What It's Like To...
What It's Like To...
What It's Like to Find Joy in the Midst of a Serious Illness
Eleven years ago, Terry Tucker learned he had an extremely unusual form of melanoma. Since then he has had two amputations, one of his foot and later of his leg above the knee. He recently learned he also has tumors in his lungs. Terry has endured physical pain most of us will never know. Yet, as he says, "Suffering is optional." Terry has been more than resilient--he has used his experiences to gain perspectives on life that everyone can use: control your mindset and work towards continual self improvement. In this episode, Terry shares his journey from Division I college basketball athlete to successful careers in law enforcement and business, to his current role as "cancer warrior." He has powerful words of wisdom that you won't soon forget.
In this episode:
- Terry explains his extremely rare form of melanoma (03:28)
- Terry's journey with the medication interferon, and its effect on him (05:01)
- Why Terry believes it's important to ask a lot of questions, be your own best advocate, and stay curious (10:56)
- What led to Terry's foot needing to be amputated (12:23)
- His reaction when he learned his foot would be removed (14:17)
- What led to Terry's second above-the-knee amputation (18:54)
- Where Terry's motivation and positive outlook comes from (24:41)
- Why Terry does at least one thing every day that scares him (29:33)
- Terry's thoughts on people being born "full"--not "empty" (37:02)
- Terry's "Four Truths" (38:15)
- What cancer has taken from Terry--and what it has NOT taken (and never will) (45:58)
Want to know more about Terry?
- Order his book, Sustainable Excellence, Ten Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life, here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GLGVTVS
- Check out his website, Motivational Check: https://www.motivationalcheck.com/
- Link up with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terry-tucker-9b5605179/
- Find him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/motivationalcheck
- Tweet him on Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/terrytucker201
- Check him out on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sustainableexcellenceauthor/
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Terry
I had these big tumors in my lungs. I had fluid all around the pleural spaces on the outside of my lungs. And I remember looking at my doctor and saying, How was I alive? And he kind of got this grin on his face and sort of shook his head and said, I don't know, because you shouldn't have been. Which said to me, God's not done with me yet. When I die, where I die, how I die way above my pay grade. Don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about the dying part. Spend more time worrying about the living part.
Elizabeth
Hello, and welcome to “What It's Like To”, the podcast that lets you walk in someone else's shoes and live vicariously through their unique experiences. I'm your host, Elizabeth Pearson Garr. In each episode, I'll be asking a new interviewee all the what, why, when, and where's of how they do what they do.
Terry Tucker's adult life has taken him from playing Division One college basketball to working in business, to being a SWAT team hostage negotiator, to taking on a role he didn't choose but is embracing ‘cancer warrior’. Terry was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in 2012, and since then he's had one foot amputated and two years later his leg amputated above the knee.
He's also learned that he has tumors in both of his lungs. So, what happens when life throws you a major curve ball? I think what happens is that your true character is revealed. Terry Tucker is doing some amazing work in this chapter of his life. He focuses on what he calls the healthy aspects of being sick, and through his company ‘Motivational Check’, he works to help others lead uncommon and extraordinary lives.
Terry, I'm so glad to have you on my podcast.
Terry
Well, Elizabeth, thanks for having me on. I'm really looking forward to talking with you today.
Elizabeth
Thank you. I'd like to start with just asking how you're doing. How are you feeling?
Terry
I am a, as my doctor always tells me stable, which, I guess, beats the alternative. So yeah, things are good. I'm still being treated every three weeks for the tumors, but, my scans are showing that the tumors have been stable for almost 18 months now.
Elizabeth
Well, that's really good news. I'm so happy to hear that. Can you tell us a little bit about your, type of cancer? I read it was a really rare form of melanoma that you got diagnosed with it, 11 years ago now.
Terry
11 years. yeah, you're right. I have a rare form of melanoma. Most people think of melanoma as too much exposure to the sun, and it affects the pigment in our skin. Mine has nothing to do with that. This is a rare form that appears on the bottom of the feet or the palms of the hands.
Just for educational purpose. There's also an even rarer form that is a mucosal type of melanoma that appears in your mucus membrane. So your nose or your mouth, something like that. So I have a rare form, but it's not as rare as the mucosal one.
Elizabeth
So it just happened. it wasn't exposure to the sun or anything. It just came up.
Terry
Yeah, a couple of summers ago I had some genetic testing done and doctors tested all 88 genes that they either know of or suspect. All kinds of cancer, not just melanoma, but you know, lung cancer, breast cancer, testicular cancer, everything. And I have no mutations in any of my genes for cancer.
So it kind of begs the question, why did I get this? But nobody's able to answer that. So it's not a question I spend a lot of time pondering.
Elizabeth
You're moving forward.
Terry
Don't have much of a choice, you know?
Elizabeth
So can you talk me through some of your journey? I read a little bit about it and you went through quite the trial you were given a certain drug to try to help combat the cancer and it did some other things that weren't very pleasant.
Terry
Yeah. I, I was given, a drug called interferon. When I was diagnosed with melanoma in 2012 there were no treatments. It was pretty much a death sentence. The only thing they could try to do is wherever it was to try to cut it out. There were no medications they could give you. So my doctor put me on this drug called interferon just to try to, basically, she used to say, kick the can down the road and try to buy me more time.
The side effects of the interferon were that it gave me severe flu-like symptoms for two to three days every week after each injection. And I took those weekly injections for almost five years. So imagine having the flu every week for five years. And like I said, it wasn't a cure. It wasn't like, do this for five years and you'll be fine. It was, we don't really have anything else to give you and the thing about interferon it killed everything. It killed cancer, It killed flus, It killed colds. I mean, I didn't have a cold or a flu for five years because, you know, it not only dealt with the cancer, it dealt with everything else. So I guess if there was an upside, that was it. During that time.
Elizabeth
Yeah. But you were exhausted and fatigued and losing weight and achy and like you said, feeling like you had the flu for five years. What an absolute drag.
Terry
Yeah, it was, I lost 50 pounds during my therapy and I always used to say I was so skinny I could go hang gliding on a Dorito, you know, during that period. So, you know, you sort of had a laugh at it because if you didn't, it would really bring you to tears. And, there was certainly a time where I I was so sick of being sick that I literally, I just prayed to die. You know, I kind of felt there was living and there was not dying, and I was kind of in that not dying phase. I really wasn't living, I mean, sometimes a good day was literally getting out of bed and making it to the couch and that, so, you know, it was like, look, God, this isn’t a living, just get me outta here. And obviously he didn't, cuz I'm still here 11 years later.
Elizabeth
So when did that mindset kick in? Are you just one of those people that from the start you kind of said, I mean, aside from the few days of, of course, even when anyone is sick for a few days, anyone can start feeling kind of like, oh, this is a drag. I don't even wanna get off the couch. You had five years of it plus a serious diagnosis, but were you kind of from the start, just a positive person or how were you able to shift your mind around to even joke about, you know, flying on a Dorito and things that, that's pretty remarkable.
Terry
Yeah, I've been an athlete most of my life, you know, I started playing basketball when I was like nine years old and played all the way up until I graduated from college and, you know, I think being part of a team and, I had three knee surgeries in high school. I had one in college. So, I'm sort of used to fighting back from things that, are trying to keep me down, to get back to something that I enjoy and so I'd had those experience before. This wasn't the first time, but I made a conscious decision to not take out my feelings, my frustrations, my anger, my not feeling good, on somebody that was trying to help me.
I made that decision very early on and I've seen a lot of people lash out at doctors and nurses and it's not their fault. So I think a lot of it were things that I learned as an athlete and things I learned from trying to recover from knee surgery.
Elizabeth
What was the prognosis initially when that doctor had given you the interferon? did she kind of say, you can just take it indefinitely?
Terry
Well, I, I, remember I, was coaching high school basketball and, and I had one of my players whose grandmother was on interferon for a liver ailment. And I remember talking to her and saying, Hey, they want to put me on this, what do you think? And she said, eh, it's, it's kind of hard she said, but you know, if you can be on it for like six months or so, you can probably handle it. So I remember kind of going back to my oncologist and sort of puffing my chest out, like, Hey, I can do this for six months. And, and she was like, well, do you think you could do it for five years? and I looked at her literally like, are you nuts? She said, well, that's what I'd like you to do. And I said, well, I'll try it and we'll see how it goes. And when I tried it, it was really bad at first. They had to kind of figure out the dosage that was right. I had some really bad side effects to begin with. Had a terrible rash on my body, it was sort of my body getting used to it and, you know, then it got to a point where you just knew what to expect. But I was always cold. That was one thing you know, I remember talking to my neighbors and it's 90 degrees out and I'm wearing a fleece outside, you know, and it's like cause I was just so cold so, the prognosis was, my wife and I were just talking about this the other day. My oncologist pulled her out of the room and said, you realize that if he gets a miracle, he'll be dead in five years. If he doesn't, it'll probably be a year or two and he'll be gone. Is he gonna be okay with that? Yeah. And my wife kind of laughed at her and said, you go ahead and tell him that and see what he does. and I think that's the thing, doctors play the odds, it's sort of like Vegas. They're like, well, based on people who have your disease at your level, You’re gonna live five years.
Elizabeth
Yeah. they don't wanna raise your expectations, incorrectly and tell you like, oh, you might have 10 20, or, you know, this could happen. Because then people are gonna be so disappointed if they have a different outcome. So they're trying to, regulate your expectations. But that could have a different effect.
Terry
Yeah. You're, you're absolutely right. But I guess I just wish they would just shut up and the reason I say that is, they don't know your heart, they don't know your soul, they don't know your mind, they don't know that, your son is getting married a year from now, and by God you're gonna be there.
And, those are the intangibles that they don't know. There are people like me who ask a lot of questions like, why are we doing this? Is this something we should be doing? Can I do something better? I swear sometimes my doctor's gonna hit me over the head with a two by four just because I asked so many questions. But I've always wanted my life to be shaped by the decisions that I made, not by the ones that I didn't make or that somebody else made for me. So I want to be involved. you tell me what's going on. You don't know me, so don't tell me I'm gonna be dead in five years. Cause, I got things to do,
Elizabeth
Yeah. and I think they will like that too. I mean, be an informed patient. Be your own best advocate. like you said, no one knows you better than you, and they can't know everything about your situation or what's best for you. So, educate yourself and ask as many questions as you can. I mean, just general, in, life, I think be curious.
Terry
Be curious, be a lifelong learner, understand things. And, that's always been me, I've always been interested in, in that kind of thing. And I've always loved science and the body and how the body works and things like that. So, it is sort of looking at yourself from the outside and saying, oh, that's pretty cool. You know, how did that work? I just ask a lot of questions and I think that's probably some of the reason why I've gotten to this point so far.
Elizabeth
So what happened then? you had the downturn where you had to have your foot amputated. What led to that and what happened emotionally for you at that point?
Terry
So five years of interferon and because of the toxicity of the drug, it, it just became so toxic to my body. Then I ended up in the intensive care unit, with a body temperature of 108 degrees, which is usually not compatible with being alive. And the funny thing about it is I was burning up, but I was freezing. I mean, I was so cold and we were in the emergency room the nurse came in and my wife looked at her and said, take his temperature. And she said, well, we just took it. She said, take it again. And I was at like 104, they had wrapped me in all these blankets cuz I was so cold.
And the doctor comes in, they take it again and it's like 106. So the blankets come off, they pack me in ice. So imagine being just freezing and now they're packing you in ice and you're like, are you, you gotta be kidding me. Yeah. And they pulled my wife out and the nurse manager, not real sensitive, she made a comment to my wife, she said, I've only seen one person with a body temperature this high, and they didn't survive, so it's like, eh, I might not wanna say that.
Elizabeth
Great. Bedside manner.
Terry
Yeah, and then they gave me a hyperthermic type of medication. I don't remember a lot about what was going on. It was kind of delirious, and the next thing I remember was waking up in the intensive care unit. So, How I survived that I have absolutely no idea. It had to be divine intervention, for lack of a better word.
Elizabeth
And that was all reaction to five years of that drug.
Terry
Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean obviously I couldn't take it anymore. And almost immediately the cancer came back in the exact same spot on my foot where it had presented it five years earlier. So, you know, you kinda wonder, it's like, well, was that interferon, you know, five years for not, or whatever. And so that's how I ended up having to have my foot amputated. Cuz they didn't really have anything else they could do for me.
Elizabeth
What was your reaction when you heard the foot was being taken off?
Terry
You know, you kind of get attached to your body parts. So, you know, when people start lopping 'em off, it's a, you know.
Elizabeth
You're, you have such a good sense of humor about this. You're an athlete. You were a basketball player. Yeah. You really used, you're foot a lot, so.
Terry
You did, you know, initially they were gonna do a below the knee amputation, and I went to see the Orthopedic Surgeon and he said, you know, I got this friend of mine who's a foot surgeon, I want you to go see him. And so I ended up seeing him literally three days before the surgery schedule. And he looks at it and he looks at the x-rays and the MRIs and the CAT scans and everything, and he is like, I think I can save your ankle. He said, I think we can just take everything in front of your ankle. So, that was at least a whole lot better than having to blow the knee amputation.
Elizabeth
Sure. Yeah.
Terry
And so, I had to learn how to walk again but I, still had an ankle, I still had a heel. So from that perspective, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But it was, just a whole, nother realm of trying to learn how to walk again your toes weren't there and you, didn't have the grip and stuff like that. So it took quite a bit of physical therapy.
Elizabeth
Then was the idea, well now the cancer is gone. We've taken it out.
Terry
That was the idea, we've cut it out. Again, you know, I told you when I was first diagnosed, the only thing they offered me was surgery. We can try to cut it out. So as far as they knew they could cut it out. And my doctor told me at this point, he said, Terry, wherever your cancer is in your body, it's already there. So don't think that, if you don't do this immediately, that it's gonna, you know, get outta your foot and go to your lungs or something. Wherever it is, it's already there. He said that we're very fortunate to have CAT scans and MRIs, he said, but the problem with those is they're somewhat limited because you have to have a tumor the size of a garden pea and people get freaked out when I give this number, which is about a billion cells. So you have to have a billion cancer cells the size of a tumor in order for us to see it on a CAT scan or an MRI. And he said, so it may be somewhere else in your body. It's just too small to be picked up at this point in time.
Elizabeth
And, this is going way back, but how did they originally find it on your foot? Was it a mark, like a mole type of thing?
Terry
No, actually I mentioned I was coaching high school basketball and, I had a callous break open on my foot right below my third toe, and initially I didn't think much of it because as a coach you're on your feet a lot. But after a few weeks of it not healing, I made an appointment. To see a podiatrist, a foot doctor friend of mine, and he took an X-ray and he said, Terry, I think you have a cyst in there and I can cut it out. And he did, and he showed it to me. It was just a little gelatin sack with some white fat in it, no dark spots, no blood, nothing that gave either one of us concern. But fortunately, or unfortunately, he sent it off to pathology. And then, you know, two weeks later, I get that call from him. And as I said, he's a friend of mine, and the more difficulty he was having explaining to me what was going on, the more frightened I was becoming until finally he just laid it out for him. He said, Terry, I've been a doctor for 25 years. I have never seen the form of cancer that you have.
Elizabeth
Wow. Yeah. My sister's a physician and I remember when I, went to give birth to my first baby, she said, this is one time in your life you wanna be totally normal. You don't wanna be exceptional or rare or unusual or stand out in any way. You just wanna be below the radar and totally normal.
Elizabeth
I mean, it's funny cuz that's been said to me too, that, you're kind of in this freakish part where we don't see this very often. That's not where you want to be. If you have cancer, you want to kind of have the same cancer everybody has and they have treatment for it. You don't want to have this sort of outlier Cancer and you don't choose to have that. I mean, obviously you choose to have a baby and, you know, hopefully things are healthy and happy.
Elizabeth
But, Yep. It's a whole different scenario. So, the thing that you have chosen though, I think is your mindset and how you've dealt with all of this. And I think it's just really remarkable. I wanna talk about that, but I guess I should mention that a few years, it was middle of Covid, you had to deal with yet another incident. They found a tumor in your leg. is that right?
Terry
Well, my, lower leg was swelling and they didn't know why this was in, in early 2020 and in December of, 2019, the cancer had worked its way up into my shin at this point, kind of on my shin bone, and they were doing a procedure they didn't do anymore, which was basically going in through my femoral artery and vein up over and down into my leg. Basically, they're running chemotherapy through your leg for about an hour. And they thought that's why I was having all this swelling and edema. And so they sent me to an Occupational Therapist. The Occupational Therapist was doing things and was like, hmm, something's not right here, this should be working. And so she's the one who went to my surgeon and said, you need to scan him, there's something going on here. And that's when they found the tumor, and, my entire lower leg was full of cancer.
I had had a, tumor in my ankle that was left, that grew large enough that it fractured my Tibia, my shin bone. So it broke my leg. So they found that during the procedure and they also found out that I had these tumors in my lungs, which have always been there, but grew large enough that they were able to see them now.
Elizabeth
The evident. I see. So they ended amputating your leg above your knee, is that right? And that was in 2020.
Terry
Yeah, that was probably the strangest thing that I've ever had. I mean, I've had a lot of surgery, but. it was during Covid. I'm treated at the University of Colorado Hospital in Denver. Well, they have outlying hospitals. And my surgeon was like, look, we're gonna do this at an outlying hospital that does not accept Covid patients. And so literally the morning of the surgery, my wife dropped me off at the hospital. I was not allowed to have anybody with me. I was taken by a nurse back to this huge, area where they, prep everybody for surgery. And I was the only person in that area. There was nobody else there. My doctor had to get special permission to do the operation. I was supposed to be in the hospital for 10 days to two weeks. They sent me home after 48 hours. So it was, I don't know how to describe it. You’re having your, your leg amputated and you've got no support. Talk about having to steel your mind, you're gonna have to deal with this, and I did.
Elizabeth
Was it just kind of, help and assistance via Zoom? Like other things were during the pandemic, would they just check in on you and say, here's how you should be kind of rehabbing and dealing with this?
Terry
The occupational therapist that I mentioned that had helped me, was trying to get rid of the edema in my lower leg and who contacted the surgeon was kind enough to come over to our house after hours and help my wife and say, okay, that throw rug's gotta go. I mean, he could trip over it. So she helped us put grab bars in the showers and things like that, that would help me in those kind of things. If she hadn't have done that, we would've been on our own. No, we had, no, it's like, well, we'll see you in two weeks for your follow up, to see how your surgery is. If anything happens, give us a call. So, I mean, you're pretty much on your own. I had a great surgeon so everything ended up being fine, but a lot of apprehension as you can imagine, you know, having this kind of a major surgery.
Elizabeth
Yeah. It wasn't just like, I don't know, you had your wisdom teeth out or something routine, this was such a life-changing experience and here you're having to deal with it alone. So your whole lifestyle changed, I'm sure. How do you get around now? Did you start in a wheelchair? I mean, obviously you have to start in a wheelchair with the healing, but how did you functionally have to change?
Terry
I did start in a wheelchair. I am, I'm actually in a, in a wheelchair right now. I have a prosthetic leg. My daughter got married about a year and a half ago, my goal was to walk her down the aisle, and, and I did that.
Elizabeth
Ah, how lovely.
Terry
yeah, there wasn't a dry eye in the house, it was, it was amazing. So basically your quadricep and your hamstrings, their sole existence is to move your lower leg. So if you don't have a lower leg, they atrophy, they don't have anything to do. So when you are learning to walk again with an above the knee amputation, you use your, like hip and butt muscles.
And so it's really hard. and you're also trying to learn how to balance and, it takes a lot out of you. And the other thing I thought was, well, you just put your prosthetic on and you walk. Well, yeah, that's to a point. But as you walk, your stump shrinks. And so you have to stop at a period of time, take off your prosthetic, put on what they call socks, which basically kind of make your stump larger to fit into the cavity, at the end of your prosthetic leg. Otherwise, you move around in it and that moving around can cause chafing and you can break the skin down and things like that.
So it's a really complicated process. It's a really energy inducing process. And so I just find now it's just easier for me considering I'm still being treated for tumors in my lungs every three weeks. It's just easier for me to get around in a wheelchair. So I don't really much use the prosthetic anymore.
Elizabeth
So you're an athlete, are you able to exercise still?
Terry
Yes, I use my body, it's weird, I do pushups on the stairs. It's kind of a goofy way of doing them,
but it's an easier way for for me to do 'em. And I, I used the bands and things like that, to help me. And like I said, I had three knee surgery in high school, one in college. Unfortunately that was not on the leg that got amputated, it was on the other leg. So I continue to have, to try to keep that strong so that doesn't bother me and stuff. So yes, I do. I wish I exercised more, but, you know, I do what I can.
Elizabeth
So, you've gone through all of this and you are such a positive and as we see, humorous, uplifting person, I think a lot of us would just sort of have, folded into the couch and turned on Netflix and maybe given up. I think that that's, really a testament to your character and your spirit and, I'm wondering if you can talk about where you find your own personal motivation.
Terry
Sure. So when I graduated from college, my father and my grandmother were both dying of different forms of cancer. My dad had end stage breast cancer back in the 1980s, and they really didn't know how to treat men with that kind of Cancer. And so they pretty much told him to go home and die.
But he lived another three and a half years, and he did, I believe, because he had a purpose and he was able to execute on that purpose. He actually worked up till two weeks before he died. And I sort of tucked that in the back of my mind. It's like, when I get older and, it's my turn, I need to remember that I don't want you to think I don't have bad days. I do. I mean, you're looking at me right now, there's no “S” on my chest. I do not have a cape and fly around with magical powers.
Elizabeth
Okay. You're human. You're human.
Terry
I am, totally, especially when I'm treated, especially when I have therapy, I cry, I get down, I feel sorry for myself. I just don't let myself stay in that realm. And I'm gonna tell you a story and it's kind of a weird story. So just hang with me here for a minute.
Back in the 1950s, there was a professor at Johns Hopkins University who did a very simple experiment with rats. He put 'em in a tank of water that was over their head. And he wanted to see how long the average rat would tread water. And initially, the average rat treaded water for about 15 minutes. And just as those rats were getting ready to sink and drown, he reached in, grabbed them, pulled them out, dried 'em off, and let 'em rest for a while. And then he took the exact same rats and put 'em back in that exact same tank of water.
And the second time around, on average, those rats treaded water for 60 hours. So think about that the first time. Yeah. 15 minutes. I, I'm not just gonna fail, second time around 60 hours, which said to me two things. Number one, the importance of hope in our lives that we have to believe, maybe not today, maybe not this month, maybe not even this year. But if I keep doing the things I know I'm doing, that are gonna get me to where I want to be. I have good habits, I'm motivated, I'm disciplined that my life is going to change, my life is going to improve. And the second thing it taught me, and I realize this is that our bodies can handle so much more than we ever thought they could.
Now, don't get me wrong, I think we all have sort of a, breaking point. But that breaking point is so much further down the road than we ever thought it was. People quit. People give up long before they ever need to because their body can handle a whole lot more. So I've come to understand that and that just kind of helps me push forward when I get in those dark and ugly places.
Elizabeth
So that's the kind of mind over matter.
Terry
It is. And, actually, I have a friend who's a former Navy Seal, some of the toughest people in the world, and he's kind enough on my off weeks of treatment to call me and just check up on me and stuff like that. And we spend a lot of time talking about, you know, how your mindset can lead to resiliency and the seals have this, what they call their 40% rule. And it basically says that, if you're done, if you're through, if, you're at the end of your rope and you don't think you can go on, you're only at 40% of your maximum and you still have another 60% left in reserve to give to yourself. So that's what I mean by, you know, people quit long before their bodies give out.
It's, if you can't control your mind, your body's going to, just say, you know what, I'm done and be done with it. And I've seen people do that, and it's like, no, I'm gonna quit when I'm done, not when I'm tired.
Elizabeth
Yeah. Well, I read this quote that you wrote. here it is: “I realize pain and discomfort can beat you to your knees and keep you there if you let it. But I also came to appreciate that I could use my hurting and anguish to harden my mind and make me more resolute”. So, it's very perceptive to just say, I'm going to use my hurting. I'm going to use everything that I've been given actually to my benefit, I think that's taking pain and making it work for you. That's impressive.
Terry
It's not as impressive as you think. and it's not something that we all can't do. and I think the way this works and, I recommended this to everybody. I try to do this every single day of my life. Do one thing every day that makes you nervous, that scares you, that makes you uncomfortable. That's potentially embarrassing. It doesn't have to be a big thing. It can be, just a small thing. I always say, whatever you don't want to do, go do it. I don't want to get off the couch and go to the gym, go do it, and I don't want to clean the house. Go clean the house. You know, I don't wanna study for that test. Go study for that. Test. The things that you don't wanna do do. That’s a very simple way of finding one thing every day to do. That's difficult. and the reason I say that is because if you do those things you don't want to do every day, when the big disasters in life hit us and they hit all of us, we lose somebody who's close to us, we get let go from our job, we find out we have a chronic or a terminal illness. You'll be so much more resilient to handle that pain when it presents itself.
Elizabeth
You also don't wanna be one of those people as I tell my kids that life just passes by. You don't wanna be the person who's sitting on your couch and other people are out pursuing the interesting things and think, oh, I wish I had tried that. I wish I had done that. My younger daughter loves to sing and act and perform. And a few years ago when she had never tried out for a really big show, and her voice teacher said, you should try out. And we were in the parking lot for this audition and she said, I can't do it, I can't do it. And I just said, you just need to try. I don't care if you get cast. Just audition. Don't sit on the sidelines. The outcome doesn't matter, it's just trying, it's just putting your hat in the ring. And of course she loved it and was hooked. But I said that's the important thing is just lean in trying the hard thing. So I love that you said that because I completely subscribe to that too.
And I think the thing about it is it's kind of addictive, like for me, the first time I did something really hard was I went across the country for college, which felt really risky for me. And as soon as I realized I could kind of take a risk and do something that felt kind of out of my comfort zone, I realized, oh look, I can do that. Maybe I can do something else. Maybe I can move to another city, and it just builds this confidence in yourself that you can do things that you didn't think you could do.
Terry
You're right. And, that all goes back to our brains, because our brains are hardwired to avoid pain and discomfort and to seek pleasure. So to the brain, you know, the status quo, the way things are right now, Hey, comfortable and familiar, just leave it alone. Don't mess with it. but like you say, the only way you're going to grow, the only way you're going to improve, the only way you're gonna get better is if you step outside those comfort zones and do things that make you uncomfortable.
I have another saying that goes like, most people live a casual life and by living a casual life, their goals, their dreams, their ambitions become a casualty of that unplanned living. So you're absolutely right. Do those hard things, do those scary things because you'll get stronger.
Elizabeth
And probably keep in mind that there will be challenging parts of it. And so don't give up because the challenging parts come. That's actually part of the, can we say fun, part of the opportunity that's out there. The challenge is what gives you growth. And part of what gives you the joy in the end is because you're being challenged. You're not just, being a casualty of the casual. You know, you need to be challenged actually to grow and to feel fulfilled.
Terry
You need to challenge yourself constantly, and you can, I actually devoted an entire chapter in my book to this, and I've done this in my life, and I'm not proud of it, most people think with their fears and their insecurities, instead of using their minds. I know I've done that in my life. You probably have too. It's like, oh, I want to do this. Like, oh, wait a minute. Maybe I'm not smart enough, or maybe I don't have enough information. Or what are people gonna think about me if I fail? That's thinking with our fears and our insecurities, that's not thinking with our minds.
I'm making a huge generalization, I know. But so many young people think that success somehow comes without difficulty, without struggles, without failure. And if you look at the people that are successful, whatever that is, you know, a businessperson, an athlete, whatever that is, I'll guarantee you their road to success is paved with failure, is paved with disappointment in our life.
But somehow we don't think that's the case. No, I should just all of a sudden wake up one morning and I'm Taylor Swift. I'm making millions and doing concerts. No. Taylor Swift worked to get to where she is today.
Elizabeth
And everyone did. And maybe you just don't see the quote unquote failures or the struggle through it. But no, what you're describing is, exactly where I was a few years ago, even starting this podcast, even though I've had a lot of experience in similar feel to this. I'd never done a podcast before. So there was a lot of fear of failure. And there still is. there's a lot of things that I don't know, and I'm still figuring out as I'm trying to get this podcast growing and sometimes my fears will overtake my, confidence and I'll say like, oh, maybe I just can't do this, or I shouldn't do this.
And then you have these internal struggles, these conversations and realize I'm leaning into the challenge. Why do I wanna do this? I'm doing this for these reasons, and I've said this on, um, previous episodes, I get so inspired by the guests that I interview, everyone has experienced hardships, challenges, struggles, but they keep persevering. And that's why they've had these interesting experiences. The guy who summited Mount Everest wouldn't have summited if he had given up. I wouldn't be here talking to you if you went and sat on your couch, all my guests are so inspiring because they keep going and that's what I need to keep hearing. I love this message because it resonates with me so much. You need to kind of give yourself the credit that. You can keep moving forward.
Terry
You do. and I've had people come up to me and say, you know, gee, Terry, I could never do what you did. I could never go through with what you've been through. And depending on the kind of mood I'm in, sometimes I can be a little sarcastic. You know, I, I will say, Yeah, you're right. You couldn't because you've already defeated yourself. You've already told yourself that you can't do this. Why would you go into something saying, I'm gonna fail? I, I couldn't do that.
I never did that with Cancer. You know, I'm like, well, I'm probably gonna die. Okay. there's something liberating about planning your funeral, you know, once you've planned your funeral, it's like, okay, when I die, I die. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about that. When I had my leg amputated, tumors in my lungs, about eight months later, my doctor showed me my CAT scan and I have no medical background. I don't know how to read a CAT scan or anything like that, but you can kind of look at it and say, well, gee, that doesn't look like it's supposed to be there. And I had these big tumors in my lungs, I had fluid all around the pleural spaces on the outside of my lungs. And I remember looking at my doctor and saying, how was I alive? And he kind of got this grin on his face and sort of shook his head and said, I don't know, because you shouldn't have been. Which said to me, God's not done with me yet. When I die, where I die, how I die way above my pay grade, don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about the dying part. Spend more time worrying about the living part because Elizabeth, especially here in the West, we seem to think that we are born empty.
And then once we get outta school and we get into life, our job is to fill ourselves up. I gotta get a great education. I gotta, get a good job. I gotta make a lot of money. I gotta have a nice family, I gotta drive a nice car, live in a nice house, and we fill ourselves up. And what I've come to understand is that it's just the opposite. We're not born empty. We're born full. Everything we need to be successful in life is already inside us. All we need to do is instead of getting, is give, empty yourself out. That's what your life should be about. Empty yourself out for the betterment, certainly of yourself, but of your family, of your friends, of your community, of your job, of your God, whatever you believe.
And if you do that, I think you're gonna be a whole lot happier than all these people I've gotta make more money. I've gotta drive an nicer car. Those people end up being miserable. It's the people that give of themselves that I honestly think really understand the purpose and meaning of life.
Elizabeth
It's so lovely. And it's so true. To have a really fulfilled life is to approach it that way. I know you have four truths that you have come up with, and one of them, is understanding that what you leave behind is what you weave into the hearts of other people. And as soon as I read that, I have thought about that so many times, and I've actually told it to some people in my life because I just think it's so profound, and it could just be as simple as, the comment that you make to your child's friend as they're leaving your house. How you make them feel. what you are weaving into people. That’s your legacy, that's your contribution in the world, and that's emptying yourself.
Terry
Yeah, it is. I, I was reading an article yesterday this individual was talking about how, in the 1900s, during that a hundred years there were about 1.7 billion people born in the world. And the guy put up a bunch of names in the article. And he is like, do you know these people? And I knew none of them. You know? and so as you read on, it's like, well, this person won the Academy Award for this and this person, was head of the largest corporation and his point was, I don't care how important, how influential, what a big deal you are a hundred years from now, nobody's gonna remember who you are. Nobody. But what people are gonna remember is what you give of yourself to other people, and hopefully it does something in them and they can pass it on to somebody else and they can pass it on. And that's how you live on, that's what's important. Being remembered. you know, nobody's gonna name a street or a building or even a basketball court after me. I mean, 30 seconds without being melodramatic after they closed the lid on my casket and put me in the ground. Nobody's gonna remember I was here, but what impact did my life…
Elizabeth
They will, by the way. They will.
Terry
Well, thank you. I appreciate you saying that. Okay. Maybe a minute afterwards. So, you know, but it's, what are you giving of yourself to make the world a better place? You know, I can't change the world, but I can change my little corner of it.
Elizabeth
I just wanna cover the other three things that you've said, because they are equally as profound. We've touched on controlling your mind so it doesn't control you, embracing the pain and difficulty and using it to make you a stronger and more determined individual, we kind of touched on that. Is there anything more you wanna say on that one?
Terry
I'll give you a kind of another story that sort of marries number one, controlling your mind and embracing the pain, is sort of in the same genre. When I went to college, I went to a military college in South Carolina, and one year we had a president by the name of James Stockdale. And Admiral Stockdale had been…
Elizabeth
Oh, Admiral. The one who ran for Vice President with…
Terry
Yeah. With Ross Perot.
So Stockdale, was the highest ranking prisoner of war. He was shot down, on a bombing mission over North Vietnam. So he was the highest ranking prisoner of war during the Vietnam conflict. He spent eight years basically being tortured and brutalized and abused. I remember being at an event with him and somebody asked him, who were the people that survived being prisoners of war, who survived the torture and the beatings and all, everything.
He said, well, let me tell you who didn't survive. He said, it wasn't the big, strong, tough guys that thought that they could handle any kind of abuse or torture. And this one was kind of interesting too. He said it wasn't the optimists either. Which I thought was kind of weird. He said, these were the people that thought they'd be released or rescued by Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter.
And when Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter would come and go, and they would fail to be rescued, they would die of a broken heart. He said the people that survived were the people who understood what they could control, which according to Stockdale, was basically their breathing and their thoughts. I mean, everything else was at the discretion of the enemy. When they ate, when they slept, when they were tortured, everything was at the discretion of the enemy. So understanding what you could, could control and controlled it. He said, those are the people that survived that kind of a situation. And I think we try to control things that we have no business trying to control. What do you really have control over in your life? Learn what those things are, control those things, and I promise you, you'll be a whole lot happier in your life.
Great advice. And then this one. Number four, remembering that as long as you don't quit, you can never be defeated. That sounds like you.
Terry
Well, thank you. I think that's pretty self-explanatory, but I guess the way that resonates with me is that, someday my pain is going to end, man, through surgery. It may end through some type of new medication, quite frankly, it may end when I die, but if I give up, if I give in, if I quit, pain will always be a part of my life. So it's just the understanding that yeah, we're all gonna experience pain in our lives, and it doesn't have to be Cancer pain. It could be, you know, you break up with your boyfriend or your girlfriend or the flight gets canceled, or you don't get the promotion at work that you believe you deserve. Pain is inevitable. Suffering on the other hand, suffering's, optional suffering's. What you do with that pain? Do you use it to make you a stronger and more determined individual? Or do you wallow in it and feel sorry for yourself? It's really a decision that only you can make.
Elizabeth
Hmm. I was going to ask you, this, I'll still ask you the question, I think I know the answer though. The, the people who are sort of stuck in a situation, maybe they do have a diagnosis or they are suffering with betrayal or something feeling ‘why me’, why did this happen to me? I was gonna ask for your advice on that, but I think, I know some of it like what we've learned, I'll try to answer it, you tell me.
Is it that you are the master of your own mindset. So you can choose to approach your condition in any which way you would like. So you can choose to sit and wallow and say, why me? Why me? Or you can look at the situation in a different light and think of, well, where am I sitting now and how can I spread what I do have to help others and move on with my life? How'd I do?
Terry
I think that's, that's beautiful. I mean, you know, why me, why not you. Why not you.
Elizabeth
That's better.
Terry
I mean, I've always believed that, I don't think there's a person that's put in our lives. I don't think there's an event that happens to our lives that isn't there for a reason. That allows us to grow And we, get so caught up in this. You know, life is all about me. You know, it's like, well, that person makes a lot more money than I do. Or that person, you know, drives a better car than I. It's like, wait a minute, when did life become a competition? Why can't you just be thankful and grateful for what that person has? Hey, great job. You, you drive a nice car, great job. You make a lot of money, but you need to stay on your path.
Be grateful or thankful for the people you know that have the things that they do, but use your unique gifts and talents to move your life along. I love that quote by Mother Teresa. It said, God never asked us to be successful, he just asked us to be faithful.
Elizabeth
Oh, that's beautiful. I think it's also, too easy to cherry pick other people's lives and say, oh, that person has the nice car and that one has the nice job, but not look at the full picture of what else is going on in that person's life. Perhaps what they've sacrificed to do that. You make your choices and you look at why the whole picture has created itself as it has.
Terry
I love that. I'll leave you with one more story. Had a nurse recently ask me what it was like to have my foot amputated and to have my leg amputated. And as we've discussed, I told her it hasn't been easy, you know, still trying to figure the whole thing out, getting around and stuff like that. But this is what I told her. Cancer can take all my physical faculties, but cancer can't 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, Elizabeth. That's who everybody who's listening to us is. So, you get to a point in your life where you realize you're spending a lot of time working on this body, working on this vessel. This house to hold who you really are. And I'm not telling you not to go to the gym or not to eat right, or not to get enough rest, or not to reduce your stress. I'm not telling you to do that at all. But what I am suggesting is maybe, spend a little more time every day working on who you really are because your body's gonna go away. Your heart, your mind, and your soul are eternal things that are gonna live on. Spend a little more time each day working on those, developing those, making you a better human being.
Elizabeth
Those are words to live by. Terry. I'm so grateful for that. This is one of these interviews that makes me so happy that I did decide to do this podcast. I love doing all the interviews, but your words are going to stick with me. I'm gonna remember these things and I really appreciate that you have thought through this so thoroughly and then cared to write them in your book, which I will link to in the show notes of this episode and that you've taken the time to talk to me and I can share this with a wider audience because I really think this is meaningful stuff and I appreciate it so much.
Terry
Well, thank you for having me on. You know, I, I always say it's nice people like you that allow me to come on and have a conversation with them, and hopefully that conversation makes a positive difference in somebody's life that we'll never know about.
Elizabeth
Terry Tucker, obviously is an amazing human being. I hope his words and his perspective resonate with you as they have with me. Here are a few of the many takeaways I have from our conversation:
1) Be curious. Ask questions. Do research. Be your own best advocate. Become a lifelong learner.
2) Keep a sense of humor, even maybe especially about serious things.
3) Do one thing every day that scares you, makes you nervous or feels challenging. It'll build resilience for when big things happen, and the only way to grow is to step outside your comfort zone and do things that feel uncomfortable.
4) Our bodies are capable of a lot more than we may think. Quit when you're done, not when you're tired.
5) Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
6) We are not born empty. We're born full. Everything we need to succeed is already inside of us.
7) To that common question, why me? Why not me? Think of all each of us can do.
I'd like to thank Terry Tucker for sharing his time and all of his wisdom with me. If you'd like to learn more about Terry and his book, which is called Sustainable Excellence, 10 principles to leading your uncommon and extraordinary life. Go to the show notes for this episode on our website, whatitsliketo.net. You can also find all of our past episodes there if you like, listening to interviews with people who have overcome hardships and have extraordinary outlooks on life, you might like episode 28 with Megan Wizceb, who turned the loss of her newborn baby into a mission to help others. And episode 13 when Karen Peterson shared about her alcohol addiction and recovery.
If you haven't yet subscribed to this podcast, please do and please tell a few friends about it too. I'm Elizabeth Pearson Garr, thanks for being curious about what it's like.