E039 H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols: United Nations Peace Ambassador At Large

H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols 0:00
Overachievers burnout. I don't want the whole company to burn out. Well, that's not true. Because when you have a group or a system of people excited to be at work every day, yes, at work, work from home doesn't work real good in this model, although it can. But you have a group of people that division, a whole area of people that feed off of each other's energy, there is no burnout. When people are happy and achieving regularly in a group setting, they're healthy, they're happy at home, they're doing well at work. They're exceeding stakeholder and stockholder expectations, which is powerful. Okay, so that gets away with sales goals. And then if there's no timeline, they're not driven to make up something to hit the timeline. They're driven to achieve. So when everybody's at work and achieving, really, there is no burnout.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 1:04
Once upon a time, there were millions of businesses struggling every day, they wasted time, effort and money on repetitive tasks that added no value one day, the Better Automation podcasts by PROCESIO came to help them find a way. Because of this, these businesses save time, reduce costs, innovate and make better decisions because of that. These businesses grow, scale, and use human creativity to change this world. Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm your host that Better Automation podcasts by PROCESIO where I interview the world's top experts and share their very best ideas on how to improve your life, as well as the automation in your business and processes. My guest today is His Excellency Ambassador Terry Earthwind Nichols. Ambassador Terry is a mentor to the world's leaders, a United Nations peace ambassador at large, a veteran and an ambassador of United Refugee Green Council Global. He shows business owners from the apex level down how to look at sales and marketing from an achievement point of view, resulting in increased sales, while lowering employee absenteeism. He was a 2021 thinker's 50 nominee, as well as a top 50 marketing influencers to follow in 2022 by the Awards magazine. Ambassador Terry is a visionary strategist for people who are looking for achievement based versus goals based strategies for their business. He is an award winning profiler from his naval recruiting days, and the father of Repetitive Behavior Cellular Regression. His mentee success formula is set a vision plus built in achievements regularly equal increased ROI, his global network of practitioners stop impostor syndrome, companion fatigue, PTSD, and many more repetitive behaviors in an online Q&A sequence without therapy or counseling in six continents. 17 countries including 27 US states and in six languages. He is a visionary, strategist, Your Excellency. How are you today

H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols 3:33
Aziz, thank you so much for inviting me on to your podcast. I'm very excited to be here. And yes, I'm quite well today. Thank

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 3:42
you. I'm happy and honored and privileged and to begin asking you since like I mentioned you deal with leaders from the apex all the way to any level, what do you notice as one of the biggest issues problems or mistaken beliefs that you have that is sabotaging their efforts at leadership

H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols 4:04
Clearly, imposter syndrome and for their family companion fatigue, which is really a white collar way of saying PTSD. What clearly is statistics have have shown that 70 plus percent of executives in America alone suffer from some form of impostor syndrome. So that is, it is huge. And what, what's this sad part about it is clearly over 42% of them we found out are afraid to go get a diagnosis or anything like that. The remainder of them, usually their their spouse, caregiver is a person that says you're losing me. I'm taking the kids and I leave mean, if you don't go see somebody, and then they break down and they they go, Okay, let me go see someone. And God bless mental health out there, you know they're doing the best they can with what they know that they can. For me, I'm a lifelong self self sabotage er. So that falls right into imposter syndrome as well. I was very quick to get promoted in the Navy, and then didn't do much with it after I made the senior level due to self sabotage. And by my life after my 20 years, in the Navy, self sabotage came up a lot, I would drive myself and what self sabotage does and imposter syndrome does is, if you get feel you're getting to the point where they're going to find out, that's what you tell yourself. And so when that happens, I'd usually a lot of times, I'd get fired. Or, or I would quit before they found out. And that happened quite a few times in my corporate life. I have been a VP c x, VP C, senior vice president, President, chief operating officer and chairman. And what I found out consistently out there is a lot of people thinking back on him because I created the repetitive behavior, Question and Answer sequence just 10 years ago, after I left corporate life, and I was just starting out a coaching and mentoring program with my with my wife. So looking back on that now, a lot of my colleagues suffered from those things, because I know what I'm looking at now, and what, how they acted and those kinds of things. So that is what's really huge win. And so getting back to your question, that is the background getting back to your question, for an international leader, the chairman, the very apex of corporations, they usually start out at a prestigious college, they get their masters from Harvard, or Yale or Oxford, and that they don't start at the bottom with an MBA, okay, they start in middle to upper middle management. So they have very little experience working one to one with their employees, the hourly people, the people keep the thing running on a regular basis. And so I educate them and mentor them, I don't really coach them anymore. I don't coach hardly at all my wife does. But I mentored them on how to connect with the people, they're they're leading. And when they connect as a person one on one, the, the whole company just changes. There's this metamorphosis and and when my my mentees then take on a vision, that's, that's not part of their business plan. In American and my international clients, a vision and mission statement is really part of the basic business plan for a successful Corporation.

Unfortunately, senior management, they don't take that to heart. Rather, they just see it as a couple of paragraphs in the business plan, something for the financial people to look at. However, when they change and create a vision that they not only believe in, but everybody in their company believes in that they can achieve, then things start to change. This metamorphosis really comes to fruition. So how do you get to that vision, you set a vision out on the horizon that you can go for it has no timeline, it has no sales goals of any of that. Those timelines and sales goals are directly related to ethical issues and senior executives. And so if you turn off the timeline and goals aspect of your business, then you start creating a roadway to get to the vision to achieve it. And when you get there, guess what? You set a new vision. You don't just stop and and hoped it just works. But along the way, there are certain things that must be accomplished before you can get to your vision. So used Start building achievement stops from the vision back to the day you begin. And when you finish the sub tasks of each stop, then you have a celebration. You you, you bring in the company's people, and you bring them close to you and you all celebrate this wonderful achievement. Now that can be in financial, I've got working with some financial people right now. So that could be a bank hitting an achievement for that bank, that branch itself. It could be a division, it could be the whole retail division of a bank of a corporation. Or it could be a major stop that was achieved towards the division, where the chairman of the company all the way down gets to celebrate that. Now, at the end of that celebration, everyone in the company gets to stop for a minute and analyze how did they do it? What worked? What did not work? And of that? What are we taking with this for the next stop to move on? Now, here's what's key ladies and gentlemen that are listening in. And thank you for doing so here's what's key to the strategy.

If another COVID hits between now and the next stop, we've learned from the last COVID Stop. So we're bringing that knowledge to the next towards the next stop. And if we have to shut down operations, again, because something critical worldwide occurs, we have a whole new mindset to take on this situation. We no longer thinking what divisions get closed, you know, how many gets laid off. We take care of our people first because it's all driven by achievement. And we're all one big family and we're all moving ahead with our individual jobs. Okay. And so first, we take care of our people, we make them safe, we make the adjustments that we learned from COVID in the company immediately, even if it's locked down again, or something like that. But here's what's key to this as these soon as you can get open again, you just step back on the roadway and you continue, you've lost nothing. Now, how does this make money and what's, you know, over achievers burnout, I don't want the whole company to burn out? Well, that's not true. Because when you have a group or a system of people excited to be at work every day, yes, at work, work from home doesn't work real good in this model, although it can. But you have a group of people a division, a whole area of people that feed off of each other's energy, there is no burnout. When people are happy and achieving regularly in a group setting. They're healthy, they're happy at home, they're doing well at work. They're exceeding stakeholder and stockholder expectations, which is powerful. Okay, so that gets away with sales goals. And then if there's no timeline, they're not driven to make up something to hit the timeline. They're driven to achieve. So when everybody's at work and achieving, really, there is no burnout, and you're, you're ready for this, if there's no burnout, there's nobody leaving the company, because if you're achieving you're in this magical place, you're not leaving it for nothing. So a lot of different issues that are dealing with the business as a whole internationally today can be dressed. That's kind of a long answer for your question as these.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 13:47
Thank you for if I heard you correctly, too many people, whether executives or not, that seems to be part of the human condition, suffer from the imposter syndrome. And it seems to me it happens. Whenever people are outside their comfort zone, they will self sabotage in order to return to that smaller, comfortable zone which stops their achievement because they don't realize the longer they stay outside their comfort zone, the more they can expand, the more they can learn, the more they can contribute and therefore, they take it as a sign they'll get found out while in reality it's a sign is the growing pain that comes with being out. And specifically for top level leaders that graduate from prestigious universities. They don't have much interaction with the day to day people, the salary, wage workers, etc. And therefore one of your recommendations is to sit down with them to connect with them to understand their heart which is key to you the two parts of your model the vision, which is creating a long term kind of horizon that people are working towards, rather than a specific Have a goal. And it needs to be electrifying not one of those corporate speak three sentences or whatever that are on the business plan, and to have achievement stops at every way, which serves two purposes if I understood correctly, one is to celebrate, and therefore give positive reinforcement that when you work with a team, we're in it together, we share the wealth, we share the success as well as a place to stop. And instead of mindlessly keeping, working without learning, you stop, you learn, you extract the lessons, and improve and become a learning organization. And therefore, what happens when people are together in the same office or space, you can see the excitement of people who don't have the pressure of goals that can push them to over promise to do things that are unethical. And therefore there is a contagious human energy they can feel, which makes them not burn out because they're feeding off each others, others excitement and you create a culture and a workspace where people will never ever leave because they cannot find it anywhere else. Did I understand correctly?

H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols 16:05
You are spot on? Well done. Yes. Well,

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 16:09
thank you very much. And to ask you a bit further even. Because this is about like you said, human beings human nature, I want to specifically understand something. What does it mean for a leader to connect to those day to day wage earners? Because someone here and that they might not know what does it mean really to connect, especially nowadays, after the loss of too many social skills, because of COVID and confinement, understanding people, empathy, all that and is in many ways, a concept that is too big, and it's not specified. So to you, what is that connection, which is the building block for creating community culture, and from it, m&a, m&a to the energy and division? Excellent question.

H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols 17:00
Let me address it this way. You that are listening right now, who are one of the executives we're talking about. You've never had the opportunity to maybe at home, sit down with the gardener and and find out about their life or anything like that. So you don't have those skills, or so you think, however, when you join the country club, or your downtown club, or your men's club, or your Women's Association of senior executives, what did you do? You went and met people, you went and spent time with them and learn with them. And for the majority of the people that I mentor, they learned how to create long lasting relationships. And for all of the people that I have worked with, who've reached the very top of their, their industry, they have the same friends as they the friendships they gained in college in the end, postgrad, but also the the wonderful friends that they used to play golf with, when they were both senior vice president someplace they are, they are now heading up other corporations or whatever, they're still best friends, their relationships don't end for the most part. Okay? So, so Richard Branson, I follow him because he's such an excellent example of connecting to your people. Right now, he's expanding, while everybody else is trying to figure out how to get people to the office, people thrive to the office because they never know if he's gonna walk in say hi to him sit down, have a cup of coffee with them, because he has this mindset that everyone has a job in the corporation. Okay. And because he's at the top of the job, it's just different than the person that's cleaning the the state rooms and his new cruise lines. It's just different. It's not lower people. And so the mindset of the connection of the human factor of your employees and staff you can bring this to the club even is touching them in a relationship situation, you know, you don't have to make them your best friends. But you can make them feel valued. And by feeling valued their home life is better just like I explained before, when you're healthy and thriving, you don't burn out and you should not leave leave the company. And when when this atmosphere takes place, you know, your your EBIT line earnings before interest, taxation or whatever your financial baseline is raises. You know, there's a I love banks because they have an excellent example of a corporation and that is the bank teller. that you drive up and get deposits from or whatever you're doing at the drive up branch window has as much input and the future of the corporation as the executive vice president of mergers and acquisitions. And here's why that person has a brain. And when you excite that brain to to expand and to really put something together, they see and think of things that everyone else doesn't think about, they can come up with cost saving ideas that corporation wide could mean millions of dollars, they can come up with new revenue streams that can support the branch and the company, when the next COVID happens, because let's say the next COVID happens, and it's worse than what we have now. It is possible. So let's say that happens, rather than close that branch and moves all that talent. Perhaps you restructure the branch and train the people to close the front door. So they're not taking live interaction, and making a mortgage services, plays and collaborate with the other banks in the area to support people so that they can keep their homes and the bank branches are collaborative, so they become an active participant in their communities. The shift there is profound, ladies and gentlemen. Great question. Follow up question. Aziz.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 21:38
Thank you, it reminds me of Kaizen, which is the Japanese movement for continuous improvement, because every person has the task of improving their workflow and the work they do, by one thing every time or whenever possible, and therefore, it's not like every person has an important role. And every person can contribute to the change and improvement and growth of the company. And therefore to ask you something very specific, because the the audience for this podcast are CEOs and CEOs who are interested and change management, digital transformation and automation to concretely put your method of achievement orientation, rather than being gold beef, let's say there is a company, the things that they have been doing so far won't take them to the next level. And therefore they need to change things. They need to change the processes optimizing them, they need to add new technology they need to involve automations, how can they go about that, while still putting people first not demoralizing people or creating resistance from a feeling of top down forced over them kind of change,

H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols 22:56
I have an excellent place to start. And it's available in an ebook. It's my brand new book called consortium business model for the 21st century, everything that I'm talking about, is in this very quick read, that you can grab while you're stuck in traffic in the back of the executive sedan on the way home. And it outlines how to put this new business model together. And it gives you ideas on on how to Bank of America on one corner, and Wells Fargo across the street, the two managers to get together and start collaborating on how best to serve the community. Everything that I've spoken about today is available, certainly contact me. My consortium model is you know, we we consult with with corporations, we have a three year program that we help them with, doesn't matter if they're top 10 bank in the world. There's there's a change here and that change for you to thrive in the future and and to continue to grow, you're gonna have to make some big changes. And this will help you do that.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 24:08
Thank you so much. This is really good. And I remember even in your introduction that a big part of what you help businesses with is their marketing and sales. Do you have a different perspective on how marketing and sales should be conducted? And what kinds of things can people expect with your help to change or achieve or add to their businesses

H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols 24:33
in January I was very surprised by receiving the award is number 17 of the top 50 marketing influencers to follow in 2022 Here's why my success and my and my mentees gain the same success. I am at live at need. I come up with Marketing Pro programs that are relative to the customer are spending the dollar, the person that's pulling out that credit card or debit card and buying your service or product. What do they want? What do they need? And how do you contact him? How do you interconnect with him? Social media is for the CEO, or the CEO or chairman of an international corporation is just as important to monitor as your marketing team. Okay, who live in social media, if they're real good. Here's the key. When you are the chairman of an international corporation, you get an inundated with social media requests and crazy things like that. So create a social media profile that uses your name, that the part of your name that nobody knows, it's a legitimate profile, that won't be fake. And it allows you to go out and just be a local person and see what people are doing, how they're doing it, what are their issues? And how can you help them. And from that, you go back to your chiefs board, when I call the Chiefs board, the very chief executive officers and chief of the corporation, and you say, here's what I've learned lately, what do you guys deal with, and they should be doing the same thing, so that you keep your finger on the pulse of the company and your product? Because every time as as a leader, or a any member of a corporation, hey, Terry, what do you do? You tell him what you do. With full respect, it doesn't matter if they're washing your car, or you're playing golf at the country club, the same respect, because you're sending a message to your intended target market, not the person you're speaking to. Now, if it directly relates to the people that you're talking to, at the moment, great. But if it doesn't, they may have an uncle my one of my other books profiling for profit, I talked about the guy wash my car at one of my my key customers building. And he asked me what I did one day, and I gave him a full and complete answer. And my business card. Five days later, his uncle, who was the Executive Vice President for Midwest, or Wells Fargo, called me, and through that connection with that kid washing the car, I had a new, amazing client that stayed with me for years, until he retired. So there is a reason for you to send a message, instead of just telling people what you do. Okay, what do I do? Well, I talk about peace a lot. Okay, but there's people out there looking for me, and I give that person what do you do? The response more or less what what Z's did at the beginning of this, it's very important.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 28:10
Thank you. That's very beautifully said. Some people will say, I'm an executive, I don't have all that time for to do things that can't scale like that, of course, they're important, and they should be a priority. My business too, of course, it's beautiful to focus on the energy and on the learning. When it comes to new technologies and automation, how do they fit within the picture you're presenting and about concern or consortiums? How to know what to automate and to make into something that human intervention doesn't need to be, like prevalent within it to free time to do those things. And what, how to know what is truly important.

H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols 28:54
When you have a vision. And one of those achievement stops that I was talking about. There are four to eight tasks that are subtasks of the achievement of that stop. And when your CMO, your chief marketing officer is on social media a couple of times a week. You you hire teams that are out there in social media, your people are in social media, believe me, all of them, even that employee at the at the drive up window. They're in social media and when you have them motivated to bring in the latest technology and applications. They talk to other companies in service to them in their regular life. How does the phone tree when there's a phone conversation work? Is it effective? Is it better than what we're doing? All of that is keeping your pulse your hand on the pulse of of your world and exciting your people to be the same way because when when And you Pete, you treat everybody the same way. They're excited to help you. Okay? Because it helps them to, and the stakeholders, they love you. Shareholders are ecstatic because things are changing for the for the good. Even in downturns, all of a sudden, your corporation is not in a downturn, the rest of the world wants to know why. And then you start to reposition yourself within your industry. It works. It works. Enter connectedly. To to the betterment of all.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 30:33
Thank you. This was so deep and insightful. Can you share more about your books about where people can find them? Your services? You said you don't do coaching your wife does? What does your wife do? What do you do? So that people I know I mentioned it, but more for someone who's excited right now to learn more to contact you? What can they expect? What can they get? And what are the best places or links or websites or social media for them to go?

H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols 31:02
I tell everyone, this is about my 480 podcast interview. And I've been on it regularly on both sides of the mic. I have something unique. My brand is Terry earth when Nichols there's one of me in the world, a being or goat Google search for that full name. There's 17,000 Terry Nichols currently in the United States. So there's a lot of them. However, Terry earth when Nichols there's one in the world, all of my social media links can be found there are websites, my wife is doing some fabulous work in clarity. When I take on a mentee, I have hers to end an hour with him to really get clear or her to really get clear on what it is that they are looking at going forward. She's also on her 23rd book herself. I have eight books. And she she coaches people on various aspects of their business and website brand. A lot of that, but she also has a unique way of coaching them through self publishing a book in 30 days, which is pretty amazing. Now is it a book of five or 600 pages, no 100 150 pages, just small things. That's powerful. Now, when you go to Amazon, everything that I do is on Amazon. So all eight of my books are available in print in multiple sites around and selling internationally. So all of my eight books are in print, and all of them are ebooks, the consortium and the profiling for profit, I highly recommend. Well, all of my mentees have them on their phone in their Kindle. Okay, so that they can use them for regular reference. So that's the big things. Terry, you're a twin Nichols and you find out my you know, my YouTube, my videos, my media, everything. thinker's 360, recently acknowledged me as a top 10 Thought Leader worldwide. And that's an excellent source for you, if you're looking for speakers for your events, and things like that, I'm listed there as well. These are all different places where you can find me quite easily, because we're all busy. So the easiest way we can do it is is the way we want to that will give us still the amount of clarity we're looking for.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 33:38
Thank you so much. I love this. And I love your mentioning clarity, and progress and new perspectives. And therefore before we finish, of course, I highly recommend PROCESIO as well, which is the modern low code, no code platform for advanced automation and creating an enterprise grade backend for your software, any viewer or listener, and their company can get a totally free account at PROCESIO.app. And for those with enterprise needs or higher business needs. There is a very generous 50% discount code. It's BETTER50OFF one word in capital letters, more information in the description as well as more links to Embassador Terry, thank you so much. This was my privilege, my honor, and I wish you to keep going you're doing great things in this world.

H.E. Amb. Terry Earthwind Nichols 34:33
Thank you so much, Aziz, this was very enlightening, great questions, and I hope I drew some interest. My message got to the people who are looking for me, ladies, as I mentioned before, this is all about message, not content.

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 34:48
100% Thank you again.