April 20, 2024 • 57 mins
In this episode of the Chasing Thoughts podcast Mindy and Keith talk with Terry Tucker who is an author and a speaker. Terry talked about his life and going from a college basketball player into business world and then his career as a police officer. But today, Terry is living his best life after being diagnosed with a rare form of melanoma and given 2 years to live, which, incidentally, was 12 years ago.
This conversation is an inspiring look at a man who decided that cancer may take his life, but it won’t touch his mind, heart, or soul. Terry shares his secrets for strengthening our character when that character is challenged by the circumstances we can find ourselves in throughout life. We always have a choice, Terry reminds us, even when life brings something our way that would not be our choice, we can choose how we will respond to that situation. Terry has found his purpose in living his life outwardly, giving of himself to others, and he explains how that is returned to him in the energy he receives from living his purpose. We hope you enjoy.
Chapters
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:05 Terry’s story
00:03:48 The big “C”
00:06:21 Going through the stages of grief
00:08:28 Purpose
00:11:22 Imagine Heaven
00:15:05 Living his purpose
00:22:41 Our physical identity
00:33:14 Terry’s values
00:40:36 When your character is challenged
00:43:04 Difficult things strengthens our resolve
00:46:24 Fail often—especially when you’re young
00:54:58 Cancer can take my body, but it can’t touch my mind, my heart, or my soul
To find out more about Terry Tucker:
Website—motivationalcheck.com
Instagram—https://www.instagram.com/sustainableexcellenceauthor/
LinkedIn—https://www.linkedin.com/in/terry-tucker-9b5605179/
X—https://twitter.com/terrytucker2012
If you would like to check out Terry’s book:
https://www.amazon.com/Sustainable-Excellence-Principles-Uncommon-Extraordinary/dp/1951129512
If you are interested in the book about near death experiences:
If you would like to know more about Mindy or Keith you can find them here:
Mindy Aisling (@mindyaisling)
Keith Dauch (@mastercheeseee)
More on Chasing Thoughts:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Chasing Thoughts podcast.
(00:03):
Listen in as Mindy, Keith and their guests
take a deep dive into their own minds and souls
to investigate the beauty of imperfection,
challenge their beliefs
and embrace the richness of living a truly authentic life.
Welcome to Chasing Thoughts.
(00:24):
Hello everybody, it is Friday, April 5th.
Can you believe that already? April.
This is season two, episode 15 of the Chasing Thoughts podcast
with Keith and Mindy.
And today we have Terry Tucker with us.
Welcome Terry.
Thank you very much for having me on.
Terry, I'm so excited to hear from you today
(00:46):
because some elements of your profile when I read it
really hit on some things that are currently coming up in my life.
So I can't wait for this conversation.
But first, why don't you just sort of tell the audience and tell us,
what's your story?
Like how did you get to be the human that you are right now?
So I grew up on the south side of Chicago.
(01:08):
I'm the oldest of three boys.
You can't tell this from looking at me or from my voice,
but I'm six foot eight inches tall
and actually went to college at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina
on a basketball scholarship.
When I graduated from college, I moved home to find a job.
I'm really going to date myself now,
but this was long before the internet was available
(01:29):
to help people find employment.
Fortunately, I found that first job in the corporate headquarters
of Wendy's International, the hamburger chain in their marketing department.
That was the good news.
The bad news was I lived with my parents for the next three and a half years
as I helped my mother care for my father and my grandmother,
who were both dying of different forms of cancer.
(01:50):
Professional, as I said, started out at Wendy's and then I went to work
from the hospital that cared for my father and my grandmother.
Then I made the major pivot in my life and became a police officer.
And part of what I did during my law enforcement career was I was a SWAT hostage negotiator.
After that, I started a school security consulting business,
(02:12):
coach girls high school basketball when we lived in Texas.
But for the last 12 years now, I've been battling a rare form of cancer,
a rare form of melanoma.
And then just finally, my wife and I have been married for 31 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.
(02:36):
Really?
Cool.
Yes.
That's the first time I've ever heard anybody being a part of the space force.
That is so cool.
It is.
We're very proud of her.
Yeah.
Mainly I'm just familiar with that from the Netflix show with Steve Corral.
Yeah.
I'm thinking of trying to play that down a little bit. Yes.
(03:04):
So if you don't mind, I currently have several people in my life who have cancer.
And so I'm walking that path as an observer and a supporter.
And I just like to dive into that a little bit.
I think that a lot of people experience illness.
(03:28):
And that is a very challenging journey.
And it sounds like you were a supporter to it as a young man and then experienced that journey firsthand yourself.
So can you just talk a little bit more about your relationship with cancer?
(03:49):
Yeah, the big C is our family calls it has been part of our lives.
You know, three of my four grandparents died of cancer.
And I think from their perspective, it was, it was lifestyle. I mean, they smoked and you know, they didn't exercise and all the things that we know now that potentially could cause cancer.
They didn't really understand back when they were, you know, in the 20s and 30s and things like that.
(04:14):
But my dad was 51 years old when he developed end stage breast cancer back in the 1980s.
Back then they really didn't know how to treat a man with breast cancer. So they told him to go home and die.
And he lived another three and a half years. And I believe he did because he had a purpose he had something to do in his life.
(04:36):
He was in real estate. He loved real estate. He actually worked up till two weeks before he died.
And I sort of took that lesson and tucked it in the back of my mind and said, Well, when it's my turn in the barrel, I need to have that purpose. I need to have something to do.
So it was an incredibly difficult time. I mean, literally my grandmother was in one bedroom and then right next door to her, my father and the other bedroom both died over a three and a half year process.
(05:04):
Really nothing you could do other than offer comfort care, be there for them. And I had some great talks with my dad as he was laying in bed, dying and I'm very grateful for that.
But it's not something I would choose for anybody. So 2012 fast forward, I get this rare form of melanoma.
(05:25):
And most people think of melanoma as too much exposure to the sun affects them, the melon, the pigment in our skin. Mine has nothing to do with that.
It's a rare form that appears on the bottom of the feet, or the palms of the hands might appeared on my foot. And in 2012 when I was diagnosed, they said, Well, more than likely you'll be dead in two years because we have absolutely nothing to offer you.
(05:49):
And I thought, Well, you just gave me a death sentence. Maybe I can take that death sentence and try to turn it into a life sentence. And 12 years later, that's what I've been able to do.
Wow, that's incredible.
Did it take a little while was there a period of grief or denial before you were able to do that? Or was it pretty easy to transform into that?
(06:13):
No, no, it was. You're looking at me now. There's no S on my chest. I do not have a cape and fly around with magical powers. I mean, I think I went through all the stages that we would associate with grief.
I mean, when my dad died, it was, I was already athletic, I already ate right, but it was like, I'm gonna do everything I possibly can to improve my health, see my doctor every year and those kind of things. So when I got cancer, it was like, total denial.
(06:43):
I can't possibly have cancer. And then you move into that anger stage. I can't possibly have cancer. I've done everything right in my life. And our daughter was in high school when I was diagnosed like my dad, I was diagnosed when I was 51 years old.
And I was there was sort of a bargaining with God. It was like, look, just let me live long enough to see her graduate from high school. And then I absolutely got down. I got depressed felt sorry for myself.
(07:13):
And it just got to a point where it was like, this sucks, but I'm going to have to embrace the suck, for lack of a better term, I did not like the cards that I've been dealt, but I knew I was going to have to play those cards to the best of my ability.
There are a lot of ups and downs, peaks and valleys through it all. But it was, it's been absolutely a challenge, but almost a challenge like you are not going to beat me. You may kill me, but you are not going to beat me. And that's, that's kind of the way I've been looking at it for the last 12 years now.
(07:46):
Yeah, that's beautifully said.
Really.
I'm talking about purpose, both with your dad and with you. And I think this is a fascinating subject because I agree with you that purpose is necessary for a fulfilling life.
(08:07):
But for a lot of folks, especially folks who might be down and out or sick, it feels like just another thing to do, like, oh, now I got to find my purpose, great things, right. And, oh, if I don't have it that means I'm a loser, right and then people associate purpose with job, which is another confusion, right.
And so, I think it'd be interesting to dive into like purpose a little bit when you use that word. What does that mean.
(08:34):
Yeah, I use that word and I think incorrectly in the singular, like there is one thing in our lives that we are supposed to do. And, and I can't speak for everybody else but at least for me.
I think that word is plural purposes, I've had purposes in my life. When I was young, I was an athlete I drank and slept basketball it was all I wanted to do. It was what I really felt my purpose was.
(09:01):
And then as I got into adulthood, I wanted to follow in my grandfather's footsteps my grandfather was a Chicago police officer from 1924 to 1954.
And he was actually shot in the line of duty with his own gun was not a serious injury. He was shot in the ankle. But when I expressed an interest in following in his footsteps, my dad who was an infant at the time when my grandfather was shot was like absolutely not.
(09:27):
You're going to get out, get a great job, get married, have 2.4 kids and live happily ever after.
But that's the life my father wanted me to live that wasn't the life I felt I was supposed to live. So, I had a choice when I graduated I could have said, Hey, Dad, I know you're dying, but I'm going to go blaze my own trail and do my own thing, or out of love and respect for you.
(09:51):
I will do what you want me to do. So my first two jobs were in business because that's what my dad wanted me to do. And then I started joke I did whatever he good son did I waited till my father passed away and then I followed my own dreams.
And that's one of the things that I am most proud of in my life is that I never let my dream dot. I never let what I felt as an adult was my purpose to do.
(10:16):
And now, in all honesty is I'm probably coming to the end of my life. I think my purpose has switched again to put as much goodness positivity motivation love back into the world with whatever time I have left so I guess that's a long winded answer I think we have purposes in life.
And I wouldn't get real excited if you haven't found yours yet. You know I always think back, you know having worked at Wendy's, I always think of the Colonel Sanders story started Kentucky Fried Chicken.
(10:47):
I don't know if that was his purpose in life, but he didn't start Kentucky Fried Chicken until after he retired and was in his 60s. So, it's never too late.
I love that so true. It isn't too late. And sometimes purpose like you said, my purpose I feel is very similar to you to yours like I just feel a calling to love.
(11:08):
And that means my husband, my kid, it means my grocery store clerk, it means my clients right. And so, as far as I can tell so far, that's my purpose, and it's that simple and that robust at the same time.
It really is and so I still have tumors in my lungs and I'm still being treated for those tumors. And one of the nurses who takes care of me at the infusion center, gave me a book she's a former hospice nurse before she went into to infusion therapy, and the
(11:39):
book is called Imagine Heaven. And it's about people who have near death experiences.
And the interesting thing, one of the interesting things I took out of that book was that no matter who the person saw when they had their near but near near death experience, whether it was, you know, Jesus or a saint or an angel or a friend or a relative.
(12:00):
The one question that everybody seemed to get asked was, how do you treat my people. In other words, just like you said, many.
Many people treat each other. You know, and it's that it's that relationship that we have, you know, I've been asked on podcast, how do you want to be remembered. It's like, well, one, I really don't. I mean, nobody's going to remember that I was even here 100 years from now.
(12:23):
But what I want to do is connect is to have that connection with people and when I get that it energizes me, it gives me, you know, when I'm feeling down when I'm when I'm not feeling good because of my treatments.
It gives me that purpose and that purpose gives me that energy.
Yeah, yeah.
(12:44):
There's this beautiful story I love about how if you plant white roses next to red roses over years the white roses will start to take on a pink you like there's a merging of essence right.
And I think that's what I hear you saying is that it's not really about being remembered as you in your form or things that you did. It's about merging and connecting with other people so that your essence continues in your daughter and your grandkids and the people you love and know.
(13:17):
And I just think that such a beautiful vision.
It is and, you know, again, it's that's looking at life through. It's not all about us, you know, and I've seen so many people that think they're born empty.
And that when they get out of school and they get into life, whatever that looks like for them, that then their job is to fill up their empty self, you know, they've got to get that great job and make a lot of money, drive the nicest car and live in the nicest house and have the greatest kids and all that stuff.
(13:49):
And what I found is, it's just the opposite. We're not born empty. We're born full. We're born with everything we need to be successful in life. However you define that for yourself, we just need to find what's in there, pull it out and use it for our benefit.
So our job should not really be to fill ourselves up. Our job should be to empty ourselves out with our unique gifts and talents, certainly for the betterment of our self and our family, but also the better for the betterment of our friends our community, our country, etc.
(14:28):
And I could not agree more I always think about Michelangelo and that quote about when he carved David out of marble and he's and somebody said how did you do it and he said I just removed everything that wasn't David.
Right, it's like, I'm just doing the work to remove everything that isn't pure Mindy here. Right. And that's my job. And it's such a beautiful way to think about life right that it's already all there.
(14:53):
Exactly.
So, share with us a little bit about how you are currently like embodying your purpose I know you're a coach you're a speaker. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing in the world.
Yeah, so, you know, like so many other people and companies I started a speaking business, just as Kobe did. And so I had to figure out a different way to deliver my message because nobody was doing anything either virtually or in person.
(15:21):
And somebody reached out to me and said, Hey, would you like to be a guest on my podcast. And I said, Sure, what's a podcast. I had absolutely no idea what a podcast was and he explained it to me. And I said, Hey, sounds intriguing.
I think I'll give it a try. And I remember I had posted notes all around the camera with things that I wanted to say and he would ask me a question, and I would lean in and I would read the post it note.
(15:47):
I was terrified. I was horrible. I provided no value at all to the audience of that individual. But I kind of enjoyed it. And I thought back in my life, you know the first time I drove a car was any good at no.
First time, you know, I cooked a meal. I think I burned the water when I was boiling it you know the first time I studied algebra, I was not good at it. And so it was how do you, how do I get better at it.
(16:13):
And I remember I was talking to my publisher and I said, You know, Scott, I listen to every podcast I've ever been on, because I want to be want to be better. I want to be a better guest I want to have better stories. How many times do I say um or hard do those filler words and he said, No, not Terry since it's not about being good.
It's just about not sucking. And I said, Well, thanks for the title of my next book, you know, just don't know that's not true. It won't be that. But I mean it was, it was really, no, it's, I want to be good at this.
(16:45):
And this really does you know I mentioned I'm in cancer treatment still, I spent an entire week at the hospital, and then I get two weeks off. And then I do another week at the hospital so during those two weeks now.
I find my purpose is to be a guest on podcasts to write my blog to write another book that I'm working on and things like that. And those things give me, they give me energy, they give me purpose in life.
(17:14):
Yeah, yeah, once it's beautiful.
I was thinking I've been in and out of therapy, learning things for, I don't know, 20 something years now, and the things that you were saying I have never heard before.
(17:35):
I mean, even after becoming a coach and sitting down with a therapist. I remember a time where she was, she was reading from a workbook that she had I'm like, I know exactly what you're going to say because I just read this book and I am completely shocked and amazed that I have
never heard anything of what you're saying before that that we're born full, you know, and we're not, our job is not to fill ourselves up but to empty ourselves.
(18:07):
I think that it is so powerful, it is genius, especially coming from somebody in your position where if I have a cold.
I don't get that. I don't get that. I don't get that. Like begging God is just end it just end it you know, like and you're in this position.
(18:30):
You're just an amazing man. Like I am blown away.
I'm even emotional. This is incredible.
I don't feel, I feel like I'm just a man.
I'm a flawed individual.
I make mistakes.
I don't want anybody to think that I don't have bad days
(18:51):
because I absolutely do.
Like I said, I go to these treatments,
they just beat me up physically, mentally, emotionally.
And I cry, I get down, I feel sorry for myself.
I just don't let myself stay there.
And I think staying there or not staying there.
And I'm not talking about people that are, you know,
they need medication to function and things like that.
(19:12):
Not talking about those people, but it's a choice.
It's a choice to say, yeah, I feel like crap today
and I'm going to take it out on that nurse who's caring for me
or that therapist who's trying to help me.
And I did, I literally made a conscious decision
when I was diagnosed that I would never take out my misfortune
on somebody that was trying to help me,
(19:34):
that someone who was trying.
And I've seen that.
I've seen it so many times where people,
I actually had a conversation with the receptionist
in the lab where I get my blood drawn.
And every morning, every Monday morning
when I go for treatment,
I'm there at six o'clock in the morning,
we do the blood work.
And she made a comment to me.
She said, you know, you see me every morning
(19:55):
and you ask me, how was your weekend?
How's your family doing?
How's your side business going and stuff like that?
She's like, nobody ever talks to me like that.
I said, well, why do you think they don't?
She said, I don't know,
but everybody who comes up to this desk is mad and pissed off
and takes it out on me.
And I talked to her about the difference
(20:16):
between perspective, I mess that up.
Perception, perception is how you see the world.
And it's based on your background, your education,
your how you were brought up, your experiences, everything.
But if you can turn life into perception,
like how is that other person feeling right now?
(20:40):
And that's what I tried to talk to her about.
It's like, you have a such a unique opportunity
to be kind and positive and caring to these people
that are scared and feel hopeless
and maybe getting a blood test or a scan result
that is gonna be like, sorry,
there's nothing more we can do for you.
It's your time or you know what,
(21:01):
now you're gonna have to start chemo
that's gonna make you lose your hair
and have diarrhea and throw up and all that kind of stuff.
These people are scared
and you have a unique opportunity
to put some goodness into their life.
And you could tell she'd never thought of it that way.
It was always, these people are being mean to me.
Well, turn that around.
(21:22):
How can you be nice, kind, caring to them?
Yes.
Yeah, and I think that's true even in day to day life.
When I am able to take that mindset,
all of a sudden the world seems like my playground
and I'm not worried about what people think of me or, right?
(21:47):
Because I'm so filled up with what I wanna give away
and I can't hold that space all the time
but I certainly am working on it more.
Because it's such a better experience of life.
It is and you know, I mean, I look back at my life.
I was a college athlete, I was in law enforcement.
(22:08):
I've done a lot of physical things in my life
and now I don't have a left leg and I'm in a wheelchair.
So when you can't do what you were good at,
you do what's important.
And I think many of what you're talking about
is that's what you're doing.
What's really important in life.
All the rest of this stuff is superfluous
(22:29):
and really in the scheme of things doesn't matter
but how you interact, how you have relationships,
how you connect with other people,
that's really what's important in life.
I'd like to talk about the physical identity a little bit.
I was a Mountaineer for a long time,
(22:51):
did a lot of outdoor stuff.
Then I was in a car accident.
I left me in a hospital bed for three months
and changed my life forever, right?
And nobody at the hospital warned me
about the shift in my identity
when I could no longer identify as a person who did X, Y, Z
(23:13):
with my physical body.
And I remember coming out of that experience and thinking
like, I need to find a way to write a grant to have
like coaches or therapists visit some patients and hospitals
because anytime you undergo a major surgery
or a major like physical reconstruction of your body,
there is a huge identity shift and it's challenging.
(23:36):
And what I found in myself is that there were years
where my thought process was like,
well, when I get back to being who I was, right?
That that's really who I was
and this damaged version of me wasn't the real me.
And it took years of integration and work to realize,
(23:58):
no, this is who I am.
That other person doesn't exist anymore.
And I guess that's part of the acceptance piece,
but I mean, you've been through a journey
that's even more that way.
And did you struggle with the identity with your body,
especially after being such a huge sports guy
and a physical guy?
(24:19):
Can you speak to that a little bit?
Yeah, I mean, my body is filled with scars.
I mean, I have scars all over the place.
I spent five years on a drug called interferon
where I took a weekly injection.
So my abdomen and my kind of love handle area
is nothing but scar tissue
because every week I was injecting for five years into that.
(24:42):
But you get to a point or at least I did where it was like,
yeah, and I don't mean,
I'm trying to find a different way to say this,
but I mean, if you saw me naked,
you would be like, oh my God, that's ugly,
but I've earned those scars.
I've paid the price for those scars.
(25:02):
So what you may say is ugly,
I'm like, hey, I earned those.
I'm pretty proud of them because I'm still here
and I'm still going, moving forward.
And I remember when I was a police officer,
there were people that I worked with
who'd been on the job for 30, 35, 40 years
(25:24):
and couldn't retire because their entire identity
was tied up in that gun, that badge,
and the authority that they had.
And they felt that without that, that they were nobody.
And you're like, you gave your life
to protecting and serving other people.
How could you possibly not think that your life
(25:46):
after that would have value?
And so many of them didn't and they couldn't retire
and they should have retired.
They should have retired a long time ago,
but their whole identity was tied up in what they do
and what they did.
And I just never been that kind of person.
I always felt that I had enough education,
(26:07):
I had enough background, I had enough experience.
I'll go try something else.
I would not be any good at it.
I mean, most of the time I wasn't,
especially when I started,
I had to learn new skills, get more educated
and things like that, but it really,
I'm not saying I don't value myself, I certainly do,
(26:27):
but at the same time, my identity isn't tied up
in anything that's going on,
at least in this physical space right now.
Yeah.
Yeah, Keith, I was just,
yeah, I'm sure that veterans struggle
with a similar sort of thing.
What's your experience with that,
both with yourself and with other veterans you coach?
Yeah, they actually, in a lot of the research
(26:49):
that comes out with joining the military,
they identify it as an identity shift.
And I'll even go farther saying,
it's a cultural shift when you're joining the active duty.
And I think it's the same thing,
being a police officer, any type of first responder,
it's a different world.
I remember being in school and messing around
(27:12):
with another veteran and his girlfriend got really mad at me
because we were saying horrific stuff to each other.
And she was like, why are you guys so mean?
And I'm like, no, this is how we express respect
for each other and things like that.
So when you leave the military,
there is no training on shifting your identity again.
(27:33):
So you hold on to that military identity
in the civilian world and you're stuck in this place
where you're between cultures,
you're between identities and it's a very weird place to be in.
So that is such a major thing.
(27:55):
And I think the question I had was,
I've gotten to a point where me and Mindy
were just talking about this before you came on.
I've gotten to a point where I have a lot of the new beliefs,
the new identities that I've been able to create here,
but I don't have it here yet.
It hasn't been integrated into my being of who I am.
(28:20):
One of the things you said when you said your identity
is not a part, it's not about what you do.
It's not this physical plane.
It is so much bigger than just that.
How do you integrate that into your life?
Because that was one again, and I know I'm rambling,
but one of the things, all the therapy at the VA
(28:41):
I always said, talked about this stuff,
but it's like, well, how do you do that?
How do you make that a part of who you are?
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question, Keith.
And I don't know if I'm gonna have a good answer for you,
to be honest.
I think back on, what were my values
(29:02):
and where did I learn those values?
I learned them from my parents.
I mean, I mentioned I have two brothers
and we're all athletes.
I mean, we're, I have a brother
who pitched for the university, know her name.
I know the brother was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers,
the National Basketball Association,
and my dad was six, five.
So I mean, it's like six, eight, six, seven,
six, six and six, five.
(29:23):
So we used to joke that if you sat behind our family
in church growing up, not a prayer's chance
you were gonna see anything that was going on in front,
but it was my parents that taught us the value of family,
of loving each other, of caring for each other,
of supporting each other.
And I think you get that in the military.
You get that as a first responder.
(29:44):
I mean, you could have a, you know,
knock down, drag out, yelling, screaming,
fight with somebody at roll call,
and an hour later they're on the radio screaming,
they need help, you're going lights and sirens
to make sure that person's okay.
It's the culture, as I think you would probably agree
in the military.
There's a certain culture that maybe is not replicated
(30:05):
in the civilian world.
And so I guess you have to determine what your values are
and what you're willing to, I guess, give up
or not do anymore that you've learned in the military.
I mean, I am very, you know, I have the short hair.
I, you know, if you're on time, you're late, you know,
I mean, all the things you learned in the military,
(30:26):
I still do those things.
And I find that, yeah, there's some people that are like,
you know, I'm chill, man, I don't care.
You know, I remember when we lived in California,
we had somebody, my wife and I had somebody come out
to the house to look at some landscaping
and he was supposed to be there on like Tuesday at 10 o'clock
and he showed up on Thursday at three o'clock.
(30:46):
And I was like, you're two days late.
He's like, oh man, the surfing was just too good.
I had to, and I'm like, so well, you go back and surf
because you're not going to be part of this quote on this job.
And I think that's just respect, respect for yourself,
respect for other people.
And also using, not using for the sake of using,
(31:09):
but using the resources that are available to you,
you know, other people, people that will mentor you,
people that'll be like, hey, Terry,
you're on the wrong track here.
You know, you're being a knucklehead, don't do that.
Or you know what, yeah, you're on the right track.
It's kind of that old thing about, you know,
you end up being the product of the five people
that you hang around with the most.
And if those are good, caring, you know, happy, dedicated
(31:34):
people, you'll be that kind of person versus if you hang around
people that are always negative and it's always drama
and it's always about them, you're probably turned
into that kind of person as well.
So I don't know if that's an answer for you, Keith.
That's, you know, kind of like, I'm just sort of spitballing
here and seeing what we got.
So, no, I actually love it because that's what I found
(31:56):
in my own research and all this is, you know,
our beliefs are the way that we see the world is based off
the values that we have.
And like you had said, a lot of those are given to us
as we're growing.
And I think one of the things, even for like when you were
talking about the officers that you knew that should have
retired, but their identity was wrapped up in that,
(32:17):
one of the things that we have to do is sort of investigate
our values, see, you know, was that given to me?
If it was, does it align with me?
And if it doesn't, what values do I want to have?
And I've seen just in the short time that we've been talking,
(32:38):
even when you were talking about becoming a police officer,
you wanted to do that, your father didn't want you to.
And you said, because of the love and respect you had
for him, you know, you started working in the business world,
you got your business degree and all that.
And that again, just blows my mind, you know,
because one of the things that I think is different
in the civilian world from military police first responders
(33:00):
is the individualism versus the community, you know,
where in the civilian world, it's more individualistic
and in those environments, it's more community and stuff.
So if you don't mind me asking,
because this is, I think is a very personal question,
but what are your values?
Cause your values seem to push everything outwards
(33:22):
instead of meet towards yourself.
Yeah, I mean, character, courage and humility,
you can go on my website and see them.
You know, I, character, you know,
doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason,
you know, for the right reasons in the right way,
you know, courage, not having a lack of fear.
(33:43):
I mean, you know, this being in the military,
you know, it's not being a lack, not,
it's not being unafraid, it's saying, I am afraid,
but I'm still gonna walk down that path.
It's being a police officer where somebody probably
with a gun is at the end of that alley.
Well, you got to walk down that alley and you've got to,
I mean, you've got to do it safely and smartly
(34:03):
and things like that, but you still have to do it.
You can't run away because you took an oath.
You took, so, and that, for me, that oath was internalized.
It's like, I promise that I will do everything I can
to protect the people that can't protect themselves from evil.
And I've seen, I've seen people that are pure evil,
you know, from predators, from bullies and things like that.
(34:27):
So, and, you know, and then humility,
realizing that it's not about me.
It's not about what I get, it's about what I give.
And those really are my values.
And I'll never forget this.
I had a job interview after Wendy's,
but before I went to work for the hospital,
it was with a packaging company.
And I was meeting with the Senior Vice President of Marketing.
(34:49):
And we spent 90 minutes, an hour and a half,
and the entire time, he talked to me about my life,
basically from birth till I graduated from college.
And I, at the end of the interview, I said,
look, I got to ask you, this is the strangest interview
I've ever been on.
You never asked me one question about business,
about marketing, about my philosophy.
(35:09):
And he said, well, I've got plenty of people
that'll tell me whether you're a good fit for the team
or, you know, you're good at marketing.
By the way, I didn't get the job,
so I probably wasn't a good fit.
But he said, I want to hire people of good character.
And he said, I believe character is taught
or you develop it in the first 20 years of your life.
(35:33):
And he said, character in my mind is caught,
it's not taught.
You're not gonna read a book and say,
okay, all of a sudden I'm a person of good character.
You're gonna look at situations and say,
you know, I really like the way she handled that.
Or boy, I really didn't like the way
that individual handled that situation.
And that kind of develops your character
(35:55):
based on the people that you're hanging around with.
And I was lucky to have great parents
who taught us great character.
I love the deaf part of our character so much.
It's not huge very much.
And I think that it was more of a value
when we were kids,
because we're all in our 40s and 50s.
And I rarely see it talked about today.
(36:15):
And, you know, people are suffering,
it's hard to live, most parents are working,
overworking all those pieces that are happening.
But I just think we should talk about that more.
I just love that word so much
because it really encompasses a steadfastness of self
(36:36):
and a stewardship for everything around you.
It's just such a beautiful concept that word character.
Yeah, and you learn that in certain occupations.
I'm sure Keke learned that in the military.
You learned what good character looked like.
You saw, you know, leaders, NCOs, officers,
(36:57):
or things like that that were like, you know,
boy, I don't want to go into combat with that individual.
That person will probably get his kill.
And where there were other people that, no, I want it.
I want to be around that person.
I want to learn.
I thought it was interesting.
I heard a statistic that said 163 of the Fortune 500 companies
(37:18):
are run by people who were in the Marine Corps.
And I thought they must be doing something right.
You know, in terms of how they lead
and they grow their people.
And then I read a great book called Trust-Based Leadership
that was written by an individual in the Marine Corps.
And they do.
(37:38):
It's not like, you know, it's like, all right, Mindy,
here's the mission.
Here's what needs to get done.
I'm here to support you in any way you can,
but I'm not going to tell you how to do it.
You get with your team and you figure it out.
And whatever you need for me, I'm here to help you.
And that's an interesting way of leading
that I don't necessarily think a lot of people do today.
It's not like I'm here to support you.
(38:00):
I'm here to tell you how to do it.
Well, why would you do that?
And I've been in meetings.
We've probably all been in meetings with people
where, you know, you're all sitting around a conference table
and the boss comes in and sits down and says,
all right, here's the problem.
And here's what I think should be done to fix the problem.
All right, let's go around the room
and talk about what everybody thinks.
Now, what idiot is going to say something different
(38:22):
than what the boss already said?
But a better way to do that is for the boss to come in,
sit down and say, all right, here's the problem.
What are your thoughts on how we can fix this?
Now people are empowered to say, hey, you know what?
We're doing this wrong, or we should do a better job at this,
or we should try this instead of that.
Now you've got people willing to be engaged
because they're not going against something
(38:44):
that the boss may have already said.
Yeah.
I had a friend.
Go ahead, Keith.
I had a friend of mine that went through selection
for Special Forces and he made it through and everything.
And I don't even know where he is now,
but he said that the biggest thing that was different was,
(39:06):
in all the training that we did, there was standard.
So if we were going to do a 12-mile rock march,
we had 35-pound rocks, four hours to do it in,
all of this standard.
And if you don't make that, you fail.
So you know exactly the parameters of what you have.
But when he went to the Special Forces training,
(39:29):
up on the board would be 12-mile rock march.
It would have the stuff that they would need.
And then it would say, do your best.
That was it.
So everybody knew that coming up in that,
there's that four-hour standard.
But they were looking for two hours.
(39:49):
They were just looking for you to do your best.
And people weren't picked necessarily on failing
as long as they saw that they were pushing.
So my buddy had crushed his hand towards the end.
And if he went to the medics, he would be recycled.
It would be like another six months of his life.
(40:12):
So he stayed through.
And there's a lot of stuff that he did not get the time down
that he wanted.
But they saw how he did this with a crushed hand,
with multiple broken bones in his hands.
And he was selected.
So that character is so huge.
(40:36):
And to me, the question that brings up
is when your character is challenged.
So like you said, basketball player, pop, swat,
all of this stuff.
And then now you're in a wheelchair.
You've lost your left leg.
And so your character gets challenged.
(40:56):
How do you strengthen that when you need to?
You do things that are challenged.
You do things that are difficult.
You do things that you don't want to do.
And I'll be honest with you.
I mean, it is literally, I think, that simple.
How do you develop that?
You do things you don't like to do that are uncomfortable.
But our brains are hardwired to avoid pain and discomfort
(41:20):
and to seek pleasure.
So to the brain, the status quo, hey,
comfortable, it's familiar.
Just leave it alone.
Which means if you're sitting on the couch watching Netflix
and you're like, yeah, I really should go to the gym,
you're good to sit here and watch Netflix.
That's your brain saying, hey, it's comfortable and familiar.
Leave it alone.
(41:40):
So it's doing those things.
And I always tell people, first thing in the morning,
get up and go to make your bed.
Make your bed first thing in the morning.
It gives you a win right out of the gate.
And I remember reading a statistic that said
a third of Americans, so 33% of Americans,
hit the snooze button every morning at least three times.
(42:01):
Now imagine how much time you're, there you go,
he's saying, all right, I'm hitting the clock.
But imagine if you put the alarm clock in the bathroom,
where you had to get up out of bed to turn it off.
Now all of a sudden you got some, you got found time.
You got time you didn't think you were going to have.
What can you do with that?
Can I meditate?
(42:22):
Can I pray?
Can I just get ready and organize my day?
All of a sudden you find these little things
that you can do if you're willing to do things
that are uncomfortable.
And think about it, if you have just this much grit
in your life, you're so much further ahead
than all those people who never even start.
I remember Jerry Rice, the San Francisco 49er wide receiver
(42:46):
used to have a quote that said,
today I will do what others won't
so that tomorrow I can do what others can't.
I love that.
And throughout all of that, my head was like,
I want an easier answer.
I want an easier answer.
Exactly, we want an easier answer.
But do difficult things and that strengthens your resolve.
(43:10):
That's like, you know what?
Yeah, I don't have a leg, but that's not going to define me.
I honestly believe I've probably done more living
in the 12 years that I've been dying
than I did my entire life before that.
Yeah, I think it's so interesting
because this concept of grit, yes, right?
(43:32):
That's that like self challenge.
That's doing the right thing, not the easy thing.
But then there's grind, which people get confused,
which is pushing yourself really hard
so that you self abandon or wreck your nervous system
or right.
And I think that in today's world,
people don't really understand the difference
(43:53):
between those two.
Like they're in the grind, they're in the hustle,
they're self abandoning.
When grit is really the opposite of that, it's self honoring.
And I think there's some confusion out there
in today's world about that.
I think there is.
But I think in order to be great in anything,
(44:13):
you've got to love the grind.
And it's, I mean, we're talking about the word grind
in a negative way, but it's really,
you got to love the work.
Do you love doing this?
And, you know, I loved being a police officer.
I hated standing on a traffic post in a full uniform
for 12 hours in the hot sun.
(44:35):
So, you know, there's no, there's no perfect anything
in the world.
There's no perfect job.
There's no perfect relationship.
There's no perfect individual.
Well, maybe there's one, you know, and, but there's,
there's nothing perfect.
And we like to get it where, well,
I want it to be perfect or I'm not going to do it.
No, I mean, I love the story of Jesse Hitzler used to be part owner
(44:57):
of the Atlanta Hawks and he's married to Sarah Blakely,
who's the founder of Spanx, which is a woman's undergarment company.
And he tells the story.
He said, when she first started, she started Spanx,
which is now a multimillion dollar company with one prototype
and $5,000.
He said she had been a fax salesperson going door to door selling faxes,
(45:21):
which we don't even do anymore.
And he said, if she would have waited until everything was perfect,
until she had the financing, the marketing, the human race,
everything lined up.
He said, I guarantee you somebody else would have taken that idea and run with it.
Wherever you are in life, just start whatever you want to just start,
start today.
I mean, there's not going to be a perfect day.
(45:42):
So why not start now?
Start this afternoon when you finish listening to us,
get doing whatever you want to do,
realize you're smart enough to figure it out as you go along.
Yeah, I think that's so true.
And I would add to it, start and then start again and start again and start
again, because no one starts and then just continues.
(46:05):
And there's this idea that, oh, well, I failed.
That must not be for me or, oh, I didn't keep up my routine.
So I'll wait till next month and start.
I'll wait till Monday and start.
But success comes in restarting, restarting, restarting every time you stop.
It is.
And I developed or devoted a whole chapter in my book.
(46:28):
The title of the chapter is fail often, especially when you're young.
And I get criticized for that sometimes.
It's like, what are you encouraging failure?
I said, I am encouraging failure, but not failure for the sake of failure.
Failure for the sake of learning.
What did you learn from that mistake?
What did you learn from messing that up and take that and apply it to what
(46:50):
you're going to do next when you start again?
As you said, I love the quote from Nelson Mandela, the former president of
South Africa.
He said, I never lose.
I either learn or I win.
And I love that quote.
I mean, what did you learn from your failures and how can you apply them to
your life moving forward?
Yeah.
(47:11):
Yeah. And that failure isn't an identity.
It is a thing that happens.
I experienced failure.
I didn't fail, right?
I am not.
Making sure to understand that that's, that's two different things.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, you're only a loser.
If you don't learn from what happened to you, you know, losing is fine.
(47:32):
I mean, we all lose. We lose every day, but you're not a loser.
Unless you're, unless you fail to learn the lesson that that loss was
trying to teach you.
So before we end here, because man, this hour went fast, I want to hear more
about your book.
I love books. I'm an avid reader.
I've wanted to write a book since I was like nine years old.
(47:54):
I just love everything about fiction, nonfiction.
So tell us like, how did your book come to you?
How did you know you were supposed to write it?
And then what was that process like?
Yeah. I never wanted to write a book. I never set out to write a book.
There's a, there's an old joke that says when we talk to God, it's called
prayer. When God talks to us, it's called schizophrenia.
(48:16):
So God has never talked to me and said, Hey, Terry, write a book.
But I think what God did for me is put enough people in my path that
started to make the same suggestion over and over. Hey, you should write a
book. Hey, you should write a book. Hey, you should write a book.
And I think I'm smart enough to sort of, you know, buck up and say,
I had to listen to this. This might be something that's important.
(48:37):
And sustainable excellence is really born out of two conversations I had.
One was with a former player that I had coached in high school who
moved to the area in Colorado where my wife and I live with her
fiance and the four of us had dinner one night.
And I remember after dinner, I said to her, you know, I'm really excited
that you're living close now and I can watch you find and live your
(48:59):
purpose. She got real quiet for a while. And then she looked at me and
she said, Well, coach, what do you think my purpose is? I said, I have
absolutely 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 there is a reason using your unique gifts and talents and living
that reason. So that was one, one basically story or situation.
(49:24):
And the other one was a young man who reached out to me on social media
and asked me what I thought were the most important things that he should
learn not to just be successful in his job or in business, but to be
successful in life. And I didn't want to give him that, you know, get up early,
work hard, help out. I didn't want to give him sort of the cliches that we all know.
Want to see if I could go deeper with him. So I spent some time taking some
(49:47):
notes and kind of had these, these 10 thoughts, these 10 ideas, these 10
principles, and I sent them to him. And then I stepped back and I was like,
well, I got a life story that fits underneath that principle.
Or I know somebody whose life emulates this principle. So literally during
the months I was healing after I had my leg amputated, I sat down at the
computer every day and I built stories and the real stories about real people
(50:11):
underneath each of the principles. And that's how sustainable excellence came to be.
I love it. So cool. I think, you know, the sharing of stories is so powerful.
So powerful. And what's the new book you're working on? You said you were a
chapter into it. Well, I actually, two weeks ago, I wrote, was asked to write a
(50:34):
chapter in a book that's called Perspectives on Cancer. That just came out.
And now I'm writing another book called, and the working title is For Truths
and a Lie. So I've got a rough draft. I'm working on the sort of cleaning up the
rough draft and things like that. It's just, I mean, if you would have told me
when I was in high school that I would have written a book, I would have told you
(50:55):
you were nuts. So it's just fun for me to be able to have something positive to do.
Yeah. Do you have any other questions, Keith, before we wrap it up?
I just, to me, this, you are such a perfect example of, like you had said in the
beginning, choices, you know, the choices that we have. And a lot of times, I think
(51:20):
we get kind of caught up like, no, I don't have a choice. I had to deal with this,
you know, for like Mindy, I had to deal with this class. I don't have a choice.
But it's the choice that comes after, afterwards, you know, I read a thing in
Buddhism where they talked about the two darts. The first dart is what happens to
us. The second dart is the one that we throw at ourselves, you know, so I stub
(51:41):
my toe, that happens, the pain is there. But then I start yelling at my wife for
not moving a chair, you know, blaming her for saying that's that second dart.
And it seems that this entire conversation, everything has been an outward,
everything is about observing outwardly instead of observing inwardly, which I
(52:05):
think a lot of us get caught up in, you know, especially when we're going through
something, feeling anxiety, dealing with cancer, we go into that survival mode,
which draws our attention inward towards us. And you've been able to kind of keep
that, I don't know if wall or protection, but pushing your perception, your
observation outward. And one of the first things I learned with coaching was
(52:29):
that when we give, you know, if I give somebody or if I get love, my wife comes
up, gives me a hug, I feel love. But when I'm able to give someone a hug, I
feel love. But when I'm able to give love, I feel it going and I feel it
returning. And to me, you exemplify that in such an amazing way, which is just
(52:55):
so beautiful, you know, and it shows that we do have the power to choose and
that power of our perception of how we observe the world creates you.
Yeah, amazing.
(53:17):
Well, thank you for that. And I appreciate that. And, you know, like I said, I
have bad days. I get down and stuff like that. And you're right, I find a way,
you know, when I'm in those bad places, I'm looking internally, I'm looking,
you know, at myself, what was me? This is terrible. I don't like this. And I
find a very easy way to flip that to sort of turn that coin over is to go
(53:38):
find somebody else to help. And I'm at the hospital so much, it's not hard
for me to do that. I can always find somebody who's getting a treatment or
who's scared because it's their first time or something like that. It's like,
hey, you want to have a cup of coffee? I've been doing this for three years,
you know, in this particular facility. You're gonna be great. Everything's
gonna be fine. Now all of a sudden, the focus is not on me anymore. The focus
(53:59):
is on somebody else and making their life better. And so I'm feeling better
just because I'm making somebody else's life feel better. It's amazing how
that works. Yeah. Yeah, it's my experience when I'm able to do that love,
compassion, help, that it's almost like I opened up a channel and it's coming
(54:21):
through me, right? Like I'm feeling more positivity or whatever it is, not
because I have positivity in me that I'm sharing with you, but because in the
active giving, it opens up a channel to source or whatever you call that.
And man, that's, it's almost effortless then, right? It is. Yeah. And it feels
good, you know, and now all of a sudden you're not feeling as bad as you were
(54:45):
because you've got that source coming through you and making a difference in
somebody else's life. Yeah. Yeah, Terry, was there anything that you wanted to add
before we wrap up? I guess let me, let me tell you a story. I had one of my
nurses asked me, you know, what it was like to have my foot amputated in
(55:06):
2018 and have my leg amputated in 2020. And as you can imagine, I told her it
certainly hasn't been easy, you know, when you're my age and you're my height,
you know, learning to walk again, falling is not an option. You get hurt from this
height. So I try not to fall when I'm learning to walk again. But what I told
her was, you know, cancer can take all my physical faculties, but cancer can't
(55:30):
touch my mind. It can't touch my heart and it can't touch my soul. And that's
who I am. That's who you are, Mindy. That's who you are, Keith. That's who
everybody's listening to us really is. And we spend a ton of time working on
this spot. You know, we go to the gym, we eat, right? We reduce stress, we get
enough rest. And I'm not telling you not to do that. You absolutely should do
that. But what I am suggesting is maybe every day, work a little bit more on
(55:53):
who you really are, your heart, your mind, your soul. We know this body is going
to die someday. It's going to decay and it's going to go away. But I think our
heart, our mind and our soul, I think those things are eternal. I think they
live on. And I just don't think we spend enough time working on them.
Beautifully said. Beautifully said. So I have one final question for you.
(56:16):
I didn't do it. Sorry.
How about March Madness Bracket? Is your Bracket busted yet?
I have Yukon and Purdue in the finals and Purdue winning it. So I still have
the potential to be here. You know, for the sweet 16, I had 13 out of the 16.
So I was doing pretty good. Nice. How about you? Is yours busted?
(56:39):
Not yet. I had two of them in my little group that we do. And one of them
busted and one of them's not. So I'm very excited about the games this weekend.
And even though my husband and I don't drink very much, I love like going to
a bar when everybody's screaming and everybody's got their teams and the
energy's up. So I'm pretty excited about it. I am too. I'm looking forward to it.
(57:02):
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This hour went so fast and it
was just really lovely. Thank you. Well, thanks for having me out. I really
enjoyed talking to both of you. Thank you for listening to the Chasing Thoughts
podcast. Please support us by liking, subscribing, or leaving a review or
comment. We would really appreciate it. If you'd like to be a guest, we would
(57:23):
love to explore life and what it means to be human with you. Please email us
at chasingthoughtspodcast at gmail.com.
Welcome to the Chasing Thoughts podcast.
(00:03):
Listen in as Mindy, Keith and their guests
take a deep dive into their own minds and souls
to investigate the beauty of imperfection,
challenge their beliefs
and embrace the richness of living a truly authentic life.
Welcome to Chasing Thoughts.
(00:24):
Hello everybody, it is Friday, April 5th.
Can you believe that already? April.
This is season two, episode 15 of the Chasing Thoughts podcast
with Keith and Mindy.
And today we have Terry Tucker with us.
Welcome Terry.
Thank you very much for having me on.
Terry, I'm so excited to hear from you today
(00:46):
because some elements of your profile when I read it
really hit on some things that are currently coming up in my life.
So I can't wait for this conversation.
But first, why don't you just sort of tell the audience and tell us,
what's your story?
Like how did you get to be the human that you are right now?
So I grew up on the south side of Chicago.
(01:08):
I'm the oldest of three boys.
You can't tell this from looking at me or from my voice,
but I'm six foot eight inches tall
and actually went to college at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina
on a basketball scholarship.
When I graduated from college, I moved home to find a job.
I'm really going to date myself now,
but this was long before the internet was available
(01:29):
to help people find employment.
Fortunately, I found that first job in the corporate headquarters
of Wendy's International, the hamburger chain in their marketing department.
That was the good news.
The bad news was I lived with my parents for the next three and a half years
as I helped my mother care for my father and my grandmother,
who were both dying of different forms of cancer.
(01:50):
Professional, as I said, started out at Wendy's and then I went to work
from the hospital that cared for my father and my grandmother.
Then I made the major pivot in my life and became a police officer.
And part of what I did during my law enforcement career was I was a SWAT hostage negotiator.
After that, I started a school security consulting business,
(02:12):
coach girls high school basketball when we lived in Texas.
But for the last 12 years now, I've been battling a rare form of cancer,
a rare form of melanoma.
And then just finally, my wife and I have been married for 31 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.
(02:36):
Really?
Cool.
Yes.
That's the first time I've ever heard anybody being a part of the space force.
That is so cool.
It is.
We're very proud of her.
Yeah.
Mainly I'm just familiar with that from the Netflix show with Steve Corral.
Yeah.
I'm thinking of trying to play that down a little bit. Yes.
(03:04):
So if you don't mind, I currently have several people in my life who have cancer.
And so I'm walking that path as an observer and a supporter.
And I just like to dive into that a little bit.
I think that a lot of people experience illness.
(03:28):
And that is a very challenging journey.
And it sounds like you were a supporter to it as a young man and then experienced that journey firsthand yourself.
So can you just talk a little bit more about your relationship with cancer?
(03:49):
Yeah, the big C is our family calls it has been part of our lives.
You know, three of my four grandparents died of cancer.
And I think from their perspective, it was, it was lifestyle. I mean, they smoked and you know, they didn't exercise and all the things that we know now that potentially could cause cancer.
They didn't really understand back when they were, you know, in the 20s and 30s and things like that.
(04:14):
But my dad was 51 years old when he developed end stage breast cancer back in the 1980s.
Back then they really didn't know how to treat a man with breast cancer. So they told him to go home and die.
And he lived another three and a half years. And I believe he did because he had a purpose he had something to do in his life.
(04:36):
He was in real estate. He loved real estate. He actually worked up till two weeks before he died.
And I sort of took that lesson and tucked it in the back of my mind and said, Well, when it's my turn in the barrel, I need to have that purpose. I need to have something to do.
So it was an incredibly difficult time. I mean, literally my grandmother was in one bedroom and then right next door to her, my father and the other bedroom both died over a three and a half year process.
(05:04):
Really nothing you could do other than offer comfort care, be there for them. And I had some great talks with my dad as he was laying in bed, dying and I'm very grateful for that.
But it's not something I would choose for anybody. So 2012 fast forward, I get this rare form of melanoma.
(05:25):
And most people think of melanoma as too much exposure to the sun affects them, the melon, the pigment in our skin. Mine has nothing to do with that.
It's a rare form that appears on the bottom of the feet, or the palms of the hands might appeared on my foot. And in 2012 when I was diagnosed, they said, Well, more than likely you'll be dead in two years because we have absolutely nothing to offer you.
(05:49):
And I thought, Well, you just gave me a death sentence. Maybe I can take that death sentence and try to turn it into a life sentence. And 12 years later, that's what I've been able to do.
Wow, that's incredible.
Did it take a little while was there a period of grief or denial before you were able to do that? Or was it pretty easy to transform into that?
(06:13):
No, no, it was. You're looking at me now. There's no S on my chest. I do not have a cape and fly around with magical powers. I mean, I think I went through all the stages that we would associate with grief.
I mean, when my dad died, it was, I was already athletic, I already ate right, but it was like, I'm gonna do everything I possibly can to improve my health, see my doctor every year and those kind of things. So when I got cancer, it was like, total denial.
(06:43):
I can't possibly have cancer. And then you move into that anger stage. I can't possibly have cancer. I've done everything right in my life. And our daughter was in high school when I was diagnosed like my dad, I was diagnosed when I was 51 years old.
And I was there was sort of a bargaining with God. It was like, look, just let me live long enough to see her graduate from high school. And then I absolutely got down. I got depressed felt sorry for myself.
(07:13):
And it just got to a point where it was like, this sucks, but I'm going to have to embrace the suck, for lack of a better term, I did not like the cards that I've been dealt, but I knew I was going to have to play those cards to the best of my ability.
There are a lot of ups and downs, peaks and valleys through it all. But it was, it's been absolutely a challenge, but almost a challenge like you are not going to beat me. You may kill me, but you are not going to beat me. And that's, that's kind of the way I've been looking at it for the last 12 years now.
(07:46):
Yeah, that's beautifully said.
Really.
I'm talking about purpose, both with your dad and with you. And I think this is a fascinating subject because I agree with you that purpose is necessary for a fulfilling life.
(08:07):
But for a lot of folks, especially folks who might be down and out or sick, it feels like just another thing to do, like, oh, now I got to find my purpose, great things, right. And, oh, if I don't have it that means I'm a loser, right and then people associate purpose with job, which is another confusion, right.
And so, I think it'd be interesting to dive into like purpose a little bit when you use that word. What does that mean.
(08:34):
Yeah, I use that word and I think incorrectly in the singular, like there is one thing in our lives that we are supposed to do. And, and I can't speak for everybody else but at least for me.
I think that word is plural purposes, I've had purposes in my life. When I was young, I was an athlete I drank and slept basketball it was all I wanted to do. It was what I really felt my purpose was.
(09:01):
And then as I got into adulthood, I wanted to follow in my grandfather's footsteps my grandfather was a Chicago police officer from 1924 to 1954.
And he was actually shot in the line of duty with his own gun was not a serious injury. He was shot in the ankle. But when I expressed an interest in following in his footsteps, my dad who was an infant at the time when my grandfather was shot was like absolutely not.
(09:27):
You're going to get out, get a great job, get married, have 2.4 kids and live happily ever after.
But that's the life my father wanted me to live that wasn't the life I felt I was supposed to live. So, I had a choice when I graduated I could have said, Hey, Dad, I know you're dying, but I'm going to go blaze my own trail and do my own thing, or out of love and respect for you.
(09:51):
I will do what you want me to do. So my first two jobs were in business because that's what my dad wanted me to do. And then I started joke I did whatever he good son did I waited till my father passed away and then I followed my own dreams.
And that's one of the things that I am most proud of in my life is that I never let my dream dot. I never let what I felt as an adult was my purpose to do.
(10:16):
And now, in all honesty is I'm probably coming to the end of my life. I think my purpose has switched again to put as much goodness positivity motivation love back into the world with whatever time I have left so I guess that's a long winded answer I think we have purposes in life.
And I wouldn't get real excited if you haven't found yours yet. You know I always think back, you know having worked at Wendy's, I always think of the Colonel Sanders story started Kentucky Fried Chicken.
(10:47):
I don't know if that was his purpose in life, but he didn't start Kentucky Fried Chicken until after he retired and was in his 60s. So, it's never too late.
I love that so true. It isn't too late. And sometimes purpose like you said, my purpose I feel is very similar to you to yours like I just feel a calling to love.
(11:08):
And that means my husband, my kid, it means my grocery store clerk, it means my clients right. And so, as far as I can tell so far, that's my purpose, and it's that simple and that robust at the same time.
It really is and so I still have tumors in my lungs and I'm still being treated for those tumors. And one of the nurses who takes care of me at the infusion center, gave me a book she's a former hospice nurse before she went into to infusion therapy, and the
(11:39):
book is called Imagine Heaven. And it's about people who have near death experiences.
And the interesting thing, one of the interesting things I took out of that book was that no matter who the person saw when they had their near but near near death experience, whether it was, you know, Jesus or a saint or an angel or a friend or a relative.
(12:00):
The one question that everybody seemed to get asked was, how do you treat my people. In other words, just like you said, many.
Many people treat each other. You know, and it's that it's that relationship that we have, you know, I've been asked on podcast, how do you want to be remembered. It's like, well, one, I really don't. I mean, nobody's going to remember that I was even here 100 years from now.
(12:23):
But what I want to do is connect is to have that connection with people and when I get that it energizes me, it gives me, you know, when I'm feeling down when I'm when I'm not feeling good because of my treatments.
It gives me that purpose and that purpose gives me that energy.
Yeah, yeah.
(12:44):
There's this beautiful story I love about how if you plant white roses next to red roses over years the white roses will start to take on a pink you like there's a merging of essence right.
And I think that's what I hear you saying is that it's not really about being remembered as you in your form or things that you did. It's about merging and connecting with other people so that your essence continues in your daughter and your grandkids and the people you love and know.
(13:17):
And I just think that such a beautiful vision.
It is and, you know, again, it's that's looking at life through. It's not all about us, you know, and I've seen so many people that think they're born empty.
And that when they get out of school and they get into life, whatever that looks like for them, that then their job is to fill up their empty self, you know, they've got to get that great job and make a lot of money, drive the nicest car and live in the nicest house and have the greatest kids and all that stuff.
(13:49):
And what I found is, it's just the opposite. We're not born empty. We're born full. We're born with everything we need to be successful in life. However you define that for yourself, we just need to find what's in there, pull it out and use it for our benefit.
So our job should not really be to fill ourselves up. Our job should be to empty ourselves out with our unique gifts and talents, certainly for the betterment of our self and our family, but also the better for the betterment of our friends our community, our country, etc.
(14:28):
And I could not agree more I always think about Michelangelo and that quote about when he carved David out of marble and he's and somebody said how did you do it and he said I just removed everything that wasn't David.
Right, it's like, I'm just doing the work to remove everything that isn't pure Mindy here. Right. And that's my job. And it's such a beautiful way to think about life right that it's already all there.
(14:53):
Exactly.
So, share with us a little bit about how you are currently like embodying your purpose I know you're a coach you're a speaker. So tell us a little bit about what you're doing in the world.
Yeah, so, you know, like so many other people and companies I started a speaking business, just as Kobe did. And so I had to figure out a different way to deliver my message because nobody was doing anything either virtually or in person.
(15:21):
And somebody reached out to me and said, Hey, would you like to be a guest on my podcast. And I said, Sure, what's a podcast. I had absolutely no idea what a podcast was and he explained it to me. And I said, Hey, sounds intriguing.
I think I'll give it a try. And I remember I had posted notes all around the camera with things that I wanted to say and he would ask me a question, and I would lean in and I would read the post it note.
(15:47):
I was terrified. I was horrible. I provided no value at all to the audience of that individual. But I kind of enjoyed it. And I thought back in my life, you know the first time I drove a car was any good at no.
First time, you know, I cooked a meal. I think I burned the water when I was boiling it you know the first time I studied algebra, I was not good at it. And so it was how do you, how do I get better at it.
(16:13):
And I remember I was talking to my publisher and I said, You know, Scott, I listen to every podcast I've ever been on, because I want to be want to be better. I want to be a better guest I want to have better stories. How many times do I say um or hard do those filler words and he said, No, not Terry since it's not about being good.
It's just about not sucking. And I said, Well, thanks for the title of my next book, you know, just don't know that's not true. It won't be that. But I mean it was, it was really, no, it's, I want to be good at this.
(16:45):
And this really does you know I mentioned I'm in cancer treatment still, I spent an entire week at the hospital, and then I get two weeks off. And then I do another week at the hospital so during those two weeks now.
I find my purpose is to be a guest on podcasts to write my blog to write another book that I'm working on and things like that. And those things give me, they give me energy, they give me purpose in life.
(17:14):
Yeah, yeah, once it's beautiful.
I was thinking I've been in and out of therapy, learning things for, I don't know, 20 something years now, and the things that you were saying I have never heard before.
(17:35):
I mean, even after becoming a coach and sitting down with a therapist. I remember a time where she was, she was reading from a workbook that she had I'm like, I know exactly what you're going to say because I just read this book and I am completely shocked and amazed that I have
never heard anything of what you're saying before that that we're born full, you know, and we're not, our job is not to fill ourselves up but to empty ourselves.
(18:07):
I think that it is so powerful, it is genius, especially coming from somebody in your position where if I have a cold.
I don't get that. I don't get that. I don't get that. Like begging God is just end it just end it you know, like and you're in this position.
(18:30):
You're just an amazing man. Like I am blown away.
I'm even emotional. This is incredible.
I don't feel, I feel like I'm just a man.
I'm a flawed individual.
I make mistakes.
I don't want anybody to think that I don't have bad days
(18:51):
because I absolutely do.
Like I said, I go to these treatments,
they just beat me up physically, mentally, emotionally.
And I cry, I get down, I feel sorry for myself.
I just don't let myself stay there.
And I think staying there or not staying there.
And I'm not talking about people that are, you know,
they need medication to function and things like that.
(19:12):
Not talking about those people, but it's a choice.
It's a choice to say, yeah, I feel like crap today
and I'm going to take it out on that nurse who's caring for me
or that therapist who's trying to help me.
And I did, I literally made a conscious decision
when I was diagnosed that I would never take out my misfortune
on somebody that was trying to help me,
(19:34):
that someone who was trying.
And I've seen that.
I've seen it so many times where people,
I actually had a conversation with the receptionist
in the lab where I get my blood drawn.
And every morning, every Monday morning
when I go for treatment,
I'm there at six o'clock in the morning,
we do the blood work.
And she made a comment to me.
She said, you know, you see me every morning
(19:55):
and you ask me, how was your weekend?
How's your family doing?
How's your side business going and stuff like that?
She's like, nobody ever talks to me like that.
I said, well, why do you think they don't?
She said, I don't know,
but everybody who comes up to this desk is mad and pissed off
and takes it out on me.
And I talked to her about the difference
(20:16):
between perspective, I mess that up.
Perception, perception is how you see the world.
And it's based on your background, your education,
your how you were brought up, your experiences, everything.
But if you can turn life into perception,
like how is that other person feeling right now?
(20:40):
And that's what I tried to talk to her about.
It's like, you have a such a unique opportunity
to be kind and positive and caring to these people
that are scared and feel hopeless
and maybe getting a blood test or a scan result
that is gonna be like, sorry,
there's nothing more we can do for you.
It's your time or you know what,
(21:01):
now you're gonna have to start chemo
that's gonna make you lose your hair
and have diarrhea and throw up and all that kind of stuff.
These people are scared
and you have a unique opportunity
to put some goodness into their life.
And you could tell she'd never thought of it that way.
It was always, these people are being mean to me.
Well, turn that around.
(21:22):
How can you be nice, kind, caring to them?
Yes.
Yeah, and I think that's true even in day to day life.
When I am able to take that mindset,
all of a sudden the world seems like my playground
and I'm not worried about what people think of me or, right?
(21:47):
Because I'm so filled up with what I wanna give away
and I can't hold that space all the time
but I certainly am working on it more.
Because it's such a better experience of life.
It is and you know, I mean, I look back at my life.
I was a college athlete, I was in law enforcement.
(22:08):
I've done a lot of physical things in my life
and now I don't have a left leg and I'm in a wheelchair.
So when you can't do what you were good at,
you do what's important.
And I think many of what you're talking about
is that's what you're doing.
What's really important in life.
All the rest of this stuff is superfluous
(22:29):
and really in the scheme of things doesn't matter
but how you interact, how you have relationships,
how you connect with other people,
that's really what's important in life.
I'd like to talk about the physical identity a little bit.
I was a Mountaineer for a long time,
(22:51):
did a lot of outdoor stuff.
Then I was in a car accident.
I left me in a hospital bed for three months
and changed my life forever, right?
And nobody at the hospital warned me
about the shift in my identity
when I could no longer identify as a person who did X, Y, Z
(23:13):
with my physical body.
And I remember coming out of that experience and thinking
like, I need to find a way to write a grant to have
like coaches or therapists visit some patients and hospitals
because anytime you undergo a major surgery
or a major like physical reconstruction of your body,
there is a huge identity shift and it's challenging.
(23:36):
And what I found in myself is that there were years
where my thought process was like,
well, when I get back to being who I was, right?
That that's really who I was
and this damaged version of me wasn't the real me.
And it took years of integration and work to realize,
(23:58):
no, this is who I am.
That other person doesn't exist anymore.
And I guess that's part of the acceptance piece,
but I mean, you've been through a journey
that's even more that way.
And did you struggle with the identity with your body,
especially after being such a huge sports guy
and a physical guy?
(24:19):
Can you speak to that a little bit?
Yeah, I mean, my body is filled with scars.
I mean, I have scars all over the place.
I spent five years on a drug called interferon
where I took a weekly injection.
So my abdomen and my kind of love handle area
is nothing but scar tissue
because every week I was injecting for five years into that.
(24:42):
But you get to a point or at least I did where it was like,
yeah, and I don't mean,
I'm trying to find a different way to say this,
but I mean, if you saw me naked,
you would be like, oh my God, that's ugly,
but I've earned those scars.
I've paid the price for those scars.
(25:02):
So what you may say is ugly,
I'm like, hey, I earned those.
I'm pretty proud of them because I'm still here
and I'm still going, moving forward.
And I remember when I was a police officer,
there were people that I worked with
who'd been on the job for 30, 35, 40 years
(25:24):
and couldn't retire because their entire identity
was tied up in that gun, that badge,
and the authority that they had.
And they felt that without that, that they were nobody.
And you're like, you gave your life
to protecting and serving other people.
How could you possibly not think that your life
(25:46):
after that would have value?
And so many of them didn't and they couldn't retire
and they should have retired.
They should have retired a long time ago,
but their whole identity was tied up in what they do
and what they did.
And I just never been that kind of person.
I always felt that I had enough education,
(26:07):
I had enough background, I had enough experience.
I'll go try something else.
I would not be any good at it.
I mean, most of the time I wasn't,
especially when I started,
I had to learn new skills, get more educated
and things like that, but it really,
I'm not saying I don't value myself, I certainly do,
(26:27):
but at the same time, my identity isn't tied up
in anything that's going on,
at least in this physical space right now.
Yeah.
Yeah, Keith, I was just,
yeah, I'm sure that veterans struggle
with a similar sort of thing.
What's your experience with that,
both with yourself and with other veterans you coach?
Yeah, they actually, in a lot of the research
(26:49):
that comes out with joining the military,
they identify it as an identity shift.
And I'll even go farther saying,
it's a cultural shift when you're joining the active duty.
And I think it's the same thing,
being a police officer, any type of first responder,
it's a different world.
I remember being in school and messing around
(27:12):
with another veteran and his girlfriend got really mad at me
because we were saying horrific stuff to each other.
And she was like, why are you guys so mean?
And I'm like, no, this is how we express respect
for each other and things like that.
So when you leave the military,
there is no training on shifting your identity again.
(27:33):
So you hold on to that military identity
in the civilian world and you're stuck in this place
where you're between cultures,
you're between identities and it's a very weird place to be in.
So that is such a major thing.
(27:55):
And I think the question I had was,
I've gotten to a point where me and Mindy
were just talking about this before you came on.
I've gotten to a point where I have a lot of the new beliefs,
the new identities that I've been able to create here,
but I don't have it here yet.
It hasn't been integrated into my being of who I am.
(28:20):
One of the things you said when you said your identity
is not a part, it's not about what you do.
It's not this physical plane.
It is so much bigger than just that.
How do you integrate that into your life?
Because that was one again, and I know I'm rambling,
but one of the things, all the therapy at the VA
(28:41):
I always said, talked about this stuff,
but it's like, well, how do you do that?
How do you make that a part of who you are?
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question, Keith.
And I don't know if I'm gonna have a good answer for you,
to be honest.
I think back on, what were my values
(29:02):
and where did I learn those values?
I learned them from my parents.
I mean, I mentioned I have two brothers
and we're all athletes.
I mean, we're, I have a brother
who pitched for the university, know her name.
I know the brother was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers,
the National Basketball Association,
and my dad was six, five.
So I mean, it's like six, eight, six, seven,
six, six and six, five.
(29:23):
So we used to joke that if you sat behind our family
in church growing up, not a prayer's chance
you were gonna see anything that was going on in front,
but it was my parents that taught us the value of family,
of loving each other, of caring for each other,
of supporting each other.
And I think you get that in the military.
You get that as a first responder.
(29:44):
I mean, you could have a, you know,
knock down, drag out, yelling, screaming,
fight with somebody at roll call,
and an hour later they're on the radio screaming,
they need help, you're going lights and sirens
to make sure that person's okay.
It's the culture, as I think you would probably agree
in the military.
There's a certain culture that maybe is not replicated
(30:05):
in the civilian world.
And so I guess you have to determine what your values are
and what you're willing to, I guess, give up
or not do anymore that you've learned in the military.
I mean, I am very, you know, I have the short hair.
I, you know, if you're on time, you're late, you know,
I mean, all the things you learned in the military,
(30:26):
I still do those things.
And I find that, yeah, there's some people that are like,
you know, I'm chill, man, I don't care.
You know, I remember when we lived in California,
we had somebody, my wife and I had somebody come out
to the house to look at some landscaping
and he was supposed to be there on like Tuesday at 10 o'clock
and he showed up on Thursday at three o'clock.
(30:46):
And I was like, you're two days late.
He's like, oh man, the surfing was just too good.
I had to, and I'm like, so well, you go back and surf
because you're not going to be part of this quote on this job.
And I think that's just respect, respect for yourself,
respect for other people.
And also using, not using for the sake of using,
(31:09):
but using the resources that are available to you,
you know, other people, people that will mentor you,
people that'll be like, hey, Terry,
you're on the wrong track here.
You know, you're being a knucklehead, don't do that.
Or you know what, yeah, you're on the right track.
It's kind of that old thing about, you know,
you end up being the product of the five people
that you hang around with the most.
And if those are good, caring, you know, happy, dedicated
(31:34):
people, you'll be that kind of person versus if you hang around
people that are always negative and it's always drama
and it's always about them, you're probably turned
into that kind of person as well.
So I don't know if that's an answer for you, Keith.
That's, you know, kind of like, I'm just sort of spitballing
here and seeing what we got.
So, no, I actually love it because that's what I found
(31:56):
in my own research and all this is, you know,
our beliefs are the way that we see the world is based off
the values that we have.
And like you had said, a lot of those are given to us
as we're growing.
And I think one of the things, even for like when you were
talking about the officers that you knew that should have
retired, but their identity was wrapped up in that,
(32:17):
one of the things that we have to do is sort of investigate
our values, see, you know, was that given to me?
If it was, does it align with me?
And if it doesn't, what values do I want to have?
And I've seen just in the short time that we've been talking,
(32:38):
even when you were talking about becoming a police officer,
you wanted to do that, your father didn't want you to.
And you said, because of the love and respect you had
for him, you know, you started working in the business world,
you got your business degree and all that.
And that again, just blows my mind, you know,
because one of the things that I think is different
in the civilian world from military police first responders
(33:00):
is the individualism versus the community, you know,
where in the civilian world, it's more individualistic
and in those environments, it's more community and stuff.
So if you don't mind me asking,
because this is, I think is a very personal question,
but what are your values?
Cause your values seem to push everything outwards
(33:22):
instead of meet towards yourself.
Yeah, I mean, character, courage and humility,
you can go on my website and see them.
You know, I, character, you know,
doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason,
you know, for the right reasons in the right way,
you know, courage, not having a lack of fear.
(33:43):
I mean, you know, this being in the military,
you know, it's not being a lack, not,
it's not being unafraid, it's saying, I am afraid,
but I'm still gonna walk down that path.
It's being a police officer where somebody probably
with a gun is at the end of that alley.
Well, you got to walk down that alley and you've got to,
I mean, you've got to do it safely and smartly
(34:03):
and things like that, but you still have to do it.
You can't run away because you took an oath.
You took, so, and that, for me, that oath was internalized.
It's like, I promise that I will do everything I can
to protect the people that can't protect themselves from evil.
And I've seen, I've seen people that are pure evil,
you know, from predators, from bullies and things like that.
(34:27):
So, and, you know, and then humility,
realizing that it's not about me.
It's not about what I get, it's about what I give.
And those really are my values.
And I'll never forget this.
I had a job interview after Wendy's,
but before I went to work for the hospital,
it was with a packaging company.
And I was meeting with the Senior Vice President of Marketing.
(34:49):
And we spent 90 minutes, an hour and a half,
and the entire time, he talked to me about my life,
basically from birth till I graduated from college.
And I, at the end of the interview, I said,
look, I got to ask you, this is the strangest interview
I've ever been on.
You never asked me one question about business,
about marketing, about my philosophy.
(35:09):
And he said, well, I've got plenty of people
that'll tell me whether you're a good fit for the team
or, you know, you're good at marketing.
By the way, I didn't get the job,
so I probably wasn't a good fit.
But he said, I want to hire people of good character.
And he said, I believe character is taught
or you develop it in the first 20 years of your life.
(35:33):
And he said, character in my mind is caught,
it's not taught.
You're not gonna read a book and say,
okay, all of a sudden I'm a person of good character.
You're gonna look at situations and say,
you know, I really like the way she handled that.
Or boy, I really didn't like the way
that individual handled that situation.
And that kind of develops your character
(35:55):
based on the people that you're hanging around with.
And I was lucky to have great parents
who taught us great character.
I love the deaf part of our character so much.
It's not huge very much.
And I think that it was more of a value
when we were kids,
because we're all in our 40s and 50s.
And I rarely see it talked about today.
(36:15):
And, you know, people are suffering,
it's hard to live, most parents are working,
overworking all those pieces that are happening.
But I just think we should talk about that more.
I just love that word so much
because it really encompasses a steadfastness of self
(36:36):
and a stewardship for everything around you.
It's just such a beautiful concept that word character.
Yeah, and you learn that in certain occupations.
I'm sure Keke learned that in the military.
You learned what good character looked like.
You saw, you know, leaders, NCOs, officers,
(36:57):
or things like that that were like, you know,
boy, I don't want to go into combat with that individual.
That person will probably get his kill.
And where there were other people that, no, I want it.
I want to be around that person.
I want to learn.
I thought it was interesting.
I heard a statistic that said 163 of the Fortune 500 companies
(37:18):
are run by people who were in the Marine Corps.
And I thought they must be doing something right.
You know, in terms of how they lead
and they grow their people.
And then I read a great book called Trust-Based Leadership
that was written by an individual in the Marine Corps.
And they do.
(37:38):
It's not like, you know, it's like, all right, Mindy,
here's the mission.
Here's what needs to get done.
I'm here to support you in any way you can,
but I'm not going to tell you how to do it.
You get with your team and you figure it out.
And whatever you need for me, I'm here to help you.
And that's an interesting way of leading
that I don't necessarily think a lot of people do today.
It's not like I'm here to support you.
(38:00):
I'm here to tell you how to do it.
Well, why would you do that?
And I've been in meetings.
We've probably all been in meetings with people
where, you know, you're all sitting around a conference table
and the boss comes in and sits down and says,
all right, here's the problem.
And here's what I think should be done to fix the problem.
All right, let's go around the room
and talk about what everybody thinks.
Now, what idiot is going to say something different
(38:22):
than what the boss already said?
But a better way to do that is for the boss to come in,
sit down and say, all right, here's the problem.
What are your thoughts on how we can fix this?
Now people are empowered to say, hey, you know what?
We're doing this wrong, or we should do a better job at this,
or we should try this instead of that.
Now you've got people willing to be engaged
because they're not going against something
(38:44):
that the boss may have already said.
Yeah.
I had a friend.
Go ahead, Keith.
I had a friend of mine that went through selection
for Special Forces and he made it through and everything.
And I don't even know where he is now,
but he said that the biggest thing that was different was,
(39:06):
in all the training that we did, there was standard.
So if we were going to do a 12-mile rock march,
we had 35-pound rocks, four hours to do it in,
all of this standard.
And if you don't make that, you fail.
So you know exactly the parameters of what you have.
But when he went to the Special Forces training,
(39:29):
up on the board would be 12-mile rock march.
It would have the stuff that they would need.
And then it would say, do your best.
That was it.
So everybody knew that coming up in that,
there's that four-hour standard.
But they were looking for two hours.
(39:49):
They were just looking for you to do your best.
And people weren't picked necessarily on failing
as long as they saw that they were pushing.
So my buddy had crushed his hand towards the end.
And if he went to the medics, he would be recycled.
It would be like another six months of his life.
(40:12):
So he stayed through.
And there's a lot of stuff that he did not get the time down
that he wanted.
But they saw how he did this with a crushed hand,
with multiple broken bones in his hands.
And he was selected.
So that character is so huge.
(40:36):
And to me, the question that brings up
is when your character is challenged.
So like you said, basketball player, pop, swat,
all of this stuff.
And then now you're in a wheelchair.
You've lost your left leg.
And so your character gets challenged.
(40:56):
How do you strengthen that when you need to?
You do things that are challenged.
You do things that are difficult.
You do things that you don't want to do.
And I'll be honest with you.
I mean, it is literally, I think, that simple.
How do you develop that?
You do things you don't like to do that are uncomfortable.
But our brains are hardwired to avoid pain and discomfort
(41:20):
and to seek pleasure.
So to the brain, the status quo, hey,
comfortable, it's familiar.
Just leave it alone.
Which means if you're sitting on the couch watching Netflix
and you're like, yeah, I really should go to the gym,
you're good to sit here and watch Netflix.
That's your brain saying, hey, it's comfortable and familiar.
Leave it alone.
(41:40):
So it's doing those things.
And I always tell people, first thing in the morning,
get up and go to make your bed.
Make your bed first thing in the morning.
It gives you a win right out of the gate.
And I remember reading a statistic that said
a third of Americans, so 33% of Americans,
hit the snooze button every morning at least three times.
(42:01):
Now imagine how much time you're, there you go,
he's saying, all right, I'm hitting the clock.
But imagine if you put the alarm clock in the bathroom,
where you had to get up out of bed to turn it off.
Now all of a sudden you got some, you got found time.
You got time you didn't think you were going to have.
What can you do with that?
Can I meditate?
(42:22):
Can I pray?
Can I just get ready and organize my day?
All of a sudden you find these little things
that you can do if you're willing to do things
that are uncomfortable.
And think about it, if you have just this much grit
in your life, you're so much further ahead
than all those people who never even start.
I remember Jerry Rice, the San Francisco 49er wide receiver
(42:46):
used to have a quote that said,
today I will do what others won't
so that tomorrow I can do what others can't.
I love that.
And throughout all of that, my head was like,
I want an easier answer.
I want an easier answer.
Exactly, we want an easier answer.
But do difficult things and that strengthens your resolve.
(43:10):
That's like, you know what?
Yeah, I don't have a leg, but that's not going to define me.
I honestly believe I've probably done more living
in the 12 years that I've been dying
than I did my entire life before that.
Yeah, I think it's so interesting
because this concept of grit, yes, right?
(43:32):
That's that like self challenge.
That's doing the right thing, not the easy thing.
But then there's grind, which people get confused,
which is pushing yourself really hard
so that you self abandon or wreck your nervous system
or right.
And I think that in today's world,
people don't really understand the difference
(43:53):
between those two.
Like they're in the grind, they're in the hustle,
they're self abandoning.
When grit is really the opposite of that, it's self honoring.
And I think there's some confusion out there
in today's world about that.
I think there is.
But I think in order to be great in anything,
(44:13):
you've got to love the grind.
And it's, I mean, we're talking about the word grind
in a negative way, but it's really,
you got to love the work.
Do you love doing this?
And, you know, I loved being a police officer.
I hated standing on a traffic post in a full uniform
for 12 hours in the hot sun.
(44:35):
So, you know, there's no, there's no perfect anything
in the world.
There's no perfect job.
There's no perfect relationship.
There's no perfect individual.
Well, maybe there's one, you know, and, but there's,
there's nothing perfect.
And we like to get it where, well,
I want it to be perfect or I'm not going to do it.
No, I mean, I love the story of Jesse Hitzler used to be part owner
(44:57):
of the Atlanta Hawks and he's married to Sarah Blakely,
who's the founder of Spanx, which is a woman's undergarment company.
And he tells the story.
He said, when she first started, she started Spanx,
which is now a multimillion dollar company with one prototype
and $5,000.
He said she had been a fax salesperson going door to door selling faxes,
(45:21):
which we don't even do anymore.
And he said, if she would have waited until everything was perfect,
until she had the financing, the marketing, the human race,
everything lined up.
He said, I guarantee you somebody else would have taken that idea and run with it.
Wherever you are in life, just start whatever you want to just start,
start today.
I mean, there's not going to be a perfect day.
(45:42):
So why not start now?
Start this afternoon when you finish listening to us,
get doing whatever you want to do,
realize you're smart enough to figure it out as you go along.
Yeah, I think that's so true.
And I would add to it, start and then start again and start again and start
again, because no one starts and then just continues.
(46:05):
And there's this idea that, oh, well, I failed.
That must not be for me or, oh, I didn't keep up my routine.
So I'll wait till next month and start.
I'll wait till Monday and start.
But success comes in restarting, restarting, restarting every time you stop.
It is.
And I developed or devoted a whole chapter in my book.
(46:28):
The title of the chapter is fail often, especially when you're young.
And I get criticized for that sometimes.
It's like, what are you encouraging failure?
I said, I am encouraging failure, but not failure for the sake of failure.
Failure for the sake of learning.
What did you learn from that mistake?
What did you learn from messing that up and take that and apply it to what
(46:50):
you're going to do next when you start again?
As you said, I love the quote from Nelson Mandela, the former president of
South Africa.
He said, I never lose.
I either learn or I win.
And I love that quote.
I mean, what did you learn from your failures and how can you apply them to
your life moving forward?
Yeah.
(47:11):
Yeah. And that failure isn't an identity.
It is a thing that happens.
I experienced failure.
I didn't fail, right?
I am not.
Making sure to understand that that's, that's two different things.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, you're only a loser.
If you don't learn from what happened to you, you know, losing is fine.
(47:32):
I mean, we all lose. We lose every day, but you're not a loser.
Unless you're, unless you fail to learn the lesson that that loss was
trying to teach you.
So before we end here, because man, this hour went fast, I want to hear more
about your book.
I love books. I'm an avid reader.
I've wanted to write a book since I was like nine years old.
(47:54):
I just love everything about fiction, nonfiction.
So tell us like, how did your book come to you?
How did you know you were supposed to write it?
And then what was that process like?
Yeah. I never wanted to write a book. I never set out to write a book.
There's a, there's an old joke that says when we talk to God, it's called
prayer. When God talks to us, it's called schizophrenia.
(48:16):
So God has never talked to me and said, Hey, Terry, write a book.
But I think what God did for me is put enough people in my path that
started to make the same suggestion over and over. Hey, you should write a
book. Hey, you should write a book. Hey, you should write a book.
And I think I'm smart enough to sort of, you know, buck up and say,
I had to listen to this. This might be something that's important.
(48:37):
And sustainable excellence is really born out of two conversations I had.
One was with a former player that I had coached in high school who
moved to the area in Colorado where my wife and I live with her
fiance and the four of us had dinner one night.
And I remember after dinner, I said to her, you know, I'm really excited
that you're living close now and I can watch you find and live your
(48:59):
purpose. She got real quiet for a while. And then she looked at me and
she said, Well, coach, what do you think my purpose is? I said, I have
absolutely 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 there is a reason using your unique gifts and talents and living
that reason. So that was one, one basically story or situation.
(49:24):
And the other one was a young man who reached out to me on social media
and asked me what I thought were the most important things that he should
learn not to just be successful in his job or in business, but to be
successful in life. And I didn't want to give him that, you know, get up early,
work hard, help out. I didn't want to give him sort of the cliches that we all know.
Want to see if I could go deeper with him. So I spent some time taking some
(49:47):
notes and kind of had these, these 10 thoughts, these 10 ideas, these 10
principles, and I sent them to him. And then I stepped back and I was like,
well, I got a life story that fits underneath that principle.
Or I know somebody whose life emulates this principle. So literally during
the months I was healing after I had my leg amputated, I sat down at the
computer every day and I built stories and the real stories about real people
(50:11):
underneath each of the principles. And that's how sustainable excellence came to be.
I love it. So cool. I think, you know, the sharing of stories is so powerful.
So powerful. And what's the new book you're working on? You said you were a
chapter into it. Well, I actually, two weeks ago, I wrote, was asked to write a
(50:34):
chapter in a book that's called Perspectives on Cancer. That just came out.
And now I'm writing another book called, and the working title is For Truths
and a Lie. So I've got a rough draft. I'm working on the sort of cleaning up the
rough draft and things like that. It's just, I mean, if you would have told me
when I was in high school that I would have written a book, I would have told you
(50:55):
you were nuts. So it's just fun for me to be able to have something positive to do.
Yeah. Do you have any other questions, Keith, before we wrap it up?
I just, to me, this, you are such a perfect example of, like you had said in the
beginning, choices, you know, the choices that we have. And a lot of times, I think
(51:20):
we get kind of caught up like, no, I don't have a choice. I had to deal with this,
you know, for like Mindy, I had to deal with this class. I don't have a choice.
But it's the choice that comes after, afterwards, you know, I read a thing in
Buddhism where they talked about the two darts. The first dart is what happens to
us. The second dart is the one that we throw at ourselves, you know, so I stub
(51:41):
my toe, that happens, the pain is there. But then I start yelling at my wife for
not moving a chair, you know, blaming her for saying that's that second dart.
And it seems that this entire conversation, everything has been an outward,
everything is about observing outwardly instead of observing inwardly, which I
(52:05):
think a lot of us get caught up in, you know, especially when we're going through
something, feeling anxiety, dealing with cancer, we go into that survival mode,
which draws our attention inward towards us. And you've been able to kind of keep
that, I don't know if wall or protection, but pushing your perception, your
observation outward. And one of the first things I learned with coaching was
(52:29):
that when we give, you know, if I give somebody or if I get love, my wife comes
up, gives me a hug, I feel love. But when I'm able to give someone a hug, I
feel love. But when I'm able to give love, I feel it going and I feel it
returning. And to me, you exemplify that in such an amazing way, which is just
(52:55):
so beautiful, you know, and it shows that we do have the power to choose and
that power of our perception of how we observe the world creates you.
Yeah, amazing.
(53:17):
Well, thank you for that. And I appreciate that. And, you know, like I said, I
have bad days. I get down and stuff like that. And you're right, I find a way,
you know, when I'm in those bad places, I'm looking internally, I'm looking,
you know, at myself, what was me? This is terrible. I don't like this. And I
find a very easy way to flip that to sort of turn that coin over is to go
(53:38):
find somebody else to help. And I'm at the hospital so much, it's not hard
for me to do that. I can always find somebody who's getting a treatment or
who's scared because it's their first time or something like that. It's like,
hey, you want to have a cup of coffee? I've been doing this for three years,
you know, in this particular facility. You're gonna be great. Everything's
gonna be fine. Now all of a sudden, the focus is not on me anymore. The focus
(53:59):
is on somebody else and making their life better. And so I'm feeling better
just because I'm making somebody else's life feel better. It's amazing how
that works. Yeah. Yeah, it's my experience when I'm able to do that love,
compassion, help, that it's almost like I opened up a channel and it's coming
(54:21):
through me, right? Like I'm feeling more positivity or whatever it is, not
because I have positivity in me that I'm sharing with you, but because in the
active giving, it opens up a channel to source or whatever you call that.
And man, that's, it's almost effortless then, right? It is. Yeah. And it feels
good, you know, and now all of a sudden you're not feeling as bad as you were
(54:45):
because you've got that source coming through you and making a difference in
somebody else's life. Yeah. Yeah, Terry, was there anything that you wanted to add
before we wrap up? I guess let me, let me tell you a story. I had one of my
nurses asked me, you know, what it was like to have my foot amputated in
(55:06):
2018 and have my leg amputated in 2020. And as you can imagine, I told her it
certainly hasn't been easy, you know, when you're my age and you're my height,
you know, learning to walk again, falling is not an option. You get hurt from this
height. So I try not to fall when I'm learning to walk again. But what I told
her was, you know, cancer can take all my physical faculties, but cancer can't
(55:30):
touch my mind. It can't touch my heart and it can't touch my soul. And that's
who I am. That's who you are, Mindy. That's who you are, Keith. That's who
everybody's listening to us really is. And we spend a ton of time working on
this spot. You know, we go to the gym, we eat, right? We reduce stress, we get
enough rest. And I'm not telling you not to do that. You absolutely should do
that. But what I am suggesting is maybe every day, work a little bit more on
(55:53):
who you really are, your heart, your mind, your soul. We know this body is going
to die someday. It's going to decay and it's going to go away. But I think our
heart, our mind and our soul, I think those things are eternal. I think they
live on. And I just don't think we spend enough time working on them.
Beautifully said. Beautifully said. So I have one final question for you.
(56:16):
I didn't do it. Sorry.
How about March Madness Bracket? Is your Bracket busted yet?
I have Yukon and Purdue in the finals and Purdue winning it. So I still have
the potential to be here. You know, for the sweet 16, I had 13 out of the 16.
So I was doing pretty good. Nice. How about you? Is yours busted?
(56:39):
Not yet. I had two of them in my little group that we do. And one of them
busted and one of them's not. So I'm very excited about the games this weekend.
And even though my husband and I don't drink very much, I love like going to
a bar when everybody's screaming and everybody's got their teams and the
energy's up. So I'm pretty excited about it. I am too. I'm looking forward to it.
(57:02):
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This hour went so fast and it
was just really lovely. Thank you. Well, thanks for having me out. I really
enjoyed talking to both of you. Thank you for listening to the Chasing Thoughts
podcast. Please support us by liking, subscribing, or leaving a review or
comment. We would really appreciate it. If you'd like to be a guest, we would
(57:23):
love to explore life and what it means to be human with you. Please email us
at chasingthoughtspodcast at gmail.com.
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