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Terry Rich

CEO, Keynote Speaker & Fraud-Busting Innovator
Iowa
Terry Rich
Background

About Terry Rich

InnovationLeadershipPublic SpeakingFraud & RiskEntrepreneurship

Terry Rich is a self-described "disruptive innovator" whose career reads like five lives compressed into one: cable TV pioneer, zoo CEO, state lottery director, fraud buster, and in-demand keynote speaker. Over 25 years as a CEO and president he grew Iowa Lottery sales and profits by 50%, led the Blank Park Zoo from a $600,000 deficit to becoming the second most-attended attraction in the state, and started four successful companies of his own.

He is best known for leading the team that cracked the largest lottery fraud in U.S. history — a multi-state insider scheme that took seven years to unravel. Along the way he has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, HBO, CNN, 20/20, and The Tonight Show, hosted shows on Starz!, and authored two books, The $80 Billion Gamble and Dare to Dream, Dare to Act.

On The Daily Mastermind, Terry sat down with George Wright III to unpack the mindset and systems behind a life of relentless reinvention: why he always raises his hand for the unfamiliar, why he treats failure as data rather than defeat, and how he built cultures of innovation inside organizations as risk-averse as a state government.

Featured Conversation

Terry on The Daily Mastermind Podcast

Creating an Epic Life Through Innovation with Terry Rich
Dec 6, 2024
Creating an Epic Life Through Innovation with Terry Rich
Terry Rich, who busted the largest lottery fraud in U.S. history, shares how embracing failure, thinking big, and innovating relentlessly builds an epic life.
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE →
Key Insights

Key takeaways from Terry

01
Always raise your hand.
Opportunity rarely arrives with a clear label — it looks like an inconvenience or a long shot. Volunteer for the tasks you've never done. You get noticed, and you learn things that compound for the rest of your career.
02
Failure is the path, not the price.
NASA course-corrected more than 90% of the way to the moon — the rocket never went straight. If you haven't failed, you haven't pushed the envelope far enough. Adjust and keep going instead of abandoning the idea too early.
03
Remove the social cost of ideas.
Terry's "COT" system — Consider or Throw — labels an idea as zero-obligation: think about it or delete it, no response needed. When the risk of looking foolish disappears, ideas start flowing upward from everyone.
04
Separate creating from evaluating.
Generate 100 ideas in one session with no critics allowed, then bring the skeptics and accountants into a second session to evaluate. By the time you decide, the whole team is invested in making it work.
Find Terry

Connect with Terry

Visit terryspeaks.comTwitter / XLinkedIn