May 23, 2025 • 33 mins
Terry shares powerful strategies for overcoming the fear of public speaking by shifting focus from yourself to your message and the impact it can make on others. He reveals how accessing your most powerful emotional states and connecting deeply to your cause creates confident, influential speaking experiences.
• Public speaking is a critical skill for career success, helping Terry rise through military ranks and achieve business success
• The fear of public speaking stems from focusing on yourself instead of your message's impact
• Everyone has already demonstrated passionate speaking in personal moments of emotion
• It's not about being a "great speaker" but about getting people to take action
• Captain Scott's transformation story: from terrified presenter to commanding speaker in 15 minutes
• The "power state" technique: accessing your most confident memory before speaking
• Speaking success comes from connecting emotionally to your cause, not perfection
• People remember how you made them feel, not your exact words
• Your ideas deserve to be shared with the world - stop holding them back
Interested in giving a TEDx talk? Visit ideascoreai.com to evaluate your idea's potential or theviralstageinfo.com to learn more about Terry's coaching program.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
If you've been stuck in fear, self-doubt, your past
failures and you're ready tobreak through your comfort zones
to finally reach the pinnacleof success in every area of your
life, then this podcast is foryou.
Here's your host, Terry LFossum.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey Terry L Fossum here.
Welcome to this week's episodeof the Comeback Chronicles
podcast.
This one is going to be allabout you getting over your fear
of public speaking forever.
In fact, not just getting overyour fear of public speaking,
but making it so.
Every time you get up on stage,every time you make a phone
call, every time you're talkingto one-on-one, anytime, you need
to feel the most powerful youever have in your life that
(00:51):
you're going to be able to doexactly that.
If that's of interest at all,listen on, here we go.
Okay, let's talk about this.
As you may know, I have acoaching course called the Viral
Stage Transformation Experience.
This is all about helpingpeople book a TEDx talk.
(01:12):
Now, I'm not an official TEDx,whatever employee or whatever.
I've just been really blessedwith having what was it the
number two TEDx in the worldthat was called one of something
to the effect of the 30 mostimpactful TED Talks of this
century, and I've also been very, very blessed to be, well, a
(01:32):
pretty highly paid publicspeaker and been speaking
throughout my life.
More importantly than that tome is I've helped raise millions
and millions and millions ofdollars for charities that are
important to me across thecountry, and then some and then
some and then some.
Now in my military career I wastrying to look back at this.
(01:55):
And my military career wentbetter than it should have.
I have no idea why it went thatway.
At least I didn't until Istarted thinking about it.
I'm going to share that secretwith you in a second.
Then I got into the civilianworld, into business, and that
went extremely well.
I was with the top fraction of1% of my industry in the world.
(02:16):
I'll call that pretty good.
And then, of course, in thephilanthropic world I've been
able to really set some records,break some records and do a lot
of cool stuff.
And I was trying to think back.
Why?
Because I'll be the first oneto admit I may not be the
smartest person in the room, Imay not be the brightest bulb in
the chandelier.
I'm a mechanical engineer weare not known for our
(02:39):
personalities and I'm anintrovert.
Okay, tomorrow morning, afterthis recording and a couple of
the things I'm going to get done, I head off to my off-grid log
cabin in the middle of nowhereon top of a mountain in Montana
to be by myself for a few daysuntil my wife and one of my best
friends joins me and I go outinto the wilderness by myself
(03:03):
all the time, all around theworld.
Why?
Because I'm an introvert andyou would think with something
like that, wow, public speakingthat must be hard.
Okay, it could be.
And if you're an introvert orif you have a fear of public
speaking or you just want to beable to blow the doors off it,
you're going to be reallyinterested in what's going on
here.
Because when I analyzed why I'vebeen so blessed in all my
(03:27):
careers, it's two reasons.
Number one is because I've gota great attitude.
That's a whole differentpodcast.
I've already recorded a coupleon it and I've got an audio
series called Blow the Bolts youmight want to listen to.
That really talks aboutpreserving your attitude, like
your life depends on it.
Because it does.
Your life depends on yourattitude.
(03:48):
But then the other thing that Irealized is because I was a
public speaker, I would get upfront.
So in the military I got toFairchild Air Force Base January
of 88.
By 1990, I was already theofficer of the year for
Fairchild Air Force Base and Iwas humanitarian of the year for
Fairchild Air Force Base and Iwas humanitarian of the year for
(04:11):
all strategic air command.
And what do they call it?
Volunteer of the year for thegreater Spokane area, spokane,
washington.
That was a huge award back inits day.
I was on TV several times a daybecause of it.
And again, why?
Because, if you know me, I'mnot that cool at all.
And again, I'm not trying toself-demean or whatever, but
there's a lot of people who aresmarter than me, with better
personalities and everythingelse.
(04:31):
But here's the deal, here's thesecret, and you're going to
want to know this for yourself.
Right, I got up front.
I would get up front and speak.
If they need an emcee for anevent, I'd volunteer.
Okay, I can emcee, I can read ascript and we're going to talk
about how to get over that fear.
Don't worry, we're gettingthere.
But I'm just creating in you,hopefully, the need to do so.
(04:54):
My career went so well becausepeople saw me up front.
Whatever the reason was, I wasemceeing an event, who cares?
But they saw me up front.
And then I would start speakingat events.
And they saw me up front.
Listen, if you want to blow thedoors off, whatever it is you
want to blow the doors off of,you are going to have to speak.
You're going to have to do it.
Okay, now, before you start,well then I can't do it.
(05:16):
Yes, you can.
In fact, you already have.
We're going to get into that.
You've already spokenpassionately, you've already
done it, and we're going to takeaway any fears.
You have no question in my mind.
So the important thing is,though if you want to succeed in
business, if you want topromote a cause that's important
(05:37):
to you think about a causethat's important to you Okay.
If you want to promote thatcause, you're going to have to
learn to speak on it.
Okay, if you want to promotethat cause, you're going to have
to learn to speak on it.
If you want to do well in anyphilanthropic thing, even being
a great parent, whatever you'regoing to need to learn to do
this.
Okay.
It's absolutely critical if youwant to succeed, and that's why
(05:59):
I'm so passionate about helpingpeople book and blow the doors
off their own TEDx talk, becauseit can help you in every way
possible.
It can help you with your ownself-esteem, with feeling good
about yourself.
It can help you promote thatcause that's important to you to
the world.
It gives you a voice.
(06:20):
You're no longer just a whisperin the wind.
You now are the wind.
If you want to sell a productbetter, tedx Talk can help you
do that.
Even though you can't sell fromthe stage, you become the
expert on it.
If you want to do better inyour business, in your industry,
in your coaching, you're anauthor.
Whatever it is, it makes you anindustry expert because you're
(06:42):
on stage speaking.
So let's talk about that.
I think it was Jerry Seinfeldthat talked about how public
speaking is the number one fearin the world, even more so than
death.
We've all heard that.
It's absolutely true.
His comment was that means atthe funeral, you would rather be
(07:03):
in the casket than giving theeulogy.
People are that afraid ofpublic speaking, or at least
they think they are.
Listen to me, listen to me.
They think they are, butthey're actually not.
They just haven't put it inperspective yet.
Okay, here's the deal.
(07:25):
You may not think you're a verypassionate person.
Maybe you don't scream at theTV when your favorite sports
team is playing, or maybe you do.
Maybe you didn't cry when oldYeller died, or maybe you're so
young you don't even know whatI'm talking about.
But the truth is you can speakpassionately.
In fact, you have done sobefore.
(07:46):
If you question whether or notyou have spoken passionately
before, just ask your children.
Odds are, if you have children,you have spoken passionately at
some point in your life.
I know I have several times.
If you don't have children, ifyou've ever been in a
relationship several times, ifyou don't have children, if
(08:07):
you've ever been in arelationship, odds are you've
spoken passionately.
If you've ever been pissed offand let somebody know it, you
have spoken passionately and youhad no calms about it, did you
Not at all?
What's the difference?
See, the difference is when wethink about public speaking, we
think about going up on thatstage, and we get nervous and we
(08:27):
get concerned and we feel likethey're going to judge us.
We're worried that we're goingto screw up, we're not going to
remember what we wanted to say,we're going to get stage fright.
We're going to forget the pointwhere we wanted to get across.
We're not going to come across.
Well, everybody's going to hateme, it's going to be horrible,
and we fail before we evensucceed.
We fail before we even makethat first step.
(08:54):
Now, what's the differencebetween when you did that,
before you went up on stage, orbefore you had that discussion
with your children?
Because when you were havingthat discussion with your
children, you didn't care if youwere going to say the right
words or not, did you?
You didn't care if you forgotthe exact points.
You didn't care if they werejudging you or not.
You didn't care about anything,except for you had a point and
(09:16):
you were going to get it acrossto them and they were going to
take action on it.
Right?
You had a point, you were goingto get it across to them one
way or the other and they weregoing to take action on it.
Right, you had a point, youwere going to get it across to
them one way or the other andthey were going to take action
on it.
Are you with me?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Are you with me on this one?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Do you see, if you take that attitude before you do
whatever public speaking, it'sgoing to make all the difference
in the world.
You've got something to say.
You don't care if it comesacross perfectly or not.
All you care about is that theytake action on it.
Right, think about it.
It's exactly true, right, andthat's what you need to do here.
(09:57):
That's one of the biggestthings to get past right now for
your public speaking is thatit's no longer about you.
People come to me and they go.
I want you to teach me how tobecome a great public speaker
and I tell them I can't do that.
Now I know every coach out theresays, yes, I can make you a
great public speaker, and you'realready failing before you take
(10:17):
the first step because you'reworried about being a great
public speaker.
And that's not the point.
The point is you've got someinformation you wanted to get
across to people and you wantthem to take action on it.
Right, that's the point.
And if you do that, you're agreat public speaker, or at
least you get the results thatyou want, and I guarantee you
(10:40):
that means you will be a greatpublic speaker because you're
getting the results.
It's not about how cool youlook, it's not about how cool
you come across, about howamazing you are, or anything
like that.
If I step off the stage andpeople go, wow, you're really
amazing, that was fantastic, butthis just isn't for me, or
whatever, then I failedmiserably because I made it all
(11:02):
about me.
Don't make it all about you.
It shouldn't be all about you.
If you're worried about beingnervous about saying the right
things, how the audience isgoing to feel about you, how you
come across, all that you'remaking it about you and you're
failing already.
So cut it out.
Now I've heard other people sayit's not about you, it's about
(11:23):
the audience, and I'm not goingto agree with that either,
because to me, it's not aboutthe audience, it's not about
them.
I'm sorry, but it's not aboutthe audience.
It's about the thing that Iwant to get across.
If I'm doing a speech aboutsome philanthropic project that
I'm a part of or that I want topush forward, it's about them,
(11:48):
it's about those people, it'sabout those animals, it's about
that geographic location, it'sabout the environment, whatever
it is.
It's all about that.
If I go in my head before I goup on stage, if I have in my
head the audience, I'm notserving those other people
Before I get up on stage.
I'm not serving those otherpeople.
Before I get up on stage, Ihave in my head about the people
that I want to serve.
Let's think about that.
(12:09):
Let's go there right now.
Let's say you've got somephilanthropic cause that you
want to push forward, that youwant to help out with.
You want to get the audience totake action on, which is the
most important.
You can do so much If you canget 10 other people doing it.
That's 10 times the effort.
100 people.
(12:31):
That's 100 times the effort1,000 people.
You get it Okay.
So I want you to think right nowabout a philanthropic cause
that's important to you, be itpeople, animals, the environment
.
Think about it Now.
What I want you to do right nowis I want you to picture those
people, those animals, thatenvironment, whatever it is.
If they don't get your help, ifthey don't get your help, what
(12:52):
happens?
Do those children starve?
Do people continue to kill eachother?
Do those animals that are sofull of love and cannot
understand why people are beingmean to them?
Do they die a hopeless,hopeless death?
Or the environment?
Do we lose our planet andeverybody and everything with it
(13:16):
?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Think about it.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Go there, is that okay?
Is that okay?
If you've really done this,then you're feeling the emotion
right now that you should befeeling.
You should be getting a littlebit pumped up, maybe a little
bit pissed off, but certainlymotivated that no, that's not
okay.
That's not okay and I need todo something about it.
(13:40):
Feel that right now, embrace itNow.
If you're embracing that, you'retaking a huge step towards
getting over any fear of publicspeaking, because it's not about
you, it's not about howinsecure you are, about what
happened that morning, about howyou're feeling or whatever it's
.
If you don't get up there andsway the audience, those people
(14:00):
are going to die, those animalsare going to die, whatever it is
.
Now, that should get you going.
Now let's go the other part andwhat I'm doing here.
If you're familiar with the oxcart technique, that's exactly
what we're doing here.
Now I want you to visualizethat same cause, those same
people, the same children, thesame animals, the environment,
whatever it is.
(14:21):
I want you to visualize themagain because they're getting
the help, because they got thehelp that you want them to get.
Picture them getting that help.
Go there.
Go there in your mind right now.
They're actually getting thathelp, they're getting that love,
they're getting that food,they're getting that warmth.
The planet's able to healitself, whatever it may be.
(14:45):
How does that feel?
Is that worth it?
Is that worth you getting pastany misgivings you have?
Stop making it about you, makeit about them.
Do you see how powerful that is, how amazingly powerful that is
to go in with that attitude,that thought projection, before
(15:08):
you even get up on stage?
It's going to be a wholedifferent talk, isn't it?
Because it's not about you.
It's not about people lovingyou or you said just the right
things and everybody stood upand gave you a standing ovation
and you feel the love.
It's not about that.
Even if we're talking abusiness, a product, a service,
(15:30):
hopefully you feel the same wayabout that that you would about
a philanthropic cause or you'rein the wrong business, right?
If you've got a product thatyou're talking about, what
happens if those people don'tget that product?
They get somebody else's crappyproduct or no product at all.
Or if they don't get yourservice, what happens to them?
They get somebody else's crappyservice at too high of a price
(15:53):
or not that service at all.
Take a look at it from theemotional standpoint because,
listen, people make buyingdecisions based on emotion
Hopefully you've heard that andemotion, not fact.
Listen, emotion, not fact, isthe driver of all action.
Let me say this again Emotion,not fact, is the driver of all
(16:18):
action.
So your whole job is to createthat emotion within them.
That's a whole differentpodcast that I'll do.
That's all part of my trainingthat I do, the viral stage
training.
It's all in there to help youdevelop the best TEDx talk you
can possibly make to get peopleto understand what you're saying
and, more importantly, takeaction on it.
But you want to develop thatemotion and it starts with you.
(16:39):
If you're not emotional aboutit, neither are they you.
If you're not emotional aboutit, neither are they.
If you're emotional about it,they will be too.
And it doesn't matter the wordsyou say because, listen, people
will not remember hardly a wordyou said.
So if you get the word screwedup, it doesn't matter.
They won't remember what yousaid five minutes after you get
(17:00):
off the stage, but they willremember forever the way you
made them feel.
See, if you look at it fromthat standpoint, we take a lot
of the details out of it.
It's no longer going to beabout.
Well, do I raise my voice here,lower my voice there?
You know the intonation.
Do I walk to the right, walk tothe left?
(17:22):
You know all those kind oflittle tricks.
You know what, if you've gotenough emotion going on, so will
they.
When Martin Luther King Jr stoodup and shared with everybody, I
have a dream.
He didn't walk around the stage, he stood there behind the
podium, but he shared his dreamand actually, if you listen to
(17:44):
that speech closely, he messedup during it.
Does anybody remember?
No, most of the millions andmillions and millions and
millions of people who've heardthat speech still haven't heard
that, still didn't notice it,because they're too busy feeling
the emotion.
So it's not about you, it'sabout the cause.
(18:06):
If you develop that emotioninside yourself enough, then
it'll develop the emotion inthem.
You'll get past any sort offear, self-doubts, worries, what
I ate for breakfast thatmorning, whatever it might be,
because you don't care, becauseyou need to get up there and
help those people, help thoseanimals, help the environment,
help whatever it is.
Is that helpful?
(18:27):
Okay, now that's how to getpast any of that and how to feel
powerful because you mean it.
It's nothing fake, notcontrived.
You mean it and they will too.
But let me tell you one moretrick of the trade that I use
every single time before I speak, before I do a podcast, before
(18:48):
I make a phone call, before I dopretty much anything where I
need to feel the most powerfulI've ever been in my life.
Would that be of interest toyou?
Would you like to learn that?
I've even taught this at theMBA level.
It's a fantastic trick and I'vetaught different places around
the world, but it all started atSquadron Officers School.
Okay, squadron Officers Schoolis all of the top captains in
(19:11):
the Air Force.
They bring us together forseveral weeks of intense
military training and it's goingto be, of course, warfare,
leadership and public speaking.
Part of it was public speakingand our job was to pick some
military we'll say hero,somebody we really, really liked
, and come up with threedifferent talks that we're going
(19:32):
to give in front of our flight.
Now I chose General Blood andGuts Patton, george Patton, as
mine.
Now I've got to tell you aboutone of my buddies in my flight
Captain Scott.
Captain Scott was one of thefunniest people I've ever met in
my life.
This guy was hilarious man, buthe was also a bit of a
(19:54):
troublemaker, because we've beenthere on our flight.
That's about a dozen captains,we've had our flight lead up
there.
Who's leading us through all ofthis?
And this is serious stuff, man.
This is warfare, nuclearwarfare.
This is serious stuff.
And Captain Scott would besitting beside me at the
conference room table and underhis breath he'd be muttering
these wisecracks.
(20:14):
And I've got my head down justtrying to not let anybody see me
laughing my butt off.
My face is going red.
I know my shoulders are goingup and down because I'm laughing
so hard underneath my breaththere.
But that's what Captain Scottdid.
Now on speech day I got up andI did my thing because it's just
(20:37):
kind of what I do, right, and Idid.
We went fine and I got backdown.
Now here comes Captain Scott.
Baby, it's his turn.
I'm like, oh my God, put yourtray tables up, put your seat
backs in the upright position.
Here comes Captain Scott, but Inoticed something as he's
getting up he's looking down atthe ground.
He's kind of shuffling up tothe front of the room, not
(21:00):
looking at anybody.
He's more looking down at thatstack of three by five cards in
his hand, a stack of them.
And the weird thing was goingon with that stack of three by
five cards.
They were vibrating because hewas shaking so hard and he got
up front and he started talkingabout something.
I don't even know what it was.
Neither did anybody else.
(21:20):
I'm not sure if he did or not.
He might have, but I don't knowif he finished his talk or just
at one point stopped talkingand just shuffled on back down.
Wow, he was so nervous.
I was waiting for the littletrickle of pee to go down the
front of his flight suit.
I'm sorry if that's crude, butit's the God's honest truth.
Wow.
(21:43):
So he came up to me outside thebarracks that night and he said
Terry, can you help me?
I said, well, yeah, I can.
Yeah, absolutely Happy to man,and I worked with him for 15
minutes.
15 minutes, that's all.
It is 15 minutes.
Now, fast forward a few dayslater, time for round two of the
talks.
I got up there, I did my thing.
Now, oh geez, here comesCaptain Scott.
Oh geez, here comes CaptainScott.
Oh boy, now they call on himand I'm like, oh, here we go.
(22:04):
But I noticed something.
When he stands up, he's lookingaround at the crowd.
Man, he's got this intense lookin his eyes, this joyous look,
this look like he could take onthe flipping world.
He's got a three by five cardin his hands, one, that's all.
That sucker's rock solid.
And he goes up to the front,still looking at the crowd in
(22:24):
the eyes, and he delivers, notjust finishes talk, he delivers
it.
Man, he was good and he satback down and we were all just
blown away.
Would you like to hear thetrick that I taught Captain
Scott?
I hope you say yes, becausewe'll see you later.
(22:45):
Turn off the podcast right now,because that's what we're going
to do.
Okay, here we go.
Here's what I did.
I simply asked him what is themost powerful you've ever felt
in your life?
What's the most powerful you'veever felt in your life?
Now, he did what most people dowhen I ask them that question.
(23:05):
Oh well, you know, I don't know.
There's been several times, Iguess you know.
First of all, it is amazing tome how, if I were to ask you
what the worst time in your lifewas, you'd be able to answer me
probably immediately, just likethat.
You'd know what the worst timein your life was.
If I ask you what the best time, the most powerful time, is,
(23:29):
you're going to have troubledoing it.
Funny how we fixate on thosebad times and not the good ones,
isn't it?
Different podcast, differentrecording.
Now then the next thing he didis well, you know, there's been
a few.
There's been a few, which isfantastic, but we need to narrow
it down to the one, the one.
So that's what I did with them.
Okay, narrow it down to onetime.
Now, understand, the CaptainScott was an electronic warfare
officer on a nuclear-equippedB-52 bomber.
(23:51):
Each one of these birds, fullyloaded, is approximately the
sixth most powerful nation onthe face of the earth.
And he was an electronicwarfare officer on this sucker.
So he's seen some things, he'sdone some things, he's
accomplished a few things alongthe way.
So what was Captain Scott'sthing?
(24:12):
Get this.
It was a softball game.
A softball game it was asquadron softball game where he
happened to hit the game-winninghome run.
That's what it was and that'swhat it was so fantastic.
Let's go with it.
And we're telling this backaround to you in just a second
(24:33):
here.
So what did I do with Scott?
I got him into that momentagain.
I said, oh my gosh, that'sfantastic.
I got excited with him.
Right, tell me about that.
And a lot of times when I'mworking with somebody, they just
kind of go well, they gloss itover.
No, no, no, no, get there, bethere, describe the exact
instant when that ball hit thatbat.
Did you know?
Well, yeah, I kind of.
Did you know?
As soon as it hit, I knew I'dhit it really hard and it's
(25:04):
sailing off.
Well, yeah, I felt pretty good.
And he starts going into it.
I said, okay, you're goingaround the bases.
Are people cheering?
They're freaking out.
Man, the first base coach highfive.
Second base high five.
Everybody's cheering.
I come into home base.
Everybody's waiting for me.
We're jumping up and down,everybody's screaming.
I said, scott, how do you feelright now he goes?
I feel fantastic, you feelpowerful.
I feel powerful.
(25:25):
That's it.
See, all too often, before wego up on stage, we don't feel
powerful, we feel the oppositeof it.
We're scared to death.
We're worried we're going toscrew up.
We're worried they're going tojudge us.
We're worried we're not goingto get our point across.
We're not going to come acrossthe best that we could.
That's what we're worried about.
(25:49):
So, therefore, that's who weare going up there that scared,
insecure, unsure person.
Are we going to sway anaudience like that?
No, because the emotion thatwe're projecting is not the
emotion we want them to receive,right?
Instead, when Scott went up forthat next speech, he wasn't
that scared guy in the flightsuit.
He was the guy that just hitthat game-winning home run, and
(26:11):
you could see it in his eyesbecause when he was looking at
the audience, he was looking athis teammates cheering him on.
That's what he did.
So for you, for you listening onright now, what is the most
powerful you've ever been inyour life?
What is that time?
(26:32):
Think about it.
Narrow it down to one Now.
If you're having trouble doingthat, that's okay.
You can come back to this anddo it later, but if you're able
to do it, let's do it right now.
What is the most powerfulyou've ever been in your life?
Last one I worked with is whenhe got his first child.
(26:53):
We went to holding that childin his arms, how it felt, with
his background, everything he'dbeen through.
How did that feel?
Now, imagine going up on thatstage after you've just held
your first child in your armsafter a very, very long,
complicated pregnancy.
What's yours?
I want you to go there.
(27:14):
I want you to see the sights.
I want you to smell there.
I want you to see the sights.
I want you to smell it, I wantyou to hear it.
I want you to be there Now.
How do you feel?
Sometimes your first time, ittakes a little while to get
there.
Me, I do it in 30 seconds, 15seconds.
Every time before I go up onstage I go back to my own, which
(27:35):
gets revised over time.
Mine is now a speech that Igave there.
I was NCO, a non-commissionedofficer appointment ceremony at
Fairchild Air Force Base.
Because I'd been up front somany times, they asked me to be
the speaker at this thing.
I've got a row full of colonels, full bird colonels, in front
of me.
If you don't know what thatmeans when a full bird kernel
walks into your building, theentire building comes to
(27:57):
attention.
Okay, and I had a whole row ofthem right in front of me and
I'm looking them in the eyes andI'm staring them down and I'll
never forget pointing my fingerright towards, towards the chest
of one of those kernels andgoing and that's dedication.
And they were looking back atme like, oh, my God, see, I'm
(28:22):
getting back in state againright now just by doing that
again, because it felt sopowerful.
So the next time and by the way, if you watch me before I go on
stage, you'll notice I'm noteven in the room Now, I'm
standing right there butmentally I'm in that other room,
the most powerful I've everfelt in my life.
So I'm standing right there,but mentally I'm in that other
room, the most powerful I'veever felt in my life.
So I can go up there and feelthat way.
So the next time you get up tospeak in front of anybody, to
(28:44):
give that speech at Rotary, tomake that phone call, to talk to
a board of directors, to go forthat promotion, that raise, or
to give your own TEDx talk, soyou can make your world, your
idea, go around the world.
And, by the way, before I close, I want to say this If you've
been thinking about giving aTEDx talk, but not sure if
(29:06):
you've got the right subject, goto ideascoreai.
Ideascoreai it's an AI that Ibuilt that'll take your idea and
actually let you know if it'sready for a TEDx stage and if
it's not quite, it'll be honestwith you.
It'll be totally honest withyou.
Good or bad, it'll be honestwith you.
But it's going to give you fiveother ideas of how you could
(29:26):
tweak that message to make it.
Give it the best chance forgetting on a stage and actually
making a difference, getting ona stage and actually making a
difference and then it'll giveyou more information on a
program that I've put togetherto help you do exactly that.
That.
I've written some AIs that areunlike any other AIs or any
other program in existence.
It's way above anything elseout there.
If you want to just go straightto that webinar, it's
(29:48):
theviralstageinfocom,theviralstageinfocom,
theviralstageinfocom Again, thatwas Ideascoreai for the AI.
Again, completely proprietary.
This ain't just no regular chatGPT thing.
And then TheViralStageInfocomto get information on the entire
thing.
(30:08):
But listen, number one, you havethe power of the human voice
and there's nothing morepowerful in the entire world
than the power of the humanvoice.
It has the ability to tearpeople down or build people up.
It has the ability to startwars and end them.
(30:31):
It has the ability to makeapparent miracles happen because
of the power of the human voice.
And you possess that power.
You also possess the power tospeak passionately.
It's already inside of you.
You've probably already done it.
If you have children or been ina relationship or been pissed
(30:52):
off about anything, you'vealready done it.
You have children or been in arelationship or been pissed off
about anything.
You've already done it.
Now you just need to funnelthat appropriately so you can
make that difference in theworld that you want to make.
Because I also want to say youhave an idea in you.
I know you do Think about it.
Do you have an idea you'd loveto get across to the world?
Do you Think about it?
I bet you do.
You have an idea and the worlddoes need to hear that idea.
(31:18):
It's not about you.
It's not about you being afraid.
It's not about the audiencethat will or will not hear it or
anything like that, or howthey'll react to it.
It's about getting that idea outto the world because if you
think it's a good idea, odds areit's a pretty good idea.
Odds are it can make adifference in the world.
Odds are it can make adifference in somebody's life,
in the life of those animals, inthe life of the environment, in
(31:40):
the life of whatever it isyou're thinking about.
It can make a difference in theworld and it deserves to be
heard.
The only reason that idea hasnot gotten out to the world is
because you have held it back.
Ooh, that's pretty bold, isn'tit?
Think about that.
(32:02):
The only reason that idea hasn'tgotten out to the world is
because you have held it back.
It's time to stop holding itback.
There are people out there whoare begging for your idea
because it could make asignificant difference in their
lives.
Don't hold it back from them.
There are animals out therethat need that idea, that need
that thought, that need thatsaving.
(32:23):
Don't hold it back.
The environment needs your idea.
Certain geographical locations,whatever it is.
There are people out there andthings out there that need your
idea.
Stop holding it back.
You have the power of the humanvoice.
You yourself absolutely havethe power to make a difference
(32:47):
in the world.
You absolutely do.
Now it's time to step out therewith any faith at all.
Make a difference, have yourown Comeback Chronicle and help
a lot of other people have theirComeback Chronicle.
This is Terry L Fossum.
(33:08):
This is it.
Get out there, make it happen.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
So that's it for today's episode of the Comeback
Chronicles.
Head on over to Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen, and
subscribe to the show.
If you're ready to get overyour fears, self-doubts and past
failures and break through yourcomfort zone to reach the
pinnacle of success in everyarea of your life, Head over to
terrielfawesomecom to pick upyour free gifts and so much more
(33:40):
.
We'll see you next week on theComeback Chronicles podcast.
If you've been stuck in fear, self-doubt, your past
failures and you're ready tobreak through your comfort zones
to finally reach the pinnacleof success in every area of your
life, then this podcast is foryou.
Here's your host, Terry LFossum.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey Terry L Fossum here.
Welcome to this week's episodeof the Comeback Chronicles
podcast.
This one is going to be allabout you getting over your fear
of public speaking forever.
In fact, not just getting overyour fear of public speaking,
but making it so.
Every time you get up on stage,every time you make a phone
call, every time you're talkingto one-on-one, anytime, you need
to feel the most powerful youever have in your life that
(00:51):
you're going to be able to doexactly that.
If that's of interest at all,listen on, here we go.
Okay, let's talk about this.
As you may know, I have acoaching course called the Viral
Stage Transformation Experience.
This is all about helpingpeople book a TEDx talk.
(01:12):
Now, I'm not an official TEDx,whatever employee or whatever.
I've just been really blessedwith having what was it the
number two TEDx in the worldthat was called one of something
to the effect of the 30 mostimpactful TED Talks of this
century, and I've also been very, very blessed to be, well, a
(01:32):
pretty highly paid publicspeaker and been speaking
throughout my life.
More importantly than that tome is I've helped raise millions
and millions and millions ofdollars for charities that are
important to me across thecountry, and then some and then
some and then some.
Now in my military career I wastrying to look back at this.
(01:55):
And my military career wentbetter than it should have.
I have no idea why it went thatway.
At least I didn't until Istarted thinking about it.
I'm going to share that secretwith you in a second.
Then I got into the civilianworld, into business, and that
went extremely well.
I was with the top fraction of1% of my industry in the world.
(02:16):
I'll call that pretty good.
And then, of course, in thephilanthropic world I've been
able to really set some records,break some records and do a lot
of cool stuff.
And I was trying to think back.
Why?
Because I'll be the first oneto admit I may not be the
smartest person in the room, Imay not be the brightest bulb in
the chandelier.
I'm a mechanical engineer weare not known for our
(02:39):
personalities and I'm anintrovert.
Okay, tomorrow morning, afterthis recording and a couple of
the things I'm going to get done, I head off to my off-grid log
cabin in the middle of nowhereon top of a mountain in Montana
to be by myself for a few daysuntil my wife and one of my best
friends joins me and I go outinto the wilderness by myself
(03:03):
all the time, all around theworld.
Why?
Because I'm an introvert andyou would think with something
like that, wow, public speakingthat must be hard.
Okay, it could be.
And if you're an introvert orif you have a fear of public
speaking or you just want to beable to blow the doors off it,
you're going to be reallyinterested in what's going on
here.
Because when I analyzed why I'vebeen so blessed in all my
(03:27):
careers, it's two reasons.
Number one is because I've gota great attitude.
That's a whole differentpodcast.
I've already recorded a coupleon it and I've got an audio
series called Blow the Bolts youmight want to listen to.
That really talks aboutpreserving your attitude, like
your life depends on it.
Because it does.
Your life depends on yourattitude.
(03:48):
But then the other thing that Irealized is because I was a
public speaker, I would get upfront.
So in the military I got toFairchild Air Force Base January
of 88.
By 1990, I was already theofficer of the year for
Fairchild Air Force Base and Iwas humanitarian of the year for
Fairchild Air Force Base and Iwas humanitarian of the year for
(04:11):
all strategic air command.
And what do they call it?
Volunteer of the year for thegreater Spokane area, spokane,
washington.
That was a huge award back inits day.
I was on TV several times a daybecause of it.
And again, why?
Because, if you know me, I'mnot that cool at all.
And again, I'm not trying toself-demean or whatever, but
there's a lot of people who aresmarter than me, with better
personalities and everythingelse.
(04:31):
But here's the deal, here's thesecret, and you're going to
want to know this for yourself.
Right, I got up front.
I would get up front and speak.
If they need an emcee for anevent, I'd volunteer.
Okay, I can emcee, I can read ascript and we're going to talk
about how to get over that fear.
Don't worry, we're gettingthere.
But I'm just creating in you,hopefully, the need to do so.
(04:54):
My career went so well becausepeople saw me up front.
Whatever the reason was, I wasemceeing an event, who cares?
But they saw me up front.
And then I would start speakingat events.
And they saw me up front.
Listen, if you want to blow thedoors off, whatever it is you
want to blow the doors off of,you are going to have to speak.
You're going to have to do it.
Okay, now, before you start,well then I can't do it.
(05:16):
Yes, you can.
In fact, you already have.
We're going to get into that.
You've already spokenpassionately, you've already
done it, and we're going to takeaway any fears.
You have no question in my mind.
So the important thing is,though if you want to succeed in
business, if you want topromote a cause that's important
(05:37):
to you think about a causethat's important to you Okay.
If you want to promote thatcause, you're going to have to
learn to speak on it.
Okay, if you want to promotethat cause, you're going to have
to learn to speak on it.
If you want to do well in anyphilanthropic thing, even being
a great parent, whatever you'regoing to need to learn to do
this.
Okay.
It's absolutely critical if youwant to succeed, and that's why
(05:59):
I'm so passionate about helpingpeople book and blow the doors
off their own TEDx talk, becauseit can help you in every way
possible.
It can help you with your ownself-esteem, with feeling good
about yourself.
It can help you promote thatcause that's important to you to
the world.
It gives you a voice.
(06:20):
You're no longer just a whisperin the wind.
You now are the wind.
If you want to sell a productbetter, tedx Talk can help you
do that.
Even though you can't sell fromthe stage, you become the
expert on it.
If you want to do better inyour business, in your industry,
in your coaching, you're anauthor.
Whatever it is, it makes you anindustry expert because you're
(06:42):
on stage speaking.
So let's talk about that.
I think it was Jerry Seinfeldthat talked about how public
speaking is the number one fearin the world, even more so than
death.
We've all heard that.
It's absolutely true.
His comment was that means atthe funeral, you would rather be
(07:03):
in the casket than giving theeulogy.
People are that afraid ofpublic speaking, or at least
they think they are.
Listen to me, listen to me.
They think they are, butthey're actually not.
They just haven't put it inperspective yet.
Okay, here's the deal.
(07:25):
You may not think you're a verypassionate person.
Maybe you don't scream at theTV when your favorite sports
team is playing, or maybe you do.
Maybe you didn't cry when oldYeller died, or maybe you're so
young you don't even know whatI'm talking about.
But the truth is you can speakpassionately.
In fact, you have done sobefore.
(07:46):
If you question whether or notyou have spoken passionately
before, just ask your children.
Odds are, if you have children,you have spoken passionately at
some point in your life.
I know I have several times.
If you don't have children, ifyou've ever been in a
relationship several times, ifyou don't have children, if
(08:07):
you've ever been in arelationship, odds are you've
spoken passionately.
If you've ever been pissed offand let somebody know it, you
have spoken passionately and youhad no calms about it, did you
Not at all?
What's the difference?
See, the difference is when wethink about public speaking, we
think about going up on thatstage, and we get nervous and we
(08:27):
get concerned and we feel likethey're going to judge us.
We're worried that we're goingto screw up, we're not going to
remember what we wanted to say,we're going to get stage fright.
We're going to forget the pointwhere we wanted to get across.
We're not going to come across.
Well, everybody's going to hateme, it's going to be horrible,
and we fail before we evensucceed.
We fail before we even makethat first step.
(08:54):
Now, what's the differencebetween when you did that,
before you went up on stage, orbefore you had that discussion
with your children?
Because when you were havingthat discussion with your
children, you didn't care if youwere going to say the right
words or not, did you?
You didn't care if you forgotthe exact points.
You didn't care if they werejudging you or not.
You didn't care about anything,except for you had a point and
(09:16):
you were going to get it acrossto them and they were going to
take action on it.
Right?
You had a point, you were goingto get it across to them one
way or the other and they weregoing to take action on it.
Right, you had a point, youwere going to get it across to
them one way or the other andthey were going to take action
on it.
Are you with me?
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Are you with me on this one?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Do you see, if you take that attitude before you do
whatever public speaking, it'sgoing to make all the difference
in the world.
You've got something to say.
You don't care if it comesacross perfectly or not.
All you care about is that theytake action on it.
Right, think about it.
It's exactly true, right, andthat's what you need to do here.
(09:57):
That's one of the biggestthings to get past right now for
your public speaking is thatit's no longer about you.
People come to me and they go.
I want you to teach me how tobecome a great public speaker
and I tell them I can't do that.
Now I know every coach out theresays, yes, I can make you a
great public speaker, and you'realready failing before you take
(10:17):
the first step because you'reworried about being a great
public speaker.
And that's not the point.
The point is you've got someinformation you wanted to get
across to people and you wantthem to take action on it.
Right, that's the point.
And if you do that, you're agreat public speaker, or at
least you get the results thatyou want, and I guarantee you
(10:40):
that means you will be a greatpublic speaker because you're
getting the results.
It's not about how cool youlook, it's not about how cool
you come across, about howamazing you are, or anything
like that.
If I step off the stage andpeople go, wow, you're really
amazing, that was fantastic, butthis just isn't for me, or
whatever, then I failedmiserably because I made it all
(11:02):
about me.
Don't make it all about you.
It shouldn't be all about you.
If you're worried about beingnervous about saying the right
things, how the audience isgoing to feel about you, how you
come across, all that you'remaking it about you and you're
failing already.
So cut it out.
Now I've heard other people sayit's not about you, it's about
(11:23):
the audience, and I'm not goingto agree with that either,
because to me, it's not aboutthe audience, it's not about
them.
I'm sorry, but it's not aboutthe audience.
It's about the thing that Iwant to get across.
If I'm doing a speech aboutsome philanthropic project that
I'm a part of or that I want topush forward, it's about them,
(11:48):
it's about those people, it'sabout those animals, it's about
that geographic location, it'sabout the environment, whatever
it is.
It's all about that.
If I go in my head before I goup on stage, if I have in my
head the audience, I'm notserving those other people
Before I get up on stage.
I'm not serving those otherpeople.
Before I get up on stage, Ihave in my head about the people
that I want to serve.
Let's think about that.
(12:09):
Let's go there right now.
Let's say you've got somephilanthropic cause that you
want to push forward, that youwant to help out with.
You want to get the audience totake action on, which is the
most important.
You can do so much If you canget 10 other people doing it.
That's 10 times the effort.
100 people.
(12:31):
That's 100 times the effort1,000 people.
You get it Okay.
So I want you to think right nowabout a philanthropic cause
that's important to you, be itpeople, animals, the environment
.
Think about it Now.
What I want you to do right nowis I want you to picture those
people, those animals, thatenvironment, whatever it is.
If they don't get your help, ifthey don't get your help, what
(12:52):
happens?
Do those children starve?
Do people continue to kill eachother?
Do those animals that are sofull of love and cannot
understand why people are beingmean to them?
Do they die a hopeless,hopeless death?
Or the environment?
Do we lose our planet andeverybody and everything with it
(13:16):
?
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Think about it.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Go there, is that okay?
Is that okay?
If you've really done this,then you're feeling the emotion
right now that you should befeeling.
You should be getting a littlebit pumped up, maybe a little
bit pissed off, but certainlymotivated that no, that's not
okay.
That's not okay and I need todo something about it.
(13:40):
Feel that right now, embrace itNow.
If you're embracing that, you'retaking a huge step towards
getting over any fear of publicspeaking, because it's not about
you, it's not about howinsecure you are, about what
happened that morning, about howyou're feeling or whatever it's
.
If you don't get up there andsway the audience, those people
(14:00):
are going to die, those animalsare going to die, whatever it is
.
Now, that should get you going.
Now let's go the other part andwhat I'm doing here.
If you're familiar with the oxcart technique, that's exactly
what we're doing here.
Now I want you to visualizethat same cause, those same
people, the same children, thesame animals, the environment,
whatever it is.
(14:21):
I want you to visualize themagain because they're getting
the help, because they got thehelp that you want them to get.
Picture them getting that help.
Go there.
Go there in your mind right now.
They're actually getting thathelp, they're getting that love,
they're getting that food,they're getting that warmth.
The planet's able to healitself, whatever it may be.
(14:45):
How does that feel?
Is that worth it?
Is that worth you getting pastany misgivings you have?
Stop making it about you, makeit about them.
Do you see how powerful that is, how amazingly powerful that is
to go in with that attitude,that thought projection, before
(15:08):
you even get up on stage?
It's going to be a wholedifferent talk, isn't it?
Because it's not about you.
It's not about people lovingyou or you said just the right
things and everybody stood upand gave you a standing ovation
and you feel the love.
It's not about that.
Even if we're talking abusiness, a product, a service,
(15:30):
hopefully you feel the same wayabout that that you would about
a philanthropic cause or you'rein the wrong business, right?
If you've got a product thatyou're talking about, what
happens if those people don'tget that product?
They get somebody else's crappyproduct or no product at all.
Or if they don't get yourservice, what happens to them?
They get somebody else's crappyservice at too high of a price
(15:53):
or not that service at all.
Take a look at it from theemotional standpoint because,
listen, people make buyingdecisions based on emotion
Hopefully you've heard that andemotion, not fact.
Listen, emotion, not fact, isthe driver of all action.
Let me say this again Emotion,not fact, is the driver of all
(16:18):
action.
So your whole job is to createthat emotion within them.
That's a whole differentpodcast that I'll do.
That's all part of my trainingthat I do, the viral stage
training.
It's all in there to help youdevelop the best TEDx talk you
can possibly make to get peopleto understand what you're saying
and, more importantly, takeaction on it.
But you want to develop thatemotion and it starts with you.
(16:39):
If you're not emotional aboutit, neither are they you.
If you're not emotional aboutit, neither are they.
If you're emotional about it,they will be too.
And it doesn't matter the wordsyou say because, listen, people
will not remember hardly a wordyou said.
So if you get the word screwedup, it doesn't matter.
They won't remember what yousaid five minutes after you get
(17:00):
off the stage, but they willremember forever the way you
made them feel.
See, if you look at it fromthat standpoint, we take a lot
of the details out of it.
It's no longer going to beabout.
Well, do I raise my voice here,lower my voice there?
You know the intonation.
Do I walk to the right, walk tothe left?
(17:22):
You know all those kind oflittle tricks.
You know what, if you've gotenough emotion going on, so will
they.
When Martin Luther King Jr stoodup and shared with everybody, I
have a dream.
He didn't walk around the stage, he stood there behind the
podium, but he shared his dreamand actually, if you listen to
(17:44):
that speech closely, he messedup during it.
Does anybody remember?
No, most of the millions andmillions and millions and
millions of people who've heardthat speech still haven't heard
that, still didn't notice it,because they're too busy feeling
the emotion.
So it's not about you, it'sabout the cause.
(18:06):
If you develop that emotioninside yourself enough, then
it'll develop the emotion inthem.
You'll get past any sort offear, self-doubts, worries, what
I ate for breakfast thatmorning, whatever it might be,
because you don't care, becauseyou need to get up there and
help those people, help thoseanimals, help the environment,
help whatever it is.
Is that helpful?
(18:27):
Okay, now that's how to getpast any of that and how to feel
powerful because you mean it.
It's nothing fake, notcontrived.
You mean it and they will too.
But let me tell you one moretrick of the trade that I use
every single time before I speak, before I do a podcast, before
(18:48):
I make a phone call, before I dopretty much anything where I
need to feel the most powerfulI've ever been in my life.
Would that be of interest toyou?
Would you like to learn that?
I've even taught this at theMBA level.
It's a fantastic trick and I'vetaught different places around
the world, but it all started atSquadron Officers School.
Okay, squadron Officers Schoolis all of the top captains in
(19:11):
the Air Force.
They bring us together forseveral weeks of intense
military training and it's goingto be, of course, warfare,
leadership and public speaking.
Part of it was public speakingand our job was to pick some
military we'll say hero,somebody we really, really liked
, and come up with threedifferent talks that we're going
(19:32):
to give in front of our flight.
Now I chose General Blood andGuts Patton, george Patton, as
mine.
Now I've got to tell you aboutone of my buddies in my flight
Captain Scott.
Captain Scott was one of thefunniest people I've ever met in
my life.
This guy was hilarious man, buthe was also a bit of a
(19:54):
troublemaker, because we've beenthere on our flight.
That's about a dozen captains,we've had our flight lead up
there.
Who's leading us through all ofthis?
And this is serious stuff, man.
This is warfare, nuclearwarfare.
This is serious stuff.
And Captain Scott would besitting beside me at the
conference room table and underhis breath he'd be muttering
these wisecracks.
(20:14):
And I've got my head down justtrying to not let anybody see me
laughing my butt off.
My face is going red.
I know my shoulders are goingup and down because I'm laughing
so hard underneath my breaththere.
But that's what Captain Scottdid.
Now on speech day I got up andI did my thing because it's just
(20:37):
kind of what I do, right, and Idid.
We went fine and I got backdown.
Now here comes Captain Scott.
Baby, it's his turn.
I'm like, oh my God, put yourtray tables up, put your seat
backs in the upright position.
Here comes Captain Scott, but Inoticed something as he's
getting up he's looking down atthe ground.
He's kind of shuffling up tothe front of the room, not
(21:00):
looking at anybody.
He's more looking down at thatstack of three by five cards in
his hand, a stack of them.
And the weird thing was goingon with that stack of three by
five cards.
They were vibrating because hewas shaking so hard and he got
up front and he started talkingabout something.
I don't even know what it was.
Neither did anybody else.
(21:20):
I'm not sure if he did or not.
He might have, but I don't knowif he finished his talk or just
at one point stopped talkingand just shuffled on back down.
Wow, he was so nervous.
I was waiting for the littletrickle of pee to go down the
front of his flight suit.
I'm sorry if that's crude, butit's the God's honest truth.
Wow.
(21:43):
So he came up to me outside thebarracks that night and he said
Terry, can you help me?
I said, well, yeah, I can.
Yeah, absolutely Happy to man,and I worked with him for 15
minutes.
15 minutes, that's all.
It is 15 minutes.
Now, fast forward a few dayslater, time for round two of the
talks.
I got up there, I did my thing.
Now, oh geez, here comesCaptain Scott.
Oh geez, here comes CaptainScott.
Oh boy, now they call on himand I'm like, oh, here we go.
(22:04):
But I noticed something.
When he stands up, he's lookingaround at the crowd.
Man, he's got this intense lookin his eyes, this joyous look,
this look like he could take onthe flipping world.
He's got a three by five cardin his hands, one, that's all.
That sucker's rock solid.
And he goes up to the front,still looking at the crowd in
(22:24):
the eyes, and he delivers, notjust finishes talk, he delivers
it.
Man, he was good and he satback down and we were all just
blown away.
Would you like to hear thetrick that I taught Captain
Scott?
I hope you say yes, becausewe'll see you later.
(22:45):
Turn off the podcast right now,because that's what we're going
to do.
Okay, here we go.
Here's what I did.
I simply asked him what is themost powerful you've ever felt
in your life?
What's the most powerful you'veever felt in your life?
Now, he did what most people dowhen I ask them that question.
(23:05):
Oh well, you know, I don't know.
There's been several times, Iguess you know.
First of all, it is amazing tome how, if I were to ask you
what the worst time in your lifewas, you'd be able to answer me
probably immediately, just likethat.
You'd know what the worst timein your life was.
If I ask you what the best time, the most powerful time, is,
(23:29):
you're going to have troubledoing it.
Funny how we fixate on thosebad times and not the good ones,
isn't it?
Different podcast, differentrecording.
Now then the next thing he didis well, you know, there's been
a few.
There's been a few, which isfantastic, but we need to narrow
it down to the one, the one.
So that's what I did with them.
Okay, narrow it down to onetime.
Now, understand, the CaptainScott was an electronic warfare
officer on a nuclear-equippedB-52 bomber.
(23:51):
Each one of these birds, fullyloaded, is approximately the
sixth most powerful nation onthe face of the earth.
And he was an electronicwarfare officer on this sucker.
So he's seen some things, he'sdone some things, he's
accomplished a few things alongthe way.
So what was Captain Scott'sthing?
(24:12):
Get this.
It was a softball game.
A softball game it was asquadron softball game where he
happened to hit the game-winninghome run.
That's what it was and that'swhat it was so fantastic.
Let's go with it.
And we're telling this backaround to you in just a second
(24:33):
here.
So what did I do with Scott?
I got him into that momentagain.
I said, oh my gosh, that'sfantastic.
I got excited with him.
Right, tell me about that.
And a lot of times when I'mworking with somebody, they just
kind of go well, they gloss itover.
No, no, no, no, get there, bethere, describe the exact
instant when that ball hit thatbat.
Did you know?
Well, yeah, I kind of.
Did you know?
As soon as it hit, I knew I'dhit it really hard and it's
(25:04):
sailing off.
Well, yeah, I felt pretty good.
And he starts going into it.
I said, okay, you're goingaround the bases.
Are people cheering?
They're freaking out.
Man, the first base coach highfive.
Second base high five.
Everybody's cheering.
I come into home base.
Everybody's waiting for me.
We're jumping up and down,everybody's screaming.
I said, scott, how do you feelright now he goes?
I feel fantastic, you feelpowerful.
I feel powerful.
(25:25):
That's it.
See, all too often, before wego up on stage, we don't feel
powerful, we feel the oppositeof it.
We're scared to death.
We're worried we're going toscrew up.
We're worried they're going tojudge us.
We're worried we're not goingto get our point across.
We're not going to come acrossthe best that we could.
That's what we're worried about.
(25:49):
So, therefore, that's who weare going up there that scared,
insecure, unsure person.
Are we going to sway anaudience like that?
No, because the emotion thatwe're projecting is not the
emotion we want them to receive,right?
Instead, when Scott went up forthat next speech, he wasn't
that scared guy in the flightsuit.
He was the guy that just hitthat game-winning home run, and
(26:11):
you could see it in his eyesbecause when he was looking at
the audience, he was looking athis teammates cheering him on.
That's what he did.
So for you, for you listening onright now, what is the most
powerful you've ever been inyour life?
What is that time?
(26:32):
Think about it.
Narrow it down to one Now.
If you're having trouble doingthat, that's okay.
You can come back to this anddo it later, but if you're able
to do it, let's do it right now.
What is the most powerfulyou've ever been in your life?
Last one I worked with is whenhe got his first child.
(26:53):
We went to holding that childin his arms, how it felt, with
his background, everything he'dbeen through.
How did that feel?
Now, imagine going up on thatstage after you've just held
your first child in your armsafter a very, very long,
complicated pregnancy.
What's yours?
I want you to go there.
(27:14):
I want you to see the sights.
I want you to smell there.
I want you to see the sights.
I want you to smell it, I wantyou to hear it.
I want you to be there Now.
How do you feel?
Sometimes your first time, ittakes a little while to get
there.
Me, I do it in 30 seconds, 15seconds.
Every time before I go up onstage I go back to my own, which
(27:35):
gets revised over time.
Mine is now a speech that Igave there.
I was NCO, a non-commissionedofficer appointment ceremony at
Fairchild Air Force Base.
Because I'd been up front somany times, they asked me to be
the speaker at this thing.
I've got a row full of colonels, full bird colonels, in front
of me.
If you don't know what thatmeans when a full bird kernel
walks into your building, theentire building comes to
(27:57):
attention.
Okay, and I had a whole row ofthem right in front of me and
I'm looking them in the eyes andI'm staring them down and I'll
never forget pointing my fingerright towards, towards the chest
of one of those kernels andgoing and that's dedication.
And they were looking back atme like, oh, my God, see, I'm
(28:22):
getting back in state againright now just by doing that
again, because it felt sopowerful.
So the next time and by the way, if you watch me before I go on
stage, you'll notice I'm noteven in the room Now, I'm
standing right there butmentally I'm in that other room,
the most powerful I've everfelt in my life.
So I'm standing right there,but mentally I'm in that other
room, the most powerful I'veever felt in my life.
So I can go up there and feelthat way.
So the next time you get up tospeak in front of anybody, to
(28:44):
give that speech at Rotary, tomake that phone call, to talk to
a board of directors, to go forthat promotion, that raise, or
to give your own TEDx talk, soyou can make your world, your
idea, go around the world.
And, by the way, before I close, I want to say this If you've
been thinking about giving aTEDx talk, but not sure if
(29:06):
you've got the right subject, goto ideascoreai.
Ideascoreai it's an AI that Ibuilt that'll take your idea and
actually let you know if it'sready for a TEDx stage and if
it's not quite, it'll be honestwith you.
It'll be totally honest withyou.
Good or bad, it'll be honestwith you.
But it's going to give you fiveother ideas of how you could
(29:26):
tweak that message to make it.
Give it the best chance forgetting on a stage and actually
making a difference, getting ona stage and actually making a
difference and then it'll giveyou more information on a
program that I've put togetherto help you do exactly that.
That.
I've written some AIs that areunlike any other AIs or any
other program in existence.
It's way above anything elseout there.
If you want to just go straightto that webinar, it's
(29:48):
theviralstageinfocom,theviralstageinfocom,
theviralstageinfocom Again, thatwas Ideascoreai for the AI.
Again, completely proprietary.
This ain't just no regular chatGPT thing.
And then TheViralStageInfocomto get information on the entire
thing.
(30:08):
But listen, number one, you havethe power of the human voice
and there's nothing morepowerful in the entire world
than the power of the humanvoice.
It has the ability to tearpeople down or build people up.
It has the ability to startwars and end them.
(30:31):
It has the ability to makeapparent miracles happen because
of the power of the human voice.
And you possess that power.
You also possess the power tospeak passionately.
It's already inside of you.
You've probably already done it.
If you have children or been ina relationship or been pissed
(30:52):
off about anything, you'vealready done it.
You have children or been in arelationship or been pissed off
about anything.
You've already done it.
Now you just need to funnelthat appropriately so you can
make that difference in theworld that you want to make.
Because I also want to say youhave an idea in you.
I know you do Think about it.
Do you have an idea you'd loveto get across to the world?
Do you Think about it?
I bet you do.
You have an idea and the worlddoes need to hear that idea.
(31:18):
It's not about you.
It's not about you being afraid.
It's not about the audiencethat will or will not hear it or
anything like that, or howthey'll react to it.
It's about getting that idea outto the world because if you
think it's a good idea, odds areit's a pretty good idea.
Odds are it can make adifference in the world.
Odds are it can make adifference in somebody's life,
in the life of those animals, inthe life of the environment, in
(31:40):
the life of whatever it isyou're thinking about.
It can make a difference in theworld and it deserves to be
heard.
The only reason that idea hasnot gotten out to the world is
because you have held it back.
Ooh, that's pretty bold, isn'tit?
Think about that.
(32:02):
The only reason that idea hasn'tgotten out to the world is
because you have held it back.
It's time to stop holding itback.
There are people out there whoare begging for your idea
because it could make asignificant difference in their
lives.
Don't hold it back from them.
There are animals out therethat need that idea, that need
that thought, that need thatsaving.
(32:23):
Don't hold it back.
The environment needs your idea.
Certain geographical locations,whatever it is.
There are people out there andthings out there that need your
idea.
Stop holding it back.
You have the power of the humanvoice.
You yourself absolutely havethe power to make a difference
(32:47):
in the world.
You absolutely do.
Now it's time to step out therewith any faith at all.
Make a difference, have yourown Comeback Chronicle and help
a lot of other people have theirComeback Chronicle.
This is Terry L Fossum.
(33:08):
This is it.
Get out there, make it happen.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
So that's it for today's episode of the Comeback
Chronicles.
Head on over to Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen, and
subscribe to the show.
If you're ready to get overyour fears, self-doubts and past
failures and break through yourcomfort zone to reach the
pinnacle of success in everyarea of your life, Head over to
terrielfawesomecom to pick upyour free gifts and so much more
(33:40):
.
We'll see you next week on theComeback Chronicles podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.