution again next year and try and fail at that one too.

[00:13:42] Terry L Fossum: 100%. So you've got to, when you're writing this out, you've got to put all the pain points in there. Who's it going to affect? How it will affect them. What's the look in your spouse's eyes when you feel it, whatever it is that is going to draw you to it, to make you, Do the things you're supposed to do.

[00:13:55] That's exactly right. I love it.

[00:13:57] Scott Maderer: And it's why, I think it's another thing [00:14:00] that, we'll touch on and I'm going to go a different way. So for example, fear of public speaking, a lot of people don't like public speaking. They've actually done research. And the fear of public speaking is not actually about getting up in front of people and speaking.

[00:14:12] It's about being ostracized because you somehow feel It's the emotion of the group's going to drive me out. The group's going to make fun of me. I'm going to be teased about it. I'm going to screw up. It, those are the fears. It's just played out in our head of, Oh, if I get up on the stage, and that's one of the things that people will say is truth is.

[00:14:34] I've gotten seen a lot of public speakers. I have never sat in the audience going, boy, I hope they screw up. I'm in the, I'm on their side. I'm in the audience going, boy, I hope this is good. I want them to do a good job. I want him to win. And yet we in our head, we

[00:14:48] Terry L Fossum: screw up with them even more.

[00:14:50] Scott Maderer: Exactly. Yeah. They make a mistake and they just go, Oh, I screwed that up, it's yeah, and I, and I've done like you, I've done a lot of public speaking and I've had the situation where you get up on stage and the blow [00:15:00] blows out on the projector, and, or the whatever, or the light goes out overhead.

[00:15:04] It's now I'm talking to the dark. Okay. It's whatever, but if you roll with it and you lean into it, Okay. Like you said, it generally brings the audience more on your side, not less. Cause we want people to succeed. We want people to win, but in our head we painted out a different picture.

[00:15:19] And I think those are all related in a way on, on that emotional side. And yet out there, there's a ton of literature, for lack of a better word, I'll call it that, the, whether it's the secret or the, the messaging is, oh, but if you just visualize it, it'll win, you'll, it'll come, you put it out into the universe, speak it into existence, all of these sorts of things that you hear.

[00:15:42] Why do you think that's such a prominent message? When it really doesn't ever work, you

[00:15:49] Terry L Fossum: couldn't be more right. It drives me sick. Why? Because it's comfortable. It makes you feel good. It keeps you in your comfort. Oh, I can have all these [00:16:00] things and I don't have to do anything. The Lord helps those who help themselves and so does the universe.

[00:16:06] Can you imagine if you were the universe and people are going, okay universe tell you what, I'm just going to just sit here and think happy thoughts. You go to work for me. Okay, go for it. How would the universe feel about that? Thinking not so good. It's comfortable. We want to stay in our comfort zone and it makes people feel good when they're hearing these things.

[00:16:23] So it sells books, it sells audiotapes, it sells audiences, but listen folks, like you said, it's not true, okay? Positive visualization, important, critical, but only one piece and nothing happens until you Take long term consistent.

[00:16:39] Scott Maderer: So we'll come back and talk more about the OXCORT technique and I've got some specific questions that I think, that will help the listener with some actionable tips. But before I go there, one of the things I like to highlight for people is the connection we have between our faith journey and our experience around that.

[00:16:56] along with our life journey and how that's a feedback loop a lot of [00:17:00] times, the, what happens in our life affects our faith and what happens in our faith affects our life. Would you share a little bit about your faith journey from the beginnings there in McAllen to where you are today?

[00:17:11] Terry L Fossum: Yeah faith is every part of my life, it really is. I wake up every single morning, and the first thought out of my head is, Thank you, God, for the gifts you have given me. Please help me use them in your service. Let's give credit where credit's due, folks. All right.

[00:17:29] Now I've worked hard. Okay. I've worked really hard to get where I'm at. Okay. Where'd I get that work ethic from? God gave it to me. Credit where credit's due. I'm decently smart. I may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I'm not the dimmest. Where did that come from?

[00:17:44] God gave it to me. I have nothing to be proud of myself. I've got a lot to be thankful for. And I go through every day in, in thanks. And that's a cool way to live to tell you the truth. And by the way, don't [00:18:00] think I'm perfect because every once in a while I get a little prideful and God has a way of smacking you back down.

[00:18:05] He's done it enough to where as soon as I get prideful, I start going like this wait, okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I joke, but it's absolutely true. The faith journey is all through all of it. I'm going to do a quick side story that we didn't plan on and that's okay. I came down to my computer one morning and I'm checking my email like every morning.

[00:18:24] I get an email out of the blue. This is Metal Flowers Media Casting Company. We're casting a brand new survival television reality show. Getting 10 of the top survival experts in the nation against each other while dragging along a complete novice. Somebody who's never even camped out in their backyard before.

[00:18:41] And we think you'd be great. Scott, let me ask you this. You get an email like that out of the blue. What do you think? Spam. It's spam. It's spam. I'm waiting for send 6, 000 to Nigeria. Yeah. Now here's the problem though. Here's the problem. Okay. I mentioned I was very blessed in in [00:19:00] drug sales. And I married into three teenage and preteen boys.

[00:19:05] When I did I called up my partner, said, guess what? I just retired. And they're like, wait, what? Yeah. Yeah. These boys need a positive male role model very badly. I can always figure out ways to make money. I've got one chance to turn these boys into honorable men. I'm not going to screw it up. So I did that.

[00:19:20] Fast forward now, the younger two twins are turning 18. They got their Eagle Scout. I was their Scoutmaster. Thank you, God. And so now I'm praying to God. Okay, God, what do you want me to do next? Whatever it is, I'll do it. You lead, I'll follow. Be careful what you ask for. Because a few days later, I get that flippant email out of the blue.

[00:19:40] And I told my wife, I have no, by the way, it turned out to be real. I called him up. It turned out to be real. Wow. I told my wife, I don't want to do this. I have zero, zero desire to be on a survival reality show. Now I do stuff all around the world and harsh climates and stuff. Solo backpacking in the Arctic circle and all that kind of crazy stuff.

[00:19:57] But I want to do this. Have you seen what they make them eat? [00:20:00] But I told her I don't have, I don't have a choice. I don't have a choice. You're saying, God, you lead, I'll follow. You got to follow. I called the entire thing Blind Faith. Turned out, I'll go condensed version on this, I was the oldest contestant on the entire show.

[00:20:15] I was going up against special forces people, Marine scout sniper mercenary who helped take out Saddam Hussein, a fortified ninja black belt I'd seen on Naked and Afraid All Stars, except for the fuzzy parts, military survival instructors, Me, I got on the show and I told 'em this, I called the entire thing blind Faith.

[00:20:36] Look guys, I know I'm not here to win. I know I, I've got no delusions of grandeur. I know I'm not here to win, but I'm here for a purpose. And even at the very end, it was down to two teams, my team and one other the Marine Scout Sniper and Miss Wyoming. And, it sounds nice. And they were doing those side interviews.

[00:20:52] They're going, how terrible would it be if you came this far, you came this far and lost, how bad would that be? I said, it'd be [00:21:00] fantastic. They're like, wait, what? Hollywood didn't understand this one. It would, it'd be fantastic. God put me here for a purpose. If my purpose is to help Brady and Claire win, amen.

[00:21:11] His will, not mine. It ain't about me. As it turns out, it was his will and we ended up winning the stinking show. I asked the executive producer afterwards, so do you think we'd win? No. Blind faith.

[00:21:28] Scott Maderer: Yeah. I think a lot of times too, when we when we lean into it like that it's easy to look backwards and connect dots.

[00:21:37] It's a lot harder to look forward and connect dots,

[00:21:40] Looking back on it. Now you see why you were there, but looking forward, it was like why am I doing this? This is crazy.

[00:21:47] Terry L Fossum: I ended up touring around the country doing a fundraising events for Boy Scouts, helped raise millions and millions of dollars for scouting.

[00:21:53] God knows how many lives were changed because I went on that show and with my partner and [00:22:00] God won it.

[00:22:00] Scott Maderer: Obviously if you think about it we were talking earlier about the getting out of your comfort zone and I want to go into kind of a related but different. So I think a lot of times too, so it's easy to talk about and you did, you're things are working right.

[00:22:18] Things are going okay. Yeah, you wish you would get better, but you're, It's not bad, and so you get stuck in that. Let's talk about a different situation. And it probably applies a little bit more to like where you were when you were in the direct sales, and struggling so bad and failing so bad at it.

[00:22:35] I've also seen situations where folks get stuck in the bad, it, where life really is going wrong. I, my, my joke is life becomes a country song, right? All the stuff that can go wrong, goes wrong. That kind of. And some people respond like you did, where they get angry about it.

[00:22:51] They get frustrated about it. They get fearful about whatever it is. They have that emotional reaction. They're like, no, I'm not going to let this happen. I'm going to push through. But some [00:23:00] people it's also, in science, we call it learned helplessness, right? Which is, if you get beat enough and don't feel like you have any control over getting beat.

[00:23:07] You just laid out and take it at some point. And we see this in human beings as well as other animals. What about the folks that are in that point where it just feels getting mad, it's not going to help getting the emotions, not going to help feeling the, everything is already as bad as it could be.

[00:23:23] I can't even visualize worse than this, or that kind of thing. What about the people in that place? How does that work? How does this work for them?

[00:23:31] Terry L Fossum: So I had the opportunity again, Blessings to donate a a building to a school in Rwanda. For the grand opening, I went over there. Now, what is this school for?

[00:23:46] Several years ago, there was a genocide. The tribes went against each other. No reason, really, but they did. Over a million people were slaughtered. I don't mean shot. I mean slaughtered. [00:24:00] Machetes, clubs, horrible things. And I, while I was over there, I toured a church. where the bloodstained clothes still lay around.

[00:24:13] I went down in the caretaker of the church was kind enough to introduce me to her family down in the crypt, the bones of her family. The gentleman I went over there with took me to the mass grave of a quarter million people and introduced me to a woman who's almost all of her children were slaughtered, many in front of her eyes.

[00:24:35] And I looked into the eyes of this old lady, tried to imagine what she had seen, what she had gone through, what she had felt.

[00:24:44] For everybody listening on, I know things can seem bad like nothing's going right for you. Like things are tough. Like maybe there isn't a future. I understand. I understand real well. What I want to tell you is you have more [00:25:00] going for you than you realize. You have so much more going for you than you realize.

[00:25:09] What you need to do is take stock of the gifts you are given. If you had a drink of water today, that's an amazing thing, y'all. That's an amazing thing. That's an amazing thing. If you woke up and nobody is trying to kill you at this moment, that's an amazing thing. If you woke up in a bed, you have a bed, maybe even a roof over you.

[00:25:32] If things are really cool, take stock in the blessings you have. Stop feeling sorry for yourself for the things you don't. Stop comparing yourself to the rest of the American lifestyle, or the people on Instagram, or podcasts, or TV, or maybe stop comparing yourself to them, okay? Do everything you can with the gifts you are given.

[00:25:55] And the biggest thing I tell people, if you want to feel good about yourself, go help somebody. [00:26:00] Go volunteer somewhere. Man, go downtown to a homeless shelter or somewhere. Help somebody else. There's nothing that'll make you feel better than going and helping somebody else. Get up off your butt. Get up off of your butt right now and go out there and go pet kittens at the the shelter.

[00:26:18] Ain't nothing better. Go pet a puppy that needs some attention. Get up off your butt. and do something positive that brings that little spark of joy back in. You can do this. You can do that. You can do that much. Go do it. And then it'll build. It'll build. It'll build. So that's your question.

[00:26:39] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. And I think sometimes too, it's the cause what you're talking about is also focusing on the gratitude piece, focusing on, and that I think is part of what we were talking about earlier, where, we talk about the positive visualization and you even mentioned, you said, that is good.

[00:26:55] That is important. That's not a bad thing. It's not that's. It's just critical. It's not enough [00:27:00] by itself. And this is an example of where that's the piece that maybe they're missing. That ability to say, wait, even though things are terrible. It's, there are still things that I can be thankful for, that I can still find gratitude for, even at the bottom of the, even at the bottom of the bottom, there's things you can find gratitude

[00:27:22] Terry L Fossum: for.

[00:27:23] Absolutely. And you have the power to change that within you. You have the power to change that. God's given it to you. He's pretty

[00:27:31] Scott Maderer: smart. He's pretty strong. That's the old adage of, the bad news is when you look in the mirror, you're seeing the source of the problem. The good news is you're also seeing the source of the solution.

[00:27:40] Absolutely.

[00:27:41] Terry L Fossum: Believe it or not. And

[00:27:45] Scott Maderer: not in terms of, we just do it all on our own. I'm like you, I believe God and faith and those things play a role in it. But, we are an active participant in the process. It's not a passive process. It's an active process. What, I want to ask you too.

[00:27:58] Why do you call it the ox [00:28:00] cart technique? Why is that the name? Yeah, but it's

[00:28:02] Terry L Fossum: based on a parable that I retooled basically about the ox going toward the carrot. or away from the stick. It's a you read the book. You read the parable in there. Yeah, exactly. So it's that's what it is.

[00:28:16] You've got both the power of the carrot and the stick and the condensed version of the story is the ox goes towards the carrot, which is great as long as he's hungry, but when he's not, that doesn't work, but the stick does. And it's applying the carrot and the stick yourself. That's all part of the technique that's in there, but that's why it's based on a pretty cute little parable.

[00:28:36] Scott Maderer: Yeah, and I did read the book and one of the I did appreciate the fact too, that you broke it down, you broke a lot of things down into what I would consider small enough chunks, so to speak, that people could read and understand and take action on it. Cause I think one of the problems that I see in a lot of books on process and goal setting and, all of that is, [00:29:00] is, it tends to almost be overwhelming in terms of its approach as opposed to, yours is very down to earth.

[00:29:07] It's written for somebody that actually is struggling, not like. This high and mighty stuff that, that sometimes you get whenever you look for books to help you hit your goals and make things happen.

[00:29:17] Terry L Fossum: I

[00:29:17] Scott Maderer: appreciate that, and

[00:29:19] Terry L Fossum: a couple of things that blew me away. When the book, first of all, when the book was coming out, I found somebody that could explain prospect theory to me and make sure that it actually was.

[00:29:30] an appropriate application. I found somebody who did their PhD dissertation in prospect theory and I gave him all my notes before I put the book out and he came back said you're dead on. He ended up writing the foreword for the book and he put a quote in there that I've been so humbled, man, by the response from the scientific community, the business community, everybody that I'll screw up the quote.

[00:29:51] But he said, Einstein said, genius is making the complex simple. And that's exactly what Terry Alfossum said in this book. I'm like, wow. Okay. [00:30:00] But then Forrest, and again, you know who I am. All right. And when I put this book out, a gentleman by the name of Forrest M. Mims III named one of the 50 best brains in science by Discover Magazine, called the Oscar Technique, the most significant advancement in the science of goal setting in recent history.

[00:30:18] Marshall Goldsmith, one of the top 10 business minds in the world, endorsed it. T. R. Vecker, one of the, my self improvement guru, founder of BNI. I was blown away at the response from the business, from the scientific and the self improvement communities blown away. Cool.

[00:30:37] Scott Maderer: Yeah. I think I use the DISC personality profile as, my way of kind of understanding how people are wired and communicate and things.

[00:30:45] And that, that, everybody's a blend, but there's four big categories and then people are blends of those four. And I think one of the mistakes we make with goal setting is we tend to talk. Goal setting as if everyone is wired the [00:31:00] same way, and we all look at the world the same way.

[00:31:03] And most of the literature that's out there is written for that audience. Unfortunately, that audience is about 20, 25 percent of the population. So 75 percent of people are not getting what they need. They're going, why can't I do this? Are some of the things that you've seen that are.

[00:31:19] Wrong or that maybe aren't speaking to those people that are, that other 75% that you look at as out there in the world that people believe is true, but really isn't. We talked about positive visualization and, the misuse of that earlier, but what else have you seen,

[00:31:34] Terry L Fossum: baby?

[00:31:34] I love that question. 'cause one of 'em that drives me insane is the the Harvard goal setting study. Now you've probably read about the Harvard goals and it's number one, bestselling books in the universe from stages of some of the top self improvement people in the world still is, you still, they're still talking about it happened, many years ago.

[00:31:52] And there's different things that have come out of that study from Harvard university. One of which is a hundred percent of the people who wrote down their goals [00:32:00] achieved them. So you have to write down your goals. See, and then 30, here's the problem with that. It never happened. The Harvard goal setting study never happened.

[00:32:10] Somebody made it up. They put it in a book. I've got the book. It's been repeated so many times that people just believe it's true. Harvard themselves said, guys, it's not true. We never did it. Neither did Yale. It's been accredited to or anybody else. That's what drives me insane when I see so much stuff out there.

[00:32:30] And again, you mentioned the secret. I, I try not to put anything or anybody down too much, but that one gets me going. Cause again, everybody's buying off on it so they can feel good and it's not helping people. So therefore, in my opinion, it is hurting people because they're still paying the money, they're buying the stuff, but they're not getting anywhere close to their goals.

[00:32:53] And folks, you're not standing still ever. You're either moving forward or you're moving backward because each one [00:33:00] of us, I don't know about you, but every single day I get a day older. So if you're just sitting still and you're, you are running out of that time, you're not being good stewards of your time and they're not helping you.

[00:33:12] Scott Maderer: Yeah. That's the, I remind people and I have a science background. So my actual education is in hard sciences and it, God created, the law of entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, all things tend towards disorder and less energy is put into the system to order it.

[00:33:27] In other words, if you sit around and don't put any energy into doing things fall apart.

[00:33:32] Terry L Fossum: Everything's falling apart. I feel terrible. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:35] Scott Maderer: Whether that's your life, whether that's your relationship, whether that's your spiritual walk, whether that's your career, your finances, your health, your whatever, and by the way, if you don't believe that just.

[00:33:46] Don't work on cleaning your house and keep anything organized for a couple of weeks and see what it looks like. That it's, it literally proves it to us every day. And yet, and again, I think it's related all of these things are related back to. [00:34:00] We have a tendency to get stuck in habit, get stuck in routine, get stuck in comfort, and something's got to break you out of that too.

[00:34:10] I also think it's one of the reasons that sometimes when things do go wrong, that is all of a sudden when people change, oh my goodness, I'm going to lose my house. I need to get better control of my money. Oh my goodness. The doctor just told me I'm going to have a heart attack, again, if I don't change, okay, I'm going to change my diet, I'm going to exercise, I'm going to do things, it's those moments that is proof that a lot of times it's not that you couldn't, you could have changed your diet six weeks ago too.

[00:34:36] Terry L Fossum: Absolutely. Yeah, it's a hundred percent true. It's absolutely true. The comfort zone, I like to tell the story and again, I've done things, out in the wilderness around the world. And the funny thing about thermo, or when you're freezing to death is

[00:34:49] Scott Maderer: hypothermia. Start

[00:34:50] Terry L Fossum: with you're cold, you shiver, you shiver, that's your body trying to create energy, you shiver.

[00:34:56] But then at some point you stop shivering [00:35:00] and you just go to sleep and you die. Just your comfort zone. That's where people go and dreams go to die. And it's comfortable so that you feel this feeling of warmth. You're not shivering anymore. And that's it. So that's why you've got to keep.

[00:35:17] shivering. You keep working. You got to keep taking energy and putting into it. You've got to, and you can.

[00:35:24] Scott Maderer: Yeah, absolutely. I've seen people and I'm sure you can too, make lists of people that have made tremendous change whenever, whatever it doesn't seem possible. The irony is like a lot of my clients, because everyone always thinks, Oh, people, so I work a lot in finances and, Oh, people only come to you when they're in a disaster.

[00:35:45] They're deeply in debt. They're about to face bankruptcy. They're whatever, that must be when people come to you for help. But that's actually not true. Most of my clients are actually doing well. They're making six figures plus they're, they've got a business, they've got other [00:36:00] things, but all of a sudden they wake up one day and go, we're doing a good, but boy, we could be doing better.

[00:36:07] Yeah. Boy, there's more out there. We're not really checking out, we've said for five years, we were going to start Our kids savings for college and we haven't done it or whatever, that there's things that they know they could be better. It's not, they aren't doing good.

[00:36:22] It's that they know there's better out there. And that sometimes can be the wake up too.

[00:36:28] Terry L Fossum: It is. And that's, it's funny you say that. Again, you read it, one of the chapters of my book gives an example of somebody that is highly successful and started getting that kind of that plateau point because no real motivation, there is no discomfort, her failure scenario.

[00:36:43] And again, the examples are in the book has nothing to do with her business actually, but rather a charity. Something that's important to her. So she did her failure scenario based on, I can't give another a hundred thousand dollars or whatever the number was to the show. What will happen to those [00:37:00] people that are involved in that charity if I don't do that?

[00:37:03] And she did the visualization on that in her failure scenario. And that's what propelled her into her success narrative. I just gave another a hundred thousand dollars to this charity. And now look, So that was enough to get her up off of her butt. And then using a different chapter in the book was how to apply the Oxford technique to her teams, to develop her company and get everybody to that next level.

[00:37:29] Scott Maderer: So I've got a few questions that I like to ask all of my guests, but before I ask you those, is there anything else about the book or the Oxcart technique that you'd really like to share with the listener?

[00:37:40] Terry L Fossum: I think just important for everybody to understand, this was the 50, 000. or 50, 000 foot very much.

[00:37:47] So yeah, this is just the overview here, guys. We're going to give you later on. It'll be a thing of how to go get more information. Please get more information. Don't just try this based on what you've heard so far. That's critical. Okay. We're going to steer you to some information, [00:38:00] video, downloadable stuff, all that kind of stuff.

[00:38:02] So don't do it yet. Get the information. So that's important. You haven't heard enough yet. You haven't learned exactly how to apply it yet. Absolutely.

[00:38:12] Scott Maderer: You mentioned stewardship a couple of times, and of course, my brand is Inspired Stewardship, and I run things through that lens of stewardship. But that's one of those words that can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

[00:38:23] When you hear the word stewardship, what does that word mean to you?

[00:38:27] Terry L Fossum: Making good use of the the resources God has given you. Whether that is time or money or for the listeners here in, in the U S we're in the United States of America, we are at a blessed time in a blessed place.

[00:38:43] Now, there's a lot of other amazing countries too. Don't get me wrong y'all by the people who aren't in the U S don't be shaking your fist at me. Don't be coming at me. You're in an amazing country too. I am quite certain we've got a lot of blessings, man. So it's making good use of our surroundings, of [00:39:00] the resources available to us, whatever they are.

[00:39:03] Don't just blow them. You can have a life of just sitting around, for now, but there's a lot of parables about that. So yeah, it's making good use of all of the gifts, all of the gifts. If you're a speaker, go do it. If you're good at helping people, go do it, etc. It's all your gifts. Make a good use of them.

[00:39:22] Scott Maderer: Yeah, why, just off the top of my head, if you're actually able to listen to us talking today, it means you're listening to a podcast, which means, you've got access to the internet, you've got access to technology and you can hear. You have ears that can hear.

[00:39:36] Terry L Fossum: Let's start there.

[00:39:37] Scott Maderer: So you you're already blessed. You're already doing better than a lot of people that are out there. So this is my favorite question that I like to ask everybody. Imagine for a minute that I could invent this magic machine. And with this machine, I was able to pluck you from where you sit today and transport you into the future, maybe 150, maybe 250 years.

[00:39:58] But through the power of this machine, you were [00:40:00] able to look back and see your entire life. See all of the connections, all of the ripples, all of the impacts you've left behind. What impact do you hope you've left in the world? Goodness.

[00:40:10] Terry L Fossum: Goodness. It's not success. Success can mean a lot of different things, granted.

[00:40:14] But, goodness. There's a lot of hate in this world. There, there's a lot of judging. There, there's a lot of bad things that people want to put on other people, just some kindness, man, just some kind of some understanding that would be the main thing. Now, if I were to, go down to business, it'd be this ox cart technique.

[00:40:32] I'm passionate about it. I believe in it. I know it helps people. My, my prayer is that through, podcasts like yours, et cetera, this word gets out. And those people who have been struggling or struggling to get to that next level are able to use this and make a difference in their lives and their family's life.

[00:40:49] So 150 years from now, I got somebody that comes up to me and goes, you know what? I read in my family's history book about 150 years ago, they're on this crazy [00:41:00] dude's podcast about stewardship. And they learned about this ox cart thing and it changed our family's future forever. Wow. That'd be cool. As long as they used it for doing good in the world.

[00:41:13] Scott Maderer: Amen. So what's on the roadmap? What's coming next as you continue on this journey? Yeah,

[00:41:19] Terry L Fossum: speaking a lot of speaking really pushing that out. I'm a keynote speaker. So really working a lot towards that direction, even more. And again podcast, because I want to get the word out about the Oxford technique.

[00:41:33] So more people can finally stop struggling and reach those goals. They've been wanting to for so long, but for right now, we talked about. Since we hang up here, I changed shirts. You don't know what I'm wearing for pants. I changed shirts and jump in the pickup and head towards the off grid ranch on top of the mountain, the middle of nowhere, Montana, which sounds like a beautiful trip.

[00:41:55] Let me tell you, it's amazing. It is amazing.

[00:41:58] Scott Maderer: So you can find out more about [00:42:00] Terry over at Terry L Fossum. com. Of course, I'll have a link to that over in the show notes as well. Terry, anything else you'd like to share with the listeners?

[00:42:09] Terry L Fossum: Yeah. Follow me on the, on social media. I'm especially starting to do some stuff that I, if you've liked this podcast, that I think you'll like on YouTube, I'm putting out some different stories that have a point to them, just some positive, cool stuff like that.

[00:42:22] So you might tune in there. I'll start doing, there's a lot more, or there's a lot on there already on my channel. I'll start doing a lot more. And then of course we'll talk about the goal secret. com, the goal secret, where I've got, Said you need more information. That's where you get for free.

[00:42:36] Downloadable video training mini ebook that talks more about it. Yeah, so you can go there and learn more. If you want to get the book. It's helpful. If you're serious, I do private coaching, of course, but the bottom line is get the information, get more information and apply it.

[00:42:53] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. So again, that was the goal secret. com. I'll have a, I'll add a link to that as well to the show notes [00:43:00] so that if you're driving right now and can't click on a link, you can go find it later. Terry, thanks so much for coming on. This is great information. I really enjoyed the book and I know the listeners would as well, but.

[00:43:11] I hope they check it out and find both the carrot and the stick that works for them, so to speak.

[00:43:17] Terry L Fossum: Amen. And thank you so much for everything you're doing. I love the feel of your podcast. I love the theme of your podcast. I think you're reaching a lot of people. I think you're helping a lot of people.

[00:43:26] And again, that's what it's all about. So thank you.

[00:43:29] Scott Maderer: Absolutely. Thank you, sir.

[00:43:30] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspiredstewardship.

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