Kelsey Harris:
0:00
trigger warning for this episode, subject matter includes death and moments of wanting to die. hopefulness, finding your purpose, embracing the suck of your illness, doing what you can. If these are issues you struggle with, then you're in luck because they're also topics of this episode. I'm joined by cancer warrior Terry Tucker as he takes us through his journey on this week's episode of chronically living. I'm Kelsey Harris, chronic illness warrior and psychotherapist on chronically living and how to make the most of it. We're providing tangible ways to improve the well being of spoons. So get ready to make the most out of your life even with that pesky chronic illness.
Terry Tucker:
0:56
My name is Terry Tucker. I was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. I am the oldest of three boys. You cannot tell this from my voice, but I'm six foot eight inches tall. And I played college basketball in Charleston, South Carolina at the Citadel despite having three knee surgeries in high school. When I graduated from college, I moved home I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. And I was all set to make my mark on the world with my newly obtained business administration degree. And, you know, I look back now and realize kind of what a knucklehead I was to think I knew anything about business just because I had a degree. Fortunately, I was able to find that first job in the corporate headquarters of Wendy's International, the hamburger chain, in their marketing department. But unfortunately, I ended up living with my parents for the next three and a half years as I helped my mom care for my father and my grandmother who were both dying of different forms of cancer. In my professional career, as I said, I was a marketing executive with Wendy's. I was a hospital administrator, that I made a major change in my life and became a police officer and did undercover narcotic work and was a SWAT team hostage negotiator. I then I started my own school security consulting business. I was a girls high school basketball coach. I've been a motivational speaker. Last year I became an author. But for the last nine years or so I've kind of considered myself a cancer warrior. And then finally, my wife and I have been married for 20 years. We have one child, a daughter is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, and is an officer in the new branch in the military here in the US to SpaceForce.
Kelsey Harris:
2:34
Terry mentioned that he considers himself a cancer warrior and has so for the past nine years, he also has lost family members to cancer as many of us have. So here's Terry's cancer story.
Terry Tucker:
2:46
So when I was diagnosed, I was a high school basketball coach and I had a callus that broke open on the bottom of my foot right below my third toe. And being a coach, you're on your feet a lot. So I didn't think a lot of it initially. But after a couple of weeks when it didn't heal, I went to see a podiatrist, a foot doctor friend of mine, and he took an x ray and he's like tear, I think you have a cyst in there, and I can remove it. And he did. And he showed it to him. He was just a little gelatin sack with some white fat in it. No dark spots, no blood, nothing that gave you the one of us concern. But he sent it off to pathology to have it looked at. And then two weeks later, I get a call from him. And as I said he was a friend of mine. And the more difficulty he was having explaining what was going on, the more frightened I was becoming until it just kind of laid it out. He said Terry, I've been a doctor for 25 years, and I've never seen this form of cancer you have a rare form of melanoma that presents either on the bottom of the feet or the palms of the hands. And I recommend you go to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and be treated and so I did and I had the bottom of my foot exercise to remove the tumor and I lymph nodes in my groin removed as well. And then when I healed I was put on a weekly injection of a drug called interferon. And interferon for me was not a cure. It was just a as my oncologist used to say we're going to try to kick the can down the road and see how long we can keep this disease at bay. But the downside of interferon was it gave me severe flu like symptoms every week after each injection, and I took those weekly injections for almost five years. So imagine having the flu every week for five years. And that wasn't a cure that was just to keep the disease from coming back. 2017 the the drug became so toxic to my body that end up in the intensive care unit with a fever of 108 degrees which usually is not compatible with being alive but fortunately I was able to be saved and as soon as the drug was stopped the disease came back 2018 I have my left foot amputated because of the cancer 2019 and started to work its way up my leg into my shin and I had two more surgeries then and then last year and under diagnosed tumor in my ankle area grew large enough that it It fractured my tibia, my shin bone. And my only recourse right in the middle of the pandemic was to have my left leg amputated above the knee. And I also found out at that time that I have tumors in my lungs, which I'm being treated for now,
Kelsey Harris:
5:19
sometimes when I have clients share a story like that, for me in the therapy office, all I can say is that is a lot for someone to go through.
Terry Tucker:
5:27
Yeah, it's, you know, we say on and on that uplifting story, you know, I mean, I, you know, most people think of melanomas, you know, you're out in the sun, too much too much sun exposure and things like that. And that's the primary cause of melanoma, but then there's the rare form that I had. And there's an even rarer form that appears in our mucous membrane, so in your nose, or your mouth or something like that, but it's still melanoma. And, I mean, when I first was diagnosed, you know, I went through the gambit of emotions that I think anybody, you know, the, all those emotions that we associate with grief, you know, the, the depression, you know, I was mad, you know, I kind of bargain with God, I did all this stuff. And then I just realized, you know, what, these are the cards that I've been dealt, and I'm going to have to play them and I'm gonna have to play them to the best of my ability. And it was kind of then that I started this whole, you know, what, just embrace the suck, you know, this is gonna suck, but embrace it, and use it to make you a better person. As opposed to, you know, I always say that pain is inevitable in our lives. And I know I'm preaching to the choir when I'm talking to you about this, but you know, pain is inevitable. And it doesn't have to be, you know, health pain or cancer pain or chronic illness. I mean, you could flunk a test at school or break up with your boyfriend or your girlfriend or you know, not get the promotion at work that you think you deserve. Pain is inevitable. Suffering. On the other hand, that's optional. That's what you do with that pain? Do you use it to make you a stronger and more determined individual? Or do you wallow in it feel sorry for yourself and want people to feel sorry for you. It's a choice whether or not you want to which one of those you want to which handle I guess you want to grab on those and I just figured, you know what, I'm going to grab the handle up, I'm going to take pain and flip it inside and use it to make me stronger, or you know, burn it as fuel or using this energy just to make me a stronger individual.
Kelsey Harris:
7:24
Pain is inevitable suffering is optional. I know I've said this on the podcast and my blog before. It's actually a fairly famous quote that's been attributed to a few different people, including the Dalai Lama, Haruki Murakami, and M. Kathleen Casey. It's true, though. And as Shinzen Young says, pain times resistance equals suffering. Interestingly, Terry hadn't heard the quote before he came to this idea on his own. I think
Terry Tucker:
7:53
I pretty much came to an on my own. I was, you know, one of those things where, yes, I've been dealt a bad break there. Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain during World War Two, had a great saying he said, if you're going through hell keep going. And I love that because, yeah, you know, I think most people would look at my journey and say, yeah, you've kind of been through hell, but I'm still going, you know, I'm still moving forward. And I always kind of think back to the The Shawshank Redemption movie that came out back in the 90s, where they had the saying, you know, get busy living or get busy dying. I want to be busy living, I want to be continuing to move forward. And you know, you're looking at me right now, there's no s on my chest. I'm not wearing a cape. You know, I have bad days. I mean, there are days I cry, there are days I get down. There are days, I feel sorry for myself, I just choose not to stay in those positions, because they really don't get you anywhere. My grandmother used to always say that worry is kind of like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere. And you know, so I love that quote. And it's like, yeah, you know, you can feel sorry for yourself, or you can try to get up and you can try to move forward. And during those five years, I was on interferon. I'll be honest with you, there were days I prayed to die. It's just like, God, please take me out of this. I'm so sick of being sick. You know, and I just prayed to die. And sometimes, you know, I used to talk I like, Okay, I gotta win this day. Well, sometimes winning the day was just winning this five minutes, I just got to get out of bed, and I got to make it to the sofa. And if I can do that, it's been a good day, or you know, what, make them feel really good. And I can throw a load of laundry in the washing machine to kind of help my wife out and things like that. So, you know, we kind of I think a lot of times tend to, you know, especially with whatever we're dealing with in life, you know, I've got to do this. Well, if you break this down into, you know, bite sized chunks, it's kind of like, you know, I've got to get better at something. Well, instead of getting better at something What if you got 1% better every day? You know, at the end of 30 days you're 30% Better than And when you started and getting 1% Better is a whole lot more manageable than saying, I've got to get 100% better right now, a lot of ways that's kind of impossible.
Kelsey Harris:
10:15
Terry has learned a lot about life and what it means to be human from his battle with cancer. And I think when any of us really start to reflect on our illnesses, we have the opportunity to do the same. So let's hear what Terry has learned.
Terry Tucker:
10:27
I think that we can do so much more than we ever thought we could do. I recall a couple couple of quick stories. One was, I read a story about a professor in the 1950s at Johns Hopkins University out on the east coast of the United States, who did an experiment with rats. And it was a pretty simple experiment, he took rats and he put them in a tank of water there were over their head. And he wanted to see how long they could tread water before they would drown. And the average rat treaded water for about 15 minutes. And just as they were about ready to go under, he reached in grabbed them, pull them out, dry them off, let him rest for a while, and then he put him back in that same tank of water. And the second time around, those rats treaded water for 60 hours, think about that 15 minutes the first time, 60 hours the second time, which taught me two things, one, the importance of hope in our lives, we've got to have something we're aspiring to, or we're looking forward to, or life's got to get better. So we've got to have some open our life and to just how much more you know, the physical body that we have, can do. And I've got a friend here in the US who's a former Navy SEAL some of the toughest men, you know, in the military here in the US, and they kind of they talk about their 40% rule. And their 40% rule says that if you're, if you're at the end of your rope, you can't go on, you know, for them, you you can't run another step or swim another lap or do another push up, you're only at 40% of your maximum, and you still have 60% left to give to yourself. So whenever I get in those dark places, or those down places, I always remember those kind of two stories. And it's like, no, you have so much more to give to yourself, no matter how bad you're feeling, just get up and keep moving forward.
Kelsey Harris:
12:20
I imagine it can be difficult to remain hopeful when facing cancer that continues to spread throughout your body. And I know a lot of you listeners with other chronic illnesses such as autoimmune diseases often have difficulty with hopefulness. I asked Terry how he manages to remain hopeful.
Terry Tucker:
12:35
I mean, when I found out that I you know, was gonna have my leg amputated and I had these tumors in my lungs, I went to the mortuary I went to the cemetery, I went to the church, and I plan my funeral. And, and I kind of got some brush back from people from that, you know, it's like, you know, don't you think that's kind of defeatist, you know, and I kind of looked at him like, well, you know, a little secret last time I checked, everybody's gonna die. You know, I mean, and, you know, nobody's working on a cure for life right now. So yeah, I kind of looked at it, like everybody dies, but not everybody really lives. And there's a Native American Blackfoot proverb here that her years ago that I just love, and it goes like this, when you were born, you cried, and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way so that when you die, the world cries, and you rejoice. And I think the the operative words, there are live your life, you know, you've got to live a life so that, you know, people are going to cry when you're gone. But your life yeah, all right, you know, we're moving on to something that's bigger and better and things like that. And that's what I want, you know, and I think you do that. And, and depth is not, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not hastening it. I don't want it to come anytime in the near future. But when it does, it doesn't scare me that much. And it does it because I think I found my purposes in life. And I live those purposes. And having done that, it's okay, it's okay to move on. It's okay to die. I don't know why we're all you know, really excited. I can't talk about I've got a neighbor who, whenever we talk about my cancer, or you know that I went to the cemetery and something nope, nope, can't talk. Nope. Let's talk about something else can't deal with it. So it's like, well, you know, what's gonna happen you eventually you're gonna have to deal with it. So, see what happens.
Kelsey Harris:
14:24
Everybody dies, but not everybody lives. Let's just sit with that for a moment. Terry takes on a certain attitude and mindset towards life, which is really apparent already. Why is this helpful and beneficial to his life and his overall health?
Terry Tucker:
14:40
You know, again, it's kind of like you know, which handle you're going to grab, are you going to grab the you know, the handle of hope or you're going to grab the handle, have you no pity and feeling sorry for yourself. And I guess over these nine years, I've kind of developed what I call my four truths, and I'll give those to you. They're just one sentence. I have him on a posted note sitting here on my desk. So I see him multiple times during the day. And these are things that they're just part of me, they're the things that I've come to know, over these last nine years. So the first one is, you need to control your mind or your mind is going to control you. And you know, this, you know, our brains are hard wired to avoid pain and discomfort, and to seek pleasure. So to the mind, you know, the status quo is good, you know, things are fine, don't mess with it. But the only way you're going to grow, the only way you're going to get better is if you step outside of those comfort zones. But that's scary. You know, it's scary to do that. What are people gonna say, you know, what, you know, are people gonna make fun of me? What if I fail, so what, who cares, you know, especially when you're young, get out there and fail fail often, because you'll learn things. So that's the first one, you need to control your mind. The second one we sort of talked about a little bit earlier about how we need to embrace the pain and the difficulty that we're all going to experience in life, and use that to make us a stronger and more determined individual. And again, I talked about, you know, instead of running from pain, instead of, you know, our brains getting away in and, you know, this is a therapist to, you know, people run to alcohol, they run to drugs, they run to bad behavior, whenever they get into pain. What if you didn't do that? What if you did just the opposite, and took that pain and flipped it inside and burned it as fuel, or use it as energy to make you a stronger person. And like I said, there's no s on my chest, I don't wear a cape. So you know, if I can do it, pretty much anybody can do it. Because I am the biggest baby in the world. I mean, when I was a little kid, and I knew my mom was taking me to the pediatrician for you know, a shot or a vaccine, I'd wait till she got out of the car. And then I lock all the doors from the inside, you know, and that was long before keyfobs was available. So she used to have to go in and get the pediatrician and his nurse, and it was kind of a cat and mouse game to get me out of the car. And then literally the pediatrician would carry me over his shoulder into his office. That's how afraid I was of getting a shot, you know, and now there are days when I'm on this clinical trial that I'll get stuck with a needle at 19, 20 times in one day. And it's like, you know, does that hurt? Yeah, it hurts, but take that hurt, and use it to make you stronger. So that's number two. Number three is more of a legacy truth. And it's this, what you leave behind is what you weave in the hearts of other people. And I think it's important for all of us to think about sort of the end game of our lives, you know, what are people going to say about you at your funeral? You know, would your ancestors be proud of the life that you live? You know, they set the table for you, you know, would they be proud of this table that you're going to set for the next generation. So that's number three. And then number four is pretty self explanatory. As long as you don't quit, you can never be defeated. And you know, my pain, your pain, everybody's pain is going to end someday. I mean, my man through surgery, it man through medication, quite frankly, it man when I die. But if I quit, if I give up, if I give in pain will always be a part of my life.
Kelsey Harris:
18:17
Every time that mindset comes up in an interview, I like my guests to share how they would respond to those of you who have been listening this whole time and still might be thinking, you know, enough with all this mindset stuff. Mindset won't fix me. So here's what Terry says,
Terry Tucker:
18:33
I've heard that not a lot, but I've had enough that it bugs me, not more people will come up to me and hear my story. And it'll be like, you know, Terry, I could never do what you you know what you did? And I kind of look at him sort of as a smart alec and say like, yeah, you're right. You couldn't because you already defeated yourself, you know, why would you start anything with the attitude of I can't do this, or I'm going to fail or it's not going to work out? Why would you you know, your brain can hold one thought at a time. Why would you make that a negative thought and it's so easy for us to go to that negative place. You know, I always think about you know, back in college, I knew guys who would go out and party, you know, the night before an exam or you know, big paper was Do you know, and then they come in hung over to the exam. And what do they say? What's the first thing is, man, I'm gonna blow this test. Yeah, absolutely. You're gonna blow you've already decided you're gonna blow? Why wouldn't you at least come into the test and give yourself the benefit of the doubt? Hey, I paid attention in class, most of the time that I was here, I'm going to do great on this test. Why not give yourself the benefit of the doubt that you're going to do? Well, why do we always go to oh, this you know, I can't do this or you know, I'm going to blow this. You know, this is something that I'm not going to be successful at. If that's your attitude going in. My advice would be don't don't even try don't even start it because you're just gonna flip frustrate yourself. So attitude is so important. I remember there was a basketball coach at the University of Indiana by the name of Bobby Knight was When I was growing up, and and he had a great quote, he said, mental is the physical as for is to one. And if you think about that, you know, I mean, here's a guy who's basically coaching the physical aspect, you know, basketball, you know, we're gonna do physical stuff, we're gonna run, jump on all that kind of stuff. But what he's saying is No, before the physical, the mental, the mental part is so much more important. So for all those people who saying I could never do, yeah, you're right, you could never do that the mental is so much more important than the physical, if you can overcome all the negative mental stuff, the physical stuff bill a lot easier.
Kelsey Harris:
20:37
Terry and I talk a little more about this. And that part of the interview is available to patrons of chronically living, follow the link in the show notes to sign up for your weekly content, and only $5 a month. You might recall earlier that Terry mentioned, he's an author, and he wrote a book, which I think we can have some takeaways from.
Terry Tucker:
20:58
So the book is called Sustainable Excellence, the 10 Principles to Living Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life. And it was really a book born out of two conversations I had one was with a former player that I had coached in high school, who'd moved to Colorado where my wife and I live. And we'd had dinner with her and her fiance a couple times. And I remember saying to her, you know, I'm really excited that you're living close, and I can watch you find and live your purpose. And she got real quiet for a while. And she kind of looked at me and she's like, well, Coach, what do you think my purpose is, I said, I have no idea what your purpose is. But that's what your life should be about finding the reason you were put on the face of this earth, and then living that reason. So that was one conversation. And then the the other conversation was with a young man in college, who reached out to me on LinkedIn, and wanted to know what I thought were the most important things for him to learn to not just be successful in his job or in business, but in life in general. And I didn't want to give them that, you know, get up early, work hard, help others kind of stuff. Not that those aren't important they are, they're very important, but I kind of feel they've been done. So I wanted to see if I could maybe go a little deeper. And so I thought about it for a while. And I wrote some notes. And eventually I had these, you know, these 10 ideas, these 10 thoughts, these 10 principles. And so I sent them to him. And then I kind of stepped back and I was like, Well, you know, I've got a life story that fits underneath this principle, or I know somebody whose life emulates this principle. And literally during the three month period between when I had my leg amputated, and when I started chemotherapy for the tumors in my lungs, I sat down at the computer every day. And I built stories and they're not made up stories, they're actual, you know, these, this is a real person. And this is how he or she, you know, accomplished this or overcame that. And so I just built stories underneath each of the principles. And that's how sustainable excellence came to be. It's always fun for me as an author, when somebody gets the book, and they they read it, because there's always one principle. And the principles are not in any particular order. You know, one is not any more important than number seven, or anything like that. But there's always one principle, that kind of everybody gravitates to, you know, number three was the one for me, or number five was the one, you know. And for me, the one that that I kind of gravitate to is and each principle is a chapter. And this chapter is basically most people think with their fears and their insecurities instead of using their minds. And I think that resonates with me, because I've done that I, you know, I probably done it more times than I care to admit that, you know, yeah, I want to do something. And I always tell when I speak to young people, you know, if there's something in your heart, something in your soul that you believe you're supposed to do, but it scares you, go ahead and do it. Because at the end of your life, the things that you're going to regret are not going to be the things you did, they're going to be the things you didn't do. And by that it's going to be too late to go back and do them. So thinking with your mind or thinking, you know, rationally, we usually make good decisions that way. You know, I, when I was a hostage negotiator, we, you know, we kind of looked at what we did is sort of riding on a teeter totter or a seesaw at the park. If you've got a barricaded person or a drunk person, or you know, whatever it is, and their emotional end is way up in the air, they're not going to make good decisions, you've got to get to a point where you let them burn off a lot of that emotional energy and kind of get that teeter totter to equilibrium hopefully. And if you're really good or really lucky, you can get the the rational side up in the air and the emotional side sort of down on the ground. And when you're making decisions with your rational brain, you're going to make much better decisions than if you're trying to make you know decision based on emotion. So that's one I talked there's a chapter in there that I talked about already about failing and failing often, especially when you're young. There's a chapter in there also about listening, that was another thing that I learned as a negotiator, you know, as a policeman 99% of what you do is face to face with another person, whether you stopped somebody for speeding, and you're issuing an MSA citation, or whether you're responding to a radio run at somebody's house for a fight, or whatever it is face to face, and you can take visual clues, in addition to everything else that's going on, you know, if you're talking to somebody, and they're kind of like, looking around, maybe they're looking to run, or, you know, if they're standing there, and they're balling up their fists, you know, maybe they want to fight you. And you can see that like, okay, I can, I can do so I can sit them down, I can handcuff them, I can put them in my car, whatever is appropriate for why I'm there, why we've contacted that person. But as negotiators, that person wasn't with us, they very well could have been blocks away, or we're negotiating through a locked door, you know, they've got a hostage or something like that. And so we had to figure out what was going on based on what people were saying, what they weren't saying, and how they were saying it. And there were several times where we'd spend hours kind of over here talking about something when the real problem was over here. And they needed to burn off all that emotional energy to talk about this before they could ever get to the point where they were ready to talk about that. So the what we did you know, people who said, you know, you talk the guy out of your talk the woman out, we didn't really talk them out, we kind of listened them out, you know, we would ask an open ended question and just let them go on. And you had to be real good. You had to be comfortable with silence, you know, how to be comfortable with when you asked a question and they, you know, started talking. And then there was that silence. And as human beings, we like to fill that silence. We don't like it. But we had to get good at just let it go. Just let it sit there. Because what'll happen is the personal start talking again. And that's what you want. And they don't want to hear you talk and they want to they need to talk they need to get that emotional energy out. So one of the chapters is about listening and the importance of listening to to understand as opposed to listening to respond. You know, it's like pray up Kelsey, say what you want to say, because I want to get my two cents in. Well, that doesn't do any good. But if it's like, hey, Kelsey, I Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I don't know if I agree with it or not, let's where you're coming from from that, that's listening to understand. And that is so important. Because as a society as a world, we're not doing much of that today. You know, we're just yelling and screaming at each other. And we're really not getting anything done. Because of that. I think if we spent more time trying to listen to understand where the other person's coming from, we might be in a better situation.
Kelsey Harris:
27:41
So what I love about Terry's book and his principles is there are applicable to many areas of life. So one example is what Terry just said about listening makes perfect sense to me because as a therapist, I mostly listen. Sometimes I reflect back or ask a question. Often I wait in silence until the client starts talking again. So it's a lot of listening. If you're interested in reading Terry's book, it's available on all major bookstores, and in both ebook and paperback. Before our lightning round questions, yes, ma'am. All right. So what are the top five songs that describe your life?
Terry Tucker:
28:17
I have my list. So I think the first one would be My Way. The old Frank Sinatra song. Kenny Loggins, This Is Tt. The Impossible Dream, which is from The Man of La Mancha an old movie and and play. We are Family by Sister Sledge. And then you got to have Faith. I would say those would be my five songs.
Kelsey Harris:
28:43
Nice. Yes, I definitely see a theme there. What's one thing you can't go a day without doing?
Terry Tucker:
28:50
praying. I probably spend an hour every day in prayer. It helps me and I've met a lot of people through my cancer journey that I spend time praying for them because I told them I would and you know, if I tell you, I'm gonna pray for you. I'm definitely gonna pray for you.
Kelsey Harris:
29:08
Wow, that's beautiful. What's one thing you plan on doing in your life that you haven't yet?
Terry Tucker:
29:14
That's a good question. I don't know I'm a little bit limited in my mobility these days. You know, when I wrote sustainable excellence, it's a book about success, how you can be successful. I'm kind of researching haven't started writing yet. I'd like to write another book about another word that starts with S. And that's significance. You know, success is what we do for ourselves. Significance is what we do for other people. I think you can be both I think you'd be successful and significant. But I think I'd like to try to write whether it happens or not a second book that would be more about you know, significance. So that's one thing and then there's a I don't know that many years ago, there was a movie that came out called Field of Dreams started Kevin Costner and that I'd like to go with my daughter, who's an adult now and recently got married, I'd like to go with her to that baseball field and play catch. So I know it doesn't sound like much, but I think it'd be kind of cool.
Kelsey Harris:
30:13
Yeah, that's awesome. Describe your perfect day.
Terry Tucker:
30:17
Any day, I don't have to go to the hospital or the doctor. I mean, in all honesty, I yeah, I was talking to a friend of mine, who's probably about 10 years older has been in a wheelchair for a number of years, not cancer related more spinal cord. reinet related, he said, You know, I would just like to have a period of time where I didn't have to go to a doctor. And I'm like, You know what, I know exactly how you feel. You know? It's just, it would just be nice not to have to think about that.
Kelsey Harris:
30:45
Yeah. Yeah, totally. That makes sense. How do you inspire others to make the most of their lives?
Terry Tucker:
30:51
A lot of it is through podcasts, I, I have this kind of three week window. So for a week, I go for therapy Monday through Friday, I go for infusion therapy at the hospital. And then I have two weeks off. And my wife and I kind of have this I'm going battle of, you know, you need to spend that two weeks resting and getting your blood counts back up and all that kind of stuff. Whereas I feel I like to be on podcasts. And I've been lucky to, to have been probably a couple 100 Now from all around the world. And I remember when my I mentioned my, my dad was sick, when I got out of college, he had end stage breast cancer. And back in the 1980s, they did not know what to deal with a man with breast cancer. So they tell him to pretty much go home and die. Well, he lived another three and a half years. And I believe he did because he had a purpose. You know, he was in real estate. And he worked up till two weeks before he died. And I I always kind of remember that sort of tucked away in the back of my mind. And as I go through this, it's like these two weeks. Yeah, I could sit around and you know, watch television and do all that kind of stuff. Or I could you know, go on podcast with nice people like you and have a conversation about my story, and hopefully make a difference in somebody's life. And you know, if we do that through our conversation tonight, today's been a good day. And so these I don't care how tired I am these podcasts energize me, they give me a purpose. So I guess that's the answer to your question.
Kelsey Harris:
32:17
Yeah, that's amazing. You've been an amazing guest. Where can we find you follow you? You already mentioned where we can buy your book, which is everywhere.
Terry Tucker:
32:25
Yeah, I have a blog called motivational check. Every day, I put up a thought for the day. And with that thought comes a question to just kind of get you to think maybe how that quote could apply to your life or how you could apply it to your life in some way. On Mondays I put up the Monday morning motivational message, which is usually a video or a story, it's a little bit longer. I realize people's time is at a premium. So everything on there is pretty quick get in get a quick hit of inspiration or motivation, and then move on. So motivational check.com will get you to me or get you to my social media sites. You can leave me a message if you want. So yeah, motivational check.com
Kelsey Harris:
33:03
perfect. And that will definitely be in the show notes. Terry, thank you so much for coming on. You've been absolutely amazing guests. This is, you know, beyond what I was even expecting. So thank you so much.
Terry Tucker:
33:14
Well, thank you for having me. I mean, again, I really mean that, you know, hopefully our conversation when this airs is going to make a difference in somebody's life. And if it does, today's been a good day.
Kelsey Harris:
33:30
Okay, so much of what Terry said really struck me and you guys should have seen my face during this interview because he was literally talking about things that I talked about that I've talked about in the show that I talk about with clients that are I talked about with myself even so, you know, here's a couple examples he mentioned embracing the suck, you know, embracing emotions, and I recently did an episode on acceptance of emotions and sensations. He mentioned not letting your thoughts control you, right, which we had an episode on creating distance between ourselves and our thoughts. He suggested doing something daily and really having that life purpose. So for more on that you can listen to the episode I did on values based living. There is another example this season and there have been so many of people who do these things and feel like they are living good lives despite the physical challenges that they have. So let's do our reflection. What did you notice about your thoughts and feelings during this episode? And what are you noticing now about that noticing? I wanted to do something a little different this episode and dedicated to a few people in my life who have died from cancer. So first, My Baba, my mom's mom who died in 1998. Just when I few days after I turned 13 She was one of my favorite people has ever lived. My Uncle Ken, my mom's brother died long before I was born back in the 1960s before there was really much treatment available. My neighbor Janet, who passed away from breast cancer in the summer of 2020. She was a really lovely person and a great neighbor. And then most recently, my ex wife, Jessica, who was an amazing person and someone I kept in contact with after our divorce until about a year before her death. I know we pretty much all have loved ones who have died from cancer or who are currently battling cancer. And so this episode is really for all of them. And I'm breaking tradition and next week there will be another interview episode making three in a row. But until then, keep making the most of it. Special thanks to marred.e for the original music and Charity Williams for the original artwork.
0:00
trigger warning for this episode, subject matter includes death and moments of wanting to die. hopefulness, finding your purpose, embracing the suck of your illness, doing what you can. If these are issues you struggle with, then you're in luck because they're also topics of this episode. I'm joined by cancer warrior Terry Tucker as he takes us through his journey on this week's episode of chronically living. I'm Kelsey Harris, chronic illness warrior and psychotherapist on chronically living and how to make the most of it. We're providing tangible ways to improve the well being of spoons. So get ready to make the most out of your life even with that pesky chronic illness.
Terry Tucker:
0:56
My name is Terry Tucker. I was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. I am the oldest of three boys. You cannot tell this from my voice, but I'm six foot eight inches tall. And I played college basketball in Charleston, South Carolina at the Citadel despite having three knee surgeries in high school. When I graduated from college, I moved home I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. And I was all set to make my mark on the world with my newly obtained business administration degree. And, you know, I look back now and realize kind of what a knucklehead I was to think I knew anything about business just because I had a degree. Fortunately, I was able to find that first job in the corporate headquarters of Wendy's International, the hamburger chain, in their marketing department. But unfortunately, I ended up living with my parents for the next three and a half years as I helped my mom care for my father and my grandmother who were both dying of different forms of cancer. In my professional career, as I said, I was a marketing executive with Wendy's. I was a hospital administrator, that I made a major change in my life and became a police officer and did undercover narcotic work and was a SWAT team hostage negotiator. I then I started my own school security consulting business. I was a girls high school basketball coach. I've been a motivational speaker. Last year I became an author. But for the last nine years or so I've kind of considered myself a cancer warrior. And then finally, my wife and I have been married for 20 years. We have one child, a daughter is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, and is an officer in the new branch in the military here in the US to SpaceForce.
Kelsey Harris:
2:34
Terry mentioned that he considers himself a cancer warrior and has so for the past nine years, he also has lost family members to cancer as many of us have. So here's Terry's cancer story.
Terry Tucker:
2:46
So when I was diagnosed, I was a high school basketball coach and I had a callus that broke open on the bottom of my foot right below my third toe. And being a coach, you're on your feet a lot. So I didn't think a lot of it initially. But after a couple of weeks when it didn't heal, I went to see a podiatrist, a foot doctor friend of mine, and he took an x ray and he's like tear, I think you have a cyst in there, and I can remove it. And he did. And he showed it to him. He was just a little gelatin sack with some white fat in it. No dark spots, no blood, nothing that gave you the one of us concern. But he sent it off to pathology to have it looked at. And then two weeks later, I get a call from him. And as I said he was a friend of mine. And the more difficulty he was having explaining what was going on, the more frightened I was becoming until it just kind of laid it out. He said Terry, I've been a doctor for 25 years, and I've never seen this form of cancer you have a rare form of melanoma that presents either on the bottom of the feet or the palms of the hands. And I recommend you go to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and be treated and so I did and I had the bottom of my foot exercise to remove the tumor and I lymph nodes in my groin removed as well. And then when I healed I was put on a weekly injection of a drug called interferon. And interferon for me was not a cure. It was just a as my oncologist used to say we're going to try to kick the can down the road and see how long we can keep this disease at bay. But the downside of interferon was it gave me severe flu like symptoms every week after each injection, and I took those weekly injections for almost five years. So imagine having the flu every week for five years. And that wasn't a cure that was just to keep the disease from coming back. 2017 the the drug became so toxic to my body that end up in the intensive care unit with a fever of 108 degrees which usually is not compatible with being alive but fortunately I was able to be saved and as soon as the drug was stopped the disease came back 2018 I have my left foot amputated because of the cancer 2019 and started to work its way up my leg into my shin and I had two more surgeries then and then last year and under diagnosed tumor in my ankle area grew large enough that it It fractured my tibia, my shin bone. And my only recourse right in the middle of the pandemic was to have my left leg amputated above the knee. And I also found out at that time that I have tumors in my lungs, which I'm being treated for now,
Kelsey Harris:
5:19
sometimes when I have clients share a story like that, for me in the therapy office, all I can say is that is a lot for someone to go through.
Terry Tucker:
5:27
Yeah, it's, you know, we say on and on that uplifting story, you know, I mean, I, you know, most people think of melanomas, you know, you're out in the sun, too much too much sun exposure and things like that. And that's the primary cause of melanoma, but then there's the rare form that I had. And there's an even rarer form that appears in our mucous membrane, so in your nose, or your mouth or something like that, but it's still melanoma. And, I mean, when I first was diagnosed, you know, I went through the gambit of emotions that I think anybody, you know, the, all those emotions that we associate with grief, you know, the, the depression, you know, I was mad, you know, I kind of bargain with God, I did all this stuff. And then I just realized, you know, what, these are the cards that I've been dealt, and I'm going to have to play them and I'm gonna have to play them to the best of my ability. And it was kind of then that I started this whole, you know, what, just embrace the suck, you know, this is gonna suck, but embrace it, and use it to make you a better person. As opposed to, you know, I always say that pain is inevitable in our lives. And I know I'm preaching to the choir when I'm talking to you about this, but you know, pain is inevitable. And it doesn't have to be, you know, health pain or cancer pain or chronic illness. I mean, you could flunk a test at school or break up with your boyfriend or your girlfriend or you know, not get the promotion at work that you think you deserve. Pain is inevitable. Suffering. On the other hand, that's optional. That's what you do with that pain? Do you use it to make you a stronger and more determined individual? Or do you wallow in it feel sorry for yourself and want people to feel sorry for you. It's a choice whether or not you want to which one of those you want to which handle I guess you want to grab on those and I just figured, you know what, I'm going to grab the handle up, I'm going to take pain and flip it inside and use it to make me stronger, or you know, burn it as fuel or using this energy just to make me a stronger individual.
Kelsey Harris:
7:24
Pain is inevitable suffering is optional. I know I've said this on the podcast and my blog before. It's actually a fairly famous quote that's been attributed to a few different people, including the Dalai Lama, Haruki Murakami, and M. Kathleen Casey. It's true, though. And as Shinzen Young says, pain times resistance equals suffering. Interestingly, Terry hadn't heard the quote before he came to this idea on his own. I think
Terry Tucker:
7:53
I pretty much came to an on my own. I was, you know, one of those things where, yes, I've been dealt a bad break there. Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain during World War Two, had a great saying he said, if you're going through hell keep going. And I love that because, yeah, you know, I think most people would look at my journey and say, yeah, you've kind of been through hell, but I'm still going, you know, I'm still moving forward. And I always kind of think back to the The Shawshank Redemption movie that came out back in the 90s, where they had the saying, you know, get busy living or get busy dying. I want to be busy living, I want to be continuing to move forward. And you know, you're looking at me right now, there's no s on my chest. I'm not wearing a cape. You know, I have bad days. I mean, there are days I cry, there are days I get down. There are days, I feel sorry for myself, I just choose not to stay in those positions, because they really don't get you anywhere. My grandmother used to always say that worry is kind of like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere. And you know, so I love that quote. And it's like, yeah, you know, you can feel sorry for yourself, or you can try to get up and you can try to move forward. And during those five years, I was on interferon. I'll be honest with you, there were days I prayed to die. It's just like, God, please take me out of this. I'm so sick of being sick. You know, and I just prayed to die. And sometimes, you know, I used to talk I like, Okay, I gotta win this day. Well, sometimes winning the day was just winning this five minutes, I just got to get out of bed, and I got to make it to the sofa. And if I can do that, it's been a good day, or you know, what, make them feel really good. And I can throw a load of laundry in the washing machine to kind of help my wife out and things like that. So, you know, we kind of I think a lot of times tend to, you know, especially with whatever we're dealing with in life, you know, I've got to do this. Well, if you break this down into, you know, bite sized chunks, it's kind of like, you know, I've got to get better at something. Well, instead of getting better at something What if you got 1% better every day? You know, at the end of 30 days you're 30% Better than And when you started and getting 1% Better is a whole lot more manageable than saying, I've got to get 100% better right now, a lot of ways that's kind of impossible.
Kelsey Harris:
10:15
Terry has learned a lot about life and what it means to be human from his battle with cancer. And I think when any of us really start to reflect on our illnesses, we have the opportunity to do the same. So let's hear what Terry has learned.
Terry Tucker:
10:27
I think that we can do so much more than we ever thought we could do. I recall a couple couple of quick stories. One was, I read a story about a professor in the 1950s at Johns Hopkins University out on the east coast of the United States, who did an experiment with rats. And it was a pretty simple experiment, he took rats and he put them in a tank of water there were over their head. And he wanted to see how long they could tread water before they would drown. And the average rat treaded water for about 15 minutes. And just as they were about ready to go under, he reached in grabbed them, pull them out, dry them off, let him rest for a while, and then he put him back in that same tank of water. And the second time around, those rats treaded water for 60 hours, think about that 15 minutes the first time, 60 hours the second time, which taught me two things, one, the importance of hope in our lives, we've got to have something we're aspiring to, or we're looking forward to, or life's got to get better. So we've got to have some open our life and to just how much more you know, the physical body that we have, can do. And I've got a friend here in the US who's a former Navy SEAL some of the toughest men, you know, in the military here in the US, and they kind of they talk about their 40% rule. And their 40% rule says that if you're, if you're at the end of your rope, you can't go on, you know, for them, you you can't run another step or swim another lap or do another push up, you're only at 40% of your maximum, and you still have 60% left to give to yourself. So whenever I get in those dark places, or those down places, I always remember those kind of two stories. And it's like, no, you have so much more to give to yourself, no matter how bad you're feeling, just get up and keep moving forward.
Kelsey Harris:
12:20
I imagine it can be difficult to remain hopeful when facing cancer that continues to spread throughout your body. And I know a lot of you listeners with other chronic illnesses such as autoimmune diseases often have difficulty with hopefulness. I asked Terry how he manages to remain hopeful.
Terry Tucker:
12:35
I mean, when I found out that I you know, was gonna have my leg amputated and I had these tumors in my lungs, I went to the mortuary I went to the cemetery, I went to the church, and I plan my funeral. And, and I kind of got some brush back from people from that, you know, it's like, you know, don't you think that's kind of defeatist, you know, and I kind of looked at him like, well, you know, a little secret last time I checked, everybody's gonna die. You know, I mean, and, you know, nobody's working on a cure for life right now. So yeah, I kind of looked at it, like everybody dies, but not everybody really lives. And there's a Native American Blackfoot proverb here that her years ago that I just love, and it goes like this, when you were born, you cried, and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way so that when you die, the world cries, and you rejoice. And I think the the operative words, there are live your life, you know, you've got to live a life so that, you know, people are going to cry when you're gone. But your life yeah, all right, you know, we're moving on to something that's bigger and better and things like that. And that's what I want, you know, and I think you do that. And, and depth is not, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not hastening it. I don't want it to come anytime in the near future. But when it does, it doesn't scare me that much. And it does it because I think I found my purposes in life. And I live those purposes. And having done that, it's okay, it's okay to move on. It's okay to die. I don't know why we're all you know, really excited. I can't talk about I've got a neighbor who, whenever we talk about my cancer, or you know that I went to the cemetery and something nope, nope, can't talk. Nope. Let's talk about something else can't deal with it. So it's like, well, you know, what's gonna happen you eventually you're gonna have to deal with it. So, see what happens.
Kelsey Harris:
14:24
Everybody dies, but not everybody lives. Let's just sit with that for a moment. Terry takes on a certain attitude and mindset towards life, which is really apparent already. Why is this helpful and beneficial to his life and his overall health?
Terry Tucker:
14:40
You know, again, it's kind of like you know, which handle you're going to grab, are you going to grab the you know, the handle of hope or you're going to grab the handle, have you no pity and feeling sorry for yourself. And I guess over these nine years, I've kind of developed what I call my four truths, and I'll give those to you. They're just one sentence. I have him on a posted note sitting here on my desk. So I see him multiple times during the day. And these are things that they're just part of me, they're the things that I've come to know, over these last nine years. So the first one is, you need to control your mind or your mind is going to control you. And you know, this, you know, our brains are hard wired to avoid pain and discomfort, and to seek pleasure. So to the mind, you know, the status quo is good, you know, things are fine, don't mess with it. But the only way you're going to grow, the only way you're going to get better is if you step outside of those comfort zones. But that's scary. You know, it's scary to do that. What are people gonna say, you know, what, you know, are people gonna make fun of me? What if I fail, so what, who cares, you know, especially when you're young, get out there and fail fail often, because you'll learn things. So that's the first one, you need to control your mind. The second one we sort of talked about a little bit earlier about how we need to embrace the pain and the difficulty that we're all going to experience in life, and use that to make us a stronger and more determined individual. And again, I talked about, you know, instead of running from pain, instead of, you know, our brains getting away in and, you know, this is a therapist to, you know, people run to alcohol, they run to drugs, they run to bad behavior, whenever they get into pain. What if you didn't do that? What if you did just the opposite, and took that pain and flipped it inside and burned it as fuel, or use it as energy to make you a stronger person. And like I said, there's no s on my chest, I don't wear a cape. So you know, if I can do it, pretty much anybody can do it. Because I am the biggest baby in the world. I mean, when I was a little kid, and I knew my mom was taking me to the pediatrician for you know, a shot or a vaccine, I'd wait till she got out of the car. And then I lock all the doors from the inside, you know, and that was long before keyfobs was available. So she used to have to go in and get the pediatrician and his nurse, and it was kind of a cat and mouse game to get me out of the car. And then literally the pediatrician would carry me over his shoulder into his office. That's how afraid I was of getting a shot, you know, and now there are days when I'm on this clinical trial that I'll get stuck with a needle at 19, 20 times in one day. And it's like, you know, does that hurt? Yeah, it hurts, but take that hurt, and use it to make you stronger. So that's number two. Number three is more of a legacy truth. And it's this, what you leave behind is what you weave in the hearts of other people. And I think it's important for all of us to think about sort of the end game of our lives, you know, what are people going to say about you at your funeral? You know, would your ancestors be proud of the life that you live? You know, they set the table for you, you know, would they be proud of this table that you're going to set for the next generation. So that's number three. And then number four is pretty self explanatory. As long as you don't quit, you can never be defeated. And you know, my pain, your pain, everybody's pain is going to end someday. I mean, my man through surgery, it man through medication, quite frankly, it man when I die. But if I quit, if I give up, if I give in pain will always be a part of my life.
Kelsey Harris:
18:17
Every time that mindset comes up in an interview, I like my guests to share how they would respond to those of you who have been listening this whole time and still might be thinking, you know, enough with all this mindset stuff. Mindset won't fix me. So here's what Terry says,
Terry Tucker:
18:33
I've heard that not a lot, but I've had enough that it bugs me, not more people will come up to me and hear my story. And it'll be like, you know, Terry, I could never do what you you know what you did? And I kind of look at him sort of as a smart alec and say like, yeah, you're right. You couldn't because you already defeated yourself, you know, why would you start anything with the attitude of I can't do this, or I'm going to fail or it's not going to work out? Why would you you know, your brain can hold one thought at a time. Why would you make that a negative thought and it's so easy for us to go to that negative place. You know, I always think about you know, back in college, I knew guys who would go out and party, you know, the night before an exam or you know, big paper was Do you know, and then they come in hung over to the exam. And what do they say? What's the first thing is, man, I'm gonna blow this test. Yeah, absolutely. You're gonna blow you've already decided you're gonna blow? Why wouldn't you at least come into the test and give yourself the benefit of the doubt? Hey, I paid attention in class, most of the time that I was here, I'm going to do great on this test. Why not give yourself the benefit of the doubt that you're going to do? Well, why do we always go to oh, this you know, I can't do this or you know, I'm going to blow this. You know, this is something that I'm not going to be successful at. If that's your attitude going in. My advice would be don't don't even try don't even start it because you're just gonna flip frustrate yourself. So attitude is so important. I remember there was a basketball coach at the University of Indiana by the name of Bobby Knight was When I was growing up, and and he had a great quote, he said, mental is the physical as for is to one. And if you think about that, you know, I mean, here's a guy who's basically coaching the physical aspect, you know, basketball, you know, we're gonna do physical stuff, we're gonna run, jump on all that kind of stuff. But what he's saying is No, before the physical, the mental, the mental part is so much more important. So for all those people who saying I could never do, yeah, you're right, you could never do that the mental is so much more important than the physical, if you can overcome all the negative mental stuff, the physical stuff bill a lot easier.
Kelsey Harris:
20:37
Terry and I talk a little more about this. And that part of the interview is available to patrons of chronically living, follow the link in the show notes to sign up for your weekly content, and only $5 a month. You might recall earlier that Terry mentioned, he's an author, and he wrote a book, which I think we can have some takeaways from.
Terry Tucker:
20:58
So the book is called Sustainable Excellence, the 10 Principles to Living Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life. And it was really a book born out of two conversations I had one was with a former player that I had coached in high school, who'd moved to Colorado where my wife and I live. And we'd had dinner with her and her fiance a couple times. And I remember saying to her, you know, I'm really excited that you're living close, and I can watch you find and live your purpose. And she got real quiet for a while. And she kind of looked at me and she's like, well, Coach, what do you think my purpose is, I said, I have no idea what your purpose is. But that's what your life should be about finding the reason you were put on the face of this earth, and then living that reason. So that was one conversation. And then the the other conversation was with a young man in college, who reached out to me on LinkedIn, and wanted to know what I thought were the most important things for him to learn to not just be successful in his job or in business, but in life in general. And I didn't want to give them that, you know, get up early, work hard, help others kind of stuff. Not that those aren't important they are, they're very important, but I kind of feel they've been done. So I wanted to see if I could maybe go a little deeper. And so I thought about it for a while. And I wrote some notes. And eventually I had these, you know, these 10 ideas, these 10 thoughts, these 10 principles. And so I sent them to him. And then I kind of stepped back and I was like, Well, you know, I've got a life story that fits underneath this principle, or I know somebody whose life emulates this principle. And literally during the three month period between when I had my leg amputated, and when I started chemotherapy for the tumors in my lungs, I sat down at the computer every day. And I built stories and they're not made up stories, they're actual, you know, these, this is a real person. And this is how he or she, you know, accomplished this or overcame that. And so I just built stories underneath each of the principles. And that's how sustainable excellence came to be. It's always fun for me as an author, when somebody gets the book, and they they read it, because there's always one principle. And the principles are not in any particular order. You know, one is not any more important than number seven, or anything like that. But there's always one principle, that kind of everybody gravitates to, you know, number three was the one for me, or number five was the one, you know. And for me, the one that that I kind of gravitate to is and each principle is a chapter. And this chapter is basically most people think with their fears and their insecurities instead of using their minds. And I think that resonates with me, because I've done that I, you know, I probably done it more times than I care to admit that, you know, yeah, I want to do something. And I always tell when I speak to young people, you know, if there's something in your heart, something in your soul that you believe you're supposed to do, but it scares you, go ahead and do it. Because at the end of your life, the things that you're going to regret are not going to be the things you did, they're going to be the things you didn't do. And by that it's going to be too late to go back and do them. So thinking with your mind or thinking, you know, rationally, we usually make good decisions that way. You know, I, when I was a hostage negotiator, we, you know, we kind of looked at what we did is sort of riding on a teeter totter or a seesaw at the park. If you've got a barricaded person or a drunk person, or you know, whatever it is, and their emotional end is way up in the air, they're not going to make good decisions, you've got to get to a point where you let them burn off a lot of that emotional energy and kind of get that teeter totter to equilibrium hopefully. And if you're really good or really lucky, you can get the the rational side up in the air and the emotional side sort of down on the ground. And when you're making decisions with your rational brain, you're going to make much better decisions than if you're trying to make you know decision based on emotion. So that's one I talked there's a chapter in there that I talked about already about failing and failing often, especially when you're young. There's a chapter in there also about listening, that was another thing that I learned as a negotiator, you know, as a policeman 99% of what you do is face to face with another person, whether you stopped somebody for speeding, and you're issuing an MSA citation, or whether you're responding to a radio run at somebody's house for a fight, or whatever it is face to face, and you can take visual clues, in addition to everything else that's going on, you know, if you're talking to somebody, and they're kind of like, looking around, maybe they're looking to run, or, you know, if they're standing there, and they're balling up their fists, you know, maybe they want to fight you. And you can see that like, okay, I can, I can do so I can sit them down, I can handcuff them, I can put them in my car, whatever is appropriate for why I'm there, why we've contacted that person. But as negotiators, that person wasn't with us, they very well could have been blocks away, or we're negotiating through a locked door, you know, they've got a hostage or something like that. And so we had to figure out what was going on based on what people were saying, what they weren't saying, and how they were saying it. And there were several times where we'd spend hours kind of over here talking about something when the real problem was over here. And they needed to burn off all that emotional energy to talk about this before they could ever get to the point where they were ready to talk about that. So the what we did you know, people who said, you know, you talk the guy out of your talk the woman out, we didn't really talk them out, we kind of listened them out, you know, we would ask an open ended question and just let them go on. And you had to be real good. You had to be comfortable with silence, you know, how to be comfortable with when you asked a question and they, you know, started talking. And then there was that silence. And as human beings, we like to fill that silence. We don't like it. But we had to get good at just let it go. Just let it sit there. Because what'll happen is the personal start talking again. And that's what you want. And they don't want to hear you talk and they want to they need to talk they need to get that emotional energy out. So one of the chapters is about listening and the importance of listening to to understand as opposed to listening to respond. You know, it's like pray up Kelsey, say what you want to say, because I want to get my two cents in. Well, that doesn't do any good. But if it's like, hey, Kelsey, I Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I don't know if I agree with it or not, let's where you're coming from from that, that's listening to understand. And that is so important. Because as a society as a world, we're not doing much of that today. You know, we're just yelling and screaming at each other. And we're really not getting anything done. Because of that. I think if we spent more time trying to listen to understand where the other person's coming from, we might be in a better situation.
Kelsey Harris:
27:41
So what I love about Terry's book and his principles is there are applicable to many areas of life. So one example is what Terry just said about listening makes perfect sense to me because as a therapist, I mostly listen. Sometimes I reflect back or ask a question. Often I wait in silence until the client starts talking again. So it's a lot of listening. If you're interested in reading Terry's book, it's available on all major bookstores, and in both ebook and paperback. Before our lightning round questions, yes, ma'am. All right. So what are the top five songs that describe your life?
Terry Tucker:
28:17
I have my list. So I think the first one would be My Way. The old Frank Sinatra song. Kenny Loggins, This Is Tt. The Impossible Dream, which is from The Man of La Mancha an old movie and and play. We are Family by Sister Sledge. And then you got to have Faith. I would say those would be my five songs.
Kelsey Harris:
28:43
Nice. Yes, I definitely see a theme there. What's one thing you can't go a day without doing?
Terry Tucker:
28:50
praying. I probably spend an hour every day in prayer. It helps me and I've met a lot of people through my cancer journey that I spend time praying for them because I told them I would and you know, if I tell you, I'm gonna pray for you. I'm definitely gonna pray for you.
Kelsey Harris:
29:08
Wow, that's beautiful. What's one thing you plan on doing in your life that you haven't yet?
Terry Tucker:
29:14
That's a good question. I don't know I'm a little bit limited in my mobility these days. You know, when I wrote sustainable excellence, it's a book about success, how you can be successful. I'm kind of researching haven't started writing yet. I'd like to write another book about another word that starts with S. And that's significance. You know, success is what we do for ourselves. Significance is what we do for other people. I think you can be both I think you'd be successful and significant. But I think I'd like to try to write whether it happens or not a second book that would be more about you know, significance. So that's one thing and then there's a I don't know that many years ago, there was a movie that came out called Field of Dreams started Kevin Costner and that I'd like to go with my daughter, who's an adult now and recently got married, I'd like to go with her to that baseball field and play catch. So I know it doesn't sound like much, but I think it'd be kind of cool.
Kelsey Harris:
30:13
Yeah, that's awesome. Describe your perfect day.
Terry Tucker:
30:17
Any day, I don't have to go to the hospital or the doctor. I mean, in all honesty, I yeah, I was talking to a friend of mine, who's probably about 10 years older has been in a wheelchair for a number of years, not cancer related more spinal cord. reinet related, he said, You know, I would just like to have a period of time where I didn't have to go to a doctor. And I'm like, You know what, I know exactly how you feel. You know? It's just, it would just be nice not to have to think about that.
Kelsey Harris:
30:45
Yeah. Yeah, totally. That makes sense. How do you inspire others to make the most of their lives?
Terry Tucker:
30:51
A lot of it is through podcasts, I, I have this kind of three week window. So for a week, I go for therapy Monday through Friday, I go for infusion therapy at the hospital. And then I have two weeks off. And my wife and I kind of have this I'm going battle of, you know, you need to spend that two weeks resting and getting your blood counts back up and all that kind of stuff. Whereas I feel I like to be on podcasts. And I've been lucky to, to have been probably a couple 100 Now from all around the world. And I remember when my I mentioned my, my dad was sick, when I got out of college, he had end stage breast cancer. And back in the 1980s, they did not know what to deal with a man with breast cancer. So they tell him to pretty much go home and die. Well, he lived another three and a half years. And I believe he did because he had a purpose. You know, he was in real estate. And he worked up till two weeks before he died. And I I always kind of remember that sort of tucked away in the back of my mind. And as I go through this, it's like these two weeks. Yeah, I could sit around and you know, watch television and do all that kind of stuff. Or I could you know, go on podcast with nice people like you and have a conversation about my story, and hopefully make a difference in somebody's life. And you know, if we do that through our conversation tonight, today's been a good day. And so these I don't care how tired I am these podcasts energize me, they give me a purpose. So I guess that's the answer to your question.
Kelsey Harris:
32:17
Yeah, that's amazing. You've been an amazing guest. Where can we find you follow you? You already mentioned where we can buy your book, which is everywhere.
Terry Tucker:
32:25
Yeah, I have a blog called motivational check. Every day, I put up a thought for the day. And with that thought comes a question to just kind of get you to think maybe how that quote could apply to your life or how you could apply it to your life in some way. On Mondays I put up the Monday morning motivational message, which is usually a video or a story, it's a little bit longer. I realize people's time is at a premium. So everything on there is pretty quick get in get a quick hit of inspiration or motivation, and then move on. So motivational check.com will get you to me or get you to my social media sites. You can leave me a message if you want. So yeah, motivational check.com
Kelsey Harris:
33:03
perfect. And that will definitely be in the show notes. Terry, thank you so much for coming on. You've been absolutely amazing guests. This is, you know, beyond what I was even expecting. So thank you so much.
Terry Tucker:
33:14
Well, thank you for having me. I mean, again, I really mean that, you know, hopefully our conversation when this airs is going to make a difference in somebody's life. And if it does, today's been a good day.
Kelsey Harris:
33:30
Okay, so much of what Terry said really struck me and you guys should have seen my face during this interview because he was literally talking about things that I talked about that I've talked about in the show that I talk about with clients that are I talked about with myself even so, you know, here's a couple examples he mentioned embracing the suck, you know, embracing emotions, and I recently did an episode on acceptance of emotions and sensations. He mentioned not letting your thoughts control you, right, which we had an episode on creating distance between ourselves and our thoughts. He suggested doing something daily and really having that life purpose. So for more on that you can listen to the episode I did on values based living. There is another example this season and there have been so many of people who do these things and feel like they are living good lives despite the physical challenges that they have. So let's do our reflection. What did you notice about your thoughts and feelings during this episode? And what are you noticing now about that noticing? I wanted to do something a little different this episode and dedicated to a few people in my life who have died from cancer. So first, My Baba, my mom's mom who died in 1998. Just when I few days after I turned 13 She was one of my favorite people has ever lived. My Uncle Ken, my mom's brother died long before I was born back in the 1960s before there was really much treatment available. My neighbor Janet, who passed away from breast cancer in the summer of 2020. She was a really lovely person and a great neighbor. And then most recently, my ex wife, Jessica, who was an amazing person and someone I kept in contact with after our divorce until about a year before her death. I know we pretty much all have loved ones who have died from cancer or who are currently battling cancer. And so this episode is really for all of them. And I'm breaking tradition and next week there will be another interview episode making three in a row. But until then, keep making the most of it. Special thanks to marred.e for the original music and Charity Williams for the original artwork.
