Insight Success magazine is proud to announce our selection of “The Most Impactful and Visionary Personality to Look for in 2025” as Terry L. Fossum
His groundbreaking goal setting technique he dubbed “The Oxcart Technique” is endorsed by some of the top names in science in the world, like Forrest M. Mims, III, named ‘One of the 50 Best Brains in Science’ by Discover Magazine calling it “The most significant Advancement in the science of goal setting in recent history” and Paul Sean Hill, the youngest Director of Mission Control in NASA history, brought in to change NASA after the Challenger disaster. Top global business names like Marshall Goldsmith, named ‘one of the top 10 Business Minds in the World’ and Dr. Ivan Misner, the founder of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization praise his work, as do global self-improvement experts like T. Harv Eker, New York Times bestselling author of Secrets of a Millionaire Mind and many more.
His ‘Blow The Bolts’ audio series has been called “an awesome motivational masterpiece”, his coaching “life altering”, and public speaking “the best speaker I’ve ever heard’ time and time again.
But it wasn’t always that way.
Terry was raised in literally the poorest city in the entire United States, surrounded by gangs and drugs. He found himself staring down the barrel of a gun in middle school, in his own back alley. In high school, his father was killed. Before he died, one of the neighbors 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!”
“I tried to break out of those expectations, he reports. “I learned all the self-improvement I could get my hands on! I read all the books, listened to all the audios, took the courses, went to the seminars, and I would get all fired up! “I’m really gonna do it this time!” But over time, the passion failed, my fears and self-doubts started creeping in, the excuses started to make sense, and I found myself falling short of my goals once again. I don’t think there’s anything more disheartening than throwing out your Dream Board… again.”
Initially he had a successful military career. After receiving his degree in Mechanical Engineering, Terry received a commission in the United States Air Force, where he became the Executive Officer for an entire Group of nuclear B-52 bombers during the Cold War, and garnered several awards and decorations.
But when he resigned his commission to get into direct sales, everything seemed to turn sour.
“I struggled year after year after year, watching all of these other people succeed, while I lay bloody in the trenches. It seemed like to matter what I tried, it didn’t work. I even reached a point where I could finally make some decent money, only to watch it all crumble to the ground… again.”
“I couldn’t understand it! I went to all the training; I wrote down my goals like they told me. I did all the affirmations. But year after year, I kept failing and failing and failing. I’ll never forget my wife looking at my check one month and saying “well, that won’t even cover our mortgage”. That hurt me to the core.”
“I finally reached a point where I just couldn’t fail any more. I just didn’t have it in me, and I gave up. I walked into the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror and said, “I guess he’s right: you really are never going to grow up to be anything.”
In this darkest moment the Oxcart Technique was born, and everything changed. “At one of my lowest points I had an amazing breakthrough! There was a reason 92% of everyone who sets a goal fails: most of what we’ve been taught about goal setting is either incomplete, or completely wrong! There had always been a missing piece of the puzzle, and that missing piece of the puzzle didn’t just COME from my lowest point, but it WAS my lowest point!
I realized that having something to go toward, some positive visualization, a ‘carrot’ from the old ‘carrot and the stick’ story, wasn’t enough to get me past all the disappointments and failures, obstacles and setbacks; but something to go away from, a ‘stick’, was actually much more effective! And both of them together? Amazing. That’s why I called it The Oxcart Technique; from the old parable about the carrot and the stick.”
What he learned in his research later is that this was the very essence of Prospect Theory, developed by Kahneman and Tversky in 1973. Prospect Theory taught that depending on the situation, we’ll often do more to avoid pain than go toward pleasure. And when they applied this to Economics, they won the Nobel Prize! Terry applied it to goal setting, and the rest, as they say, is history.
After years of crushing failure, he quickly skyrocketed to the top fraction of 1% of his entire industry – in the world.
When he put this technique into a book, it reached #1 bestselling book on Wall Street Journal, Amazon, and Barnes & Nobel, and bestselling book on USA Today. His TEDxTalk on the subject debuted at #2 in the world.
The successes didn’t stop there. He decided to give acting a try and won Best Supporting Actor and Fan Favorite at the 2021 Christian Film Festival. He ended up hosting several shows and projects, such as Made in America and Montana DOT. He entered martial arts, where he became a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do.
He went on global adventures such as survival in the Amazon Jungle, a solo expedition deep into the Arctic Circle, climbing in the mountains of Rwanda searching for the elusive Silverback Gorillas and many more.
He has philanthropic efforts around the globe.
And the cherry on the cake? Terry competed in a survival reality show (Kicking & Screaming, Fox Network, Hulu, and currently airing on Prime Video) against special forces members, a mercenary who helped take out Saddam Hussain, a 4th degree blackbelt he’d seen on Naked and Afraid all-stars, military survival instructors and more. And his role in all of this? He was asked to represent all of Boy Scouts of America wearing his Scoutmaster uniform! Against all the odds, but applying his Oxcart Technique, he and his partner won the entire show.
All of this from the boy who was ‘never going to grow up to be anyone.’
Using both the carrot and the stick together twice a day in the way the Oxcart Technique demonstrates provides an extremely powerful daily dose of actual motivation to stick to business and professional goals, but does it apply to other types of goals as well?
“Absolutely. You can use the Oxcart Technique to reach virtually any goal in the world! When I began succeeding in business, people came to me asking what I was doing, so I started teaching them the Oxcart Technique. Before I knew it, I had rooms full of people wanting to learn from me – the guy who had failed miserably for so many years! So, we started applying it to marriage goals as well. Let’s face it: marriage is a goal that 50% of the people fail at! And I started getting emails like “You just saved my marriage!”
That meant the world to me. Next, we applied it to weight loss, and there was an international weight loss coach in one of my audiences who freaked out and started teaching it to one of her clients! I wasn’t sure if it would work for addiction, until I caught one of my housekeeping staff going through my drawers stealing my leftover prescription pain meds and used the technique on her.
Now, about 14 years later, I’m ecstatic to say she’s still clean! I made chapters giving examples for all of these areas and more in my initial book ‘The Oxcart Success – Blueprint for Success’ that hit #1 on the charts, and I’ve enhanced it all in the next version entitled ‘Never Miss a Goal Again’, coming out soon.”
Terry has recently launched his podcast, The Comeback Chronicles, where he not only gives critical advice to help his global audience reach extremely high-level goals in all areas of their lives, but also interviews highly successful people who openly share the trials and tribulations they went through to get there, and exactly how they overcame their own setback and disappointments.
“It’s all about helping people like me, who struggle with their own fears, self-doubts and excuses, and help them stage their own comeback to success, whatever that means for them.
The Oxcart Technique isn’t Terry’s only innovation going into 2025.
With the advent of A.I., robotics, and other disruptive technologies, our entire world is changing more rapidly than ever in history. Companies and organizations that don’t change with it will quickly go extinct. In today’s environment, small, incremental changes will only lead to a slower death. In most every case, massive changes is critical to survive.
The challenge: change is hard, and leading your teams through those changes is even harder. If you attempt it incorrectly, you can actually kill your organization more quickly than if you did nothing at all! After helping several organizations undergo massive change, Terry penned his notes and collaborated with global experts who are creating massive change in many different arenas around the world from A.I. to education to the global food supply.
The result: His upcoming book: ‘DON’T think outside the box. THROW AWAY the box! The 10 Critical Steps to Changing – and Perhaps Saving – Your Organization’.
The manufacturing industry is beginning to take notice. New technologies and practices have ushered in Industry 4.0., but progress has been all-too-slow in American manufacturing, and they are falling behind other countries. A major manufacturing conference asked Terry to come in and share his vision as the opening keynote, and it was so well received he was called ‘the best speaker we’ve ever had’ and received a rare standing ovation at a manufacturing conference. More importantly: the audience took the information and implemented it immediately with the new mantra of “Throw away the box!”
Terry L. Fossum is one of the true visionaries of our time. His philosophies are based on rock-solid science and remarkable success in not just one, but a myriad of industries. He has a willingness to go against popular beliefs and bring new truths to the world. His impact on the individuals and organizations he works with is nothing short of profound.
It’s for these reasons we’ve named him ‘The Most Impactful and Visionary Personality To Look For in 2025’.
Add social media links
www.linkedin.com/in/terrylfossum~culturechangechampion
https://www.youtube.com/@TerryLFossum
https://www.facebook.com/terry.fossum/
Instagram: @TLFossum
X: @TerryLFossum
