Speaking With Confidence

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

• Tim Newman • Season 1 • Episode 81

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What does it really take to become a powerful speaker, even if you’re terrified of public speaking? On this episode of Speaking with Confidence, I’m taking you deep into the strategies, stories, and mindset shifts that will help you overcome your fears and truly connect with any audience.

I’m your host, Tim Newman, a former college professor turned communication coach, and today, I’m joined by a truly inspiring guest: Terry L. Fossum. Terry isn’t just a survival reality show winner; he's a Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble best-selling author, a keynote speaker, and his TEDx talk has been recognized as one of the top 30 talks in the country. He’s also raised millions for charity and taught at the MBA level. Most importantly for our listeners, Terry knows a thing or two about turning nerves into powerful moments on stage, and he’s passionate about helping others do the same.

In our conversation, we dove into why real, honest, and clear communication is at the heart of succeeding under pressure, both in survival situations and in everyday life. Terry shares how being on a survival reality show, partnered with someone totally opposite from him, forced him to communicate at a whole new level. He also reveals how his experiences as a scoutmaster and military officer taught him the value of finding the good in people from all backgrounds and leading with purpose.

Here’s what we talk about in this episode:

  • How survival skills and communication go hand-in-hand (with plenty of hilarious and moving stories from Terry’s reality show days)
  • What to do when team conflict and stress threaten to derail your message or working relationships
  • The power of owning your mistakes, giving others grace, and building credibility through authenticity
  • Why emotion, not facts, drives action and how to leverage that in any speech or presentation
  • The “position of power” technique to conquer nerves and step on stage with confidence every time
  • The critical first five seconds: hooking your audience and making the talk about them
  • Why being vulnerable and sharing your failures is actually your superpower as a communicator
  • An intro to the SIMPLE framework for public speaking, and how to build talks that get standing ovations (and results!)
  • Tips for landing, crafting, and performing a TEDx talk that really stands out

By the end of this episode, you’ll have actionable inspiration and tools to step into your own power as a speaker, no matter where you’re starting from. And always remember: your voice can change the world.

Don’t forget to check out Terry’s book, his podcast “The Comeback Chronicles”, and all of the resources we mention, including the free IdeaScore AI tool to score your TEDx ideas.

Thanks for listening to Speaking with Confidence. Subscribe to never miss an episode and visit speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com for additional tips and free resources to support your journey to becoming a confident and impactful speaker.

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Tim Newman:

Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence, a 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 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 bestselling author on Wall Street Journal, amazon and Barnes Noble.

Tim Newman:

His TEDx talk debuted at number two in the world and is named one of the top 30 TEDx talks that has made an impact in the country. 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 rock TEDx 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. I enjoyed our pre-interview talk and I know this is going to be just as much fun.

Terry Fossum:

Well, tim, it's 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 it does. Yeah, but I appreciate what you're doing to help people find their voice on this podcast, because everybody has a message.

Terry Fossum:

And if you're on there 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:

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. 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 your lot in life is. Everybody has a voice and everybody can share that. You just have to be willing to do the work, because if you have some of those hangups, doing the work is hard.

Terry Fossum:

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.

Terry Fossum:

Passion right, and when you come across with that attitude and understanding, you do have passion within you. Whether you think you do or not, whether you cried when an old yeller died, or scream at your favorite football team or not, 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 I'm working with them myself.

Tim Newman:

Well, let's get right into this. 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 talking 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.

Tim Newman:

Yeah, the survival show you know we talked about this a little bit, you know, in the pre-call and you know I, I, I get it and I don't get it. But but why don't you give us a little bit of, you know, insights into that experience? And let's look at it from from a communication perspective. How important was communication in that experience with your partner and actually winning that contest?

Terry Fossum:

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? Exactly. So I come down to my computer here one morning and I get this email out of the blue Middles Flyer Media Casting Company are casting a brand new TV survival reality show putting 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, ok, 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:

It's a scam. It's a scam.

Terry Fossum:

It's a scam.

Tim Newman:

Or somebody's messing with you. One of your best friends is messing with you, and I do have those friends. We all do.

Terry Fossum:

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. I said, ok, I just got god. But 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. So I was gonna be the guy that everybody's like oh, it's 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, but he gonna die exactly.

Terry Fossum:

And when I got into the, the location, the first two people I met one was a marine scout sniper. 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 the 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 on 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 it all that stuff, watching the weather, first aid, all that kind of stuff came in really, really handy, but I'm still the underdog for the whole show.

Terry Fossum:

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, right With. Conflict necessitates communication, which brings us to your point Both ways, because you know, let's be fair, she comes, they came, came.

Terry Fossum:

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 and we indeed did get into it at one point, because we're starving. I lost 25 pounds on the show. Uh, don't worry, I found it again. And uh, and it came with some friends and we're sleep deprived, we're stressed.

Terry Fossum:

You know we got into it, but that's where the real communication had to go. So communication is key in absolutely everything, not just survival shows, but everything you do.

Tim Newman:

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 Right, games, right right. 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, it has to be concise and and it has to be immediate. Right, we've got to go. There's, there's no bs, there's no fluff, it's this is what we got to do. This is the direction we need to go to here. Here's why let's, let's, let's get off to making it happen.

Terry Fossum:

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 out and of course the cameras loved that and, by the way, kicking and Screaming is currently showing on Think Still on Prime Video. So we're, we're fighting, we're going 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, blame goes both ways when you're, when you're doing those things. But then I remember some scout training I've been through as an adult. We have 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:

So I came back and said guess what? Guess what? I got great news. We are in there. There's four stages of of 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, they're not roadblocks, as long as we go through it with love and respect. Both directions right. Both admitted where we were screwing up and apologize where we did screw up, me included. And uh, 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 right, and that's also part of leadership, owning it.

Tim Newman:

I mean right, I mean because the reality is we're not perfect. We make mistakes. Absolutely 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. 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 and move forward, and that's that's what we, that's what we have.

Terry Fossum:

Absolutely the, the communications you got to be first of all, you know, like you said, owning what you did wrong, you know, uh, 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 here's the reasons, but that's not an excuse. You know. Owning it, apologizing amazing what can happen with an apology, you know, and admission of guilt.

Terry Fossum:

Not judging them because you know they're going through the same starvation and stress and everything. Or outside of a survival show in the world, we're all stressed. You never know what somebody has going on. You don't know. You have to give them that grace, give them that grace, right, and then work together on okay, from 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?

Terry Fossum:

What's our common goal? Our common goal was to win the show I. I was representing all of again, boy Scouts of America, now called Scouting America, and she was representing an organization as well, and we were both going to be judged by those organizations forever 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 right. We, the underdogs against all these people, ended up winning the entire stinking show and here's what I want my audience to understand.

Tim Newman:

Okay, you kind of led into this. Two exact opposites came together, work together and achieve great things. Yeah, we can do this, and this is not. It doesn't have to be us against them. All the time we we can, 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.

Terry Fossum:

Yeah, 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. 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.

Tim Newman:

That's all I care about, you know and I also think that, 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, we want, we want the best people surrounding us, because when, when, when it happens, I mean, and you were you, I mean that show had some, some tough guys in there, some, some guys, some guys that did some real serious war fight.

Terry Fossum:

Absolutely A hundred percent.

Tim Newman:

Those are the guys that that's what you want, people like that around you. So I don't care who it is, I mean, if doesn't matter, we went to best people all walks of life, let's go off and and do this together and that's um. I think 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:

And 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, right when, if we can do that, so can everybody else. 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 got to, we got to get back to okay, except that people are different than us. That's okay. It's a great thing, because, let's face it, we're different too. Exactly.

Terry Fossum:

So, let's find the good in that work together.

Tim Newman:

You know it's funny because 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 called me weird. They said, well, I'm a little weird. I said you know what? I think everybody has their own little weird. 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 I've seen a lot of what you do and I mean you're a natural at it. But 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 those nerves? Because we talked about how I threw up and that's one of the reasons why I said you're wrong because of the title of your book.

Tim Newman:

But how about you?

Terry Fossum:

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. God, who was it the quote out there? Don't work, don't keep working until you get it right. Keep working until you can't get it wrong. So if you watch my TEDx talk, I can't tell you how many times I practiced that and practiced. I got it right. I got it right. I got it wrong. Oh man, I screwed that up. I got it right. I practiced that the night before the thing. I got a hotel room near the venue and I'm still practicing it that night. I'm still practicing it that morning and I probably gave it at least a hundred times. Perfect.

Terry Fossum:

It's not the point. Keep going till you can't get it wrong, right, 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'm 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. 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:

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 fastest 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 is. Has that always been in your, in your system?

Terry Fossum:

Well, it absolutely, absolutely Um to. 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 there's some things that I think would may help your audience. Uh, right now, in in that and 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.

Terry Fossum:

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. 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:

Exactly.

Terry Fossum:

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 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, did I slide right? Did I stammer? Did I do? Uh, uh, uh, 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:

It makes a ton of sense. See, here's where I come in here, right, because it's simple. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that. It's simple, it doesn't have to be more complicated than that. Right, right, it's simple, it's it's. You know why are you there?

Terry Fossum:

Yeah, and what do you want them to do? 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, do something else, that's right, that's right.

Tim Newman:

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.

Terry Fossum:

It's a, it's a method, it's a method.

Tim Newman:

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. You have to actually put it into practice. So so what is the method? What is that action to help people, people get over those nerves right before they get on stage.

Terry Fossum:

OK, let me tell a quick backstory on this one. Ok, I'm at Squadron Officer School Now, as you probably know, it's the top captains, in this case the Air Force. We're there for many weeks and we're 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 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? That's me. I believe that is you. Yes, I believe that's you. So we get time.

Terry Fossum:

Our assignment is to pick a military leader, historical military leader, and do three speeches on them. 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, did fine. 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 three by five cards and those three by five 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 here I do.

Terry Fossum:

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 okay, Scott, and we're going to do this real quick right now, Tim, Is that cool, Are we good? Absolutely, let's do it, Okay. So I ask him so, Scott, tell me a time where you have felt the most powerful in your entire life? And he goes well, yeah, I don't really know. You know there's been a few. Like everybody does. I teach this around the globe. Actually, it's kind of cool and everybody comes. Well, there's been a few. Okay, I need you to narrow it down to one. I need you to narrow it 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:

Captain Scott was electronic warfare officer on a nuclear-equipped B-52 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. It was a soft a squadron softball game. He hit the game, winning home run.

Terry Fossum:

So all I did is I asked him okay, tell me about that. Well, you know, game hitting rope, 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 it, 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:

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 it.

Terry Fossum:

Now, tim, when he got up there to give that second speech. It was amazing. 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 his speech.

Terry Fossum:

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 as part of my training his position of power. Right, and it's. 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 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 Right. 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.

Tim Newman:

You know, and it's, it's I think it's so important for people to understand. You know, captain Scott, he's a leader of men, and he's a leader of men I mean, he's in charge of all this stuff and he let, standing up in front of a group of 10 other guys of his peers, do that to him and he was doing that to himself. Absolutely, life that we go through is about just a little shift in mindset. It changes everything and it doesn't take much. It's a little shift and if we can, like you said, pull that string and we know, okay, wow, 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, and it just takes us noticing that and knowing how to do it, knowing how to channel that energy and that momentum and that feeling.

Terry Fossum:

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:

And and, and it's obvious that in your speaking style, right, I mean it's people can't, realistically, people can't watch that and can't see your passion, what you're talking about right Right on, 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 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:

Absolutely. Emotion, not fact, is the driver of all action.

Tim Newman:

Right.

Terry Fossum:

Emotion, not fact, is the driver of all action. If you want them to take action, don't tell them 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 Right, and with that you have to have that emotion in that story.

Tim Newman:

You can't just tell a story Right, you can't just tell the facts. 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. 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 to work.

Tim Newman:

Let me ask you this question because, again to me, this is 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 it. Yeah, it's so simple. Why can't people just do this? How did you learn this process?

Terry Fossum:

Well, probably by failing a lot.

Tim Newman:

Oh, oh, boy what. You said you failed, you're allowed to fail, huh.

Terry Fossum:

If, 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 failed and failed and failed and failed way more times than they ever dreamed about succeeding. 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, 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. 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 a success pie. You can't bake a pie without it.

Tim Newman:

Exactly, Exactly, exactly, I mean. That's why I kind of chuckled, you know, because not only do successful people fail, we pretend that they're perfect, we pretend that 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 it just happens, right.

Terry Fossum:

I was speaking to a group of realtors not long ago and I put up the path to success. So again, if you're listening to this 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 All the ups and downs for all of us.

Tim Newman:

And as we look at this from a communication perspective, as a public speaking perspective, people want to see the failure Absolutely and they embrace your failure. Yeah, 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's it really does get that credibility.

Terry Fossum:

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 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:

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

Terry Fossum:

Right, right, absolutely.

Tim Newman:

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 failures. Sometimes, you know, I just think that you're doing it wrong, but you do you.

Terry Fossum:

Well, I know other people are going to laugh at me. I might as well laugh along with them.

Tim Newman:

Exactly, exactly. So let's talk a little bit about your first book.

Terry Fossum:

What does SIMPLE stand for in the Simple Guide to Public Speaking Without Losing your Lunch? 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 a lot of amazing information for you, god willing.

Terry Fossum:

But 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.

Terry Fossum:

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. 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, yeah. 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, right? 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.

Tim Newman:

And again, we do teach that as part of my TEDx program as well my TEDx program as well, you know, in terms of getting a standing ovation, 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 we have a guest speaker come in or students would give presentations, I'll be clapping and everything I said. You guys are starting to hurt my feelings here, right? Anytime we have a guest speaker come in or students we give presentations, I'll be clapping and everything I said. You guys are starting to hurt my feelings here, right? So what does it take to be able to get clapping and a standing ovation when you're giving a presentation? What do you got to do?

Terry Fossum:

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 swim, a 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? 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 Really really cool stuff.

Terry Fossum:

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. Okay, don't ever BS. People Never do it.

Terry Fossum:

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. 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 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 and their lives were not in vain.

Terry Fossum:

Right 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:

You know, I think, as we're talking, the whole idea of emotion is really the theme of everything that we do 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:

Yeah, be vulnerable, be real, be somebody they can relate to, cause if you're not, then you're not going to reach them. No, and then they don't speak to the brain. You speak to the heart, Heart right.

Tim Newman:

And I, yeah, 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, oh God, you've been in the audience and you know you're lost within the first five minutes, 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.

Tim Newman:

And, um, 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:

Right, and if and I'll show my cards on this too, I mentioned in the first few seconds you've got to get them. So how do you do it? Again, you've got to make it all about them. 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 they care about them. So make it all about them, right. You can work that, just like I did that manufacturing slash military story. You can work that to them. You just have to 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. Right, that's the biggest parts of your whole speech. And forget all your charts and graphs. Nobody will remember and nobody cares.

Tim Newman:

Exactly.

Terry Fossum:

Exactly.

Tim Newman:

Yeah, I just. I just had a thought in my head. How many times we've been up there or in a conference room or in a presentation? It's something up a spreadsheet where the, where the cells are so fricking small you can't number one, you can't even see the numbers. Stop, just turn it off. I'm the numbers. Stop, just turn it off. I'm begging you Right, just stop. Because number one nobody can see it. Number two nobody cares.

Tim Newman:

Nobody cares, unless you're going to tell me how 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. Tell a story. Tell a story of the number to or where we've been. Or tell a story. Tell a story of the number Don't show me a box with a number I don't care.

Terry Fossum:

If you can get those charts, those stories, those numbers to cause an emotional response Right 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, OK bam, then it's worth putting up there, briefly and big, where they could see it, et cetera. 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:

Exactly, 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. Terry, I don't go to Vegas anymore, I stay away from there. I've heard that that's what they do.

Tim Newman:

I'm holding back on so many comments, my friend, so tell people about you know the process of landing the TEDx talk and talk a little bit about your coaching on this, because I think it's fascinating.

Terry Fossum:

Yeah, absolutely Well. First of all, why does anybody care about doing a TEDx Talk? To begin with 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 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 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.

Terry Fossum:

Now, like you said, though, they're not handing out business cards on street corners to do so, 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. Tedx is somewhere else, like TEDx Spokane, tedx Copenhagen, whatever it might be, that's TEDx and that's what I refer to. Now, the TEDx organizers want butts in seats. You know they. They want people to come to their thing because they've got a budget. They're working. 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 counter-cultural. 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 of it. So, as I, you know, again very blessed and that's the way I look at it to have 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.

Terry Fossum:

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, even if it's a small idea, or fill it in with your stories, or whatever 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 uh angles. Yeah, 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 and your your bylines to help you book that thing now, and I'll give you that. In fact, I'll give you the URL right now and at the end, ideascoreai. Ideascoreai, because it'll give you a score Now within the program if you, and it'll lead you to a webinar that explain all this. But it takes all the guesswork out of it.

Terry Fossum:

I don't know how to write a speech. 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 that'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? It does it all for you. Uh, it's really, really amazing. You still got to work, like we talked about you still got to work.

Tim Newman:

You still got to do the work. Come in.

Terry Fossum:

So got to do the work but it takes out. It really honestly takes out oh geez, 90% of the effort. So if anybody's going, I don't have time for that or I don't know where to start, or whatever. Go to ideascoreai. Or if you want to just see the webinar on the program, it's theviralstageinfocom. Theviralstageinfocom, theviralstageinfocom.

Tim Newman:

There we go. Yeah, I'll put those in the show notes.

Terry Fossum:

Yeah there you go.

Tim Newman:

I did want to let you know works. You know I put in um I put in a couple. One of them said no, that's not a good idea and right on.

Terry Fossum:

I love that.

Tim Newman:

And then I put in another one and it said well, you've got to develop, develop it a little bit more. And I, I didn't. 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 because, again, you have to actually do the work, you have to actually think about it, you have to actually you gotta have, you know, some knowledge and some you have to have some knowledge there, to put that way. And I put it in and it still said I still need more work, but it's getting better.

Tim Newman:

So so I think it came back with like, with the 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 and it tells you the things that you have to do to be able to, to, to get it into that next level. Well, that's just the idea, right? That that's not, that's, that's not the actual talk.

Terry Fossum:

So but but again, it's like having me. It's like having me or or some other expert on tedx helping you for free develop those ideas and to go back and forth. That's it's's. It's pretty spectacular. I'm really proud of it.

Tim Newman:

It 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:

Yeah, absolutely, terrylfossumcom is, uh, probably the biggest one. I'm on all social media. Of course, that pretty much all I think, except for Tik TOK cause I'm old. But uh, I think I'm on pretty much all social media, but Terry L Fossumcom is a great place to come find me.

Tim Newman:

Well, you say that you're old. Okay, and I just got I'm going to plug a a previous podcast here. I had a guest on who's 86 years old, nice, and is a tick tock influencer. Happened.

Terry Fossum:

Oh I love.

Tim Newman:

it Happened when she turned 80, she was love it. She was a, um, uh, a doors, doors cl.

Terry Fossum:

Doris Clumpus from the Seinfeld show Say that again.

Tim Newman:

She was a recurring actor on the Seinfeld show.

Terry Fossum:

Oh, no way, no way, how fun.

Tim Newman:

I'll tell you what this interaction that we've had. Same 86-year-old loved it, but you're not 86, so I'm not saying you're on tiktok either. Nobody wants to see, I love it see nobody wants to see me on tiktok, but anyway, um, terry, again thank you so much for for spending some time with us. Thank you so much for your service to our country.

Terry Fossum:

I I really do appreciate that the conversation, what you're doing you bet I guess I should end up saying also, you can can find me on the the comeback chronicles podcastcom. 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:

Thanks, buddy, you take care. We'll talk to you soon. You got it. Be sure to visit speakwithconfidencepodcastcom to get your free ebook Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and how to Overcome them. You can also register for the Foreman for Public Speaking course. Always remember, your voice has the power to change the world. We'll talk to you next time, take care.

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Tim Newman

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