No matter how hard it is to do, embracing failures will always be one of the keys to achieving your goals in life. Terry Fossum managed to overcome numerous failures in his own journey, and it allowed him to unlock huge opportunities that propelled him to success. He joins Zander Sprague to talk about his Ox Cart Technique for goal setting, as well as the importance of focusing on the positive aspects of life no matter how trivial they may be. Terry also shares about his experiences on writing his book, the power of saying “not yet,” and what it is like to join a survival reality show.
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Embracing Failures And Moving Forward With Terry Fossum
Embracing Failure
I am so excited to have Terry L. Fossum join us and talk to us about all the great work he’s doing. Terry, tell us who you are and what you do.
First of all, I want to thank you for what you are doing here because this show begins with one step forward, and so many people don’t understand how to take that step. You are not going to get to epic if you are not going to do anything unless you take that step. I love what you do and appreciate what you are doing. About me, several things. I am very blessed to be a number one best-selling author on The Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, and a best-selling author on USA Today. I’m the number two TED Talk in the world. I won a survival reality show representing all the Boy Scouts of America, Prime Time on FOX, and was very blessed to be in the top fraction of 1% of the entire direct sales industry in the world. I can’t hold down a hobby. That’s the bottom line.
What have you done there, Terry?
I’m not dead yet. There will be a few things, hopefully, still.
You wrote your book The Oxcart Technique, a fascinating book. I had a chance to quickly read some of the sections.
Zander has been nice to me. I went, “I haven’t sent them the book yet.” He’s being really nice and he did a great job.
I see similarities between my book Epic Begins With 1 Step Forward and your book. There were some things I saw quickly that I was like, “Those things are true.” One of them and it’s important is that failure is part of the journey. We are not going to get it right all the time.
I think it’s important that people embrace failure. It’s fantastic. All too often, we go, “I failed. I must not be supposed to do this. God’s trying to tell me something,” or “I don’t have the strength.” No, listen. Every single person who’s achieved anything has failed and failed. That means if you are not failing, you are not on the path to success. If you are failing, you are on the right track. Keep failing. Do it.
As I say in my book, the only thing you fail 100% at are the things that you do not try.
It’s because it’s done. If you are not trying, you have failed. Otherwise, you are still on the path.
The Oxcart Technique: Blueprint for Success
There are lots of famous quotes about not succeeding, but what I like to say is I don’t have all the answers on my epic journey. I know what I want. I know where I want to go, but along the way, I’m going to fail. As an entrepreneur, I have been very generous to buy lots of different tools that are going to help me and then find out that it’s not about that tool it’s not the one for me, but I wouldn’t know if I didn’t purchase it and try it out.
You don’t even know what little nugget I got out of it that later on is going to hit me or maybe I won’t even realize, but that information got into my head. I’m with you. I read all the books and listened to all the audio. I have done the courses. I have done it all. Some of them gave me concrete evidence of success immediately. Some of them will give me elements of success later on, but they all help build you into who you are going to be.
In this day and age, there are so many tools out here to help us automate stuff and make stuff easy. It’s not that they are bad tools but anything, it’s about what works for you. I know you are in Boy Scouts of America, so I’m sure you have built a structure or two and have a favorite hammer, and just because that’s your favorite hammer doesn’t mean it’s the right one for me. Maybe the balance isn’t right for me.
I would have killed for a hammer. A hammer we called a rock out there doing survival.
Reality Show
Somebody had questions about being on a reality show. One of my questions that I’m fascinated to know is, are they filming you 24/7?
Yes. While we are sleeping, there are cameras on us. The only caveat to that is when we are going to the bathroom, but at one point, they were going to try as I was changing clothes. I’m in my scoutmaster uniform and I’m the old guy. I’m the token-old guy. My wife is laughing at me. She’s like, “You are the token old guy.” Then I was the token Boy Scout. At one point, I was changing out of my uniform, and the camera was on me. I’m like, “This ain’t going to happen.” It’s all real. It’s 24/7. They have got eyes on you and whenever you see those necklaces that people are wearing, those are microphones.
I looked on YouTube at the highlights of your time on the show, and I was like, “They are in the water. They are in the mud.” It makes sense that you can’t put a lav mic on when you have got a wet T-shirt on or sometimes you might not have a shirt on, depending on what you are doing.
We are mic’d and on camera 24/7. I lost 25 pounds on that show. It was the real deal. I met some amazing people.
Is it as hard as they edit it to look?
In the case of our show, it was much harder because of the reason it was called Kicking & Screaming. It was ten survival experts going against each other while dragging along the complete novice who’s never even camped out in their backyard before and the whole essence of the show was supposed to be comedic. It’s funny you are asking about this. My wife said, “We need to go back and watch your show,” and I’m like, “No,” but we started doing it, and we are laughing our butts off. It’s so funny. They didn’t show a lot of the survival stuff that we were doing because that was the essence of the show. If you look closely, you can see we are eating bugs, and we are in a shelter and on the floor of the jungle and everything.
Where was that filmed?
In Fiji, but not the nice parts.
I have been to Fiji, and I have to say, I would have been to some islands that were not bad, but certainly not the nice part.
That’s where they are filming Survivor full-time now these days.
Up in the Yasawa Islands.
I don’t know.
I thought I would look smart, and say that.
That’s wherever they dropped us.
Ox Cart Technique
Talk to me a little about The Oxccart Technique because I did read about that. I was like, “I will drink that Kool-Aid.” I get it, but share, if you would, with the audience a brief description of The Oxcart Technique.
Let’s start with all the goal-setting we have been taught. Ninety-two percent of the people that set a goal fail and there’s a reason why. We are not talking about financial goals or weight loss goals. 74% of diets fail, 50% plus of marriages fail, and so on and on. There’s a reason why most of what we are being taught about goal-setting, and even what I have taught is wrong.
Here’s an example. On stages around the world, and still being quoted in books, is the Harvard goal-setting study. We have all heard of it and part of the essence. There are all sorts of different stats about it that vary. One of them is that every single person who wrote down their goals achieved them. This Harvard goal-setting study is 100% and that’d be amazing if it was true.
Harvard never did this study. They confirmed it, and neither did Yale or anywhere else but it keeps getting into all of these famous best-selling books. People still preach it from stages. It’s not true. Here’s the other part, and this is the part I got sucked into. I will tell you how I came up with this Oxcart technique by failing. Failing is a positive visualization, especially these days. You dream about it. The universe will go to work and make it happen for you. Know it, son. There’s the saying, “The Lord helps those who help themselves.”
I feel the universe is the same way. Picture it from the universe’s standpoint. I want to sit back here and have my cocktails on the beach, but I want to be a multi-billionaire. Go to work for me, will you? Make that happen. The universe would be pissed, is what I’m thinking like, “How about you get up off your butt and make it happen yourself?” That’s not going to happen.
Even things like the dream boards, which I have done. There’s nothing more demotivating than pulling down your dream board again. Remember, my story is based on failure. We are going to get to that. Positive visualization is important. Here’s where we come to it. It’s not enough to get you out of your comfort zone, and here’s why. Prospect theory, which won the Nobel Prize when applied to economics. This is real science, actual science, not pseudo-science. The real deal. We will do more to avoid pain than to go toward pleasure.
Therefore, if we associate pain with getting out of our comfort zone which we do it doesn’t matter how much positive motivation we do. It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to be enough, which is why 92% of people who set a goal fail. It’s too painful to get out of their comfort zone. Our fears, self-doubts, and excuses, I didn’t have time for that. Yes, you did. You did something that was more comfortable.
Embracing Failures: 92% of people who set a goal fail.
What the Oxcart Technique does is harness your passion because emotion, not fact, is the driver of all action. It becomes our job to create enough emotion to kick you out of that comfort zone. The Oxcart Technique is the carrot and the stick. People don’t want to talk about the stick. “I can’t think,” Yes, you can. That’s what’s going to drive you.
Creating a scenario in your mind that’s more painful than the pain of getting out of your comfort zone. Here, check out my example. First of all, I was raised in the poorest city in the entire United States of America, McAllen, Texas. You have heard about it in the news with all the border crossings and the cartels and all of that. I love my hometown. I do. It could be a little rough growing up sometimes, with the gangs and the drugs. I was on an assault rifle with a rifle in junior high in my back alley.
In high school, my father was killed. Before died. One of the neighbors came up to him and said, “I want to make sure you understand something. Those three boys here’s your three sons, not a single one of them is ever going to grow up to be anything.
You are nothing here. Best-selling author, reality show winner, and TEDx talker. You are failing so hard.
Here’s where it turned around, all too often and this is important to remember our greatest successes come from our greatest failures. I got into direct sales, and I tried and I failed. I did my dream boards, my mantras, and my positive visualizations, and I failed. I tried and I failed. I got to the point where I couldn’t fail anymore. I couldn’t do it. I gave up, and I walked into my bathroom, and I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “He’s right. You’re never going to grow up to be anything.” Wait a minute. No. Something clicked inside of me, quite frankly. I got pissed off.
Our greatest successes come from our greatest failures.
No, I’m not going to let that son of a gun. For the sake of honoring my dad, if nothing else, I’m not going to let that son of a gun be right. Never growing. BS. I got angry, I got up, and I brushed myself off, and I got back at it again. Now, I still hit the same setbacks, the same disappointments, and the “No. You are out of your mind.” I still had all of that like before but now I did it from a different standpoint. Not to go toward some positive visualization, some big house and fancy car, and all that crap.
The number one I never expected to happen to a guy like me is unbelievable but number two, I don’t care about it. I don’t care about those things. I might be happiest in a tent. Those were goals other people were setting for me. It won’t work. What did it for me is now I had something to go away from that guy being right, what he told my dad, and that was unacceptable.
The stick you don’t beat yourself up with the stick. You use that stick to light a fire inside of you, and that’s exactly what it did and it worked. People started coming to me going, “What are you doing?” I taught them, and before I knew it, “I had rooms full of people wanting to listen to me,” and you know where I come from.
We started applying it to marriages. I started getting these emails saying, “You saved my marriage.” We applied it to weight loss. Even overcoming addiction. There’s a story there for a different episode about how I busted one of my housekeepers rifling through my drawers looking for my prescription pain meds while I was writing the chapter on addiction in my book. Isn’t that something?
Yeah, it is.
I was trying to decide if I wanted to keep this chapter in there or not. It seems a little off. The addiction chapter. I have interviewed some smart people for it, but I don’t know and then that happened like, “It’s in the book, and she’s in that chapter what happened after we did The Oxcart Technique.
I agree that any of us had these epic dreams, the things that we talked about doing. Writing a book, perhaps, running a marathon, traveling somewhere. I want to do this someday. I know that because like you said, the things were there for the things but did nothing for it to happen. My story about it not happening was the first book I wrote, an important book about sibling loss because there isn’t a lot out there for someone who’s lost a sibling and I wrote the book, but here’s the thing, Terry. I had nothing. I had feedback all through school that I wasn’t a particularly good writer.
I am a talker, not a typer. I hate writing. How to write the book? I told people for five years I was coming out with the book, but I was no more coming out with the book than I was flying to the moon because I wasn’t doing anything to make it happen. I had the hold on, but I was afraid to do it, and I said, like you, I’m tired of hearing those words come out of my mouth.” Several years from now I will say I’m coming out with the book.
Yes. I had heard that before. I got the book out there and I had a huge case of impostor syndrome for about a year, where people came up and were like, “Your book was great. I loved it. It was so helpful.” In my mind, the interior voice was like, “Really,” because I would have believed it more if they told me it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Like anything when you get positive feedback repeatedly, it becomes undeniable. All these different people and people who don’t know me, people writing to me from around the world saying, “Your book was so helpful. Thank you so much.” That whole thing.
That motivation, that stick, was I don’t want to be that person. You talked about passion and visualization. I ran two marathons in my life, and when I was training for it it was hard. I’d be up at 5:00 in the morning, running in the dark, sometimes in the rain. It’s cold, it’s miserable, and I’m having to go out and run 17 miles, and it stinks. That was the passion I wanted to see myself cross this finish line. I could envision it. We talk sometimes about going to vision class. What does it look like? A funny thing happened. When I crossed that finish line, it was awesome. Five minutes later, I was like, “Now what?”
You were talking about the cars, the houses, all of that. All of that is fabulous. I love all of that. I love to travel. I love to have the opportunity to do the things that I’m passionate about and go places that I’m curious about, but there has to be more because you work so hard to get to Australia. Once you’re there, you’re like, “Now I’m in Australia. Now what am I going to do?”
I would submit to you that hard-driving force and this is different from person to person to occasion, occasion. Running marathons was for crossing that finish line, but also, I’m not going to fail. I refuse not to cross that finish line. It’s cold out this morning. It’s raining. It sucks, but if I don’t do this, I’m not going to cross that finish line. I submit to you that might have been, depending on the occasion, an even stronger driving force because that is something to get away from. It’s more painful than the pain of the rain and the cold. That’s the stick. That’s what’s kicking you out of that comfort zone.
The carrot is that I want to be able to say I have run a marathon. I want that medal. I want that personal satisfaction of setting a goal and struggling to get there. You are right. If I had to crawl across that finish line, I was going to do that.
You weren’t going to fail. That’s the bottom line. You were not going to fail. As they say, “Failure is not an option.”
Not Yet
One of the things that I talked about in my book, and I love to ask my guests about, is the most important words that we have when we are on a longer journey be it writing a book or running a marathon or training for a marathon is not yet. This idea of not yet, because it’s so powerful. “Terry, you are writing your book. Are you done?” If you say no. It’s such a hard stop. It makes it sound like it’s not going to happen. Not yet. It’s funny how in life or the adult world. It’s a yes or no. It’s black or white, success or failure, but if you have a child who, let’s say, starts college in their freshman year, you don’t go up to them and go, “Do you have your degree yet?” We know that there’s a path there. In the business world, “Terry, have you?” Not yet. It doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. It means taking time.
It means you are on your way. You are on your journey. If you say no then the journey is over. You stop. You are not on your way. Say, “Not yet.” “Yeah, I’m on my way. I am.”
I know from writing three books, two of them Amazon bestsellers like you, that the editing process inevitably takes longer than you ever expected it would. I don’t know about you, but I love my books. By the time they came out, I was tired of reading my books because I had read them like six times all the way through, and I was like, “I need to step away from my book. I need to go and promote it, but I don’t want to read my book anymore.”
It’s true. Those are the experiences when writing a book. He ain’t wrong. You are so tired of reading your book, but then it brings so much joy when people read it, and you get these emails, texts, or phone calls, or people come up to you like, “This changed my life completely,” and it’s special when they are in tears. It makes all of that work worth it.
I went on a diatribe about not yet, but what’s 1 or 2 of your not yet?
TV show.
There you go. I feel you.
We’d mentioned before we started filming that one of the former producers for Oprah approached me when they read The Oxcart Technique and then watched my TED Talk on it. Read the book, watch some of these podcasts, and stuff like you could have a show. You could be like Dr. Phil, only much nicer. I heard that, and again, don’t be self-doubting. We all have them, folks. If you have them, good. You are like us, maybe better and so I went to one of the other teams. He is this, but he says that to everybody. She’s like, “No.” We have filmed some footage that they are working on, and they will be coaching me. We all get coaching. To use that as promoting the show but that’s not yet. Will it ever happen? Who knows? It’s on its way.
There’s the carrot and the stick and that whole process. There are things that we want and that we are trying to do, and it’s out of our hands. We do all that we can, and then we have to rely on other people to hopefully do their part of what needs to happen.
Quite frankly, I will find other people. I won’t use the excuse, “It was up to this guy.” I will find other people.
Sometimes something doesn’t work, maybe your TV show. I’m working on a TV show. If it doesn’t work, but I tried, so be it.
I got so many more things, not work, than I ever worked. I hope to continue those averages. Get out there and fail, screw things up, try.
Even if you try so many things and they do not work, continue doing them. Get out there and fail over and over again.
97-3 Rule
One of the things I talked about in my book is like you, I want to make it relatable to people. I love analogies, and I sit there and talk about how the meanest person in our life is ourselves sometimes. The perspective we take on how our day is. I call it the 97/3 rule, which is I believe that 97% of your day is good, and up to 3% isn’t so good.
There are days when you have a bad day, but in general, 97% of your day is going well to help people keep that perspective. I’m not a fanatic, but I like baseball, and I grew up in Boston. I love the Red Sox. I grew up with nearly getting what I want but then having it snatched away but I’m not going to talk about Bill Buckner in the ball back in ’86.
It’s time to let it go.
In baseball, someone makes it into the Hall of Fame with a lifetime batting average of over 300. Now, that’s great. I’m not taking anything away from it, but how I like to relate it to people and it doesn’t necessarily have to be work, but nine hours of activity in your day, and for you to have a Hall of Fame day, you only have to get three hours right. One-third of it, and you have a Hall of Fame day. Who wouldn’t take that?
Yet all too often, we take that 3% that you spoke of, and that’s what we let ruminate in our minds. That’s what we think about.
You focus on that. It’s ridiculous. I did licensed professional clinical counseling when I was doing my internship. I was doing school-based counseling, so it was high school students and middle school students, and a lot of them had academic issues and to try and help give that perspective again. I asked them their least favorite subjects. Let me ask you, what was your least favorite subject in school?
That was so long ago, I don’t even remember. I was one of the geeks. I’m a mechanical engineer. It was not math. Let’s say handwriting.
Like English.
We will go with English.
No problem. If you got a 97 on an English test, how would you feel?
I have no idea. I’d feel fantastic.
If you tell your friends or parents, you’d be like, “That’s great.” Would you be focused on the three points you didn’t get? Of course not. You are so excited. When I asked this to my clients, a lot of them said math and I went, “What would you do if you got a 97 on your next math test?” I’d be so excited. I’m like, “Would you complain about the three points?” They are like, “No. Are you kidding? I have got a 97.” When I ask about your day, do you tell me about the 3% and completely ignore the 97% of your day that went well? It’s the small things. Terry, you and I got out of bed this morning. That’s a good thing.
That’s a huge thing.
It is. Here we are. We get to do this episode. That’s a great thing, and yet, we might end at the end of the day, “How was your day?” “The car wouldn’t start,” or whatever. Why are we ignoring all the stuff that’s good in our life? There is so much good around us, so many good things.
That’s the takeaway for everybody who can’t focus on the good, even if it’s waking up this morning. Fantastic. Instead of focusing on that jerk that ticked you off, focus on the one person who showed you kindness. If you didn’t have anybody show you kindness, go up to a dog because they always will.
Embracing Failures: Instead of focusing on that jerk that ticked you off, focus on the one person who showed you kindness today.
Episode Wrap-up
Terry, this has been great. I had such a fun time. How can people find you, get a hold of you, and book you to come to talk to them about TheOxcartTechnique?
Everybody can find me on TerryLFossum.com. The book, The Oxcart Technique: Blueprint for Success, is available on Amazon. Honestly, I do highly recommend it. If you have been stuck, held back by your fears, self-doubts, the excuses if you have ever started for a goal, you are all excited, but then the passionate phase, you didn’t reach it again, you want to get the book. If you know people who are having that challenge, your kids, for instance. I work with kids a lot. We want to give them the book, but it’s important that you do read the book because this technique, there’s a way to do it there are examples and everything throughout the book, too, of every goal, every type of person, all sorts of examples to help lead you through it and then let me know. Let me know how it works for you.
I want to thank you so much. I want to remind everyone that if you are ready to begin your epic journey, go to EpicBegins.com. I have resources there for you, and if you go there now, you too can get a free e-copy of my book, Epic Begins With 1 Step Forward: How To Plan, Achieve, and Enjoy The Journey, and as always, remember epic choices lead to the epic life that you want.
Important Links
About Terry Fossum
Terry L. Fossum’s is the #1 Bestselling author on Wall Street Journal, a survival reality show winner representing all of Boy Scouts of America, a highly successful businessman reaching the top 1% in his entire industry – in the world, and his TEDxTalk reached #2 in the world. His book, ‘The Oxcart Technique – Blueprint of Success’ has helped people succeed in business, FINALLY lose that weight, save their marriages, and even overcome addictions.