Natalie: Today on the show I'm speaking with Terry Tillman who's been doing this motivational and inspiring work since 1976 and he has some amazing insights to share. So, stay tuned.

Natalie: Hi! I'm Natalie Ledwell and this is The Inspiration Show. And today my special guest is Terry Tillman. Hi, Terry, how are you?

Terry: Hi, Natalie. I'm good.

Natalie: Now, Terry has been involved in the personal development realm, for how long now?

Terry: Well, I'm an elder. Let's see 1976, I started.

Natalie: Right. Wow!

Terry: I call myself a recovered business man.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: Fifteen years before that I was entrepreneuring.

Natalie: Right. And so, yes, what was your journey? What actually got you from the business world into doing the work that you do now?

Terry: Well, I was a good boy. You know I went through school, I got good grades. I was present in the honor society, an A student, got into Stanford, studied business. My grandpa and father are business people. I went them. So, I thought I was supposed to do that. So, I did.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: And I started and grilled six different businesses and real estate development, construction, real estate brok berage. I owned part of six TV stations, a couple of another things, made money, did all you know got the trappings, the titles you know, the nice houses and stuff and I was actually immeasurable.

Natalie: Right.

Terry: And I was living my life according to what I thought other people expected of me. And I was doing it well, yeah, on the surface but you know I was bankrupt inside and I didn't know what to do about it. But I was too proud and embarrassed to let anybody know that I was struggling inside. And one day, one of the salesmen, it was the display advertising manager at the local newspaper where I did loan of advertising for my real estate business. He came in, he come in once a week and he just do routine business. One week he came in and he was just and he was a very serious guy you know I found it hard to ever see him smile. One day he came in and he was just bouncing off the walls with exuberance. Sitting there saying we have work to do and he would go "Terry you gotta do this thing I did you know." Cause actually we have work to do and he came in like that, in my memories like six months or something, it was a month. And I essentially don't have enough time. I mean I literally didn't sleep. I was insomniac and smoking and working and worrying and you know I was like I don't have enough time, I don't have time, I don't have time. Then, one time he came in and he said "Well, the president of the foundation, this company's foundation is in town and would like to take you to dinner." And you know it flattered me and I thought ///Yeah, I could have dinner with presidents."

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: That's me.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: So, I went to dinner with this woman and then she was into live spring. I don't know if you know about live spring but the seminal work in a large group, transformation, education, personal development, whatever you wanna call it. Well, its live spring a nest and some before that people I've heard of it. And I had a nice dinner with her and invited her up to my house for cocktails afterwards cause that's what we did and then she said "I'd like to offer you a scholarship to our training." Flattered me once again and you know I didn't know how to say no so, I said "Yeah. But I can't do it on the town I live in. I'm well-known here and people shouldn't see me doing this stuff." It was my attitude at that time and so I took in another town and it really was transformation. I was like "Wow! This is always education should have been."

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: And then I took the second training which I hadn't intended to do but my wife at that time signed up and I thought "Wait a minute. This is mine. You can't." It's been a life reference ever since. I mean I had an indescribable experience. I was seeing through solid objects. I found the missing person, actually that was kidnapped. I had you know, I stopped people's faces trance for a year. And it went on and on and I thought "What in the world is this?" But whatever it is, I got to know more about it. And I started volunteering with live spring cause it was more fun than my business and then, you know like a month into it. They invited me to go to Sandra Phil to talk to the president company and one day, I was volunteering in one of those parts to be a long story but people find it useful. I was volunteering in a training and the trainer came back the second day and handed me an envelope and I said "What's this?" and he said "Its tickets. Plane tickets to San Francisco" and I said "What for?" and he said "To go down and talk to Hanley" and I said "Who's Hanley?" and he said "The president of live spring." "Why would I wanna talk to him?" "Talk to them about working for us." I said "Why would I even work for you? I owned six companies all bigger than yours. Why? I don't need a job."

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: I admit it was you know what; this is a lot more fun and valuable than what I'm doing. So, I hadn't had a vacation in 15 years so I might as well go to San Francisco. So, I did. I had the most unbizarre energy or whatever it is. I walked into their office and they were having an all company meeting and this was you know 1976. It's front page news. You know this was, this center was must be like The Beatles or something. This transformation education was cover story's amazing. It was in movies and spoofing it. It was just kind of a trend, visible and the trainers were like rock stars. And I walked in and their conference room had a glass, a big glass wall and I looked in and all the trainers in there. It's like I just walked into the Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly's little pitcher or something.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: Which is in a room you know. And they said "You're a little late on the meeting and my hand, I am still in the meeting and you know but you have to wait." So, they took me back and put me in their storage room. It was a room like 14x14. It had their Xerox machine and shelves full of supplies and they put a chair in there and say there's no man goes and so you know I sat down and waited and waited. By half an hour later there's nobody around, step my head out the door and I think you know I'm still in here. Dan's not done yet, a few more minutes I waited like another half an hour and about this point I said "What am I doing? I'm out of here." So, I thought I'd leave and also the door opens up and this guy sticks his head on the door and he says "So, you're Tillman?" I said "Yeah. Are you Hanley?" and he said "So, you have a, you think, he just nailed me." "You know you have two kids but you don't spend time with them. You have all these money but you don't enjoy it. You look confident but you're not." And he just nailed me and he said "Did I miss anything?" and I'm kind of stuttering "I don't know" and he said "Talk later." And he closed the door and walked out and I thought "what the hell is this you know?" So, I got up and went back and got on the plane and went home. And like a day later, he calls me up and say" Well, when are you gonna start working for us?" I mean the whole thing, it was just bizarre. But within two months I closed my businesses and I was in front of the room doing trainings.

Natalie: Right.

Terry: It was something I could do. It was easy and I've been doing it ever since and you know I found my river.

Natalie: Yup. I know. And you know what and that's the thing, the awakening that you're talking about, I found a lot of people are actually experiencing that now in the 2000's. But you were fortunate enough come across this information. How old are you at that time?

Terry: Well, at that time that this happened I was 35.

Natalie: Oh, 35, right.

Terry: Check!

Natalie: Okay. But still, I mean and you've been working with people for so long. So, and I know that you do like different stuff. You don't just do workshops and things but you take people on different trips and what is that wilderness trip that we're talking about before?

Terry: Well, it's the most enjoyable thing I do and I do it to self resting. I do it for me but also for the sixteen people who come with me. I was the director of training and inside training circle all around. That's a general public training company and pop earner metapolis designing trainings and we have a series of trainings with this inside, one, two, three and then a leadership training that was up three months long. And in each stage people would say "What's next?" and actually after the training there wasn't a next and I grow up in Oregon, I loved the outdoors. I even went through a boy scouts and learn more from them and they have many classroom. And what I do primarily is experiential learning and there's nothing more experiential than getting out in nature. I'm telling it's the best possible classroom.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: So, well, why don't I do a seminar outdoors? And I used to live in sketchy light house in Idaho and I actually loved the area and Idaho got the largest wilderness area in the United States and people don't know about it. And so, I designed a training you know and its now 10 days but the reason I played these 14 days, 7 days, I've played with different formats and found that the way you know this experimenting this, you gotta have at least 7 days away from the rest of your life.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: Somewhere around there, some magic things started happening. And so you know for 10 days and we do, nobody's doing what I'm doing. There's other people that do outdoor stuff but nobody's doing what we're doing and first of all nobody else has the experience what people are doing in terms of this kind of learning.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: And we're doing mountaineering and class for water rafting together and some people do one or the other but nobody's doing them together. There aren't many places you can do it together but when I did some of these in Patagonia and they were fun but not quite the same. I've worked in Africa, Russia, Australia, Tasmania and there's no place that has the characteristics that I need to work with.

Natalie: Right. So, what time of the year do you normally do them and where are they?

Terry: I think I aim for the part of the watermelon, August.

Natalie: Okay.

Terry: This year's august, first to 10 winded. That's early season like early summer. The water's too high and the river that scares me you know.

Natalie: Right.

Terry: I want it again and for experience you know and I have people looking me bad. Usually, I get up many countries representing cause I work in so many countries. All ages, all levels of experience. You know I've had the oldest, two 78 year old women from Belgium and the youngest youth if they really weren't with a parent. The youngest was a very mature 11 year old. So, it's just a whole range and it's design so no matter their skill, experience you know condition or whatever they can do it.

Natalie: Right. So, what are some of the breakthroughs that you've seen people experienced going through this you know your causes and enter the wilderness training.

Terry: I mean that's the reward.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: Alright. I'm doing a lot of work with one of the worlds seated fourth largest company in the world and I'm working with their South American division. And these are you know top executives like I'm working with the president company on down as working boards as out of coming leaders. So, these are you know very bright experience, aggressive in some cases but serious business people. In the room in the first day, it can be threatening. You know like prove it.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: I'm busy. What am I doing here? That kind of thing and literal by the end of three days literally hugging each other with tears in their eyes. And you know when I started doing this you know a lot of years ago and they the people back then said "You can't do this work in a business because it's too much confidentiality and you know you can't take their business life into their personal life and vice versa." And I thought that "People are people, you know." It doesn't matter where they are and if you're not doing well with your family, you're not gonna do well in work and vice versa. And you've got headaches in the business; you're taking it back home so it's still the person you know.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: It turns out I was right you know. We don't make that distinction so we work with the person. I mean I'm not teaching people how to lead others; it's how to lead your life to the highest level possible.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: Who am I and what am I here and so you know in terms of breakthroughs, I would say its common but it happens and I think it's great that someone discovers "I'm in the wrong division. I'm in the wrong business. I'm in the wrong something." And they completely do an about face in their life. I mean I did that so I love working with someone like that, something like that.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: And almost of them they think they can't do it. You know "I've got kids in school, I've got bills to pay, I've got I don't know and I'd love to" and then it's too late you know. And so, I'm really good at working with people like that cause I went through it myself.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: That to me, those are the biggest breakthroughs from someone. The book that I'm writing is called The Call.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: And it's with 74 people who are living, if you look at them many of them well known some celebrities. All of them well known in whatever they initiate and they're all living life's purpose and contribution and meaning. And I focused on "When did you get the call? When did you discover that this is your passion and tell me the story about it?" You know a lot of them would like me doing about face, had an awakening or something and they found the courage, the inspiration of whatever to move on now and you know and so these stories they're so inspiring and encouraging and I think people are smart enough to read it. I mean, it's a how to book without saying how to.

Natalie: Right.

Terry: You're saying your fishing book, people will read this and they can just steal out the part that's just for them.

Natalie: Right.

Terry: Oh, I mean ii tell them here's a sun ray or something but basically you know in all these stories you kind of get the idea and encourage them cause everyone of them as if, you know if I can do this, you can do this. For example, and they all face adversity you know and how do they overcome that and why didn't it stop them but it does somebody else you know, what was it you know, how did they get past this? You know for example, John Grey you know a mentor from Mars man and from Venus.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: He took homeless on the Santa Monica beach at one period. You know, so, literally sleeping with the homeless people around or under a tree. So, a lot and Jack Canfield lived on a 21 cents a day for a year and a half.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: You know I bet it's true that you know when you're going into a restaurant and get some catsup and mix it with water and that was soup.

Natalie: Yeah. Yeah. And we have a similar story like you know we weren't destitute but we rocked up a $120,000 worth of credit card debt to you know to be able to do our first initial launch of mind movies and if it wasn't successful, we were in the proverbial you know we put a giving in the line for that. So, cause you know I'm talking about your book, I know that you because you're so respected and you've been in the industry for such a long time that you get asked to be in a lot of different books you know, sort of a lot of compilation books. But recently you're asked to be in a book called The Light. Can you tell us a little bit about that project?

Terry: Yeah. You know I'm delighted cause that's right now I'm very enthusiastic about that book. I have a feeling it will do well and I hope it does. I think it's very good.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: It's true. I don't know I'm on a chapter in 10-12 different books and they're all what they are but this one's got my attention, in this book.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: Don Miguel Ruiz, Neale Donald Walsch, Barbara Marx Hubbard, John-Roger, me Terry Tillman, Sue Morter, Marci Shimoff, Janet Attwood, Julie Chimes, John Perkins, William Arntz. I know some of these people but they're all pretty amazing people. When I asked a few at some level what they do or elders you know they're the ones, you know they've so much information available like what we used to be paid for is free everywhere now.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: But I don't think or replaced experienced experience.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: If I will still focus on experiential learning like thoughts or great and stuff. But the real learning happens by doing and getting involved. I think it's gonna be that you know, for years people have been asking me lately from experience what I do and say "Where can I learn more about what you're doing? What can I read?" Well, there's lots of great books over the years you know.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: Who I might mention, this will be one of those that I think people will say you know "Because it's a foundational work." It's got a very strong spiritual grounding. I think anybody who does self development, personal growth if they stay with it, they will end up in some level of spiritual study cause that's where it goes.

Natalie: Yes. Absolutely! Absolutely!

Terry: We couldn't say that 30 years ago. A guy teach meditation on my business trainings but if I told him 30 years ago on "you go on meditation and here's why and why it's useful" they would throw me out.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: And so I call it a stress reduction technique.

Natalie: Yes. Excellent!

Terry: But now we can say that. Now, there are you know, we used to talk about personal responsibility. I mean that's one of the, everybody's work includes that; you create your reality you know. Law of attraction has met all about that. That's the current buzz you know.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: We're teaching law of attraction way before it was called law of attraction.

Natalie: Absolutely!

Terry: But the idea that I create my reality, I'm the source what are signs, what manifest. When I say that's where you look, that's where you go.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: That's the way it is but it's out there now. It's not woo woo, it's not nuts.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: And so, we can go there now and we can go deeper.

Natalie: Yup. I know. I think that there is a you know even this time when I went back to Australia cause I go back to Australia every December to January. I noticed the amount of spiritual conversations I was having. Well, that wasn't happening the year before or any year before that. Like I've never been able to have those conversations there but now I think you know on math people are really awakening to this new paradigm or this new era that we're moving into which is very, very exciting. So, yeah.

Terry: I know. I've always been in my life maybe in my generation but I've always, we are not classifiable.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: Well, I'm not the greatest generation. I'm in between. But I've always been ahead of the trend. And I, so up to me it's exciting that you know this is going on and waited for years we did a beautiful and networks are satellite seminars, it was a kind of light candle thing and story and you light a candle and everybody lights and you know tell the story behind it and the idea that you know what you give away there's light, it doesn't diminish and increases. Simply do that in a dark room and light up the whole room. It was a great metaphor and you know if you got something of value here and you lift up and shine, pass it on.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: It's happened.

Natalie: Yeah.

Terry: I mean it.

Natalie: Yup.

Terry: That was good Nat. We haven't gone by a pretty mass by a long shot but definitely it's happening.

Natalie: Yup. Thank you so much for being a part of that you know. So, Terry, look, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a fantastic time with you. Now, if we wanna send people somewhere, to a website where they can find out more about you and the work that you do. Where can we send them?

Terry: Let's see, go to www.227company.com.

Natalie: So, the numbers 227?

Terry: 227 and then c-o-m-p-a-n-y.com.

Natalie: Beautiful.

Terry: A little bit of everything about what I'm doing, a well in script there's a section on that. Everybody's interested in that. The book, The Call is a non-area. My another book again called The Writings on the Wall is an international bestseller. That's on it and so stuff.

Natalie: Okay.

Terry: Well, Nat, you're doing good work and pass it on, you are.

Natalie: Thank you. Thanks again, Terry. Now, guys I encourage you to share this video and the information in it. And you can do that by clicking the Facebook and the Twitter share buttons above. And if you haven't done so already, make sure that you put your email on the box above there, cause I'd love to send my Manifesting with the Masters Video E-Course. Includes masters like Bob Proctor, John Assaraf and Joe Vitale. Its valued $87 and I'd like to send it to you for free but you have to put your email on the box to do that. So, until next time, remember to live large, choose courageously and love without limits. We'll see you soon.