Life Lessons From Cancer; Principles to Live More Purposefully: 18

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Today I have a guest that I'm really excited to share with you. We've actually been planning this for a couple months and we're finally recording today. It is Mr. Terry Tucker. So welcome, Terry. And if you could just tell the folks a little bit about your backgrounds though, before we go into what we're actually going to talk about, they have some idea of where you're coming from, basically.

Sure. Thanks for having me on, Cheryl. I'm really looking forward to talking with you. I'll try to give you the Reader's Digest version of my background. You can't tell this from my voice or from looking at me, but I'm 6 foot 8 inches tall and played college basketball at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, after growing up in Chicago. I'm actually the oldest of 3 boys. I have a brother who's 6 foot 7 who was a pitcher for the University of Notre Dame baseball team. I have another brother who's 6 foot 6 who was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers. In the National Basketball Association. And then my dad was 6'5". So I kind of joke that if you sat behind our family growing up in church, there wasn't a prayer's chance you were going to see anything that was going on whatsoever. But, you know, our 5'8" mother was really the boss. You know, it didn't matter how big, tall, strong we were. Whatever mom says, that's the way it went. After I graduated from college and moved home to find a job, I'm really going to date myself now, but this was long before the internet was available., and I was all set to make my mark on the world with my newly obtained business administration degree. And 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 found that first job in the corporate headquarters of Wendy's International, the hamburger chain. Unfortunately, I ended up living with my parents for the next 3.5 years as I helped my mom care for my father and my grandmother, who were both dying of different forms of cancer. In terms of my professional career, as I mentioned, started out at Wendy's, then became a hospital administrator, and then did a major pivot in my life and became a police officer. And I worked undercover narcotics. I was a SWAT team hostage negotiator. I had my own school security consulting business, was a girls' high school basketball coach, became a motivational speaker, last year became an author. But for the last, I guess, 10 years now, I've been battling this rare form of cancer. And then finally, my wife and I have been married for 28 years. We have one child, a daughter who's a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and is an officer in the new branch of the military, the Space Force.

Wow, that is some exciting things there. And even if you had never done anything else, what a diverse and interesting background. And that's actually one of the reasons that I was very excited to talk to you because we, really have a surprising amount in common. Um, first of all, I live in Cincinnati. I think you already knew that. So, you know my area a bit and you know Ohio. Um, secondly, another thing I'm very passionate about is really focusing on, uh, nutrition and practices to try to, um, activate autophagy for disease prevention, cuz there is a lot of cancer in my family. And you just mentioned not only yourself, but your, um, parents, uh, had some cancer as well. And, uh, but but you've still been able to accomplish all of these wonderful things. And I think that that's kind of what you put into your book, your background, you know, as a college athlete, as a SWAT team member, you're dealing with some very diverse situations there and adverse situations. So, can you start to describe a little bit? I mean, obviously, the things that you learned are amazing and I'm so glad that people can, you know, pick up this book and you've distilled it down into Believe, I think, 10 points for one of the books and then also like kind of 4 truths that you've learned. So, maybe you can just go into some of the background on how you came to all of that.

Yeah. So, it is, you know, if you look at my resume, it's sort of all over the place. And I kind of joke that, you know, one of these days, I got to figure out what I'm going to do when I grow up. But I always wanted to be in law enforcement. And if you look at my first 2 jobs, they're not. They're in business. And that's because My grandfather, my dad's dad, was a Chicago police officer from 1924 to 1954. So was in Chicago during Prohibition when alcohol was outlawed, during the Great Depression in the '20s and '30s, and when the gangs, Al Capone and all those folks were shooting up the town. And he was actually shot in the line of duty with his own gun. It was not a serious injury, he was shot in the ankle. But my dad always remembered the stories my grandmother told of Mrs. Tucker, the knock on the door, "Mrs. Tucker, grab your son, come with us. Your husband's been shot." So, when I expressed interest in sort of following my dreams, my dad was like, "Oh, no, no, no, no. You're going to go to college. You're going to major in business. You're going to get out. You're going to get a great job, get married, have 2.4 kids, and live happily ever after." But that's what my dad wanted me to do. And so, I had a choice. As I mentioned, when I graduated from college, he was sick. He was dying of cancer. So, I I could blaze my own trail and say, "Sorry, Dad, I'm going to do this," or I could, out of love and respect for you, do what you wanted me to do. And that's what I did. I started my first two jobs in business. And, you know, I sort of joke I did what every good son did, waited till my dad passed away, and then I followed my own dreams. And that's really, you know, everything I've learned has kind of been a culmination of these different things that have occurred in my life. You know, the milestones, whatever you want to call them, we all have them. In our life. And I've just been lucky enough to kind of sort of tuck them away. I mean, one of the things I learned was my dad was diagnosed with end-stage breast cancer. And pretty much in the 1980s, they didn't know how to treat a man with breast cancer. So, they pretty much sent him home to die. But he lived another 3.5 years. And I believe he did because he had a purpose. He went to work up to 2 weeks before he died, and his passion was real estate. And so, I kind of tucked that away. I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting." I don't think if he would have been somebody that would just laid in bed and kind of let the disease progress, he would have lived that long. No, he was able to get up and say, "Okay, I still have value in life. I still have a purpose, a why, whatever you want to call it." and he would go to work every day. And I think that helped him live. And so, you know, I think we all have to have that, whether we're sick and dying or whether, you know, we're at some stage in our life, we have to find our why. We have to find our reason for being here. We're not all born with the same gifts and talents, but we all have the ability to become the best person that we're capable of becoming.

And you talked about finding your why, which is something I like to talk about a lot as well. Can you and then talk a little bit about— and this comes from a personal experience of my own because I had a cancer scare myself. It wasn't cancer, thankfully, but with all the incidents in my family, it would not have been surprising. So I was kind of prepared for the worst, but it did definitely create a big mind shift in me at the time. So can you talk a little bit about when you were first diagnosed and some of the— I mean, obviously there's a lot of feelings and things behind that, but how did that affect your why? And then how did you move forward from there?

Yeah, that's a great question. When I was diagnosed, I was a girls' high school basketball coach in Texas, and I had a callus break open on the bottom of my foot, right below my third toe, and I didn't think much of it initially. I was a coach, I was on my feet a lot, but after a couple weeks of it not healing, I went to see a podiatrist, a foot doctor friend of mine, and he took an X-ray and he said, "Terry, I think you have a cyst in there and I can cut it out." And he did, and he showed it to me. It's just a little gelatin sack with some white fat in it, but he sent it off to pathology anyway. And then, 2 weeks later, I get this call from him. And as I said, he was a friend. And the more difficulty he was having telling me what was going on, the more frightened I was becoming until finally, he just laid it out for me. He said, "Terry, I've been a doctor for 25 years. I have never come across this form of cancer." 'You have a rare form of melanoma that appears on the bottom of the feet or the palms of the hands, and I recommend you go to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to be treated.' And, you know, I was just like everybody else in, you know, going about my life. You know, I had a family, I was coaching basketball, I had a consulting business, and yet I get hit right between the eyes with this, 'Wait a minute, your life is gonna do a complete 180, and you're going in an entirely different direction. But I went through all the emotions that we talk about when we think about grief. I was in denial. I'm like, "No, I've done everything right in my life. How can I possibly have cancer?" Now, I was mad. I bargained with God. I did all these things. And then I just got to a point where it was like, "These are the cards that I've been dealt. I don't like these cards, but I have to play them, and I have to play them to the best of my ability." And so, that's what I did. And I've been asked several times, "Who do you blame because you got cancer?" I mean, we're great as a society for not taking our responsibility for our own success and happiness. We got to blame somebody, our boss, our status in life, our parents, whoever it is. Who do you blame? I'm like, "I don't blame anybody." And people have said, "Well, you must blame God." And I'm like, No, I don't think God got up on a Tuesday morning, checked his to-do list, and said, "Terry Tucker, cancer." I don't think that happened at all. And so, I stopped worrying about why and started focusing on, "Well, with whatever time I've got left, what can I do to make a difference in the world? What can I do to put goodness, to put happiness, to put peace, put love back into the world?" And as I said, my purpose at one time, I felt was to be a police officer. And I pursued that purpose. But now I just think my purpose, like I said, with whatever time I have left on this earth, is to put as much goodness, as much positivity back into this world. So I think our purposes can change as we go through life. And I guess the other thing I wanna say about that is, you know, a lot of times we think of our purpose as being our job. You know, our job has to be our purpose or our why. It doesn't. You know, you can have a job over here that you do to pay the bills, but your purpose is to write or to be an activist or to paint or whatever you feel in your heart that your purpose is supposed to be. So, don't feel that, well, you know, if your job isn't your purpose, it doesn't necessarily have to be that.

Yeah, I think that's such a great reminder to people because I think people often get caught up in that. And not to offend any of my younger listeners out there, but I think that that is a thing that you really hold in your mind when you're a younger person and you're first starting to make your way in life that your job has to be the thing that makes a difference. And, you know, as you get a little older and wiser and have some scares like we have, then you become to realize, well, you know, maybe just putting your energy out in the world on a daily basis that is totally something separate from your job is another way that you can affect positivity and create healing and, you know, spread a larger message than just what you do to make money every day. So, thanks for bringing that point to greater light. And I would assume that as part of that journey for you, one of the ways to reach more people and to share your message is, number one, coming on some shows or speaking on stage. You said you're a motivational speaker, but then you also have the book part. So, how did you start to decide to write? Did you ever do that before? And then, what was the progression until you you know, distilled these teachings down into one single cohesive book? How did that all happen?

Yeah, I've always, you know, I've sort of excelled, I guess, if I ever did excel as a student, my mother would probably tell you that I didn't. But, you know, I, math, science, love science, not very good at math, but I enjoy reading and writing. And so, I've always kind of been drawn to that. And I've never really written a book before. And so, I really, you know, the book was born out of two conversations I had. One was with a former basketball player that I had coached, and she had moved to the area where my wife and I live now with her fiancé. And we had had dinner with her one night, and I remember looking at her and saying, "Hey, 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 with me for a while, and then she kind of looked at me and she was 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, I had a young man reach out to me on social media and ask me what I thought were the most important things he should learn to not just be successful in his job or in business, but to be successful in life. And I didn't want to give him the, you know, get up early, work hard, help others. Not that those aren't important, they are, they're very important. But I wanted to see if I could go deeper with him. So, I thought about it for a while and I wrote notes. And eventually, I had these 10 thoughts, these 10 ideas, these 10 principles. And so, I sent them to him. And then, I kind of stepped back and I was like, "Well, I've got a life story that fits underneath this principle, or I know somebody whose life emulates that principle." So, literally, I had my leg amputated in April of 2020. And I started chemotherapy for the tumors in my lungs in June of 2020. And during that approximately 3-month period where I was healing, I sat down at the computer every day and built stories underneath each of the principles. And that's how Sustainable Excellence came to be.

I love that. And I want to, without not giving too much of it away, 'cause obviously people should go read the book if they want the details of these thoughts, But can you maybe hit on just maybe 2 or 3 of not what you think are the most important, but just kind of whatever comes to your heart first and share just a little bit of the story or the maybe life incident that led to that revelation?

Yeah, it's always fun for me as an author. You know, I've never birthed a child and I'm probably glad I didn't do that. But, you know, this is as close as I've ever come to having something that I've created. And it's fun for me when people read the book and there's always one principle. And again, the principles are not in any particular order. Number 1 isn't any more important than number 5 or anything like that. But there's always one principle that resonates with the reader. And so, for me, that principle, and even as the author, one resonates with me and it's this, it's that most people think with their fears and their insecurities instead of using their minds. And I know I've done it. I've probably done it hundreds of times in my life where I wanted to do something, but I was like, "Ooh, you know, I'm a little scared about that. What if I fail? Or what are people gonna say about me, you know, if I'm not successful with this?" So, that's always one that really kind of, I think, is important, at least to me. And I'll give you another one. It's about failing. And nobody starts out to fail. Nobody goes into anything to say, "Hey, I know I'm going to mess this up." But I thought back to college when I knew guys that the night before a big test would go out and party and then they would come into the test. And what do you always hear? And I know this is not unique to me, but people would always be like, "Oh, I'm Man, I'm really tired, I'm really depressed, I'm really down, I'm really drunk, whatever it was, I'm going to blow this test. I'm not going to do good. Why would you say that to yourself? Why wouldn't you at least give yourself the benefit of the doubt and be like, I paid attention during class and I know this stuff pretty well, I'm going to do great on this. But we always seem to go to the negative. And one of the chapters is about failing and failing often. Especially when you're young. And, you know, I mean, you know this, our brains are hardwired to avoid pain and discomfort and to seek pleasure. So to the brain, the status quo is good. The way things are right now, they're fine. Leave it alone. Don't mess with it. The problem with that is the only way we're gonna grow, the only way we're gonna get better is to step outside that comfort zone. And I always recommend to people, and I try to do this every day of my life, just do one thing every day that makes you uncomfortable, that makes you nervous, that's potentially embarrassing for you. It doesn't have to be, you know, the other day I hate going to the dentist, but the other day I picked up the phone, I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna make an appointment. It's time for my 6-month appointment to go to the dentist. And for me, that was uncomfortable. Like I said, they don't have to be huge things, but if you do those things every day, you do that one thing every day that makes you a little nervous, makes you a little uncomfortable, that scares you a little bit, when the big things in life happen, and they happen to all of us, we lose somebody that's close to us, we lose our job, we're living out of our car, whatever that ends up being, you'll be much more resilient and be able to handle those big things when they come down the pike if you do one thing every day that makes you a little bit uncomfortable. And so, I recommend that to people. And then, I guess, I think the last chapter is about love. And, you know, I know I've had a lot of, you know, macho kind of jobs in my life and been an athlete and stuff like that. You know, guys don't talk about love, but love is— I remember when I was a little kid, I was very much an admirer of a man by the name of John Wooden, who was a basketball coach at UCLA back in the '70s and '80s, a huge, hugely successful coach. And I remember listening to an interview with him one day And I was all set. It was kind of on the edge of my seat. I had notes. I was taking notes. And the reporter asked him what he thought the most important thing in any occupation, any job in life was. And I'm ready for some Xs and Os that I'm going to be able to use on the basketball court. And he simply said, "Love. Love is the most important word in any language. Love is the most important thing that we can do in any language, in anything." that we do. And as I said, we're not all born with the same gifts and talents, but we can all be the best person that we're capable of becoming. And it all comes down— I've always believed this— we're all here for a reason, and that reason is to serve. Whether you believe in God, to serve your God, whether you believe, you know, to help other people, to make their lives better. So take that love, use it in service with whatever gifts you have, and I think you're going to have a really great life.

I think those, if nobody even heard the other 8 tips that you give in the book or 8 tenets, I think those are 2 really, really important ones. And certainly, over the years, I have a lot of background with psychology and with yoga and with Buddhism and those kinds of things are well woven into that. And just things like, for me, for example, putting out this podcast or putting out the education and videos and things that I do on social media. There is nothing scarier in my head than doing that. And yet, for me, what makes it worthwhile is when I do occasionally get feedback from somebody that say, "Hey, that really helped me." And it was, even if it's just one person, then I feel that I have done kind of my purpose on earth. And so, thank you for sharing those lessons because I do think that they are very scary for people and sometimes hard to put into practice. But the more that you do it, the more potential rewards that you get out of that and the more people that you potentially help. So those are really excellent. Just to shift gears a little bit, since this podcast is primarily kind of about health practices and nutrition and things like that, I am sure over the years in, you know, dealing with your— both your dad's, you know, cancer and learning about this on your own, are there maybe some practices or things that you have added into your life that have, if not affected necessarily the disease process, but have affected maybe the way that you approach it mentally and the way that you feel on a day-to-day basis? Just, you know, anything that you maybe added over time?

Yeah, my brothers and I always talk about, you know, if we knew, you know, now what we— or back when we were, you know, we were athletes and things like that, what we know now, how much better our training would have been, how much better our nutrition would have been and things like that. And, it's like, "Gosh, I wish I would have." But, I mean, you are where you are. And, I remember when one of the diagnostic tools that used to be used on me before I developed the tumors in my lungs was what was called a PET scan. And basically, what a PET scan was is they inject radioactive sugar into your body with the thought that tumor cells have a higher metabolism than the rest of your cells, and they'll pick it up at a higher rate and then they glow kind of on the machine. Well, I'm not the brightest bear in the woods, but I kind of figured, well, if sugar is being picked up by cancer cells, maybe I shouldn't eat a lot of sugar. And I know everything we have that we consume pretty much has sugar in it, and I get that. But I really do try to stay away from the things that I don't eat desserts, or that's not true, I eat sugar-free Jell-O. But I try to stay away from the breads, the carbs, the things that have sugar in them, and eat more. I have a morning smoothie that has all kinds of organic fruits and vegetables and things like that in it, and it makes me feel better. I don't know if it's doing anything from a disease point of view, but I figure at least I can I can do what I know to make me as healthy as I can be to go through these very difficult treatments and things like that. So, yeah, I mean, I used to exercise like crazy. Since I've lost my leg, it's a little bit more difficult. But, you know, if you walk out of my office, or for me, I'm in a wheelchair, so when I roll out of my office, I pass by the steps And I challenge myself every time I leave my office or I go into my office to do 10 push-ups. Now, they're kind of modified push-ups on the steps because I only have one leg, but just do 10 and then move on. And little things like that. I have a friend that is a former Navy SEAL who used to work with my wife, or actually does work with my wife now, but was former military. And he used to set a timer at his desk that Periodically, okay, when the timer goes out, "All right, we're going to do 10 squats," or, you know, "We're going to do 10 push-ups," whatever it is. And it's just that small, making those small differences, you know, and we tend to want to, you know, it's the old joke, "How do you eat elephant? One bite at a time." You know, you have to break things down into manageable parts. And, you know, and again, this is something else I talk about is that, you know, We want to get better. We want to lose weight. Oh, okay. Well, what if you, instead of saying, "I got to lose 40 pounds," what if you just lost 1% every day? Or what if you just got 1% better every day at whatever it is? At the end of a month, you're 30% better than when you started. So instead of trying to eat the elephant all at once, break it down to something that's manageable that you can digest, for lack of a better word, and you can handle, and that way you'll get to your goal, but you're not gonna obsess about it and drive yourself crazy.

That's such a wonderful piece of practical advice too, 'cause as you know, from like what I said about the podcast, I mean, obviously, a lot of people that listen to this are trying to learn new health practices or working on losing weight or working on being healthier, particularly this time of the year. We're recording in January of 2022. And so it's a month where people tend to be very focused on goals, and I think That's such amazing advice, just breaking it down into small steps, working on being 1% better every day. Wonderful advice for people. Before we move along into anything else, I just want to put this in here so that I absolutely don't forget. I usually don't, but just in case, where can people find more about you, more about your work, any website, social media that you're active on, and where they can buy the book?

So, the easiest way to get in touch with me or to get to my social media sites is that I have a blog called Motivational Check. And every day I put up a thought for the day along with a question that kind of makes you think about it a little bit, maybe how you can apply it to your life. On Mondays, I put up the Monday morning motivational message, which is usually a video or a story that may be a little bit longer, but I understand people's time is at a premium. So I always say, you know, if you need a quick hit of inspiration or motivation, go to motivationalcheck.com. You can leave me a message there. You can get access to my social media sites. You can get access to my book, which pretty much is available anywhere you can get a book online. So, it's available through Amazon, barnesandnoble.com, Apple iBooks, anywhere you can get a book online, you can get Sustainable Excellence.

Fantastic. And I didn't— I don't know why I didn't know this, but I didn't know about the website. So, that's going to be added to my new little morning list here, some good sites to go to and get some good motivation to start the day. Anything that we haven't covered yet so far that you think is important for people to take away from this interview? Any other words of inspiration or advice or just life hacks, whatever other wonderful knowledge and insight you have for us, I'd love for you to share that and some final thoughts.

Sure. So, I'll leave you with, I guess, this final story. I've always been a big fan of Westerns growing up. My mom and dad used to let me stay up and watch Wild Wild West and Gunsmoke and Bonanza and things like that. 1993, the movie Tombstone came out. Yeah, very popular movie. Starred Val Kilmer as a man by the name of John Doc Holliday and Kurt Russell as a man by the name of Wyatt Earp. Now, Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp were two living, breathing human beings who walked on the face of the earth. They're not just made-up characters for the movie. And Doc was called Doc because he was a dentist by trade, but pretty much Doc Holliday was a gunslinger and a card shark. And Wyatt had been a lawman his entire life. And these two men from entirely opposite backgrounds formed this very close friendship. And at the end of the movie, there's a scene where Doc is dying at a hospital in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, which is about 3 hours from my house. The real Doc Holliday died in that hospital, and he's buried in the Glenwood Springs Cemetery. And Wyatt, at this point in his life, is destitute. He has no money. Has no job, he has no prospects for a job. So every day he comes to play cards with Doc, and the two men pass the time that way. And in this scene, they're talking about what they want out of life, and Doc says, you know, I was in love with my cousin when I was younger, but she joined a convent over the affair, but she's all that I ever wanted. And he looks at Wyatt and he says, how about you, Wyatt? What do you want? Wyatt kind of nonchalantly says, I just want to lead a normal life. And Doc looks at him and says, there's no normal. There's just life, and get on with living yours. Cheryl, you and I both know people that are kind of sitting out there that are kind of holding back. It's like, "Well, when this happens, I'll have a normal life. When that happens, I'll have a successful life. When this happens, I'll have a significant life." I guess what I'm saying is don't wait. Don't wait for life to come to you. Get out there, find the reason you were put on the face of this earth, and live that reason. Because if you do, I'm gonna promise you two things at the end of your life. One, you're going to be a whole lot happier. And two, you're going to have a whole lot more peace in your heart.

I love it, Terry, and I appreciate you so much. And I appreciate the work that you're doing because I think that your message could not be better timing in this world that we're living in these days, especially because you never know what's going to be around the next corner. So, thank you again for joining us. And I look forward to reading more and seeing more of your work.

Thank you, Cheryl. Thanks for having me on.