Hosted by Jeff Walter, Founder and CEO of LatitudeLearning
For decades, organizations have invested enormous amounts of time and money into training. They build learning management systems, create libraries of content, implement onboarding programs, and require employees to complete certifications. Yet despite these investments, many organizations continue to struggle with inconsistent execution, uneven customer experiences, disengaged employees, and leaders who find themselves coaching the same behaviors over and over again.
Why?
According to Terry Hawkins, Founder and CEO of IGNITE Humans, the problem is rarely the content itself. The real challenge is that organizations often mistake information transfer for learning and assume that knowledge alone produces behavioral change.
During this episode of the Training Impact Podcast, Jeff Walter sits down with Terry for an engaging discussion that explores what it truly takes to develop people who consistently perform at a high level. Drawing on more than three decades of experience designing learning systems for retailers, professional services firms, franchise organizations, and distributed workforces, Terry shares a philosophy that places the human being at the center of every training initiative.
Rather than viewing learning as a series of courses or events, she challenges organizations to think about learning as an ecosystem that develops technical capability, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and lasting habits. The result is not simply better employees. It is stronger cultures, more engaged teams, and organizations capable of delivering consistent experiences at every customer touchpoint.
Terry’s own entrepreneurial journey reflects the principles she now teaches. After launching her first company in Australia more than thirty-five years ago, she spent decades helping organizations improve retail performance through education, coaching, and leadership development. Although business setbacks eventually required her to rebuild, the experience reinforced what had always mattered most: people.
That realization became the foundation for IGNITE Humans.
The name itself represents a philosophy that runs throughout the conversation. While organizations continue investing heavily in technology, systems, and processes, Terry believes it is easy to forget that every learning experience ultimately serves a human being. Training is not simply about completing modules or passing assessments. It is about helping people become more capable, more confident, and more effective in every interaction they have.
That perspective changes the conversation from delivering content to creating transformation. Instead of asking whether employees completed training, organizations should be asking whether training changed how people think, communicate, solve problems, and serve others.
One of the most compelling themes throughout the discussion is Terry’s belief that content represents only one small piece of effective learning.
She introduces what she calls the Five Cs of learning, a framework developed over years of observing how people actually learn in the workplace.
Learning begins with content, but content by itself has little value if learners never truly comprehend it. Once understanding develops, learners must apply that knowledge within real-world contexts where complexity, emotion, and uncertainty naturally exist. Reflection then allows individuals to evaluate what worked and what needs improvement before finally reaching compounding, where repeated application gradually turns isolated lessons into permanent capabilities.
This continuous learning loop transforms training from a one-time event into an ongoing process of growth.
Jeff and Terry discuss how many organizations unintentionally skip these critical stages by relying too heavily on passive learning experiences or simple knowledge checks. Multiple-choice assessments may confirm that someone remembers information for a moment, but they rarely demonstrate whether that person can successfully apply the knowledge during a difficult customer interaction or a challenging leadership conversation.
Real learning occurs when people struggle, practice, reflect, adjust, and improve over time.
One particularly thought-provoking part of the conversation centers on the role of friction in the learning process.
Terry explains that as education increasingly shifted toward typing notes instead of writing them by hand, something important was lost. Writing requires learners to process, organize, and interpret information rather than simply recording it verbatim. That additional mental effort creates friction, and according to Terry, friction is exactly what helps the brain retain knowledge.
The same principle applies inside corporate training.
Organizations often work hard to remove every obstacle from learning experiences. They simplify content, shorten courses, and make completion as effortless as possible. While accessibility remains important, Terry argues that eliminating every challenge may also eliminate much of the learning itself.
Growth requires learners to wrestle with ideas, make mistakes, receive feedback, and think critically about how concepts apply within their own work environments.
The goal is not to make learning difficult for its own sake. The goal is to create experiences that require meaningful engagement instead of passive consumption.
For organizations focused on behavioral change, that distinction becomes incredibly important.
Throughout the conversation, Terry returns repeatedly to the importance of systems.
Rather than teaching employees isolated techniques, she encourages organizations to create repeatable frameworks that guide behavior across a wide variety of situations.
Customer complaint resolution provides a simple example.
Most organizations already have a process for handling complaints. The challenge is ensuring employees can follow that process while remaining emotionally present with the customer. Technical steps alone are insufficient. Employees also need genuine empathy, emotional regulation, and self-awareness.
Terry describes three foundational elements that should exist within every learning system.
First, employees need a clear process they can consistently follow under pressure.
Second, they need authentic empathy that allows them to understand another person’s experience rather than simply reciting scripted responses.
Finally, they need self-awareness so they can recognize their own emotional reactions and regulate themselves during challenging conversations.
When these three capabilities work together, organizations move beyond compliance training and begin creating professionals capable of navigating real human interactions with confidence.
Another highlight of the episode is Terry’s framework describing seven stages of organizational learning.
Rather than assuming every learner starts from the same place, she explains that organizations typically progress through recognizable stages.
The earliest stages rely heavily on tribal knowledge, where employees simply observe experienced coworkers and imitate what they see. While this may work temporarily, it produces inconsistent results because each individual develops personal habits and preferences.
High-performing organizations eventually establish consistent foundational systems that define how work should be performed regardless of who occupies a particular role.
Once those foundations exist, coaching becomes dramatically more effective because everyone shares a common language and set of expectations.
From there, learners develop increasing situational awareness, enabling them to recognize subtle cues during customer interactions, leadership conversations, and coaching opportunities.
Ultimately, the goal is self-management, where employees continuously evaluate, improve, and coach themselves without constant supervision.
This progression illustrates that great cultures do not emerge accidentally. They develop intentionally through structured learning systems that reinforce consistent behaviors over time.
Jeff connects Terry’s frameworks directly to one of the central themes of the Training Impact Podcast: extended enterprise learning.
Whether an organization operates through franchisees, dealers, resellers, contractors, or partner networks, customers rarely interact directly with corporate headquarters.
They interact with frontline people.
Those individuals become the living representation of the brand.
Because of that reality, organizations cannot rely solely on technical training. Product knowledge remains essential, but consistent customer experiences also depend on communication, empathy, problem solving, emotional intelligence, and decision making.
Jeff observes that many organizations have historically reserved these human development programs for internal employees while limiting partner training to technical knowledge.
That pattern appears to be changing.
Increasingly, organizations recognize that partners benefit from the same leadership, communication, and relationship skills that internal employees receive. As partner networks become larger and more distributed, developing those capabilities becomes a competitive advantage rather than simply a training initiative.
Perhaps the most memorable moments of the conversation come from Terry’s personal stories.
She recalls receiving a message from a learner years after completing one of her programs. Although the participant had never looked back at her training notes, the principles had become deeply embedded in how she worked and interacted with others.
Another story involves a hotel employee who unexpectedly recognized Terry years after attending one of her retail training sessions. His natural recommendation of freshly baked banana bread demonstrated that authentic customer service comes from genuine enthusiasm rather than scripted sales techniques.
For Terry, these moments represent the true measure of learning.
The greatest compliment is not higher assessment scores or improved completion rates.
It is hearing that someone became a better leader, a better colleague, a better spouse, or simply a better human being because of what they learned.
That broader perspective reframes the purpose of organizational learning. Training should not only improve business performance. It should help people develop skills they carry into every aspect of life.
Jeff Walter and Terry Hawkins deliver a refreshing reminder that the future of learning is not simply about creating more content or deploying more technology. It is about designing systems that help people think differently, communicate more effectively, build stronger relationships, and continuously improve through practice and reflection.
Technical knowledge will always matter, but organizations that invest equally in empathy, self-awareness, coaching, and human connection create something much more valuable than compliance. They create cultures where people consistently perform at their best because they understand not only what to do, but why it matters.
For learning leaders, franchise organizations, partner networks, and anyone responsible for developing people at scale, this episode offers practical frameworks that challenge conventional approaches to training while providing a compelling vision for what learning can become when the human being remains at the center.
Learn more about IGNITE Humans by visiting https://www.ignitehumans.com/.
Learn more about Terry Hawkins at https://www.terryhawkins.com/
For more from the Training Impact Podcast, follow us on Social Media:
https://t-sml.mtrbio.com/public/smartlink/trainingimpactpodcast
Jeff Walter (00:00)
Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the Training Impact Podcast, where we explore scaling performance through training infrastructure. My guest today is Terry Hawkins. She’s the founder and CEO of Ignite Humans. It’s a company dedicated to helping organizations create meaningful human connections that drive engagement, performance, and growth. Through her work with franchise organizations, channel partners, and distributed workforces, Terry helps leaders build the communication, culture, and relationship skills.
That strengthen partner networks and improve collaboration and turn training into lasting behavioral change. Terry, welcome to the podcast.
Terry Hawkins (00:36)
Jeff, thank you so much.
Jeff Walter (00:39)
So it’s it’s we we
I enjoyed meeting you. We had a great conversation. and I’m I’m been looking forward to this because there were so many great insights there. And and your work with retail I think is really relevant to what we’re talking about here and how to use training to affect behavioral change in in retail. And so first, as as all my listeners know, I I always enjoyed the the biographical founder of Ignite Humans. How
What was the journey to starting Ignite News? Why did you start start it? And what is it?
Terry Hawkins (01:14)
What is it exactly? The
you know, good old marketing question. So well, Ignite Humans is actually the final. Well, who knows if it’s final iteration of my first company was People in Progress. And I started that many, many years ago. Well, 35 plus years ago in Australia. And then I came to America coming up 16 years ago.
So I still had people in progress. I changed the name of the company to Progress Retail, brought on a business partner. That was in 2017. Fast track, say five years. I don’t know if anybody else has done this, but you know, a friend of mine said to me, the only ship that never sailed was a partnership. so, and he was right. So that was a bit of a disaster and I lost to that company.
Jeff Walter (02:00)
Ha ha.
Terry Hawkins (02:06)
and had to restart. And the great thing though was that I had built such an incredible foundation through People in Progress and Progress Retail that I started Ignite Humans. So very much the same, just a different name. And I loved the Ignite Humans part because it is, even though I’d built, you know, and have built a couple of technology companies, it is about igniting the human. And, you know, I feel like especially in learning and training and development.
and performance we forget that there is a human being at the end of it and yeah, so that’s why I love Ignite humans.
Jeff Walter (02:40)
And well, a couple of things there. What go going way back, what was the impetus of starting your own firm many, many moons ago? I mean I can understand the follow up firms, you know, as continu as continuations of that thought, but what what drove you to decide to, you know, start something new from scratch?
Terry Hawkins (02:49)
She is.
Such a I haven’t been asked that question for years. I was actually working in retail and I Progressed into the training role, which I was like a duck to water I just absolutely loved it, but I never came off the floor. So I was always training, you know and then Executing so it was always organic and I remember having a break one time and I was in a shopping mall and I remember thinking to myself wouldn’t it be great to do this full-time
get about five or six companies and train them. So Fast Track seven years, I worked for a number of national chains in national training roles, wrote a lot of programs and then the company that I was working for went broke. And so I had a couple of, was recruiting staff, actually I gotta go back to that memory, recruiting, I was a recruiter for a short while and then a few of my clients said, can you train our staff? And
I did a few side gigs and that was it. I ended up sending out 12 letters. That was in the day when you would type them, take them to the post office, you know, off they go. And I’m saying to my girlfriend, I said, Oh gosh, I’m really nervous. And she said, Oh, what if they all say no? And I went, no, if they all say yes, I’m going to fit them all in. I was so, I know you. I was so stupidly optimistic.
Jeff Walter (04:08)
Right.
I love the optimism. I love the optimism.
Terry Hawkins (04:26)
But that was the beginning. yeah, it was it was I just had this deep desire because I knew the impact that frontline people could have on the human condition. I couldn’t articulate it, of course, because I’m only 27, 28 years old at that point. But I knew myself that it really transformed my life having, you know, being in a services role where you truly owned it like you owned that sliding doors moment in front of that other human being for however long it is.
Jeff Walter (04:28)
Just so.
Terry Hawkins (04:53)
And so yeah, that was a long time ago and a lot of people ago.
Jeff Walter (04:57)
And and and well obviously tremendously successful run, ’cause it’s you know, when you can start counting in decades of success, even with a little blip there of a partner, it’s a it’s a it’s a speed bump in the road of light. You know.
Terry Hawkins (05:09)
I’m like that.
You know what, it was a speed bump and quite
a catastrophic speed bump for me, but the core essence of what I do, you’re absolutely right. You can’t take that away. That doesn’t matter, you know.
Jeff Walter (05:26)
Yeah.
Well and so so ignite humans, the the focus is on the is on igniting or or educating the frontline in in in retail or any or leadership or we’re we’re what when clients engage you that w I understand the beginning. So with ignite retail,
Terry Hawkins (05:46)
Well, it can be like right across the board. So not only am I and that’s sort of the it’s worked against me as well, but I am a very good facilitator. I was also, you know, one of Australia’s most booked female speakers for many, many years. I used to always make the joke, you Australia’s only got 23 million people. So I would go, you know, and they’d say, oh, how does it feel to be one of the most booked speakers? And I’d go, well, there’s only three of us. So and whereas when you come to America, it’s a much bigger swimming pool.
So, you know, I was a speaker, a trainer, but the biggest thing that I did was construct education systems. And so it really crosses all areas. feel like, you know, training, learning and development, I like to call it learning and performance, not learning and development, because learning and performance means that we have to take accountability for moving that needle. And I, so for me, over all these years, I’ve been able to
Jeff Walter (06:22)
Okay.
Terry Hawkins (06:42)
architect the pathways, not just learning pathways, but also how does the brain work and how does that person’s age group work? you know, how do we go from learning information to then executing that to then compounding the learning? So for some reason, my brain is wired to be able to forward and past notice systems and notice patterns. And so then I would take that and create these systems.
Jeff Walter (06:46)
Uh-huh.
Terry Hawkins (07:09)
So the thing that I love to do the most is actually go into an organization and help them, so train them to actually implement the systems that I’ve created. So it’s not dependent on me.
Jeff Walter (07:21)
Right. And well so when we when you say training systems, I I’m I assume you mean like the the whole program of souk to nuts. Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (07:28)
The whole, yes, exactly, the whole system.
right from, and I do CEO coaching, I do senior leadership development, and I do a circle. So the circle to me is, call it serve forward, lean back. But the circle is where we have the C-suite, we have the shareholders outside, I always say, they’re outside of the circle because they’re a gambler. And yes, we love them, but they’re a gambler. So they’re outside our circle.
But the C-suite, then everyone turns inward. And so I basically train every layer of that. So CEO, C-suite, you know, and the board, but CEO, C-suite, then you have the national level, then you have your support centers and all, and so forth. You have your field leaders, then you have the manager and then the team member. And so, and then the front, the customer. And I always think most companies spend very little on the person who impacts the customer.
Jeff Walter (08:25)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (08:26)
You know, we spend huge amounts of money on all of these other areas, but we sometimes fail to realise that it is quite a dramatic impact if you can really develop that person. So yeah, so I train across all areas.
Jeff Walter (08:39)
And and when you’re talking about that frontline person, so that’s the whole system soup to nuts and and and what is the focus of the the training? Like w you know, what what are you trying to educate? What are they getting what are they getting learned on? Or what are you get you what is it they’re what kind of learning are they acquiring? Knowledge are they acquiring? That’s the word. Knowledge.
Terry Hawkins (08:48)
very good.
Well, I-
It’s really hard words get you done. So I do so much more than content because I feel like content is just one part of it. And I’ve created, you know, a system called the five C’s, the learning loop. But the learning loop. it’s just so we I used to do three. So was content, comprehension and context. you know, I consume content. then have to make sure I comprehend it and then I have to put it in the context.
Jeff Walter (09:11)
Okay. Well let’s let’s talk about that. What’s the learning loop? That’s interesting.
Terry Hawkins (09:26)
to show that I actually understand it. But there were two pieces that were missing and that was comprehension and compounding. Sorry, contemplation and compounding. And without contemplation, the brain doesn’t absorb it. And that’s why we found over time, and I’ve had so many years in this that I’ve actually been able to be a witness to all of this, that when we went through, I forget when it was, probably around the 1980s, no, 1990s, maybe early 2000s, when people decided that they weren’t gonna write anymore, that it was all gonna be typing.
I’m sure you remember this. so university students would go to lectures, they would type as fast as the lecturer. They said they would type verbatim. And I knew intuitively that it was wrong. And so I had workbooks and so forth study guys. I don’t even know if I’m answering your question, but yes, the five Cs. So I got shamed around having workbooks and having, you know, doing the writing. And of course our
Jeff Walter (09:55)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Terry Hawkins (10:22)
comprehension, it’s that horrible feeling, you know, when you have friction and the brain learns when we have friction. But we have gone through this era of let’s make it safe. And we’ve totally confused what safe actually means. so with that conflict and that inner friction, the brain has to be able to absorb as much as what you’re possibly saying through the end of a pen and then go and use it and then contemplate, did that work?
You know, no, it didn’t. Well, then I go back through the top four again. Well, we found that comprehension went out the window the moment we started typing. And now I know it’s fascinating. And so now we’re almost doing a complete reversal where when some schools are now banning technology because it’s showing that it’s actually dumbing us down as a species. So, yes, content comprehension.
Jeff Walter (10:59)
Interesting.
Terry Hawkins (11:17)
And I’m not talking about like people think that if they just put a true false multiple choice, you know, I direct click and drag, which I do as well on my platform, that it’s comprehension, but it’s not, you know, it’s like, you know, put the peanut in the jar. It’s when I go and take that information and put it into context, whether that’s, you know, I train a lot of professional services businesses like accountants and attorneys and so forth. And you won’t know until you actually get into a space of doing that difficult conversations.
And so then you have the contemplation. And in the contemplation, which is the birthplace of empathy, of course, we have compound growth. And then from that compound, we go back to the beginning again. So yeah, the learning loops is a very big thing for me. And then the other three areas that I never fail to put into everything that I do, whether it’s online, in-person, virtual, when I’m constructing the systems themselves, is three areas.
You have to have the step process because the unconscious mind will create a step process, whether we like it or not. So, you you think about when we drive a car or whatever, there’s always a step process. The second piece is deep empathy. So not just cognitive empathy. I can understand you’re upset by that, madam, you know, as I stab my pen through your eye. And then the but that it’s not deep empathy. It’s like I’m reading a script, you know.
Jeff Walter (12:29)
That that is not deep empathy.
Terry Hawkins (12:36)
So it’s the emotional and intuitive empathy, which is very difficult to develop unless you have the third component, which is self-awareness. And when you synthesize those three areas, you really do get such an impact that people remember it for the rest of their lives. And I know that’s a big statement, but it’s true.
Jeff Walter (12:56)
Huh. And and so can you hit those three one more time, just briefly. ‘Cause I
Terry Hawkins (13:02)
So
we have a system.
Jeff Walter (13:05)
system.
Terry Hawkins (13:06)
We need an empathic, a deep emotional and intuitive empathic approach. And then we need to have self-awareness. Who am I inside of the environment? Meaning who I’m standing in front of, whatever it might be. So what’s my effect on the environment and what’s the environment’s effect on me? And do I have enough self-awareness to be able to notice, hmm, this is not going the way that I thought it should? Or, wow, I’m noticing this person has just changed their…
Jeff Walter (13:13)
An empathic approach.
Terry Hawkins (13:36)
facial expression? Do I need to drill down a little bit more? And the step process or the system supports you through all of that.
I’ll give you an example. Everybody handles customer complaints. We all have customer complaints. Yeah. Doesn’t matter what industry, what we do. So let’s just say we decide, okay, there’s five steps to a customer complaint. You might end up doing 10 when you’re in that conflict, you know, so you might have to listen and show empathy, listen and show everything because they’ve just won’t, you know, they’ve got a lot to get rid of. But let’s say there’s five steps and we learn the five steps and then we understand the empathy, the deep, am I able to put myself in that customer’s shoes? Am I able to…
Jeff Walter (13:47)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (14:14)
And people think they do, but they actually don’t. And so am I able to truly see it without the pollution of me and genuinely want, you know, or get the eyes of that customer or that client and what’s it like for them in their experience? And then the final piece is am I now, so when I know my system, when I am empathic, am I now able to regulate my own emotional nervous system?
Jeff Walter (14:22)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (14:40)
so that I can regulate it while I’m actually dealing with that because it can be very hot on the body, you know.
Jeff Walter (14:45)
Yeah, so I so I underst I I understand the f framework how does
I how do you turn that into the training? Like that like like that’s
Terry Hawkins (14:53)
my God. Let me
show you something. This is Justin. This is just me. Just data dumping. So how I work that out is I, every company has, like it’s not as hard as we think, I think a lot of the time. Everyone has a roadmap, like do this, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this, And then that becomes your foundation. I think we talked about this when we first met, about the scale.
Jeff Walter (14:57)
That’s
Okay. Yeah.
Right.
Terry Hawkins (15:18)
the seven notes of the learning scale that I discovered just through years. I love seven. Seven’s a really good number. And there’s seven notes in a scale. And it was just random, actually. But we start with ignorance or illiteracy. And most of us, when we’re illiterate in our business, will hire experience. So we don’t have people who can, you know, in the tribe who can pass things on or
Jeff Walter (15:22)
Yes, I love that you made it seven notes.
Terry Hawkins (15:44)
who we don’t have very clear structures and systems. So we have a literate, then we have the basics. So you’ll hear people say, you know, it’s not that hard, it’s not rocket science, let’s get back to the basics, you know, let’s just, and it is hard, it’s not easy. So those two levels, I call it tribal development. So I come along, I watch you, I copy you, and then I have a preference. So then I…
Jeff Walter (15:52)
Right.
Terry Hawkins (16:11)
influence it by my preferential style, preferential selling, preferential leading, whatever it might be. The next layer is foundation. So what are the foundational skills, you know, processes, attitudes, whatever it might be that we need that will be consistent across our entire business. So could be you’ve got 10 steps to a sale, you know, like I said before, the five steps to a customer complaint, whatever it might be. It’s the GPS of your organization.
Jeff Walter (16:30)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (16:35)
And so that’s where everybody goes through that. Everybody understands it and it’s the foundation. It doesn’t change because a person in a role changes and they want to come in and go, well, you know, I’m here now and I’m so glad that I’m here because boy, did you guys need me. And they’ll come in and change everything up and throw out what was there. And I go, the foundation never ever changes. Then from there, you then get coaching readiness. So if everybody is aware, the next
Jeff Walter (16:44)
Right.
Terry Hawkins (17:02)
note is I’m ready to be coached and you’re ready to coach me but I’m also as a coach able to stay in that loop so as I coach my coachee the coachee is probably going to train me back so we have this amazing loop of coaching. From there we then go to sensory awareness so I then am able because now I know my skills I’m doing them every day you know we’re layering in that learning. I’m then
able to free myself up because now it’s pushed itself down in the brain. And now I’m able to notice these things that it was about before, know, facial expressions, and then from there we get into metacognition, which is now I’m able to coach myself in process. You know, I’m sure we’ve all been there where we were in the middle of a sale and you go, this, I’m losing this, you know, and you coach yourself while in process. And then of course the final note is self-managing, you know, it’s, it’s fantastic.
Jeff Walter (17:36)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
And w I know the when you say self managing, what does that mean?
Terry Hawkins (17:59)
Well, it’s almost like sovereignty over the company, the team or whatever. They’re able to actually regulate. They’re able to notice coaching opportunities in the moment. They’re able to handle situations and the culture is actually born from those seven notes. You know, I see these companies spend a lot of money on values. Sorry to cut you off, but spend a lot of money on values development. You know, we went away for four days and we came up with our values and I’m like,
Jeff Walter (18:15)
That’s right.
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (18:26)
the values will emerge. can’t tell people what their values are. They’ll tell you what they value. And then you have to decide whether that’s in alignment or not, or whether you need to readjust or adjust. And so, yeah, I just go, that’s where the culture come from. The culture is the gift or the punishment you get for what you do every day.
Jeff Walter (18:32)
Right.
So well yeah, well the c I I I think culture’s upstream of a lot of things. And it’s and it it it and it all it it sets the tone of what comes downstream. You know, and it and and I and and and you can I think you can control it or you can manage you you can you can shape it is probably a better way of putting it. but it’s
Terry Hawkins (18:53)
Yes.
Yeah, very good.
Jeff Walter (19:09)
It’s all inclusive. It’s not just the the the good parts. Yeah, it it it it captures it captures everything.
Terry Hawkins (19:13)
Yeah, I love that word shaping.
Shaping is the perfect word because we don’t get to control anything. know, it’s it’s it’s almost like this living organism that we’re getting feedback all the time. And I just feel like we’re you know, I feel like we’re coming back, I hope, to community and that when we have a company like, you know, I’ve been able to witness a lot of companies and it saddens me because back in the day, back in the day,
Jeff Walter (19:41)
Ha ha.
Terry Hawkins (19:42)
It
meant something and people wanted to belong to it and it wasn’t just about making their budgets or their targets or you know making more money and handing another 25 % on every year and just flogging people every year until they It’s just it’s crazy. So I go what for like why are we doing it? What’s the whole point of it? And the profit should be the reward that we get not the driver
Jeff Walter (20:10)
Well it’s it’s you know, it’s it’s funny not to go down too metaphysical a path, but when you and I talk it tends to happen that way. but but I I truly believe the profit i is it’s the trailing indicator. And it’s it it it’s it’s not the leading indicator. And you can’t chase the trailing indicator. It it it you know, y you can’t y if you focus on it’s it’s like driving through your rear view mirror. You can’t you can’t drive that way.
Terry Hawkins (20:17)
Yeah
Yes.
I love that.
Jeff Walter (20:37)
You have you have to look forward. And if you do everything right, then the the profit happens. Right? Like and and and and that doing things right is in my mind, like I think the degree to which you as an organization are of service, and especially when we’re talking about networked ecosystems, right?
Terry Hawkins (20:44)
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (20:59)
if I’m a manufacturer selling through dealers or resellers or I’m a franchise or and I’ve invited all these other folks to join us in a franchise network, well first off they don’t work for me. I can’t fire them. Right they’re they’re they’re you know they’re they’re partners. You know you you mentioned partnership. And but I but I’ve got to it instill a culture
Terry Hawkins (21:12)
It’s a true story.
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (21:22)
That drives things because it it drives the performance when I can’t be there to oversee with my with my processes and procedures, right? It it fills in all the blanks. And it’s and it’s interesting when you were going through your seven notes, because what I find really interesting about that, and and and if and we bring if we bring it to the the partner learning is
Terry Hawkins (21:26)
Yes.
Perfect.
Jeff Walter (21:47)
Those frontline folks are your brand, right? They are the people’s they they they you know to the to the end customer, that is the McDonald’s, that is the Chevy dealer, that is th you know, they that that is the brand to them. And what I liked about your seven notes and the and the education and and and the five C’s
Terry Hawkins (22:00)
Yes.
Jeff Walter (22:12)
And is when you’re looking at that end that that frontline person that is the brand, it’s it’s building a set of skills and knowledges and capabil capabilities to mirror the value of the brand and the culture of the brand. And and some of that is technical skills, right? Like some of that is
If I’m doing a service, this is how I clean the rug, this is how I weave your hair. You know, it’s a it’s a special way in which we do things in this brand. but but part of that is I I what you know, we think of as soft skills. I was just interviewing somebody. They said, No, not so I don’t call them soft skills, I call them power skills.
Terry Hawkins (22:52)
I love it. call them core skills. Yeah, I don’t use the word soft.
Jeff Walter (22:55)
Yeah, yeah. She she was using the word power skills and instead of hard and soft skills, she used power skills and technical skills. Right? And the power skills are really the thing that that that allow you to elevate to the next level because it’s it’s it’s all it’s the empathy, it’s the problem solving, it’s the understanding, it’s the Yeah. Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (22:58)
Good on us.
Mmm.
But can you, not to cut you off, because of the
core skills, although that’s what I call, but the core skills, you’re right, are very, are so important because if you have a strong core, then the rest of your body can function to optimum performance level. One of the things that I’ve noticed, and I have worked with hundreds of thousands of people, hundreds of companies, and one thing I notice is that the companies that truly care about the personal development of that human being.
Jeff Walter (23:44)
Right.
Terry Hawkins (23:44)
They give them skills that they can go home and be a better partner and a better parent and that they can have, you know, self-awareness around their own, how they operate in the world. I literally get messages all the time. Like I got one yesterday, which was so beautiful. And she just said, I did training with you years ago. was, was a gratitude a few years late was the subject line in the email. And she said, yeah, she goes, I’ve never referenced my notes. She said, but that
Jeff Walter (24:06)
Right. That’s awesome.
Terry Hawkins (24:12)
the way that you trained, was so deeply anchored in me that I’ve never forget. And she listed off all these things like flip and this and two step procedure for rejection and yaddy yaddy. Because to me, like when I stand in front of anybody, whether it’s in person, online, whatever, and when I’m sharing my tool kits for other people to share, I go, our job is to ignite that human being. Like we have to ignite them. We have to go, do you know how powerful you are?
Yeah, it’s not we’re doing this because, I’m not, this is why I just loved our conversation the other day was you and I in such alignment here. That, you told the story about the guy with the, that would come to the house and, the cleaning, the carpet cleaning.
Jeff Walter (24:42)
it’s
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The the just the yes, the the franchise, the franchisee, yeah. Where
Terry Hawkins (25:00)
So I was
in a hotel because that reminded me of I was you know, it was the blue hotel, you beautiful chain of hotels. This one was in Australia in Sydney. And I so I was meeting with the general manager. were four of us general manager. He had his head of HR. There was myself and another trainer. This guy comes out, you know, the waiter comes out the table. Can I get everybody a coffee?
We’re like, yeah, that’d be great. Thanks so much. Anyway, he goes away, comes back. We’d finished our coffee. And I know we all said just coffee. Yeah. And so he comes back and he says, so another round for everybody then. And we all, I went, I’ll have another one because it was going well. And he, everyone goes, yeah, great. And he said, look, I hate to tempt you, but we’ve just taken out of the oven a freshly baked banana bread loaf and it smells.
delicious.
I said, mean, four of us bought the banana bread. And I said, as he walked away, I said to the general manager, he quadrupled, if not more, the take on the table. And I said, and that’s what I’m talking about. He wasn’t pitching. He wasn’t, you know, checking off a, you know, suggest the banana bread, we’re moving the banana bread today. He was so deeply like wanted us to celebrate that. And so I’m going close that loop and say,
Jeff Walter (25:53)
Right.
Terry Hawkins (26:17)
So we trained all of the staff at Jetstar was at the airline in Australia still is. And this is years ago and Gate Gourmet who provide all the food for the airline hired us to train all of the cabin crew to sell the food on the plane. They sold out for three months in a row. They sold out of food. Because instead of do you want anything from the menu? It became we’ve got the most beautiful donuts on board today. Whatever, whatever. So that guy did the same thing. Anyway.
So we’re all laughing, chatting at the Blue Hotel. He comes back and he says, I’m so sorry to the general manager. And he does that to the general manager. Beautiful guy. And he said, I’m so sorry to interrupt. And the GM said, no, of course. And he looked at me and he goes, are you Terry Hawkins? And I went, I am. And he said, Terry, you trained me 10 years ago at General Pan. And he said, I have never forgotten what you trained me. And I use it everywhere I go.
Jeff Walter (27:07)
No.
Terry Hawkins (27:14)
I said, what’s your name? Raj. His name was Raj. Yeah. So I said, so he walked off.
Jeff Walter (27:14)
my god so th that was the waiter that that suggested the banana bread.
Terry Hawkins (27:22)
He was beautiful. I gave him a hug and I said to the GM, I said, seriously, that was my closing the sale. It’s like, baby, if you need more evidence, and that’s what I love is where people go because we all lose our way. Like I lost my way, you know, in that five years, I forgot the impact.
Jeff Walter (27:29)
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (27:41)
And I feel like when you bring people back to what is their deepest, like everybody will wake up in the morning if they know that they’re to stand in front of another human being and have a sliding doors moment where they can massage that heart and just make a life a bit easier, have a laugh, you know, whatever it might be. Everybody will get up and do that. But if I have to get up knowing that I’m 20 % down on my target, oh my gosh, my man is going to be on my case, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter what industry it is.
then we lose the ignition, you We need to have that, you’ve to put that key in. There we go, there’s another metaphor for ignite humans, hey?
Jeff Walter (28:15)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, I it well it’s it you know, it it’s so interesting because it’s un it’s one of the things I love about this industry is if you get it right, it just untaps this potential. And there’s like two two stories. Well one I I I was just talking to just interviewing somebody earlier today, and and it w is a a thank you note on training.
Terry Hawkins (28:32)
of
Jeff Walter (28:42)
From the spouse of the person trained that said, Thank you, you gave me a better husband.
Terry Hawkins (28:45)
Yes.
Yes, I’ve received those. Thank you for giving me back. It’s so beautiful. That’s when you go look at the impact. Now, when you look at that, so then people we disconnect things. So people look at turnover, staff turnover, for example, staff theft. There’s all these peripheral benefits. So people don’t leave when they’re part of a community in a tribe that cares about them, their family, their, you know, like
Jeff Walter (28:52)
And it was like
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (29:19)
And I think COVID showed like it made a lot of companies transparent for how they would treat their staff. So I love that. I think it’s the greatest compliment you can get when you have impacted. I’ve had people, I mean, gosh, I remember a woman, shared this story the other day and she came in, I was in a corporate, you know, training this company and we’re going through the training. Anyway, she came to me, she said to my 13 year old son,
Jeff Walter (29:26)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (29:44)
You know, I’m very conscious also these days. You can’t say too much because everybody gets triggered by everything, which just blows my mind. But anyway, I always go, know, you can only be no one triggers you. We get triggered because of our past and our journey, you know? And so she said, I’ve got a 13 year old son and she said he has had been talking about suicide. And I was like, well, you know, and I do a lot of personal growth awareness training.
Jeff Walter (29:59)
Right.
Gosh.
Terry Hawkins (30:12)
because if I know myself and understand myself, I’m going to be much better when I’m with other people. I said, put him in the next course. And she said, he’s only 13. I said, you know what? There’s a higher, wiser self in all of us. Who knows? So anyway, came into the training. He was so beautiful at the end he goes, okay, so when I leave school, I want to be a retailer. I was like, well, you know, sorry, I get a little bit emotional. I said, I said, well, you know, that’s great. I stayed in contact with them for years.
Jeff Walter (30:32)
Ha ha.
Terry Hawkins (30:41)
And I thought, imagine, that’s when I started speaking at high schools for nothing, because I saw so many teenagers who would just get lost because their frontal lobe was going through this massive rewiring. And just to give them a few tools, just to give them those three things again, a system to follow when they felt bad, pit and flip. So they’re my two characters that I created a system to follow empathy for themselves, kindness and compassion for themselves, know, self empathy.
Jeff Walter (31:06)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (31:09)
And then a self-awareness, what’s happening in my body? It’s just a feeling, like feelings only last a few seconds. So we just keep them alive. You have no idea how many teenagers. So yeah, anyway, I’ve got so many stories like that where I just go, so cool.
Jeff Walter (31:16)
Yeah.
That’s I mean
I mean that that’s really that’s really beautiful. And a and a couple of those things are extraordinary. Like like the empathy for yourself, you know so you know, a long way I remember picking up you know, somebody saying, you know, treat yourself like you’re somebody you have to care about or care for. Like like like we’re we’re more
Terry Hawkins (31:43)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (31:46)
Most
of a lot of us tend to care more for our pets or other people that we have to care for more than we care for ourselves. Yeah, because we’ll just we’ll just we’ll just suck it up. And
Terry Hawkins (31:53)
In my book I talk about being outside
the house and looking through the window. And that’s dissociation. So that’s the easiest way to deal with pain. I mean, it’s great to get into the pain. I’m all about pain, know, like go walk through the fire because it’s in that pain. let’s, so many of us get consumed with fear and I go, okay, hate fear, but, or learn from fear, but let pain be your friend.
Jeff Walter (32:00)
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (32:19)
But sometimes you’ve got to dissociate and being outside the house. If we looked outside the window into ourselves sometimes and noticed ourselves, so let’s say they were two of us and we were treating ourselves in our own brain, we would give ourselves a talking to. Who are you talking to? Stop speaking like that. Like I literally will say, I’ll go, you idiot. And then I go, sorry, I didn’t mean that.
Jeff Walter (32:32)
Uh-huh.
I I d
I I I meant that internally to me. I was talking to me.
Terry Hawkins (32:46)
Yeah, but it’s like, you know,
your own self goes, don’t speak about yourself like that. You know?
Jeff Walter (32:54)
Yeah, well
and w w and well well and kind of bring it back back around to to the the training of of the of the frontline staff and and that well it and it’s been it’s it’s been a lot of fun ’cause we’ve we’ve I mean whenever you I I I’d love talking to you ’cause it’s always goes in so many interesting directions. No, it’s real well, y y it’s fun ’cause you never know where you end up.
Terry Hawkins (33:03)
Yeah.
It’s not a positive trade, I can tell you that right now.
Jeff Walter (33:22)
And this has been a well, I’m an adventurous type of guy, so I like you know, I I love I love just f figure you know. Yeah. Which I think is great. I think it’s great. I I I I think we’re we we’re we’re kind of over oversupplied on linear thinking. And
Terry Hawkins (33:28)
I’m certainly not sequential, let’s put it that way.
You know what’s interesting
though? When you have a really solid system, you can go off road and come back.
Jeff Walter (33:47)
Right. And well it it’s a an another person once said to me, People want a color by numbers, but they also want to go outside the lines. You know, so yeah.
Terry Hawkins (33:56)
Yes, yes, we feel safe in a system. You’re absolutely right. But
then I want to be myself when I’m in that process. And I feel I also believe, you know, when you look at your the companies that you serve as well, I always say when the CEO and the frontline connect, the rest takes care of itself. But when you’ve got that middle piece, because there’s a lot of ego and I’m not saying that to criticise.
A lot of us aren’t aware of our ego. When you start to climb that corporate ladder, there is, there is self-serving. And I always believe that it’s like serve others first and then serve self. But I always think that if the CEO gets it and they’re so clear about the front line and those two can have alignment, it’s magic.
Jeff Walter (34:40)
Mm-hmm.
I I I I I agree. And the i I think the interesting thing in is you know, when we look at these core skill type of training, it’s been internal for many years at varying levels depending on the organization. But you know, training of employees, bringing them up and that. But I think what I’m starting to see, and we’ve been doing this I’ve been doing this for about twenty something years now.
Terry Hawkins (35:00)
and
Jeff Walter (35:13)
I’d say the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of external learning training your partners has been more of that technical, you know, technical skills instead of core skills, right? The worst hard skills versus soft skills, right? And and what’s interesting is I’m seeing anecdotally more and more core skill, soft skill type of training, character development, culture development, you know, deliberate, these are our value training.
Yeah, and it yeah.
Terry Hawkins (35:41)
You know what’s interesting, just
to support you in that thought, is I read an article just recently, it’s called the In-Law Syndrome. And so when a new member comes into the family, so you’ve got the tribe, and that can be an organization, it can be, you know, I always say, I call it the Founder Five, you’re gonna be very careful as the company scales that the five people around the founder don’t become the cork in the bottle because they wanna keep it safe, they wanna block, you know, the other progression.
Jeff Walter (36:07)
Right.
Terry Hawkins (36:08)
And it’s another scale that I use as well in there. But when you look at the in-laws, so you get, a new daughter-in-law. And we all know that the forming, was it forming, storming, norming, performing? We all know that one. But the storming occurs because the in-law, the new person in the family sees things that no one’s seen before or starts to mention, like, why are we doing that? Like, I don’t want to do that. And starts to name things.
So when you have someone who comes outside of the usual, it does shake it up a bit, which I think is fantastic.
Jeff Walter (36:42)
Yeah, well it i I I I I think it’s it’s good, but yeah, I I think it also
It forces you to understand the why. Right? It’s like, why do we set the table that way? Right? Like the the in law comes in and goes, Why why do you why is the table set that way? You know, in my in my family we set the table this way. You know, and and or if that’s if they’re being humble. Usually st you know, if they’re a little bit more direct would be, that’s not how you set the table. You’re supposed to set it this way. But and I think it
Terry Hawkins (36:49)
Tell me more.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is how you do it. But you know, it’s interesting.
Yes, it’s like we don’t ask why. So you’re right. When someone comes in from the outside, you can see things that work, but then you can also go, yeah, well, what if you tried it this way? Or, like I look at the young people of today, and I know our time’s wrapping up, but when I look at, because I do, obviously I get older and the group side remains stay young, you know? And so…
Jeff Walter (37:13)
Right.
Right.
Terry Hawkins (37:33)
I do 70 cycles. It’s Rudolph Steiner’s work, but seven to 21, 21, 28, 28, 35, 35, 42 and so forth. And it’s such fantastic information because it gives you an idea. And I said to 21 to 28 year olds, settle down. Like this is the experimentation years. This is your apprentice years. Learn to be a great learner. Learn to be a receiver. Don’t be so busy trying to prove that you got it, you know it or whatever. But the interesting piece is that when
they allow themselves to go through that process. There’s so much that you get, but we don’t get, have, I, my experience of late is I’m seeing very emotionally unaware, unaware of themselves, unaware of others because we now have a technology era and I’ve written, you know, I haven’t finished it. don’t know whether I will or not, but call the perfect storm. And we have an entire generation over the last, I’ve started, I did it for 30 years.
So since 1990, when technology really started to hit, when you had gaming, you know, when they were kids. And so we have a whole generation who has externalised their emotions. And now we’re saying, you know, you’re not resilient or you can’t handle feedback or whatever it is. And I go, well, their nervous system hasn’t been trained to do that. That just took 15, 20 years for that to disappear. So we have to train them back into their nervous system.
Jeff Walter (38:35)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (38:56)
Train them back into when a customer has an objection, don’t take it personally. Notice that charge on yourself and give them techniques to sort of, know, breathe themselves through it, I suppose. When they get rejected, whatever it might be. So yeah, think we’ve got, there’s a lot of work to do with this 21 to 28, 28, 35, you know? So yeah, anyway, I love it.
Jeff Walter (39:19)
Yeah, it’s and well and to complete a thought I had yesterday, I see more on the partner side, partner learning is I think it it’s moving more towards those core skills and and it anecdotally it’s showing up just like it is elsewhere i in the bottom line. It it it creates that consistency of performance. It’s
Yeah, I I I remember one when I got my start y many moons ago, the it blew me away. They did productivity studies of programmers. I was a programmer, you know, computer programmer. And yeah, I was a computer science undergrad and that’s what I used to do for a living. But the thing that blew me away was the top ten percent of programmers were ten times more productive, ten X more productive than the average.
And and you know, you know, I it just blew me away. And it it got into I mean, obviously there’s a lot of technical skills and all that kind of stuff, but it gets into those critical thinking skills, those core skills, those those you know, and and it’s just amazing how human performance can be improved when you bring up those core skills.
Terry Hawkins (40:28)
Why were the top 10 % not,
like why were the, why were the top?
Jeff Walter (40:32)
They it
i well i i it was th it’s the resilience, it’s the critical thinking, it’s the you know, communication. It’s you know, it it it it it’s like, you know, I’m it’s it’s it’s thinking through the whole instead of just doing this. it it’s those core skills. It it goes i or or you know,
Terry Hawkins (40:42)
Got it. OK, I’ll see you soon. Yeah. Yes.
That’s the compound.
Jeff Walter (40:55)
Yeah, th they it wasn’t
it wasn’t that they were necessarily had a higher IQ. Yeah, it was y
Terry Hawkins (41:00)
No, but the brain
loves it because the brain gets addicted, doesn’t it? So you solve one problem and then it goes, it’s like this rush that you get. So.
Jeff Walter (41:05)
Yeah.
What
right. But it it it it just unleashed me it’s like this there’s so much more in human potential of what we can do when you get it all all working and yeah.
Terry Hawkins (41:18)
yes, I totally agree. I totally agree. I have to ask you, were you in the
top 10 % check?
Jeff Walter (41:24)
I I I don’t know. I I think I I well I I was I d I don’t know if I was in the top ten percent because I wasn’t in the but but I I was yeah, I would I I I I was well sought after. You know. And then I I I I d I decided solving people problems was more interesting.
Terry Hawkins (41:34)
I’m sure you were.
I almost there you, are you doing best? my gosh!
But you know what, you
exactly solving people’s problems, so the trigger internally was, I’m going to make a difference. wasn’t, you know, wasn’t reached this quota,
Jeff Walter (41:59)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I and I’m an analyst and
I love problem solving. And but I and I’ve and I’ve found that the the problem of how do you take a bunch of humans, put together to be highly pro productive was a much more interesting problem to focus on than than than coding. For me for me personally. And
Terry Hawkins (42:03)
Yeah, well there you go.
yeah, absolutely. know, and people
want to be, A, they want to work in an environment that is uplifting, like in all of my experience, they don’t want to work in an environment where people don’t care and there aren’t any standards or whatever. Like I’m training this group of coaches at the sales coaches and I’ve got 40 of them. We’re so close now, like we’ve got our tribe and they allow me to chip them a little bit and go,
Jeff Walter (42:39)
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (42:42)
you know, where’s your homework? we have, there’s laughter. They rock up ready every single time. Now it didn’t start that way. But I, so I feel like, you know, we get the chance to create that for others as organisations.
Jeff Walter (42:49)
Exactly. No, that’s
That that’s
the high performing organization. That’s and that’s that’s why I’ve spent the last thirty years studying and and that led me into training and all that stuff. So but it’s Terry, you you you are too. I know we’re coming up on our our our time, so it’s it’s been a great conversation, Terry. If if some if if anybody out there want to get a hold of you, how would they get a hold of you, Terry?
Terry Hawkins (43:03)
Well, you’re amazing.
terry at terryhawkins.com. I have to spell it because I live in America now of course as you know, but it’s terry, T-E-R-R-Y, it’s on the screen, hawkins, H-A-W-K-N-S, dot com. So terry at terryhawkins.com. you can go to just, I’ve got a website for terry hawkins and also Ignite Humans. Woo!
Jeff Walter (43:29)
Okay. Terry a
Okay. So we’ll
make sure we get ignitehumans dot com and terryhawkins dot com in the show notes
Terry Hawkins (43:45)
In Australia, we go double R and people get so confused. We go T E double R. It’s like we say Fortnite and they go, what the game? And I go, no, two weeks. Anyway, so lovely to chat with you, Jeff.
Jeff Walter (43:48)
Terry.
two weeks.
All right. Yeah.
It was great to chat with you, Terry. Thank you for spending your time with with us and sharing your insights and knowledge with everybody.
Terry Hawkins (44:05)
and taking you off offshore all the time. Thanks, Jim.
Jeff Walter (44:08)
it’s it was a blast. So all right.
Thank you. And then everybody out there, thanks for listening and we’ll we’ll see you next time. Bye bye.
Episode Transcript
Jeff Walter (00:00)
Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the Training Impact Podcast, where we explore scaling performance through training infrastructure. My guest today is Terry Hawkins. She’s the founder and CEO of Ignite Humans. It’s a company dedicated to helping organizations create meaningful human connections that drive engagement, performance, and growth. Through her work with franchise organizations, channel partners, and distributed workforces, Terry helps leaders build the communication, culture, and relationship skills.
That strengthen partner networks and improve collaboration and turn training into lasting behavioral change. Terry, welcome to the podcast.
Terry Hawkins (00:36)
Jeff, thank you so much.
Jeff Walter (00:39)
So it’s it’s we we
I enjoyed meeting you. We had a great conversation. and I’m I’m been looking forward to this because there were so many great insights there. And and your work with retail I think is really relevant to what we’re talking about here and how to use training to affect behavioral change in in retail. And so first, as as all my listeners know, I I always enjoyed the the biographical founder of Ignite Humans. How
What was the journey to starting Ignite News? Why did you start start it? And what is it?
Terry Hawkins (01:14)
What is it exactly? The
you know, good old marketing question. So well, Ignite Humans is actually the final. Well, who knows if it’s final iteration of my first company was People in Progress. And I started that many, many years ago. Well, 35 plus years ago in Australia. And then I came to America coming up 16 years ago.
So I still had people in progress. I changed the name of the company to Progress Retail, brought on a business partner. That was in 2017. Fast track, say five years. I don’t know if anybody else has done this, but you know, a friend of mine said to me, the only ship that never sailed was a partnership. so, and he was right. So that was a bit of a disaster and I lost to that company.
Jeff Walter (02:00)
Ha ha.
Terry Hawkins (02:06)
and had to restart. And the great thing though was that I had built such an incredible foundation through People in Progress and Progress Retail that I started Ignite Humans. So very much the same, just a different name. And I loved the Ignite Humans part because it is, even though I’d built, you know, and have built a couple of technology companies, it is about igniting the human. And, you know, I feel like especially in learning and training and development.
and performance we forget that there is a human being at the end of it and yeah, so that’s why I love Ignite humans.
Jeff Walter (02:40)
And well, a couple of things there. What go going way back, what was the impetus of starting your own firm many, many moons ago? I mean I can understand the follow up firms, you know, as continu as continuations of that thought, but what what drove you to decide to, you know, start something new from scratch?
Terry Hawkins (02:49)
She is.
Such a I haven’t been asked that question for years. I was actually working in retail and I Progressed into the training role, which I was like a duck to water I just absolutely loved it, but I never came off the floor. So I was always training, you know and then Executing so it was always organic and I remember having a break one time and I was in a shopping mall and I remember thinking to myself wouldn’t it be great to do this full-time
get about five or six companies and train them. So Fast Track seven years, I worked for a number of national chains in national training roles, wrote a lot of programs and then the company that I was working for went broke. And so I had a couple of, was recruiting staff, actually I gotta go back to that memory, recruiting, I was a recruiter for a short while and then a few of my clients said, can you train our staff? And
I did a few side gigs and that was it. I ended up sending out 12 letters. That was in the day when you would type them, take them to the post office, you know, off they go. And I’m saying to my girlfriend, I said, Oh gosh, I’m really nervous. And she said, Oh, what if they all say no? And I went, no, if they all say yes, I’m going to fit them all in. I was so, I know you. I was so stupidly optimistic.
Jeff Walter (04:08)
Right.
I love the optimism. I love the optimism.
Terry Hawkins (04:26)
But that was the beginning. yeah, it was it was I just had this deep desire because I knew the impact that frontline people could have on the human condition. I couldn’t articulate it, of course, because I’m only 27, 28 years old at that point. But I knew myself that it really transformed my life having, you know, being in a services role where you truly owned it like you owned that sliding doors moment in front of that other human being for however long it is.
Jeff Walter (04:28)
Just so.
Terry Hawkins (04:53)
And so yeah, that was a long time ago and a lot of people ago.
Jeff Walter (04:57)
And and and well obviously tremendously successful run, ’cause it’s you know, when you can start counting in decades of success, even with a little blip there of a partner, it’s a it’s a it’s a speed bump in the road of light. You know.
Terry Hawkins (05:09)
I’m like that.
You know what, it was a speed bump and quite
a catastrophic speed bump for me, but the core essence of what I do, you’re absolutely right. You can’t take that away. That doesn’t matter, you know.
Jeff Walter (05:26)
Yeah.
Well and so so ignite humans, the the focus is on the is on igniting or or educating the frontline in in in retail or any or leadership or we’re we’re what when clients engage you that w I understand the beginning. So with ignite retail,
Terry Hawkins (05:46)
Well, it can be like right across the board. So not only am I and that’s sort of the it’s worked against me as well, but I am a very good facilitator. I was also, you know, one of Australia’s most booked female speakers for many, many years. I used to always make the joke, you Australia’s only got 23 million people. So I would go, you know, and they’d say, oh, how does it feel to be one of the most booked speakers? And I’d go, well, there’s only three of us. So and whereas when you come to America, it’s a much bigger swimming pool.
So, you know, I was a speaker, a trainer, but the biggest thing that I did was construct education systems. And so it really crosses all areas. feel like, you know, training, learning and development, I like to call it learning and performance, not learning and development, because learning and performance means that we have to take accountability for moving that needle. And I, so for me, over all these years, I’ve been able to
Jeff Walter (06:22)
Okay.
Terry Hawkins (06:42)
architect the pathways, not just learning pathways, but also how does the brain work and how does that person’s age group work? you know, how do we go from learning information to then executing that to then compounding the learning? So for some reason, my brain is wired to be able to forward and past notice systems and notice patterns. And so then I would take that and create these systems.
Jeff Walter (06:46)
Uh-huh.
Terry Hawkins (07:09)
So the thing that I love to do the most is actually go into an organization and help them, so train them to actually implement the systems that I’ve created. So it’s not dependent on me.
Jeff Walter (07:21)
Right. And well so when we when you say training systems, I I’m I assume you mean like the the whole program of souk to nuts. Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (07:28)
The whole, yes, exactly, the whole system.
right from, and I do CEO coaching, I do senior leadership development, and I do a circle. So the circle to me is, call it serve forward, lean back. But the circle is where we have the C-suite, we have the shareholders outside, I always say, they’re outside of the circle because they’re a gambler. And yes, we love them, but they’re a gambler. So they’re outside our circle.
But the C-suite, then everyone turns inward. And so I basically train every layer of that. So CEO, C-suite, you know, and the board, but CEO, C-suite, then you have the national level, then you have your support centers and all, and so forth. You have your field leaders, then you have the manager and then the team member. And so, and then the front, the customer. And I always think most companies spend very little on the person who impacts the customer.
Jeff Walter (08:25)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (08:26)
You know, we spend huge amounts of money on all of these other areas, but we sometimes fail to realise that it is quite a dramatic impact if you can really develop that person. So yeah, so I train across all areas.
Jeff Walter (08:39)
And and when you’re talking about that frontline person, so that’s the whole system soup to nuts and and and what is the focus of the the training? Like w you know, what what are you trying to educate? What are they getting what are they getting learned on? Or what are you get you what is it they’re what kind of learning are they acquiring? Knowledge are they acquiring? That’s the word. Knowledge.
Terry Hawkins (08:48)
very good.
Well, I-
It’s really hard words get you done. So I do so much more than content because I feel like content is just one part of it. And I’ve created, you know, a system called the five C’s, the learning loop. But the learning loop. it’s just so we I used to do three. So was content, comprehension and context. you know, I consume content. then have to make sure I comprehend it and then I have to put it in the context.
Jeff Walter (09:11)
Okay. Well let’s let’s talk about that. What’s the learning loop? That’s interesting.
Terry Hawkins (09:26)
to show that I actually understand it. But there were two pieces that were missing and that was comprehension and compounding. Sorry, contemplation and compounding. And without contemplation, the brain doesn’t absorb it. And that’s why we found over time, and I’ve had so many years in this that I’ve actually been able to be a witness to all of this, that when we went through, I forget when it was, probably around the 1980s, no, 1990s, maybe early 2000s, when people decided that they weren’t gonna write anymore, that it was all gonna be typing.
I’m sure you remember this. so university students would go to lectures, they would type as fast as the lecturer. They said they would type verbatim. And I knew intuitively that it was wrong. And so I had workbooks and so forth study guys. I don’t even know if I’m answering your question, but yes, the five Cs. So I got shamed around having workbooks and having, you know, doing the writing. And of course our
Jeff Walter (09:55)
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Terry Hawkins (10:22)
comprehension, it’s that horrible feeling, you know, when you have friction and the brain learns when we have friction. But we have gone through this era of let’s make it safe. And we’ve totally confused what safe actually means. so with that conflict and that inner friction, the brain has to be able to absorb as much as what you’re possibly saying through the end of a pen and then go and use it and then contemplate, did that work?
You know, no, it didn’t. Well, then I go back through the top four again. Well, we found that comprehension went out the window the moment we started typing. And now I know it’s fascinating. And so now we’re almost doing a complete reversal where when some schools are now banning technology because it’s showing that it’s actually dumbing us down as a species. So, yes, content comprehension.
Jeff Walter (10:59)
Interesting.
Terry Hawkins (11:17)
And I’m not talking about like people think that if they just put a true false multiple choice, you know, I direct click and drag, which I do as well on my platform, that it’s comprehension, but it’s not, you know, it’s like, you know, put the peanut in the jar. It’s when I go and take that information and put it into context, whether that’s, you know, I train a lot of professional services businesses like accountants and attorneys and so forth. And you won’t know until you actually get into a space of doing that difficult conversations.
And so then you have the contemplation. And in the contemplation, which is the birthplace of empathy, of course, we have compound growth. And then from that compound, we go back to the beginning again. So yeah, the learning loops is a very big thing for me. And then the other three areas that I never fail to put into everything that I do, whether it’s online, in-person, virtual, when I’m constructing the systems themselves, is three areas.
You have to have the step process because the unconscious mind will create a step process, whether we like it or not. So, you you think about when we drive a car or whatever, there’s always a step process. The second piece is deep empathy. So not just cognitive empathy. I can understand you’re upset by that, madam, you know, as I stab my pen through your eye. And then the but that it’s not deep empathy. It’s like I’m reading a script, you know.
Jeff Walter (12:29)
That that is not deep empathy.
Terry Hawkins (12:36)
So it’s the emotional and intuitive empathy, which is very difficult to develop unless you have the third component, which is self-awareness. And when you synthesize those three areas, you really do get such an impact that people remember it for the rest of their lives. And I know that’s a big statement, but it’s true.
Jeff Walter (12:56)
Huh. And and so can you hit those three one more time, just briefly. ‘Cause I
Terry Hawkins (13:02)
So
we have a system.
Jeff Walter (13:05)
system.
Terry Hawkins (13:06)
We need an empathic, a deep emotional and intuitive empathic approach. And then we need to have self-awareness. Who am I inside of the environment? Meaning who I’m standing in front of, whatever it might be. So what’s my effect on the environment and what’s the environment’s effect on me? And do I have enough self-awareness to be able to notice, hmm, this is not going the way that I thought it should? Or, wow, I’m noticing this person has just changed their…
Jeff Walter (13:13)
An empathic approach.
Terry Hawkins (13:36)
facial expression? Do I need to drill down a little bit more? And the step process or the system supports you through all of that.
I’ll give you an example. Everybody handles customer complaints. We all have customer complaints. Yeah. Doesn’t matter what industry, what we do. So let’s just say we decide, okay, there’s five steps to a customer complaint. You might end up doing 10 when you’re in that conflict, you know, so you might have to listen and show empathy, listen and show everything because they’ve just won’t, you know, they’ve got a lot to get rid of. But let’s say there’s five steps and we learn the five steps and then we understand the empathy, the deep, am I able to put myself in that customer’s shoes? Am I able to…
Jeff Walter (13:47)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (14:14)
And people think they do, but they actually don’t. And so am I able to truly see it without the pollution of me and genuinely want, you know, or get the eyes of that customer or that client and what’s it like for them in their experience? And then the final piece is am I now, so when I know my system, when I am empathic, am I now able to regulate my own emotional nervous system?
Jeff Walter (14:22)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (14:40)
so that I can regulate it while I’m actually dealing with that because it can be very hot on the body, you know.
Jeff Walter (14:45)
Yeah, so I so I underst I I understand the f framework how does
I how do you turn that into the training? Like that like like that’s
Terry Hawkins (14:53)
my God. Let me
show you something. This is Justin. This is just me. Just data dumping. So how I work that out is I, every company has, like it’s not as hard as we think, I think a lot of the time. Everyone has a roadmap, like do this, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this, And then that becomes your foundation. I think we talked about this when we first met, about the scale.
Jeff Walter (14:57)
That’s
Okay. Yeah.
Right.
Terry Hawkins (15:18)
the seven notes of the learning scale that I discovered just through years. I love seven. Seven’s a really good number. And there’s seven notes in a scale. And it was just random, actually. But we start with ignorance or illiteracy. And most of us, when we’re illiterate in our business, will hire experience. So we don’t have people who can, you know, in the tribe who can pass things on or
Jeff Walter (15:22)
Yes, I love that you made it seven notes.
Terry Hawkins (15:44)
who we don’t have very clear structures and systems. So we have a literate, then we have the basics. So you’ll hear people say, you know, it’s not that hard, it’s not rocket science, let’s get back to the basics, you know, let’s just, and it is hard, it’s not easy. So those two levels, I call it tribal development. So I come along, I watch you, I copy you, and then I have a preference. So then I…
Jeff Walter (15:52)
Right.
Terry Hawkins (16:11)
influence it by my preferential style, preferential selling, preferential leading, whatever it might be. The next layer is foundation. So what are the foundational skills, you know, processes, attitudes, whatever it might be that we need that will be consistent across our entire business. So could be you’ve got 10 steps to a sale, you know, like I said before, the five steps to a customer complaint, whatever it might be. It’s the GPS of your organization.
Jeff Walter (16:30)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (16:35)
And so that’s where everybody goes through that. Everybody understands it and it’s the foundation. It doesn’t change because a person in a role changes and they want to come in and go, well, you know, I’m here now and I’m so glad that I’m here because boy, did you guys need me. And they’ll come in and change everything up and throw out what was there. And I go, the foundation never ever changes. Then from there, you then get coaching readiness. So if everybody is aware, the next
Jeff Walter (16:44)
Right.
Terry Hawkins (17:02)
note is I’m ready to be coached and you’re ready to coach me but I’m also as a coach able to stay in that loop so as I coach my coachee the coachee is probably going to train me back so we have this amazing loop of coaching. From there we then go to sensory awareness so I then am able because now I know my skills I’m doing them every day you know we’re layering in that learning. I’m then
able to free myself up because now it’s pushed itself down in the brain. And now I’m able to notice these things that it was about before, know, facial expressions, and then from there we get into metacognition, which is now I’m able to coach myself in process. You know, I’m sure we’ve all been there where we were in the middle of a sale and you go, this, I’m losing this, you know, and you coach yourself while in process. And then of course the final note is self-managing, you know, it’s, it’s fantastic.
Jeff Walter (17:36)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
And w I know the when you say self managing, what does that mean?
Terry Hawkins (17:59)
Well, it’s almost like sovereignty over the company, the team or whatever. They’re able to actually regulate. They’re able to notice coaching opportunities in the moment. They’re able to handle situations and the culture is actually born from those seven notes. You know, I see these companies spend a lot of money on values. Sorry to cut you off, but spend a lot of money on values development. You know, we went away for four days and we came up with our values and I’m like,
Jeff Walter (18:15)
That’s right.
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (18:26)
the values will emerge. can’t tell people what their values are. They’ll tell you what they value. And then you have to decide whether that’s in alignment or not, or whether you need to readjust or adjust. And so, yeah, I just go, that’s where the culture come from. The culture is the gift or the punishment you get for what you do every day.
Jeff Walter (18:32)
Right.
So well yeah, well the c I I I think culture’s upstream of a lot of things. And it’s and it it it and it all it it sets the tone of what comes downstream. You know, and it and and I and and and you can I think you can control it or you can manage you you can you can shape it is probably a better way of putting it. but it’s
Terry Hawkins (18:53)
Yes.
Yeah, very good.
Jeff Walter (19:09)
It’s all inclusive. It’s not just the the the good parts. Yeah, it it it it captures it captures everything.
Terry Hawkins (19:13)
Yeah, I love that word shaping.
Shaping is the perfect word because we don’t get to control anything. know, it’s it’s it’s almost like this living organism that we’re getting feedback all the time. And I just feel like we’re you know, I feel like we’re coming back, I hope, to community and that when we have a company like, you know, I’ve been able to witness a lot of companies and it saddens me because back in the day, back in the day,
Jeff Walter (19:41)
Ha ha.
Terry Hawkins (19:42)
It
meant something and people wanted to belong to it and it wasn’t just about making their budgets or their targets or you know making more money and handing another 25 % on every year and just flogging people every year until they It’s just it’s crazy. So I go what for like why are we doing it? What’s the whole point of it? And the profit should be the reward that we get not the driver
Jeff Walter (20:10)
Well it’s it’s you know, it’s it’s funny not to go down too metaphysical a path, but when you and I talk it tends to happen that way. but but I I truly believe the profit i is it’s the trailing indicator. And it’s it it it’s it’s not the leading indicator. And you can’t chase the trailing indicator. It it it you know, y you can’t y if you focus on it’s it’s like driving through your rear view mirror. You can’t you can’t drive that way.
Terry Hawkins (20:17)
Yeah
Yes.
I love that.
Jeff Walter (20:37)
You have you have to look forward. And if you do everything right, then the the profit happens. Right? Like and and and and that doing things right is in my mind, like I think the degree to which you as an organization are of service, and especially when we’re talking about networked ecosystems, right?
Terry Hawkins (20:44)
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (20:59)
if I’m a manufacturer selling through dealers or resellers or I’m a franchise or and I’ve invited all these other folks to join us in a franchise network, well first off they don’t work for me. I can’t fire them. Right they’re they’re they’re you know they’re they’re partners. You know you you mentioned partnership. And but I but I’ve got to it instill a culture
Terry Hawkins (21:12)
It’s a true story.
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (21:22)
That drives things because it it drives the performance when I can’t be there to oversee with my with my processes and procedures, right? It it fills in all the blanks. And it’s and it’s interesting when you were going through your seven notes, because what I find really interesting about that, and and and if and we bring if we bring it to the the partner learning is
Terry Hawkins (21:26)
Yes.
Perfect.
Jeff Walter (21:47)
Those frontline folks are your brand, right? They are the people’s they they they you know to the to the end customer, that is the McDonald’s, that is the Chevy dealer, that is th you know, they that that is the brand to them. And what I liked about your seven notes and the and the education and and and the five C’s
Terry Hawkins (22:00)
Yes.
Jeff Walter (22:12)
And is when you’re looking at that end that that frontline person that is the brand, it’s it’s building a set of skills and knowledges and capabil capabilities to mirror the value of the brand and the culture of the brand. And and some of that is technical skills, right? Like some of that is
If I’m doing a service, this is how I clean the rug, this is how I weave your hair. You know, it’s a it’s a special way in which we do things in this brand. but but part of that is I I what you know, we think of as soft skills. I was just interviewing somebody. They said, No, not so I don’t call them soft skills, I call them power skills.
Terry Hawkins (22:52)
I love it. call them core skills. Yeah, I don’t use the word soft.
Jeff Walter (22:55)
Yeah, yeah. She she was using the word power skills and instead of hard and soft skills, she used power skills and technical skills. Right? And the power skills are really the thing that that that allow you to elevate to the next level because it’s it’s it’s all it’s the empathy, it’s the problem solving, it’s the understanding, it’s the Yeah. Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (22:58)
Good on us.
Mmm.
But can you, not to cut you off, because of the
core skills, although that’s what I call, but the core skills, you’re right, are very, are so important because if you have a strong core, then the rest of your body can function to optimum performance level. One of the things that I’ve noticed, and I have worked with hundreds of thousands of people, hundreds of companies, and one thing I notice is that the companies that truly care about the personal development of that human being.
Jeff Walter (23:44)
Right.
Terry Hawkins (23:44)
They give them skills that they can go home and be a better partner and a better parent and that they can have, you know, self-awareness around their own, how they operate in the world. I literally get messages all the time. Like I got one yesterday, which was so beautiful. And she just said, I did training with you years ago. was, was a gratitude a few years late was the subject line in the email. And she said, yeah, she goes, I’ve never referenced my notes. She said, but that
Jeff Walter (24:06)
Right. That’s awesome.
Terry Hawkins (24:12)
the way that you trained, was so deeply anchored in me that I’ve never forget. And she listed off all these things like flip and this and two step procedure for rejection and yaddy yaddy. Because to me, like when I stand in front of anybody, whether it’s in person, online, whatever, and when I’m sharing my tool kits for other people to share, I go, our job is to ignite that human being. Like we have to ignite them. We have to go, do you know how powerful you are?
Yeah, it’s not we’re doing this because, I’m not, this is why I just loved our conversation the other day was you and I in such alignment here. That, you told the story about the guy with the, that would come to the house and, the cleaning, the carpet cleaning.
Jeff Walter (24:42)
it’s
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The the just the yes, the the franchise, the franchisee, yeah. Where
Terry Hawkins (25:00)
So I was
in a hotel because that reminded me of I was you know, it was the blue hotel, you beautiful chain of hotels. This one was in Australia in Sydney. And I so I was meeting with the general manager. were four of us general manager. He had his head of HR. There was myself and another trainer. This guy comes out, you know, the waiter comes out the table. Can I get everybody a coffee?
We’re like, yeah, that’d be great. Thanks so much. Anyway, he goes away, comes back. We’d finished our coffee. And I know we all said just coffee. Yeah. And so he comes back and he says, so another round for everybody then. And we all, I went, I’ll have another one because it was going well. And he, everyone goes, yeah, great. And he said, look, I hate to tempt you, but we’ve just taken out of the oven a freshly baked banana bread loaf and it smells.
delicious.
I said, mean, four of us bought the banana bread. And I said, as he walked away, I said to the general manager, he quadrupled, if not more, the take on the table. And I said, and that’s what I’m talking about. He wasn’t pitching. He wasn’t, you know, checking off a, you know, suggest the banana bread, we’re moving the banana bread today. He was so deeply like wanted us to celebrate that. And so I’m going close that loop and say,
Jeff Walter (25:53)
Right.
Terry Hawkins (26:17)
So we trained all of the staff at Jetstar was at the airline in Australia still is. And this is years ago and Gate Gourmet who provide all the food for the airline hired us to train all of the cabin crew to sell the food on the plane. They sold out for three months in a row. They sold out of food. Because instead of do you want anything from the menu? It became we’ve got the most beautiful donuts on board today. Whatever, whatever. So that guy did the same thing. Anyway.
So we’re all laughing, chatting at the Blue Hotel. He comes back and he says, I’m so sorry to the general manager. And he does that to the general manager. Beautiful guy. And he said, I’m so sorry to interrupt. And the GM said, no, of course. And he looked at me and he goes, are you Terry Hawkins? And I went, I am. And he said, Terry, you trained me 10 years ago at General Pan. And he said, I have never forgotten what you trained me. And I use it everywhere I go.
Jeff Walter (27:07)
No.
Terry Hawkins (27:14)
I said, what’s your name? Raj. His name was Raj. Yeah. So I said, so he walked off.
Jeff Walter (27:14)
my god so th that was the waiter that that suggested the banana bread.
Terry Hawkins (27:22)
He was beautiful. I gave him a hug and I said to the GM, I said, seriously, that was my closing the sale. It’s like, baby, if you need more evidence, and that’s what I love is where people go because we all lose our way. Like I lost my way, you know, in that five years, I forgot the impact.
Jeff Walter (27:29)
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (27:41)
And I feel like when you bring people back to what is their deepest, like everybody will wake up in the morning if they know that they’re to stand in front of another human being and have a sliding doors moment where they can massage that heart and just make a life a bit easier, have a laugh, you know, whatever it might be. Everybody will get up and do that. But if I have to get up knowing that I’m 20 % down on my target, oh my gosh, my man is going to be on my case, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter what industry it is.
then we lose the ignition, you We need to have that, you’ve to put that key in. There we go, there’s another metaphor for ignite humans, hey?
Jeff Walter (28:15)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, I it well it’s it you know, it it’s so interesting because it’s un it’s one of the things I love about this industry is if you get it right, it just untaps this potential. And there’s like two two stories. Well one I I I was just talking to just interviewing somebody earlier today, and and it w is a a thank you note on training.
Terry Hawkins (28:32)
of
Jeff Walter (28:42)
From the spouse of the person trained that said, Thank you, you gave me a better husband.
Terry Hawkins (28:45)
Yes.
Yes, I’ve received those. Thank you for giving me back. It’s so beautiful. That’s when you go look at the impact. Now, when you look at that, so then people we disconnect things. So people look at turnover, staff turnover, for example, staff theft. There’s all these peripheral benefits. So people don’t leave when they’re part of a community in a tribe that cares about them, their family, their, you know, like
Jeff Walter (28:52)
And it was like
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (29:19)
And I think COVID showed like it made a lot of companies transparent for how they would treat their staff. So I love that. I think it’s the greatest compliment you can get when you have impacted. I’ve had people, I mean, gosh, I remember a woman, shared this story the other day and she came in, I was in a corporate, you know, training this company and we’re going through the training. Anyway, she came to me, she said to my 13 year old son,
Jeff Walter (29:26)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (29:44)
You know, I’m very conscious also these days. You can’t say too much because everybody gets triggered by everything, which just blows my mind. But anyway, I always go, know, you can only be no one triggers you. We get triggered because of our past and our journey, you know? And so she said, I’ve got a 13 year old son and she said he has had been talking about suicide. And I was like, well, you know, and I do a lot of personal growth awareness training.
Jeff Walter (29:59)
Right.
Gosh.
Terry Hawkins (30:12)
because if I know myself and understand myself, I’m going to be much better when I’m with other people. I said, put him in the next course. And she said, he’s only 13. I said, you know what? There’s a higher, wiser self in all of us. Who knows? So anyway, came into the training. He was so beautiful at the end he goes, okay, so when I leave school, I want to be a retailer. I was like, well, you know, sorry, I get a little bit emotional. I said, I said, well, you know, that’s great. I stayed in contact with them for years.
Jeff Walter (30:32)
Ha ha.
Terry Hawkins (30:41)
And I thought, imagine, that’s when I started speaking at high schools for nothing, because I saw so many teenagers who would just get lost because their frontal lobe was going through this massive rewiring. And just to give them a few tools, just to give them those three things again, a system to follow when they felt bad, pit and flip. So they’re my two characters that I created a system to follow empathy for themselves, kindness and compassion for themselves, know, self empathy.
Jeff Walter (31:06)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (31:09)
And then a self-awareness, what’s happening in my body? It’s just a feeling, like feelings only last a few seconds. So we just keep them alive. You have no idea how many teenagers. So yeah, anyway, I’ve got so many stories like that where I just go, so cool.
Jeff Walter (31:16)
Yeah.
That’s I mean
I mean that that’s really that’s really beautiful. And a and a couple of those things are extraordinary. Like like the empathy for yourself, you know so you know, a long way I remember picking up you know, somebody saying, you know, treat yourself like you’re somebody you have to care about or care for. Like like like we’re we’re more
Terry Hawkins (31:43)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (31:46)
Most
of a lot of us tend to care more for our pets or other people that we have to care for more than we care for ourselves. Yeah, because we’ll just we’ll just we’ll just suck it up. And
Terry Hawkins (31:53)
In my book I talk about being outside
the house and looking through the window. And that’s dissociation. So that’s the easiest way to deal with pain. I mean, it’s great to get into the pain. I’m all about pain, know, like go walk through the fire because it’s in that pain. let’s, so many of us get consumed with fear and I go, okay, hate fear, but, or learn from fear, but let pain be your friend.
Jeff Walter (32:00)
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (32:19)
But sometimes you’ve got to dissociate and being outside the house. If we looked outside the window into ourselves sometimes and noticed ourselves, so let’s say they were two of us and we were treating ourselves in our own brain, we would give ourselves a talking to. Who are you talking to? Stop speaking like that. Like I literally will say, I’ll go, you idiot. And then I go, sorry, I didn’t mean that.
Jeff Walter (32:32)
Uh-huh.
I I d
I I I meant that internally to me. I was talking to me.
Terry Hawkins (32:46)
Yeah, but it’s like, you know,
your own self goes, don’t speak about yourself like that. You know?
Jeff Walter (32:54)
Yeah, well
and w w and well well and kind of bring it back back around to to the the training of of the of the frontline staff and and that well it and it’s been it’s it’s been a lot of fun ’cause we’ve we’ve I mean whenever you I I I’d love talking to you ’cause it’s always goes in so many interesting directions. No, it’s real well, y y it’s fun ’cause you never know where you end up.
Terry Hawkins (33:03)
Yeah.
It’s not a positive trade, I can tell you that right now.
Jeff Walter (33:22)
And this has been a well, I’m an adventurous type of guy, so I like you know, I I love I love just f figure you know. Yeah. Which I think is great. I think it’s great. I I I I think we’re we we’re we’re kind of over oversupplied on linear thinking. And
Terry Hawkins (33:28)
I’m certainly not sequential, let’s put it that way.
You know what’s interesting
though? When you have a really solid system, you can go off road and come back.
Jeff Walter (33:47)
Right. And well it it’s a an another person once said to me, People want a color by numbers, but they also want to go outside the lines. You know, so yeah.
Terry Hawkins (33:56)
Yes, yes, we feel safe in a system. You’re absolutely right. But
then I want to be myself when I’m in that process. And I feel I also believe, you know, when you look at your the companies that you serve as well, I always say when the CEO and the frontline connect, the rest takes care of itself. But when you’ve got that middle piece, because there’s a lot of ego and I’m not saying that to criticise.
A lot of us aren’t aware of our ego. When you start to climb that corporate ladder, there is, there is self-serving. And I always believe that it’s like serve others first and then serve self. But I always think that if the CEO gets it and they’re so clear about the front line and those two can have alignment, it’s magic.
Jeff Walter (34:40)
Mm-hmm.
I I I I I agree. And the i I think the interesting thing in is you know, when we look at these core skill type of training, it’s been internal for many years at varying levels depending on the organization. But you know, training of employees, bringing them up and that. But I think what I’m starting to see, and we’ve been doing this I’ve been doing this for about twenty something years now.
Terry Hawkins (35:00)
and
Jeff Walter (35:13)
I’d say the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of external learning training your partners has been more of that technical, you know, technical skills instead of core skills, right? The worst hard skills versus soft skills, right? And and what’s interesting is I’m seeing anecdotally more and more core skill, soft skill type of training, character development, culture development, you know, deliberate, these are our value training.
Yeah, and it yeah.
Terry Hawkins (35:41)
You know what’s interesting, just
to support you in that thought, is I read an article just recently, it’s called the In-Law Syndrome. And so when a new member comes into the family, so you’ve got the tribe, and that can be an organization, it can be, you know, I always say, I call it the Founder Five, you’re gonna be very careful as the company scales that the five people around the founder don’t become the cork in the bottle because they wanna keep it safe, they wanna block, you know, the other progression.
Jeff Walter (36:07)
Right.
Terry Hawkins (36:08)
And it’s another scale that I use as well in there. But when you look at the in-laws, so you get, a new daughter-in-law. And we all know that the forming, was it forming, storming, norming, performing? We all know that one. But the storming occurs because the in-law, the new person in the family sees things that no one’s seen before or starts to mention, like, why are we doing that? Like, I don’t want to do that. And starts to name things.
So when you have someone who comes outside of the usual, it does shake it up a bit, which I think is fantastic.
Jeff Walter (36:42)
Yeah, well it i I I I I think it’s it’s good, but yeah, I I think it also
It forces you to understand the why. Right? It’s like, why do we set the table that way? Right? Like the the in law comes in and goes, Why why do you why is the table set that way? You know, in my in my family we set the table this way. You know, and and or if that’s if they’re being humble. Usually st you know, if they’re a little bit more direct would be, that’s not how you set the table. You’re supposed to set it this way. But and I think it
Terry Hawkins (36:49)
Tell me more.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is how you do it. But you know, it’s interesting.
Yes, it’s like we don’t ask why. So you’re right. When someone comes in from the outside, you can see things that work, but then you can also go, yeah, well, what if you tried it this way? Or, like I look at the young people of today, and I know our time’s wrapping up, but when I look at, because I do, obviously I get older and the group side remains stay young, you know? And so…
Jeff Walter (37:13)
Right.
Right.
Terry Hawkins (37:33)
I do 70 cycles. It’s Rudolph Steiner’s work, but seven to 21, 21, 28, 28, 35, 35, 42 and so forth. And it’s such fantastic information because it gives you an idea. And I said to 21 to 28 year olds, settle down. Like this is the experimentation years. This is your apprentice years. Learn to be a great learner. Learn to be a receiver. Don’t be so busy trying to prove that you got it, you know it or whatever. But the interesting piece is that when
they allow themselves to go through that process. There’s so much that you get, but we don’t get, have, I, my experience of late is I’m seeing very emotionally unaware, unaware of themselves, unaware of others because we now have a technology era and I’ve written, you know, I haven’t finished it. don’t know whether I will or not, but call the perfect storm. And we have an entire generation over the last, I’ve started, I did it for 30 years.
So since 1990, when technology really started to hit, when you had gaming, you know, when they were kids. And so we have a whole generation who has externalised their emotions. And now we’re saying, you know, you’re not resilient or you can’t handle feedback or whatever it is. And I go, well, their nervous system hasn’t been trained to do that. That just took 15, 20 years for that to disappear. So we have to train them back into their nervous system.
Jeff Walter (38:35)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Hawkins (38:56)
Train them back into when a customer has an objection, don’t take it personally. Notice that charge on yourself and give them techniques to sort of, know, breathe themselves through it, I suppose. When they get rejected, whatever it might be. So yeah, think we’ve got, there’s a lot of work to do with this 21 to 28, 28, 35, you know? So yeah, anyway, I love it.
Jeff Walter (39:19)
Yeah, it’s and well and to complete a thought I had yesterday, I see more on the partner side, partner learning is I think it it’s moving more towards those core skills and and it anecdotally it’s showing up just like it is elsewhere i in the bottom line. It it it creates that consistency of performance. It’s
Yeah, I I I remember one when I got my start y many moons ago, the it blew me away. They did productivity studies of programmers. I was a programmer, you know, computer programmer. And yeah, I was a computer science undergrad and that’s what I used to do for a living. But the thing that blew me away was the top ten percent of programmers were ten times more productive, ten X more productive than the average.
And and you know, you know, I it just blew me away. And it it got into I mean, obviously there’s a lot of technical skills and all that kind of stuff, but it gets into those critical thinking skills, those core skills, those those you know, and and it’s just amazing how human performance can be improved when you bring up those core skills.
Terry Hawkins (40:28)
Why were the top 10 % not,
like why were the, why were the top?
Jeff Walter (40:32)
They it
i well i i it was th it’s the resilience, it’s the critical thinking, it’s the you know, communication. It’s you know, it it it it it’s like, you know, I’m it’s it’s it’s thinking through the whole instead of just doing this. it it’s those core skills. It it goes i or or you know,
Terry Hawkins (40:42)
Got it. OK, I’ll see you soon. Yeah. Yes.
That’s the compound.
Jeff Walter (40:55)
Yeah, th they it wasn’t
it wasn’t that they were necessarily had a higher IQ. Yeah, it was y
Terry Hawkins (41:00)
No, but the brain
loves it because the brain gets addicted, doesn’t it? So you solve one problem and then it goes, it’s like this rush that you get. So.
Jeff Walter (41:05)
Yeah.
What
right. But it it it it just unleashed me it’s like this there’s so much more in human potential of what we can do when you get it all all working and yeah.
Terry Hawkins (41:18)
yes, I totally agree. I totally agree. I have to ask you, were you in the
top 10 % check?
Jeff Walter (41:24)
I I I don’t know. I I think I I well I I was I d I don’t know if I was in the top ten percent because I wasn’t in the but but I I was yeah, I would I I I I was well sought after. You know. And then I I I I d I decided solving people problems was more interesting.
Terry Hawkins (41:34)
I’m sure you were.
I almost there you, are you doing best? my gosh!
But you know what, you
exactly solving people’s problems, so the trigger internally was, I’m going to make a difference. wasn’t, you know, wasn’t reached this quota,
Jeff Walter (41:59)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I and I’m an analyst and
I love problem solving. And but I and I’ve and I’ve found that the the problem of how do you take a bunch of humans, put together to be highly pro productive was a much more interesting problem to focus on than than than coding. For me for me personally. And
Terry Hawkins (42:03)
Yeah, well there you go.
yeah, absolutely. know, and people
want to be, A, they want to work in an environment that is uplifting, like in all of my experience, they don’t want to work in an environment where people don’t care and there aren’t any standards or whatever. Like I’m training this group of coaches at the sales coaches and I’ve got 40 of them. We’re so close now, like we’ve got our tribe and they allow me to chip them a little bit and go,
Jeff Walter (42:39)
Yeah.
Terry Hawkins (42:42)
you know, where’s your homework? we have, there’s laughter. They rock up ready every single time. Now it didn’t start that way. But I, so I feel like, you know, we get the chance to create that for others as organisations.
Jeff Walter (42:49)
Exactly. No, that’s
That that’s
the high performing organization. That’s and that’s that’s why I’ve spent the last thirty years studying and and that led me into training and all that stuff. So but it’s Terry, you you you are too. I know we’re coming up on our our our time, so it’s it’s been a great conversation, Terry. If if some if if anybody out there want to get a hold of you, how would they get a hold of you, Terry?
Terry Hawkins (43:03)
Well, you’re amazing.
terry at terryhawkins.com. I have to spell it because I live in America now of course as you know, but it’s terry, T-E-R-R-Y, it’s on the screen, hawkins, H-A-W-K-N-S, dot com. So terry at terryhawkins.com. you can go to just, I’ve got a website for terry hawkins and also Ignite Humans. Woo!
Jeff Walter (43:29)
Okay. Terry a
Okay. So we’ll
make sure we get ignitehumans dot com and terryhawkins dot com in the show notes
Terry Hawkins (43:45)
In Australia, we go double R and people get so confused. We go T E double R. It’s like we say Fortnite and they go, what the game? And I go, no, two weeks. Anyway, so lovely to chat with you, Jeff.
Jeff Walter (43:48)
Terry.
two weeks.
All right. Yeah.
It was great to chat with you, Terry. Thank you for spending your time with with us and sharing your insights and knowledge with everybody.
Terry Hawkins (44:05)
and taking you off offshore all the time. Thanks, Jim.
Jeff Walter (44:08)
it’s it was a blast. So all right.
Thank you. And then everybody out there, thanks for listening and we’ll we’ll see you next time. Bye bye.