Episode 406 Terry L. Fossum Goal Setting and Achieving Success with the Oxcart Technique Transcript

This transcript is from episode 406 with guest Terry L. Fossum.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast where we are focused on giving hope and strength to the entire military community. Whether you’re a veteran, active duty, guard, reserve, or a family member, this podcast will share inspirational stories and resources that are useful to you. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show.

Hey everyone. Welcome back to Drive On. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And today my guest is Terry L. Fossum. Terry is a veteran with an impressive background, including being the executive officer for a group of. Nuclear B 52 bombers during the cold war and winning the survival reality show, kicking and screaming on Fox.

He’s also the author of the number one wall street journal, bestselling book, the Oxcart Technique, a revolutionary goal setting system. And today we’ll dive into how this technique can benefit [00:01:00] veterans and their families. So before we get started, uh, Terry, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

Terry L Fossum: Man, Scott, I’m so appreciative to being here and I mean it, and I really appreciate what you’re doing to help out our brothers and sisters out there. You know, it’s, it is a tough transition sometimes. Um, so I’m just, I’m really excited to be on your show and appreciate you, man.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. And, and, you know, I think all of us, you know, any, any veteran who’s out there, uh, you hear of other, other folks who might be struggling, it’s like, we just have that ingrained in our DNA. I think that we just want to go out and help. And I think that’s what we’re all trying to do here with all these, these interviews that I put out and, and all the guests that come on, including yourself, you know, we’re just trying to help some folks.

So, um, yeah. So let’s, let’s kind of dive into it. Um, let’s talk about the Oxcart Technique. I briefly mentioned that’s the name of your, your, or the title of your book. Um, start by giving us an overview of the Oxcart Technique and what makes it, uh, different from other goal setting methods that are out there.[00:02:00]

Terry L Fossum: Yeah. First of all, let’s, let’s start, if you don’t mind by dispelling some myths about goal setting out there, because I’ve read the books, you’ve read the books, we’ve been to the seminars, you know, we’ve heard the audio series, all that stuff. And as it turns out, and a lot of us have been frustrated.

Because we try, and we fail, and we try, and we fail, and we try, and we try, and we think it’s us. When in truth, most of what we are taught about goal setting is either incomplete or completely wrong. There’s a reason why 92 percent of the people that set a goal, listen everybody, 92 percent of people who set a goal fail at reaching it.

So a lot of times we’re thinking it’s our fault and it’s not. It’s the way we’re going about it. It’s like if you’re going to go into battle fully prepared, you’ve got everything you need, but you got a bad battle plan.

It’s just not going to work out for you. And let me give you some examples. We’ve all probably heard about the Harvard University Goal Setting Study. If you [00:03:00] haven’t, then look it up. It’ll be in many of the motivational books out there. Speakers are saying, well known speakers saying it from stage. Study has many different things that came out of it, including 100 percent of the people who wrote down their goals achieved them.

Wow, that’s pretty amazing. It’s Harvard. Except it’s not true. It never happened. Harvard has admitted. No, it never. Somebody made it up. Yale has said that as well, attributed to Yale and everywhere else. It never happened. Okay. So it’s bull. Let’s just put it like it is. It’s bull. Okay. The next thing, positive visualization.

Now, important, but not enough. And there’s a reason why. There’s a scientific reason why we’ll get into. So therefore, all the dream boards and the positive visualization and the daily mantras and all that kind of stuff, they’re important, but they’re not enough. Here’s why. Okay. There’s something called prospect theory.

Tversky came up with it. It won the Nobel [00:04:00] prize when it was applied to economics. What it taught us is that we will do more to avoid pain than to go toward pleasure. I say it again, we’ll do more to avoid pain than to go toward pleasure. So no matter how much positive visualization we’ve got going on and you know, all these, Bunnies and unicorns and rainbows and all that.

It’s not enough to get us out of the pain of our comfort zone. There’s our bottom line, folks, right there. So we’re all trying all this dream boards and, you know, thinking nice, happy thoughts and all of that kind of stuff, which is cool, but it’s not enough. Okay, so here’s the deal. That prospect theory talks about framing studies.

How you frame a message makes a difference. Depending on the individual in the situation, we’ll do more to avoid that pain than to go toward pleasure. So therefore, what the Oxcart Technique does is it utilizes both the caret and And the [00:05:00] stick, the carrot and the stick. Let me give you an example. Um, and I’ll go short on this cause we got a lot to talk about today, but my bottom line, I got into business right after the military.

So a lot of people are going to relate to this, man. Um, and I, I did pretty well. My, my military career, you know, did pretty well as officer of the year, third child air force base, uh, humanitarian of the year for all of strategic air command, you know, all these things going on. Um, but my background before that is raised in the poorest city in the entire United States of America.

Wrong handed assault rifle in junior high. Father was killed when I was in high school. Before he died, one of the neighbors said, came up to him and said, I just want to make sure you understand something. Not a single one of your boys will ever grow up to be anything. So Air Force career was going pretty good.

I started this little business on the side. And I sucked. I was terrible. I was horrible, man. I didn’t know how to run a nuclear war. Nobody wanted what I had to sell. Okay. And my background is mechanical engineer. We’re not known for our personalities. And I tried and I [00:06:00] failed and I tried and I did all the goal setting, all the, everything I could get my hands on.

And I did all those things and failed for years and years and years. And I finally reached the low point where I gave up. I just couldn’t fail anymore. I couldn’t do it. And I walked into my. My bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I said, I guess he’s right. You’re never going to grow up to be anything.

And wait a minute. No, no. For the memory of my dad, if nothing else, I’m not going to let that son of a gun be right. Never grow up to be anything. Bullcrap. I’m not, you can tell I’m holding back on the profanity, even though this is a veteran podcast here. Uh, bullcrap. I’m not going to let that son of a gun be right.

It ain’t going to happen. Something happens. I got. Pissed off. I got up and I brushed myself. Now, this is important for a lot of us veterans out there. Okay, guys. Sometimes [00:07:00] we hit our low point. We, a lot of us hit our low point. We all know what I’m talking about. Okay. We all get it. it to fuel you. It can actually be your best ally if you use it right.

And that’s what the Oxcart Technique does. That’s what happened to me. Forget anything else that might’ve been going through my head. I got up, I brushed myself off, I got pissed off, and I used it. Now, I moved forward. I still hit the same obstacles as before. The same setbacks, the same naysayers, the people telling me I’m insane, the same no’s, everything else.

But now I did it from a different standpoint. This is critical. Not just for some positive visualization pie in the sky that I never believed would happen to a guy like me. Nothing, just going toward the carrot. But now it’s going away from the stick. So whenever I’d hit those obstacles, it’s like, I don’t care.

I don’t care if you say I’m out of my mind. I don’t care if you say no. I don’t care if I just stumbled and fell again. I’m not gonna let that son of a gun be right. The [00:08:00] Oxcart Technique was born. Now people can, I’ve got a TED Talk out there. In fact, it was number two in the world. Um, which blows me away.

So just search Terry Fossum TED Talk and you’ll, you’ll see it. Um, it’s just 10 minutes, but it really explains all of this and gives a parable that the OXCART the bottom line is you can apply it to any goal. We think business goal, you know, and that’s cool, but not just making a few million bucks. What about, I don’t make a few million bucks, but I still want to have a retirement.

What about saving a marriage? What about, like one of my own housekeepers, getting off addiction? So it can be applied to anything. There’s the, the Oxcard technique.

Scott DeLuzio: So, looking at this, so to me right now, we’re, we’re looking at, at setting a goal and like you said, it could be anything, it could be saving your marriage, it could be, uh, you know, shaping your career, it could be getting off an addiction, it could be, uh, you know, [00:09:00] any lofty goal that you might have in life.

Um, Sounds like what you’re talking about here is focusing more on the pain points that you have and in kind of working to get away from that pain, as opposed to looking at the rainbows and unicorns in a, you know, in a vision board kind of thing where everything, everything’s already, Kind of laid out almost as if it already happened.

Um, and what I mean by that is when you, when you have a thought or you tell someone, Hey, I’m going to start a business and you get all the kudos, you get all the congratulations and Oh, good job. You know, you’re, you’re, you’re gonna, you’re going to be awesome. You’re going to do great. And this is going to be a great thing for you.

All that. In your head, you get the, um, you know, the, the happy chemicals, whatever they are. I’m not a doctor. I don’t know, a psychologist or anything. I don’t know. But you know, you get, get those, those things rolling through your head as if it already [00:10:00] happened, as if you already accomplished that goal. And now you don’t have that, that drive, that force behind you to, to keep going.

Cause it’s like, I already achieved that. You didn’t, but your brain kind of feels like it did, right? Is that kind of what you’re saying?

Terry L Fossum: You know, it’s several things, and that is absolutely part of it. Absolutely part of it. I’m saying use both. Don’t just use one. That’s not healthy. Use both of them. Because here’s the problem. When you’re doing just the, the happy thoughts, and again, happy thoughts are important. They really are. The serotonin and dopamine as it is kicking through your brain is good for you.

That’s all right. But there’s several problems. Number one, it’s not enough to get you through the pain of your comfort zone. Number two, I’m looking at those pints of big house and a car, all those things we’re supposed to do. Beaches of the world. I’m going, you know what? Yeah, but the yeah, buts kick in.

That’s never going to happen to a guy like me. I know me. I know where I came from. I know who I really am. Right? Yeah. But yeah, but yeah, but I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I can’t do it. I’m not going to [00:11:00] get the break. All the yeah, buts kick in. The next thing is I don’t care about that stuff. I don’t care about a huge house and a fancy car.

I am my happiest in a tent. I’m one of those weirdos that goes in different places in the world by myself and hangs out there and see if it’ll kill me. Uh, solo journey into the Arctic Circle, survival in the Amazon jungle, you know, all this kind of crap. I don’t care about a big house and all, it’s not enough to motivate me.

Got it all now, it’s kind of fun, but it wouldn’t be enough to get me out of my comfort zone. So that’s all of the important, it all feeds together. And it was kind of fun, I’ll tell you this very quickly. I went, because I am a geek, and real scientific method is try to disprove your theory. So now, I knew it worked for me.

And all of a sudden I became part of the top fraction of 1 percent of my entire industry in the world. Okay. So now I had rooms full of people coming up to me to learn from me and start teaching it to them. And it worked for them. We [00:12:00] started applying it to marriage because like, wait a minute, it’s a goal or it should be 50 percent fail at it.

And I started getting these emails. You just saved my marriage. I’m blown away. International weight loss coach in one of my, in one of my rooms, and she freaked out, started applying it. So. I knew it worked, but I didn’t know any science behind it. I just knew I don’t want that son of a gun to be right, you know, and I put it into this technique.

We’ll, we’ll get into it and we’ll leave people with more information in a minute here. I put out, before I put out the book, I wanted to disprove myself. So I did the research as we call it these days, which means I went online and I started reading this stuff about prospect theory because it sounded really smart a minute ago talking about it.

I had no clue it existed. Okay. And I’m reading this stuff about prospect theory right here at my computer. And I’m like, Oh my God. Um, this is sounding like I’m onto something. I even told my wife, I think I’m onto something huge here, but I don’t understand the psycho babble. I don’t know what they’re talking about.

[00:13:00] So I put on my social media. Okay. I need a psych. Who knows prospect theory. Got a lot of responses. Talked to a few of them. I couldn’t understand a word they said, not that they were foreign, but they were speaking foreign language to me. That’s for sure. Um, I got this one dude from the VA, mind you, a VA doc who had done his dissertation in prospect theory.

And I forwarded him all my notes for the book, all my thoughts, et cetera, et cetera. And I said, prove me wrong. That’s what I want. I want you to prove me wrong because I’m not, I don’t want to go forward with this. Uh, if it’s wrong. He came back and said, Chihiro, you’re dead on. He ended up writing the, uh, the intro to my book, which kind of blew me away too.

So yeah, it’s, it’s all based in just rock solid science can be applied to any goal, but you got to do it right. And that’s the important part. You got to do it right. Back to you.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, sure. So, so let’s take a, let’s take maybe an example of a transitioning veteran. That, uh, guys get guy or [00:14:00] gal, whoever is getting out of the military, they’re transitioning into civilian life. Um, they, their goal, they, they want to, they want to get a job that start a family, all these, all these things that they, they want to do now, maybe. Correct me if I’m wrong, maybe you need to just focus on one goal or maybe this is something that you can apply to multiple goals. I don’t know, but I’ll leave that with you to kind of fill in the blanks there. But, um, you know, so we got, got this, this person who’s, who’s transitioning out of the military, looking to start their career in the civilian world.

And, um, there’s, there’s goals there, right? They’re going to have some goals of, you know, I want to make X amount a year. I want to live in a certain area. I want to. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, how do we apply this Oxcart Technique to, uh, This type of scenario. And, uh, you know, tell us about like the method behind it, like the prospect theory and, and why, why is it effective and how, how does this [00:15:00] work for someone like this?

Terry L Fossum: Yeah, you bet. Let, I’d love to get into a little bit of specifics for everybody right now. First of all, to answer your first question, can you apply to more than one goal? I kind of recommend you do. Okay. There are three most important aspects of our daily lives. One is financial and you can say money’s not everything.

Yeah, but it affects everything. Okay. But the second one is your relationships. They may not be everything, but they affect everything, especially if you’re married, especially like me, if you’re married to an attorney. And the third one. Is your health, your health affects everything. So my recommendation is apply it to all three of those areas, separate technique for each one of them.

They’re all intertwined. You can’t, you won’t make money if you’re having relationship difficulties. You won’t be able to spend your money if you die. Um, You know, they’re all completely interrelated. So recommend all three of those things. I really do. They’re important to you. Now, [00:16:00] here’s the bottom line for you.

We used to laugh and I don’t think it’s just the Air Force, um, but we would, or just the Air Force officers as it was, but we would always laugh because we knew when a Lieutenant Colonel retired, we would hear back from him in three to six months selling stocks or real estate every time. Every time. A lot of times we get out and we do sales type jobs because again, what we used to sell, people don’t want to buy.

You know, I used to, well, you know, we could blow up the world. They’re not really into that so much these days. So they’re getting into sales of some sort. So obvious application to sales, but also it’s whatever you’re going into. You know, um, let’s say you’re going into plumbing. So you’re going into plumbing and you want to apply it to that.

Okay. First of all, what certifications do you need to get? What step, you know, first of all, you, what’s my financial goal or freedom goal? You know, it’s not just all about making money. Have a life while you’re doing it. It’s kind of important. You’ve got your overall goal. What [00:17:00] are your exact steps every single day to achieve that?

Okay, write those down on a piece of paper. Now, nothing crazy yet, right? We all know that, okay? That’s the easy part. Writing down the steps, knowing what to do, that’s easy. Anybody can do it. The problem is sticking to it over the long run, right? Does that make sense?

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. The discipline. Right,

Terry L Fossum: The discipline, absolutely. And we can talk discipline in the military all day long, but it’s a whole different thing than I’m sitting here by myself and trying to figure out You know, how to get past all these obstacles to keep me on track.

Scott DeLuzio: right. And I think with, with, with, with the military, it’s, it’s. A little bit easier to have the discipline that, that you have, because there’s already a set of standards and procedures already laid out for you. And there’s checklists, there’s forms, and there’s all these things that if you follow them and you do all the things to the letter, You’re, you’re within the standards.

You’re, you, you’ve got the discipline [00:18:00] and you’ve followed all those, those steps. So you’re good to go. Um, but when you’re in the driver’s seat and you have to create your own list of steps to accomplish whatever it is that you need to accomplish, well, now that takes some thinking, doesn’t it?

Terry L Fossum: it, it takes, it takes some thinking. It takes a lot, you know, in the military, we’re in a different environment. We’re in a very supportive environment, you know, and an environment that’s going to kind of keep us on track, whether we like it or not sometimes, you know, but it’s all there, all of the, that support system is there in the outside.

That’s why a lot of us struggle. Because all of a sudden that, that family, that support system, everything isn’t in place anymore and it’s a whole different world. So that’s where this brings that in and help you do it yourself. So you’ve written out your daily action plan. And that’s critical because if you [00:19:00] do those things every day, you’re going to succeed.

If you don’t do them, you’re going to fail, right? So we’re already seeing carrot stick put into this. Let’s get into some specifics. Although I do want to say for everybody listening, this is a short synopsis, even though I’m going to get into some detail for you that you can put into action today because that’s important to me. There’s some details that are very, very, very important as well that I want to make sure you get. So. For one thing, I want to say right here, get the book, get the book, The Oxcart Technique Blueprint for Success. It’s got a picture of a, actually it’s a bull, but it looks like an ox. It looks like a really cool looking ox to me, uh, on the front of it.

Um, The Oxcart Technique Blueprint for Success. Get it. It’s on Amazon, should be coming out on Audible anytime, uh, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Or go to my website, terrylfossum. com, lots of stuff there, or go to thegoldsecret. com. I can’t tell you what’s on there because actually I’ve got a guy putting it together right now.

But you know, I [00:20:00] mean right now while we’re recording this, um, I recorded a video yesterday, um, that just takes you through the steps, gives you some examples. The book gives you examples from all walks of life of exactly how do you do this. So do it, get it. Now, the next one is where we start getting a nitty gritty, and this is emotional, if it’s gonna work, because emotion, this is worth writing down, y’all, emotion, not fact, is the driver of all action.

Say it again, emotion, not fact, is the driver of all action. Us military folks really understand that. Wait a minute, factually speaking, you want me to charge that hill and die? Can we talk about this? You know, uh, and yet if you create enough emotion in us, it’s service to our country, protecting our, our family, friends, and our way of life, we’ll do anything.

Emotion, not fact, is the driver of all action. Your job is to create emotion, both enough negative emotion to stick and enough positive emotion to drive you to talk. To reach those goals every day.[00:21:00]

Scott DeLuzio: Uh

Terry L Fossum: Fill your scenario. What happens if you don’t reach your goal? Get into it. Don’t just bullet points. No, this is emotional.

Write it out in narrative format. And like, like you didn’t reach your goals. If you are crying while you’re doing this, you’re doing it right. That’s good. Good thing. Cause it’s got to create more emotion in you, more negative emotion, than the fear of getting out of your comfort zone or sticking to that plan.

When other things try to pull you away, it’s got to be strong enough. So write it out, write it out. Now at the bottom of that, and the exact quote is on the website, et cetera, et cetera, you’re going to put something in effect of this will not be my future. I will do whatever it takes to make sure my failure scenario does not occur and my success scenario comes true. You read that. You better get pissed off. You better get sad. You better get whatever the emotion is, because you’re going to look at that and go like it did for me. There’s no way I’m gonna let that happen. I’m not gonna let that son of a gun be right. I will do whatever it [00:22:00] takes. What does it take? Bam.

You’ve already written that out. Your daily action plan. Next piece of paper. These are all separate pieces of paper. You write out your success scenario. This is your positive visualization. This is your feel good for good reason. At this point, problem, solution, format. I created the emotional problem. I gave myself a bridge between failure and success.

And now because I’m doing these things, here’s success. And it is amazing the power. And of course, at the bottom of that, you put this will be my future. I will do what I need to do every single day so that my success scenario is, um, my true future. Again, it’s in the books, it’s in the training. is that helpful?

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Yeah, it does. I think that helps to kind of like visualize part of the process here is, is you need to know, uh, you know, first off, what are the steps that you need to do to accomplish your goal? Whatever that goal happens to be. Um, [00:23:00] what happens if you don’t accomplish that goal? What happens when you decide to, ah, you know what?

I’m going to skip some steps today. I’m kind of feeling like I want to go, uh, you know, hit some balls at the, uh, at the golf course or whatever. And, you know, slack off for the afternoon, you know, that, that type of thing. And then you got this list of, well, if I don’t do the things that are on my list, here’s the problem, right?

Here’s what’s going to end up happening. Right.

Terry L Fossum: Bingo. Yeah, you’re a thousand percent correct. Either one of those could be your future and that’s the thing to interrupt. It could be what’s it depending on if I do these things. So crap, I’m not going to go hit balls today because I don’t want that to happen and I do want that to happen. I don’t want the carrot, I want I don’t want the stick.

I want the carrot.

Scott DeLuzio: Exactly. Yeah. So, so when you, when you take this, you can apply it to any goal that you have. And we’re not just talking, uh, you know, [00:24:00] business or, uh, career related goals. I mean, it could be that for sure. Um, but it could be, you know, Uh, you know, going back to school, getting a degree, that, that’s a goal. What are the steps that you need to do?

Okay. Or all these classes that you got to take, you got to study, you got to do the exams. You got to do all the things that you got to do. That, that’s another goal. There’s other things though. Like, Hey, I’m, I’ve been struggling with an addiction maybe, and. What do I need to do to overcome this addiction?

Um, you, you mentioned that earlier as this technique has helped people. Uh, I think you said your housekeeper, uh, getting off of, uh, an addiction like that. Uh, Tell us about that process because to me, like going to school and getting a degree, it’s pretty clear what you need to do. There’s a list of classes that you have to take and there’s prerequisites and there’s, you know, the studying and the, like, we’ve all kind of learned.

What you [00:25:00] need to do to get through that type of thing. Um, getting a career, same, same thing. Maybe there’s certifications or a degree or there’s some other training that you might need to do in order to get to that. And then you got to go interview and do all that kind of stuff. To me, that’s kind of clear.

Um, where it gets a little fuzzy for me is something like an addiction, um, where, yeah, of course you got the goal that you want to get off of, whatever that the substance is, but. What are the steps? How do you even start to list out those steps? Obviously you can put down, don’t do that anymore, but that’s, that’s a difficult one to, uh, accomplish there.

Right. So, uh, how, how do you, how do you go through one like that? Yeah,

Terry L Fossum: for asking that. First of all, one of the points that I make in the book and in I’ve got some, some coaching as well. Uh, it’s, it’s high ticket. I’ll admit that. But if you’re going to end up, you know, changing your life forever, uh, it’s kind of worth it. But [00:26:00] one of the things I talk about is, Get the advice from the experts.

You know, what are those steps? Well, get the advice from the experts, but let me give you a real scenario. So, and we’ve kind of already said the punchline to it, but I’m sitting here at this computer working on the book. I’m working on the addiction chapter, and I’m not sure if I really want to include a chapter on addiction.

It’s kind of a more of a business book. I don’t know. Just, I don’t, I don’t know if it feels right, but I’m writing it. My doorbell rings. I go up and answer. It’s one of the housekeeping team. She goes, oh, Mr. Fossum, I’m so sorry to bother you. We were here cleaning yesterday. I left my favorite sweatshirt here.

Uh, you mind if I look around to see it? I’m like, well, you know the house better than I do. Go for it. You know, um, but something seemed wrong. Something just seemed off. I noticed she’s wearing a big, big, uh, baggy sweatshirt too. So she went upstairs into our bedroom area. And um, I’ll go short, condensed version.

I creep up the stairs [00:27:00] and I’m able to see through the doors. She’s in the bathroom part of the bedroom area, in my underwear drawer. And so I let myself be known like, your sweatshirt will not be in my underwear drawer. And she shuts the door. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It was open. I was closing it. And I go up into the bedroom area and I’m about to say something.

She goes, Oh, there it is. She looks past me. There it is. So I look back and underneath my wife’s side of the bed is Her sweatshirt. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Like, all right. I call my wife. Dear. I called her dear. Was there another woman’s sweatshirt underneath your side of the bed? It’s got, did I mention she’s an attorney?

Did I mention that? She said, if there was, you would be the first one to know it.

Scott DeLuzio: that’s right. Yeah.

Terry L Fossum: so I said, no, there was not. So I called up the, uh, the head of the cleaning company. I said, okay, she’ll never, she was stealing something. Uh, she’ll [00:28:00] never be in my house again. You decide what you want to do with her. They called me the next day.

She’s in tears. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. And she tells me the story. 12 years ago, I was in a car accident. 12 years ago, I got hooked on addiction, on, on prescription painkillers. Not even my husband knows. For 12 years, I’ve tried and I’ve failed, and I’ve tried and I’ve failed. And I’m so sorry. It’s okay.

I knew I needed to help her, not enable her, but help her. Listen to the Oxcart Technique. This was a quick version of it, baby. But effective. Okay, here’s the deal. You’re going to prison. Tears, tears, tears. No, this is a felony. You’re stealing my prescription medication. You’re going to prison. I’ll let that soak in just for a minute.

Then I said, now, so notice fill your scenario, stick, bam, baby. Okay. That’s what she needed. Unless. Daily action plan, your bridge from [00:29:00] failure to success. Unless you go to inpatient counseling. Again, I don’t know how to get somebody over addiction. They do. You go to inpatient counseling. After that, you go into an outpatient program and I will be checking up on you.

So thank you. So no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I will be checking up on you. And if you do this, Carrot Time Success Scenario. You can be free. You can stop lying to your husband. You can stop lying to your friends and family. You can stop lying to yourself.

Scott DeLuzio: Right.

Terry L Fossum: As of a few days ago, she is still clean. She’s now, the note she wrote me is in the final chapter of the book.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And that’s amazing. Uh, thinking about it that way. Because I was having trouble putting together that the steps that you go through, but, but with this technique, right, the, um, the, the stick being, Going to prison, like who, who wants that? [00:30:00] Right? You, you don’t want to go to prison. So, okay, now what do I need to do to not go to prison?

Okay. Now here’s some, some actionable steps. Okay. I, I go and go to this inpatient. I go to the outpatient. I continue, uh, you know, working through the issues that I’m going through and. That’s out of your generosity. You know, you, you certainly could have called the police and said, Hey, just throw this person in jail.

And they probably wouldn’t have gotten the help that they needed where they were going on that path. Right. Um, but you were able to help her push her in that right direction by saying, Hey, if you do this. You’ll be free. You don’t have to worry about the drugs anymore. You don’t have to worry about the, uh, lying to people or stealing or facing any other potential situations where you’re going to get thrown in jail.

And so that [00:31:00] kind of is like, okay, I saw the darkness. I saw like, I don’t want to go that way. I, now I see, you know, the, the quote unquote, the light. And I, I want to go that way. Uh, so it’s kind of like that, the darkness is pushing you towards the light, uh, in, in this scenario. Right.

Terry L Fossum: Bingo. Absolutely. If I would’ve gone, oh, it’s okay. My arm around you, you’ll be fine. You’ll be great. You can do it. You know, bunnies and unicorns and all that. She’d still be addicted if not dead. But because you got both the stick and at the carrot, both of them are critical. She’s clean still, and they

Scott DeLuzio: And, you know, I can see this. In so many different scenarios, and you mentioned a few examples, saving marriages, uh, financial, uh, security, as far as, um, you know, saving for retirement and, you know, whatever, whatever your goal might be, if it’s, you know, even just saving for [00:32:00] a vacation or something, you know, like what.

What’s the, um, what’s a negative consequence of not following these steps? You know, maybe you’re saving, you know, a couple hundred dollars a month for, you know, however long to, to save up for this vacation that you want to take in a year or two and okay, well, What happens if you don’t, and you don’t put that money aside, and you don’t save it up, and, uh, well, you’re not going on that vacation, and, you know, maybe you promised your kids, hey, we’re gonna go to, you know, wherever, and, well, okay, now you’re a liar, and do you want that for your kids, right, um, If you do put that money aside and you do save it and you are disciplined and you have that, uh, regimen there, uh, you’re going to go on that trip.

Most likely, you know, granted if you, if you, oh, go ahead.

Terry L Fossum: You’re the best and, and the kids are [00:33:00] happy and they’re smiling, and you’re the best dad ever.

Scott DeLuzio: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, and, and so you don’t want that negative, uh, and you want the negative to be enough to push you to do the thing that you need to do, right? If, if it’s just like, Oh, well, we won’t go and, you know, all right, well, whatever, like, okay, no big deal. Um, well, okay, fine. That might not be a big deal to you, but it might be a big deal to your kids.

And then. Your kids are looking at you like, Oh man, what a jerk. Like he, he promises this trip and now we’re not doing this. And, and so, okay, maybe that hurts a little bit more than just saying, you know, whatever. So, so make the pain enough. That it’s going to drive you to reach that goal. I get that now, like the way you’re, you’re describing it, this, this makes a lot of sense.[00:34:00]

Um, you know, and I, I think it’s a, uh, it is a discipline thing and we have to, we have to dig into that discipline that we had in, in the military instilled in us basically from basic training days, you know, where, where you’re like, this is what you do. This is the process and everybody does it this way.

And. You just have to follow it. And when you set a goal and you set out the, the steps to reach that goal, it. It’s non negotiable. Like you just do those things. Um, and, and if you don’t, you’re not going to reach that goal. Um, and you know, maybe, maybe you build in some buffer, uh, into the, the steps that you have perhaps.

So if it’s a, you know, a daily routine that you need to do, um, And, well, let’s say one day you’re sick and you can’t do it. Well, hopefully there’s enough of a buffer built [00:35:00] into whatever it is that you’re trying to do so that you can make up for a day like that. But, um, you know, if, if you just say, ah, you know what?

I don’t feel like it today. Or, you know, You’re going to get into that habit of, I don’t feel like it. And it will, it’ll be today. It’ll be tomorrow. It’ll be the next day. And you, you, you’re eventually just going to realize that that goal is now a pipe dream. It’s not going to happen.

Terry L Fossum: Well, and even more so, right, right along with what you’re talking about. First of all, the daily action plan has to be doable. Don’t go, don’t go overboard with it. But also it’s not just that your success scenario won’t happen. Your failure scenario will.

Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

Terry L Fossum: the kick in the butt. You know, that’s, that’s the thing that drives us more, I believe.

Now it depends on the individual, the situation. I know the science, but from my standpoint, that’s what kicked me in the butt, you know, and kept me to my plan. I think it does to a lot of people, but you’ve got to have the success scenario along with it [00:36:00] too. You don’t want to go down a rabbit hole and understanding failure is temporary.

You know, okay. I didn’t reach those goals today. Okay. That doesn’t mean these bad things are going to happen to me. Okay, that just means I need to pick myself back up, kick myself in the butt again, reading these things out loud twice a day, morning and evening, morning to focus the day, evening, how’d I do, bring it back to reality, doing that to keep you on that path is so critical.

And again, there’s in the book, uh, and in the coaching program and everything, there’s There’s example scenarios. There’s example failure scenarios for everything, success, or even my actual marriage, happy marriage, Oxcard technique. You’ll see my failure scenario. You’ll see the real deal. The thing that makes me cry.

You’ll see my success scenario. The thing that is my steps in there. Which, last night I made my wife a crab dinner, okay, as part of my thing there, [00:37:00] because I, part of it is you’re doing special things for no reason whatsoever. Understand, I hate seafood. I can’t stand the smell of crabs. I can’t stand seafood.

I absolutely loathe it, okay? But, it’s on my action plan, baby. I don’t want my failure scenario to come true. Did I mention she’s an attorney? And I do want my success scenario to come true because I am madly, madly, madly, madly in love with her. And I want to spend the rest of my life with her. Keep me to that daily action plan every single day, baby.

Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. Yeah. And, and I can see that, how that, that could, uh, save marriages and, and make it a, uh, a discipline. Yeah. Okay. You don’t like seafood, but she does. And there, there’s gotta be a little bit of give and take. Okay. In any relationship. And, you know, so you’re, you’re willing to make that, uh, that concession for, you know, a, uh, whatever the frequency is that you put in your action plan.

Maybe it’s, you know, one night a [00:38:00] week or one, one night every other week or something like that, where, where it’s like, okay, we’ll do this, the seafood thing, despite the fact that I hate it. Uh, we’ll do it anyways, you know, and side benefit. It’s probably good for you too. So, you know, you get a little health benefit out of it too.

Terry L Fossum: I ate it. I didn’t say that at all, man. I had a pizza.

Scott DeLuzio: So, you know, but, but regardless, you, you’re, you’re setting your plan. You know what the consequences are if you don’t follow that plan, and you know what the potential, uh, uh, goals are that you have, you know, what your goals are, what the potential is for this plan, if you stick with it. And, um, you know, I’m just going back to saving for a vacation or saving for retirement, right?

It, that’s simple numbers. That’s simple math. If you know, this vacation is going to cost you 5, 000. And [00:39:00] so you need to save 5, 000. Well, when do you want to go? And divide that out by however many months, and that’s how much you need to save each month. And. And if you can swing it great, but if it, if it’s not realistic, like you said earlier, you’re, you’re going to have to maybe push that forward to make a more realistic goal for whatever it is that you have there.

So, um, you know, I think. Don’t set yourself for up for failure is a, another key to this. Um, because if, if it’s like, okay, well, I want to go on vacation next month. Uh, I need to save 5, 000 for it. Um, but I can only afford about a hundred dollars a month to put aside for a vacation. Well, guess what? You’re not going next month, unless you, unless you won the lottery or something, you happen to just.

Stumble upon it. Yeah. That’s not a step that I would necessarily put into the plan is, [00:40:00] you know, planning on winning the lottery. That, that’s just not a good, uh, you know, plan for, for goal setting and that type of stuff. Um, you know, so it, you know, It makes a lot of sense, but I am going to encourage folks, despite the fact that all of everything that you said so far to me is, is making a lot of sense.

I’m going to encourage people go get the book, The Oxcart Technique, uh, go on Amazon, grab the, grab a copy of the book, because I’m sure you give more details on the exact steps that, that you, you took maybe, or other people have taken, uh, in that book so that, uh, People can maybe apply maybe some of those specific steps to their scenario.

Um, and every scenario is in, in every goal is going to be a little bit different, but there’s certain things that are probably common in certain categories anyways, of goals that you can, you can utilize and, and help. Get you set up for success. [00:41:00] So, um, so definitely, uh, go grab a copy of that book. Um, the, the Oxcart, uh, technique.

Um, now I wanted to kind of switch gears just for a minute here. Um, I mentioned in the beginning that you were the winner of the show, Kicking and Screaming on Fox. Uh, Tell me about that experience. I gotta, I gotta imagine, uh, that your military experience had something to do, uh, to play a role with the, the wind that you ended up with.

How did that, how did that play out?

Terry L Fossum: Well, here’s the challenge here. I did not want to be on any survival reality show. I didn’t ask to. They reached out to me and uh, I found out number one, I was going to be the oldest competitor on the entire show. My wife is laughing at me. She’s like, my god, you’re the TOG. TOG? What’s TOG? You’re the token old guy, dude. It’s like, oh, it’s really cute. They got the old guy on there, you know, but, but he don’t die. Now let’s add into that. Yeah, sure. I’m prior military. I was an Air Force officer. Okay, I [00:42:00] was a captain. I was going up against a bunch of special forces guys. A Marine Scout Sniper, a 4th Degree Ninja Black Belt that I’ve seen on Naked and Afraid All Stars, except for the fuzzy parts.

A guy who, a mercenary who helped take out Saddam Hussein. And I played the role as the fat old Scoutmaster. Hi! I represented all of Boy Scouts of America in my Scoutmaster uniform on this show. So once again, I was like, Oh, it’s so cute. They got the old Scoutmaster on there. So, but he gonna die. Okay. The gist of this show was not just 10 survival experts going against each other, but we also carried along a complete novice with us.

Somebody who’s never even camped out in their backyard before, our polar opposites. So for the fat old Scoutmaster, they gave me the pink and blue haired. Tongue Ring, Fully Tattooed Up, Atheist, Admitted, Sex Addict, Online Video Gamer. But what they didn’t understand is in scouting, we, [00:43:00] we accept everybody, you know, all, we don’t care what their background is, their race, color, creed, religion.

We don’t care about their past. We’ve developed their future. And so Natalie, uh, as her name was, let’s also look at it. She was strong and she was smart and she was strategic. But imagine her coming around on the boat when they see all of the special forces guys, the marine survival, excuse me, the military survival instructors.

And the fat old Oshifo? By the grace of God, uh, and of course Oxcart played into it, uh, without question it played into it. Um, because it helped me prepare like a son of a gun ahead of time. Um, and we won.

Scott DeLuzio: That’s awesome. Now, now, how did they reach, how did, how did they reach out to you? Like where, where did they come across you? Where did they get your information?

Terry L Fossum: It took me some time to find out. What happened there? Apparently, they put a casting call out on this, there’s this national [00:44:00] scouting website that I’d never been to. And if I did, I’d never answer a casting call, to be honest. Have you seen what they make them eat? Um, but somebody had been through one of my leadership courses.

And so answered on my behalf, you ought to talk to Terry Fossum. He’d be great. Jerk.

Scott DeLuzio: Well, you won, so,

Terry L Fossum: know, I know, I can

Scott DeLuzio: I mean, there is a silver lining there. You did win, so that’s, that’s a good thing. And, and I, I got to imagine the, uh, the exposure on national television probably didn’t hurt things as far as business goes. So, so that’s a, that’s a good thing too. So, uh, awesome. Yeah. I’m, I’m glad you got to go through that experience and, and, uh, you know, you, you got to take away something from that, uh, you know, with, uh, with With the big win.

So anyways, um, now. You mentioned your websites, uh, before I want to give, give you a chance to kind of mention where people can go again, just at the end, just to kind of wrap things up here. Um, terrylfossum. com and [00:45:00] thegoalsecret. com are the two websites, uh, that you mentioned earlier and also your book, uh, the Oxcart Technique is available on Amazon, um, any other places that people can go to, to follow you or, or kind of check you out or things like that.

Terry L Fossum: Yeah, absolutely. And let me see, TheGoalSecret. com, I’m going to have some really great free stuff for you on there. Free. So you can go there and get more explanation on the Oxcart Technique, how do you apply it, things like that. It’s really cool stuff. So there’s some free stuff there. And of course, the website’s all free there.

Um, follow me on all social media. LinkedIn’s a big one for me. Facebook, of course, is a big one. Watch my TED Talk. I think it’s pretty awesome. It seems to be helpful. You know, it’s a million. I don’t know how many it’s up to now, but over a million views. Um, and reach out if, if you get the book, first of all, leave a review, but then also reach out.

If any of this is helpful to you, I’m easy to find these days, guys reach out. And I’d love to hear how the Oxcart Technique has helped you, how it’s made a difference in your life as well. And to all the [00:46:00] veterans out there, um, keep up the good fight. Y’all keep up the good fight. Um, you know, we all hear, thank you for your service.

I had to smirk the other day There was a guy helping me out, but he wasn’t going to help me out much, even though he knew as a veteran, what he was doing would have helped veterans, but I’m like, I know he’s one of those guys that says, thank you for your service, but then, you know, doesn’t put the meat behind it.

There’s a, there’s a bunch of us who really do appreciate you and what you’ve been through and what you’re still going through. Um, you got this, you got this. We’ve all been through a lot. We’ve all seen a lot. We’ve all done a lot, but together we can still stand strong. Just like we did in the old days.

We can still do them now. You got this. I

Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely. Great, great, uh, message that you had there. So thank you for that. Before we wrap this episode up, though, I always like to end an episode with a little bit of humor. Uh, get, put a little smile on people’s faces and, uh, this segment that I do whenever I have a veteran on the show, uh, I, I try to do [00:47:00] this, this type of segment it’s called Is it service connected?

Uh, and it’s basically, it’s basically America’s Funniest Home Videos type of thing where we watch service members. Um, and it may not always be American military, maybe other, uh, you know, uh, militaries around the world doing something stupid. And then we get to kind of laugh at them and, and kind of joke about whether or not this would be service connected, uh, disability down the line, because chances are they got something.

So I’m going to share my screen with you real,

Terry L Fossum: All right.

Scott DeLuzio: here. Uh, so you can see this video, um, just a short. Little video here, but let’s, let’s take a look for the listeners, audio only listeners, I’ll try to describe it as best I can right now. It looks like it’s a German soldier who’s trying to break down a door.

Uh, has, I don’t know. It looks like he has some sort of device to break down the door. Let’s see, see what happens. So he’s getting ready to. Hit the door, busted open and his buddy [00:48:00] goes walking in and his rifle gets stuck in the doorway, in the doorframe. Oh my gosh. It was exactly the right width for the muzzle of the muzzle of the rifle was on one side of the doorframe and the, the stock of the rifle that should have been in his shoulder.

I don’t know what the hell this guy was doing it was in the other side of the doorframe, and if he kept walking. It would have clotheslined him and he would have gone flat on his ass.

Terry L Fossum: You got to send me that video, man. I got to see that one again.

Scott DeLuzio: That one was good. That was good. So, um, anyways, uh, uh, Terry, thank you again for taking the time to join us. I really do appreciate everything that you had to offer here as far as the Oxcart Technique and, uh, getting people, uh, to hit their goals. I really do appreciate that. And there’s a lot of folks out there with a lot of goals, a lot of lofty goals, a lot of, Big ambition out there.

Uh, sometimes just not knowing how [00:49:00] to get the, the, the ball moving, get the, the ball in motion that, you know,

Terry L Fossum: Keep moving.

Scott DeLuzio: I think this, this will definitely help some people, but again, folks go check out the Oxcart Technique, get the book, um, and, and check out the, uh, the websites that we mentioned earlier, all of that will be in the show notes.

So, so check that out and you can click through the links on there. So thank you again, Terry really do appreciate it.

Terry L Fossum: Thank you so much. Let’s go out there and have an awesome day, shall we?

Scott DeLuzio: Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to support the show, please check out Scott’s book, Surviving Son on Amazon. All of the sales from that book go directly back into this podcast and work to help veterans in need. You can also follow the Drive On Podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

Leave a Comment