Meet Terry Stolz

We recently connected with Terry Stolz and have shared our conversation below.

Terry , we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I think my resilience comes from necessity, a willingness to take risks and a strong desire to succeed. I love proving the doubters wrong.

Never satisfied with success for long and always a bit unsettled I’ve always strived for more. I like to experiment, stretch my boundaries, dissect and evaluate what’s working what’s not.

Goals are extremely important. Without goals one is aimlessly a drift wondering through life. Put in the hard work even when you don’t feel like it, you are tired and feeling defeated you have to continue in order to achieve your desired results. There are no short cuts. Simply keep pushing forward and making adjustments until eventually your efforts bear fruit. Then adjust your goals and set your sights even higher.

You have to stay positive and believe in yourself. Show up, tune out the naysayers and the self doubting voices in your head telling you to give up. Thrive on their complacency and negativity. Turn it into your fuel for success and keep pushing.

It’s very important to nurture your body and spirt so you have the strength to maintain the drive required to achieve your goals. For me it’s a strong physical yoga practice. I regularly practice 5-6 hours per week. I look forward to that dedicated hour and I show up even when I don’t feel like it. It helps to maintain my creativity, balance, body and a clam mind.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I’m the only child of working class parents.
I’ve been drawings, coloring and painting for as long as I can remember. As a young child I would often be parked in a corner, handed crayons and cut open brown paper bags to keep me occupied. Later I drew on my school folders and shoes and jeans. After high school I majored in Fine Art at UNLV. After graduation I briefly worked as a commercial faux finisher and sculptor. I worked on several big projects throughout Las Vegas. Including 2 years as a sculptor creating artwork for the facade of the Venetian hotel and casino.

I was laid off when the construction was near completion so, along with my ex I decided to start my own business making natural soap and artistic ceramic soap dishes. That we would sell at large art and craft festivals. I made thousands of unique soap dishes.

Later I scraped the soap and stared turning my soap dish designs into fine art wall pieces that I transported to festivals in a short school bus I was converting. This led to several commissions including kitchens and wall murals. .

In 2020 when covid shut down the world I was forced to move home to care for my elderly parents. My mother had advanced dementia and father had been her caregiver. Covid eventually took him early 2021. Having become my mother’s caregiver I was unable to return to the work I was previously doing. As a way to satisfy my creative urges I began painting when ever I was able to squeeze out some personal time. I’d get up at 3 am and paint while she was sleeping and then again in the evening after she went to bed. After my mother’s passing in October 2023 I started work again on my bus and returned to showing and selling my work at festivals. Only this time I’ve reinvented myself as a painter.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Tenacity and the willingness to take risks. There will always be reasons and excuses one can lean on but doing so leads to failure.

I like to plan nature adventures to beautiful and remote areas where there will be few if any other people. These adventures do several things. They challenge me and require me to be self-reliant. Often when I start climbing a mountain I almost instantly feel like turning around. I start thinking why am I doing this? It’s uncomfortable, its to hot or to cold, I’m tired or my legs hurt but, I always keep pushing upward. Very quickly those feeling pass. The air becomes fresh and I feel strong and invigorated. As the landscape changes the colors become richer and more vibrant. I become grateful and realize what a blessing it is to be alive. It feels fantastic to reach the top and I always I feel a since of pride and accomplishment. I usually return feeling renewed, creative and often have a break through on what ever problem or issue I’d been dealing with.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

I take a renaissance approach to life. I think one should always go all in and follow their passions. You can’t know everything about every subject and you don’t need to but, one does need to know how to find the answers they seek and be able to evaluate the reliability of the source providing those answers. Educating oneself is mandatory. The knowledge you gain will benefit you in all aspects of life, including daily mundane decisions like whether or not to buy a specific product or which auto mechanic to hire, The bottom line is the mind is a muscle and it should be regularly exercised. Stagnation leads nowhere good.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://TerryStolz.com
• Instagram: @stolz_terry