Day 310: Terri Maxwell
“I interviewed over 50 entrepreneurs … and the only common denominator that I could find was perseverance. Some of them had degrees, some of them didn’t, some had money, others didn’t, some were married, some weren’t, some didn’t even have a high school education. Some had a product, some had a service. Some started with an office, some didn’t. The only common denominator was that they wouldn’t quit.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Terri, for agreeing to be with us today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Terri Maxwell: Yes. Terri Maxwell, President and CEO of Succeed On Purpose.
Toni: Terri, when you think of the word inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does that happen?
Terri: Well, the people that come to us are in some form of career transition. Either they’ve been displaced from their current company or they’re not happy, and what we do is really kind of help them discover what their true purpose is, and by purpose we mean the combination of both their passion and their strengths.
Toni: That’s an interesting way to describe purpose — the combination of passion and strength. How does that happen, that transaction between you and that person that needs to be inspired to move forward in this transition. What happens between you guys?
Terri: Well, they come to a workshop, and the workshops are anywhere from 30 to 100 people, and we walk them through … it’s a day-long workshop. We also now are offering it online in eight one-hour segments, but each step really leads them to the next, and the first step is really discovering their purpose. We’re walking them through a very structured process. First, they really describe what their strengths are and what their passions are, and then we begin to rank those, and we look for the parallels, and then we begin a structured process of helping them construct what their purpose statement is.
Most of our participants describe that process as a tuning fork for their soul – that once they get that little three- to five-word description of what their purpose is, their soul just kind of says “Yeah, that’s what I’m supposed to be doing!”
Toni: Wow, what a great way to describe that. Now, when people go through this, what happens during this process that helps them to explore their potential?
Terri: Well, the second step after they find their purpose … that’s actually the easiest part, and most people kind of come in thinking “I don’t know if I have a purpose,” and they’re always amazed that the first part is actually the easiest.
The second part … if you think of purpose as kind of why you’re here, why are you on this planet, the second part is what could you be doing? That is really difficult, and that’s actually the longest part of the six hours – it’s over half, just that one part – and we basically force them through a process of brainstorming in groups in a structured way to get them outside of their comfort zone in terms of what they could do. Maybe they could develop an iPhone app. Maybe they can develop a series of meditations. Maybe they can develop a new product and solve a problem.
Whereas most people kind of look at their life in terms of “Where am I today?” and the amount of possibility that they see is very short, what this process really does is it really gets them to think big and to get outside their comfort zone, because the people that they’re working with don’t even know anything about them.
Then we put them through a patent pending process that we have called Option Boards, and the Option Boards make them evaluate trade-offs. How much risk is involved in this idea? What’s the potential payoff? How much time would I have to invest? What’s the speed of return? We put them through this process. We call it the Meat Grinder, and it really grinds out those ideas so that by the time that they’ve narrowed down their list of possibilities for what they could be doing, they’re really thought through.
And that alone really helps people gain confidence that “Wow, I could actually develop that blog or write that book or develop that iPhone app, because not only do I have the idea, but I’ve really thought through the idea, and I understand the risks, and I understand the time, and I understand what the speed of return is.”
Toni: Now, this has been very clear in the way that you have spelled that out as far as who you inspire and how, and you’ve talked about the purpose, why am I here, and then the exploration of potential with the Options Board, which sounds fascinating. Can you define for me your definition then of passion, and where that comes to play in this?
Terri: Passion comes from your heart, where strengths come from your head. And most people we find build their career based on their strengths, and then they get in the middle part of the career – we’ve actually been studying kind of career cycles – and most people get in the middle of in their career, somewhere between 30 to 45, and they become very dispassionate about what they’re doing. Of course, they blame it on the company and they blame it on their job, but they don’t realize that they veered toward their strengths, because Corporate America rewards your strengths. And so you think “Well, yeah, this is great, I’m being rewarded for it” but what you don’t realize is you’re actually being taken down a path that is not necessarily fulfilling.
So that process really helps them realign. By passion, it’s the kind of thing, that you know, you could do it all day long. Now, conversely, you can’t … your purpose is not just on your passion. It also has to be based on your strengths. I’m very passionate about singing, but I can’t carry a tune to save my life, and so my purpose is not going to be singing, even though I’m passionate about it.
Purpose is really the combination of something you’re truly passionate about and you’ve got energy for it, and it just excites you to think about it, but it’s also something you’re very good at.
Toni: Right, and so the work, the inspiration that you’re providing is the hybrid of both.
Terri: Exactly.
Toni: What inspires you?
Terri: My purpose is to inspire people to achieve their potential, and ironically I discovered that purpose over 10 years ago through a workshop, back when I was going through a career change and thinking “Okay, what am I going to do?” And it led me to forming my first company, which was a training and consulting company. But because I’m an excellent marketer, that company morphed into a marketing consulting firm because I was being rewarded, based on my strengths.
Not only did that happen to me in Corporate America, it happened to me as a business owner, and I found myself years later with a very successful marketing consulting firm. We had 40 consultants, and I was making a very comfortable income, and it was a very profitable company, but I hated it, and I could not understand “How could this happen? I finally have my dream company, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and I hate it.”
That was really when the big “ah-ha” happened about a year-and-a-half ago when I exited that company and sold it and said “I’m going to go find what I’m really, really, really passionate about,” when the light bulb clicked for me that it has to be both passion and strength.
Toni: So did you do that work on your own or was there … were there tools and resources that you reached for to inspire a different way for you to think about this?
Terri: I used a combination of resources. I have several coaches that I work with. I have several books that I consult. I have former mentors, and I went back to mentors, and ironically the answer was staring me in the face, and the answer was that purpose statement that I’d written 10 years ago.
One of my mentors said to me “Terri, read your purpose statement.” I read it, and it said “To inspire people to achieve their potential.” He said “What does that have to do with a marketing consulting firm?” And I just was like “Oh my God, he’s absolutely right.”
And so then I began the process of trying to figure out for myself what I call the Flow Chart. How can I get in the flow of really doing what I’m called to do — meaning I’m passionate about it and I’m good at it? And that’s when we began to develop the tools. First I developed them for myself and used them with myself, and then eventually we launched Succeed on Purpose a year ago and began to teach the same process to other people.
Toni: What else inspires you, Terri?
Terri: You know, launching businesses. The third part of our business, in addition to doing the workshops and the support programs for people, is launching businesses. Now, what’s interesting about that, I loved launching my marketing consulting firm, but I hated running that firm, and so now I have an opportunity to incubate over a dozen firms this year and inspire those entrepreneurs using my skills at launching a business to launch their business, and that is fun.
Toni: Now, are these marketing businesses or any businesses?
Terri: They’re all over the map. We’ve got a personal chef. We’ve got consumer products. We have a credit solutions company. We have a training company. We have a web portal for micro businesses that’s launching. We’ve got a technology company who’s got a software product. So we’ve got businesses pretty much across the board.
And where my specialty is really in a go-to-market methodology for that business is, you know, really identifying who they should be targeting and how they should position their products and their brand, and then helping them develop their strategy to really get into the marketplace. We’ve been very successful with a couple of businesses that launched in 2010, and we’re kind of building on that success and using those funds then to turn around and launch other businesses.
Toni: So really, it’s … you know, there’s certain words that come out for me when I’m listening to these interviews, and there were two here, and I think I actually used them with you when we did the pre-interview. And the two words that came to me for you right now were “process” and “people,” because your strength was really in the process of launching the business. And so you’ve got the heartbeat of the people that you’re supporting, but you’re doing that with the process that you’ve created.
Terri: Exactly.
Toni: And that’s really amazing. That’s pretty cool. So what are you doing now to explore your own potential so that you can continue to build on the success you’ve created?
Terri: Well, let me just say one other thing about that, is we will not launch a business unless the entrepreneur knows his or her purpose. We made that mistake when we launched the business, because when I originally started, I was focused on the purpose work but also on the business incubation. And what we found is the entrepreneurs who were launching businesses and were on their purpose were three times more successful than the entrepreneurs who were just launching a business to have a business.
In January 2010 when we were doing an analysis, we shifted our focus and said “Now you have to go through the purpose work whether you do it online through one of the telecourse options or in a workshop, because we will only invest in businesses in which it’s a purpose-driven business.”
So what comes next is I have a book that’s launching next month in September, and it is based on my life story. I’ve had more than the average bear’s issues thrown at me. I was an abused child and both my parents were alcoholics, but it’s not a book really about that. It’s really a book about how people came into my life to teach me lessons, which led me to a higher level of success and purpose, which then brought new people into my life that brought new lessons that led me to a higher level, and it’s really … you see this little girl go from being victimized to being a survivor, to eventually becoming someone who thrives, but then turning around and using the lessons that she’s learned along the way of which she takes the readers through to help other people fulfill their purpose.
So that’s coming next, and then we also have a business portal that’s launching in about 90 days that’s designed for micro businesses who want to learn how to launch a business. And basically depending on their business type, we’ll walk them through step by step how to launch that business.
Toni: There is a lot going on there, isn’t there, Terri?
Terri: Yeah.
Toni: And I love the fact that you shared a little bit of a personal part of this as well, because again, as stated, there are people that are listening to you all over the world, and they may be in their highest level of success but yet there’s more. Or they could be just starting out.
And I think listening to this interview and listening to what you’ve put in place, I did not consider this a pitch as far as you need to do this, this, and this … I really heard someone that was absolutely adamant about knowing what your purpose is. You defined it beautifully, and you’ve been through, like you said, your own set of challenges to work towards that success, so honestly I think that’s a living legacy around purpose and passion that you’ve just shared in a 15-minute time frame.
Terri: Excellent. Well, any other questions that you have?
Toni: No, I think that you’ve … I really wanted to get to your definition of passion as well, and I think that … you know, maybe the only other thing that’s hanging out there for me that I tend to ask a lot of people during this interview is courage. Because even though you’ve had success along the way, but it also seems once we spoke about getting into your own potential and exploring that, you’ve also had challenges, and so there has to be an element of courage that goes into taking that next step so that you can continue to be resilient and move forward. Did that occur for you?
Terri: Well, that’s been a process more than an event. I don’t think that I naturally have, you know, courage DNA, if you will. But there’s two things that I learned. Number one, when I was studying … you know, I had been part of a couple of startups that have been successful, and I wanted to kind of go out on my own, and I realized the only thing keeping me from doing that was my fear of failure, and I began studying what makes a successful entrepreneur.
I interviewed over 50 entrepreneurs in 2000/2001, and the only common denominator that I could find was perseverance. Some of them had degrees, some of them didn’t, some had money, others didn’t, some were married, some weren’t, some didn’t even have a high school education. Some had a product, some had a service. Some started with an office, some didn’t. The only common denominator was that they wouldn’t quit.
So that was the first lesson that I learned is perseverance is paramount, and the second thing actually has been a recent development. I’ve done a lot of work on, you know, my thought process and really setting proper intentions and visioning, but the “What If” process that Mindy Audlin actually teaches has been transformational for me, because my brain, you know … having grown up in a very difficult environment, my brain is almost hardwired to “what if down.” And so by applying “what if up” – and we actually use her process in our workshop – it has transformed my ability to infuse passion and imagination into those ideas that I have.
So when I start to feel afraid or I start to think “Well, I’m not sure if I can do that” I kick right in with “what if up” and it absolutely changes the energy level, and immediately I start thinking of possibilities instead of all the things that could go wrong.
Toni: Well, thank you for sharing that. That’s great advice, and the perseverance piece is just absolutely … I think all of us can relate to that, that are in a business. Mindy was part of the Get Inspired! Project, so you can also check Mindy out on this Project as well. Terri, you’ve been wonderful, and you have given so much value and insight in this interview. We can’t thank you enough for showing up in these last couple of days of the Get Inspired! Project. Thank you so much for being here.
Terri: Thank you for considering me.
Toni: Take care, Terri.
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For more information about Terri Maxwell: SucceedOnPurpose
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