Ep 57: The Power of the Mind and Love with Terry Tucker
Today's episode features my conversation with author and motivational speaker Terry Tucker. We talk about his life's purpose and his 10-year battle with a rare form of cancer that resulted in the amputation of his foot (2018) and then his leg (2020). We also discuss at length his phenomenal book "Sustainable Excellence." He shares his favorite principles from his book and reveals which one he believes to be the most important among the ten. Overall, it is a must-listen, powerful interview with a leading authority on the subjects of motivation, mindset, and personal growth, and one that you should not miss!
Terry Tucker is a motivational speaker, author, and international podcast guest on the topics of motivation, mindset, and self-development.
He has a business administration degree from The Citadel (where he played NCAA Division I college basketball) and a master’s degree from Boston University. In his professional career, Terry has been a marketing executive, a hospital administrator, a SWAT Team Hostage Negotiator, a high school basketball coach, and a business owner.
Terry is the author of the book, Sustainable Excellence, Ten Principles To Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life, and the developer of the Sustainable Excellence Membership.
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👩💻 Schedule your FREE 30-minute Nutrition Momentum Call with Philip here.
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Today you’ll learn all about:
[3:03] What Terry learned in his battle with cancer
[6:31] Terry's 4 truths
[9:30] Why you should be careful how you talk to yourself
[11:55] The meaning of the saying "Mental is to physical, as 4 is to 1."
[13:15] What it is like being a SWAT hostage negotiator
[18:06] How to deal with setbacks
[23:00] What Terry's book called 'Sustainable Excellence' is all about
[25:40] Terry's favorite chapter in his book
[27:43] The importance of love in everything we do
[29:46] How everything starts with controlling your mind
[34:30] Going out there to find your reason or purpose in life
Episode resources:
The Motivational Check blog: https://www.motivationalcheck.com/
Grab a copy of Terry's book "Sustainable Excellence, Ten Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life" here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GLGVTVS
👩💻 Schedule your FREE 30-minute Nutrition Momentum Call with Philip here.
💪 Need help optimizing your body composition? Check out Wits & Weights individualized, one-on-one nutrition coaching:
https://witsandweights.com/coaching
👉 If you want to learn more about lifting and nutrition, reach out to Philip:
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https://witsandweights.com
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Transcript
Terry Tucker 00:00
If there's something in your heart, something in your soul that you believe you're supposed to do, but it scares you, go ahead and do it. Because at the end of your life, the things you're going to regret are not going to be the things you did. They're going to be the things you didn't do. And by then it's going to be too late to go back and duel.
Philip Pape 00:22
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in.
Philip Pape 00:48
Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights. Joining me on the show today is Terry Tucker, a motivational speaker, author and international podcast guest on the topics of motivation, mindset and self development. He has a business administration degree from the Citadel, where he played NCAA division one college basketball, and a master's degree from Boston University. In his professional career, Terry has been a marketing executive, a hospital administrator, a SWAT team hostage negotiator, a high school basketball coach, a business owner, a motivational speaker, and for the past 10 years, a cancer warrior, which resulted in the amputation of his foot in 2018. And his leg in 2020. Terry is the author of the book, sustainable excellence 10 principles to leading your uncommon and extraordinary life and the developer of the Sustainable excellence membership. Terry, I'm very honored to have you on the show.
Terry Tucker 01:42
Well, Phillip, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to talking with you today.
Philip Pape 01:46
Yeah, likewise, let's just start at the top. I mean, who is Terry Tucker, what is what is your purpose in life?
Terry Tucker 01:52
I think my purpose has really kind of evolved or changed over time. I think when I was when I was younger, I it was basketball. You know, I drank slept basketball. And then after I graduated from college, I felt my purpose it took me a while to get there was to be in law enforcement. And you mentioned I was the SWAT team, hostage negotiator. And now is in all honesty, I'm probably coming towards the end of my life, I think my purpose is to put as much goodness as much positivity, as much motivation, as much love back into the world as I possibly can with whatever time I have left. So my purpose I think has evolved over time. And I think I've been fortunate to recognize that, okay, things are changing now. And I need to change as well.
Philip Pape 02:39
Okay, and you've definitely I imagined change, because of so many of these experiences, we had not only the different phases of your career, but this battle of cancer that you went through, and I was actually going through your website again, just to get familiar with the whole story. And it's quite the story. You know, over 10 years, that rare form of cancer, you have your foot and then leg amputated. I can't even imagine that let alone just the time and all the all the pain you went through. Tell us about that experience and what what you ultimately learned from it.
Terry Tucker 03:07
Yeah, so I mean, when this occurred, it was back in 2012. I was a girls high school basketball coach in Texas and I had a callus break open on the bottom of my foot right below my third toe. And 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 nonhealing out I made an appointment and went to see a podiatrist, a foot doctor friend of mine, and he took an x ray. He said, Tara, thank you have a cyst in there and I can cut it out. And he did. And he showed it to me just so 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 to have it examined. And then two weeks later, I received a call from him. And as I mentioned, he was a friend of mine. And the more difficulty he was having explaining to me what was going on, the more frightened I was becoming and to finally just laid it out for me. So Tara been a doctor for 25 years, I've never seen this form of cancer, you have an incredibly rare form of melanoma. And most of us think of melanoma is too much exposure to the sun and affects the melanin, the pigment in our skin. But this has absolutely nothing to do with that there's a rare form that I have that appears on the bottom of the feet, or the palms of the hands. And as a result he recommended I go to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and be treated. And so I did so I had you know, the tumor excised on the bottom, my foot all the lymph nodes removed, and then my doctor because at the time melanoma was a death sentence. I mean, it was like we don't really have anything to treat it. So she put me on a weekly injection of a drug called interferon to kind of kick the can down the road. The side effects of the interferon were that I had severe flu like symptoms for two to three days every week after each injection, and I took those injections for almost five years.
Terry Tucker 05:00
Just imagine having the flu every week for five years. And I'll tell you, there was a point in time where I was, I was so sick of being sick, that I literally prayed to die, I have a very strong faith. And so it was like, Look, God, this is, I think there's a difference between living and not dying. And I was kind of in that not dying mode. It's like, I'm not really living, I'm just trying to make it to the next day to survive. And so I, I just prayed to die. But obviously, I didn't die. But I think God gave me the strength to get through those five years. And as you already said, you know, that got me to having my leg amputated, having my foot amputated and things like that. And I'll tell you how to nurse recently asked me, you know, what was it like to lose your leg and 18 and or your foot and 18, and then your leg again in 2020. And I told her, I said, it certainly has not been easy. I'm still learning how to walk again with a prosthetic. But what I told her was is that 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 your Philip. That's where everybody who's listening to us is. So you know, we spend a lot of time working on our bodies, you know, I was an athlete my whole life going to the gym, you'll get better get stronger. But do we spend as much time working on who we really are not our heart, our mind and our soul? Maybe there needs to be a better balance, I think, between those things in our lives. And would you say that that that moment was the crucible moment, because it sounds like you've had so many, so many experiences that could have been the catalyst for eventually writing your book and trying to make this impact and put out goodness in the world. So, you know, somebody's listening, and they want to find their, what you call uncommon and extraordinary purpose. You know, of course, not everybody wants to have to go through an experience like that to get there. So, you know, just tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah, I learned a lot of things through the through this episode, I've learned that you know, I don't really think you know, yourself until you've been tested by some form of adversity in life. I think cancer has made me a better human being in a lot of ways. It's gotten me to a point where I've learned what I call my four truths. And I call them my truths, but they're not mine. I don't own them. I don't I don't think you can own a truth. And I'll and I'll give them to you, because I call them sort of the bedrock of my soul, they're just a good place, I think to build a quality life off of. And before I guess I give you the truth, let me say this, I mean, you're looking at me right now there's no s on my chest, I don't have a cake and fly around with magical powers I, I have tough days I have that I'm still being treated for the tumors in my lungs. So there are days that get down, there are days I get depressed. So I don't purport to have all the answers. Like if you do this, you know, this is going to be your outcome. But what I do offer is, this is my story. And this is what I've learned. And if these things work for you, then by all means, take them and incorporate them in your life, maybe one or two of them works for you. Take those and incorporate those in your life and develop your own truths around those. So first truth, control your mind or your mind is going to control you. The second truth, embrace the pain and the difficulty that we all experience in life. And it doesn't have to be cancer, or even any kind of an illness, and use that pain and difficulty to make you a stronger and more resilient individual. The third one, I look at more as a legacy type of truth. And it's this, what you leave behind is what you weave in the hearts of other people. And then the fourth one, I think is pretty self explanatory. As long as you don't quit, you can never be defeated. So I like I said, I use those truths as kind of a bedrock of my soul. And they're just a good place that, you know, do I want to take chemotherapy? Do I want to do this drug? Do I want to get involved in this project? Do these truths along with my faith? This helped me to decide whether there's something I want to do.
Philip Pape 09:10
I love that, Terry, so that the second truth stuck out of me, repeated again has to do with a strong mind, right?
Terry Tucker 09:17
Yeah. Embrace the pain and the difficulty that we all experienced in life and use that pain and difficulty to make you a stronger and more resilient individual.
Philip Pape 09:28
Right. Just listening to another podcast this morning. It was just about strength training and very casual podcast and he said, you know, a strong body is a strong mind, which gives you strong thoughts. And it always reminds me you know, these things that are difficult in the short term, but you embrace them and they end up making you a better person. Right. And that's how we change. Yeah,
Terry Tucker 09:49
it is and I think you know, I go back to the control your mind part and I, I always tell people, be very, very careful how you talk Talk To Yourself, we all have self talk, you know, we all, we all talk to ourselves whether we want want to admit it or not, we just start answering yourself that you kind of have problems. But you know, we all have this this self talk. And, you know, I'll just give you an example from my basketball days, the same part of your brain lights up, when you're practicing free throws, actually taking a ball and shooting free throws, the same part of your brain lights up when you think about shooting free throws. So whether you're physically doing it, or whether you're thinking about doing it, you're making those connections, you're making those synapses connect in your brain. And so you know, if you sit there and tell yourself, you know, I'm a lousy free throw shooter, or you know, I'm terrible at algebra, or I'm never going to start my business, if you keep saying that to yourself, eventually, you're going to get to the point where, yeah, you're not going to be good at shooting free throws, or you're not going to be good at algebra, and you're not going to be able to start your business, because you've hardwired your brain to believe that. So be very careful, be very, I don't know, gentle, tender, whatever you want to call it with yourself. I mean, you're gonna be tough with yourself, but at the same time, make sure the things you're saying are positive things to yourself. Or if there is negative stuff coming in, that you're the kind of person that can use negativity, you know, there are certain people out there, I'm not one of them. You know, Philip, you're terrible at weightlifting, and you're never going to be any good. And some people can take that and internalize it and use it as motivation or fuel or something to. Like I said, I'm not one of those people. But there are those people out there. So you know, be very careful how you talk to yourself, because it all starts with your mind. We all become what we think. And when I was growing up, you know, in Chicago playing basketball, Bobby Knight was the basketball coach at Indiana
Philip Pape 11:49
University and chairs around Yeah,
Terry Tucker 11:53
exactly the same guy. Well, there was a guy I played basketball with in high school that played for a night, Isaiah Thomas, who won a national championship with him, and then went on to play for the Detroit Pistons and won a couple NBA championships. And so Isaiah and I would see each other in the summer, when we would come back to Chicago, you know, I'd be like, you know, what's night like and stuff like that. He said, he's a great guy loves his players. But he has to say that it's very simple saying you said mental is to physical as for is to one. So here's this great coach, teaching elite athletes to use their bodies to be great on the basketball court. But what it was really saying what that quote is that your mind, or your mind set is four times more important than anything your physical body's going to do.
Philip Pape 12:38
Yeah, that's a great message. And a lot of folks listening to this podcast, they're interested in health and nutrition. And a lot of this comes down to consistency, and accountability. And we'll talk about for example, going in and doing your squats, right. And the idea that you may have had a terrible day, the night before, you may have not had too much sleep, you go to the gym and you don't feel well, your warmup doesn't feel good, you get to that first set. And it's like, you can either you can either give up or you can say, well, I don't feel good, but I'm gonna do it. And inevitably you do. And there's there's that mindset thing where it's like 6070 80% of it is all in your mind. So I really love that. You know, I have to ask, you mentioned so you mentioned basketball, but you also in your past, were a SWAT team hostage negotiator. Now we're recording this around the holidays. So the movie diehard melee comes to mind. It's not going to come out to a little bit later than that. But I want to I want to understand what that experience is like, I'm sure you get this question all the time. And how that but also what it taught you about the human mind. And I realize there's a manipulative aspect to it, I guess is one way to put it. But there's both sides of the equation that I imagined teaches you about the human psyche.
Terry Tucker 13:45
Yeah, there is I heard Bruce Willis say one time yet Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. You know what he was very. But But you're right. I mean, it kind of is we're always watching to Christmas and things like that. Yeah, being a hostage negotiator. For those who don't understand Swat. SWAT is usually divided up into two groups one or the, or the tactical officers. Those are the ones with all the toys in the guns in the you know, battering rams, and all that kind of stuff. And then there's the negotiators, and if the negotiators do their job, then the tactical guys don't get to use all their toys. So sometimes they're not happy with this. But it's it was it was absolutely a big learning curve for me. Because if you think of what a police officer does, 99.9% of what we did was usually face to face with another human being whether we're stopping you to give you a ticket because you ran a red light or we're answering a radio run for a fight. It's face to face and you can take those visual clues. So you know if I'm talking to you and you're like, you know, kind of looking around, maybe you're getting ready to run or you know, if you're standing there and you're balling up your fist, maybe you want to fight me so I can See that and I can do what's appropriate, I can handcuff you, I can sit you down and put you in my car, whatever is appropriate for why I'm there. But as negotiators, we were not with the person we were negotiating with, this wasn't a face to face kind of thing. This was many times, we're blocks away talking on a phone, or we're behind, you know, a locked door, they barricaded themselves. And so we have to figure things out based on what people are saying what they're not saying, and how they're saying it. And the overarching part of negotiation is trust. We're trying to build a relationship just like a parent, or a child, or a husband and wife, or a Boston subordinate. You're trying to build to build trust. And sometimes that takes hours. And there were many times where I'm negotiating with somebody where we're over here talking about something when the real issue is over here, but they don't trust me enough yet to want to talk about why we're actually there at four o'clock in the morning to deal with this situation. So trust was a big thing. Listening was a big thing. And people are well, of course, we listen all the time. It's like, No, we're not talking about listening to respond. We're talking about listening to understand. And I even put a chapter in my book about the importance of listening and listening to understand, you know, maybe one of these things where, you know, Phillip say what you're gonna say, because I want to get my two cents in, that's listening to respond versus Okay, Philip, I understand are I hear what you're saying? I may agree with it may not agree with it. But help me understand where you're coming from. And the other thing you mentioned the word manipulative, we didn't really like to say that. But you're absolutely right. We would ask people, How and what questions. And what that did was, engage them to develop or help us to develop solutions to get them out. We tried to stay away from why questions because why sounds kind of accusatory, but why did you do that? Or why are we here? Wait a minute, maybe he's kind of getting in my grill, so to speak. So we would ask how and what, how do you see this getting resolved. Now all of a sudden, now they're engaged with us to try to get them out safely. And I'll end with this, about 80% of the time, maybe even 90%, we were pretty good. In Cincinnati, where I was a negotiator, we would get the personnel safely, whether it was a barricaded person, or whether there was a hostage, but about 10% of the time that the person who was barricaded, decided that you know what, no, because I know when I come out, I'm going back to prison, and I'm not going back to prison, or, you know, I know, I'm gonna get tried and get convicted of that homicide. So I'm not going to I don't want to go to prison. And they would choose to end their life. And again, and I don't mean to sound callous about this. But I never lost any sleep over that for a couple reasons. One, I had great training, I worked with great people. And I worked very hard to try to get that person out safely. But the bottom line is, at the end of the day, if you're barricaded with a gun, it's going to be your decision on how this situation ends.
Philip Pape 18:04
I hear you're saying, Terry, this is this is serious stuff. Okay. Yeah, I was just curious about about that. And the listening actually, that really speaks to me, because that is something I've had to work on for years. And I think doing things like podcasts forces me to try to develop that skill here and hear what you're saying. Maybe to get back to a slightly lighter topic. Sure. Yeah, I opened up the door because I couldn't help it. I had a curiosity. And it is my shows I get to do that. But so how do we how do we deal with setbacks? I guess? Well, you know, going back to the things that cause us to struggle and have adversity that then causes us to change, especially when the setbacks are out of our control, which many are right. Is this a matter of perspective of personal responsibility and not making the excuses despite the fact that wasn't in our control? What's your take on that?
Terry Tucker 19:00
Yeah, I mean, you know, I've got this blog called motivational check. And so you know, everybody thinks it's about motivation. And I think motivation is, is part of it. Motivation, to me is kind of like lighting the fuse, you know, somebody lit the fuse. But if you don't have discipline, and you don't have good habits, you can have all the motivation in the world, you're never going to get ahead. And just like, I kind of look at it as like a three legged stool, if any one of those things you don't have, you have motivation, you have great habits, but you have no discipline to implement those habits. Or you have motivation, you know, you have discipline, but your habits are terrible. And if you don't have all three of those ingredients, there's actually no way you're going to get to be successful unless you just happen to lock into something that that happens to you. So it's more than just you know, rah, rah, you know, I want to get to the gym today and I want to do that. You have to have the motivation. You have to have the discipline, and then you have to have those good habits. And if you had those, absolutely, you're going to have setbacks in your life. I mean, we're human beings, we're going to have bad days, we're going to have, as you described earlier, you know, we get up and I really don't want to go to the gym today. And it's not something like that, I think back to I have a friend of mine who's who's a navy former Navy SEAL. And during my off weeks of treatment, he calls me in and he just checks up on me. And one of the things we talked about from time to time, is what the seals call their 40% rule, which basically says that if, if you're done, if you're at the end of your rope, if you can't go on, according to the seals, you're only at 40% of your maximum. And you still have, you know, another 60%, left in reserve to give to yourself, and I've always believed, not always, certainly within the last 10 years, I've come to believe that, yes, we all have a breaking point. But that breaking point is so much further down the road than we ever give ourselves credit for. I know, I found that with my cancer journey where it's like, I just don't think I can keep going. I just don't think I can go on. But somehow I found a way to do that. And I think the same thing can be applied. You know, when you're having those bad days, when you're having those setbacks. Just keep trying to put one foot in front of the other. And eventually you'll you'll get out of that ugliness and start moving forward.
Philip Pape 21:21
Yeah, that's I've heard, I've heard that to the 40%. I've even heard it more extreme by it was, again, a Navy SEAL something like the 9010 rule that most I think what it was, is that most average people put in 10% of what they are capable of. And what you're saying is a Navy Seal is gonna go push all the way and he's still only 40%. So that's just, that's how much capacity we have.
Terry Tucker 21:45
Yeah, we all think, oh, it's Navy SEALs, I could never do that. Well. Trust me. I'm the biggest wimp in the world if I can figure out a way to kind of push through that. I think we all have that in us. And like I said, you know, yeah, I think there's a breaking point. But that breaking point is so much further down the road than you ever give yourself credit for.
Philip Pape 22:03
Yeah. And it's all relative to our to our own capabilities. There's something else about the Navy SEALs just comes to mind. Have you heard about the how they how they perceive stress. So most of us when we when we see stress, it's a negative. And, and for them when they perceive stress, it's a motivating factor. And they actually did a study that showed they think completely different from almost every other person in that regard. Just Just throwing that out there in case you hadn't heard of that. No,
Terry Tucker 22:28
I hadn't heard that. So I got a phone call with my friend next week. So that's yes.
Philip Pape 22:34
I think they I think it was on freakanomics, or planet money or one of those other podcasts recently. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights. If you're finding value in the content and want to stay up to date with all our latest episodes, be sure to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast platform. By following you'll get notified whenever a new episode comes out. And you won't miss out on knowledge and strategies to level up your health and fitness. All right, let's get back to the episode. So I want listeners to know about your book, which is titled sustainable excellence. And according to this description, it answers the three basic questions that will lead you to your best life. What is excellence? How do you achieve it? And how do you sustain it? Do you mind if I read a short excerpt from the introduction go right ahead. Because Because this stuck out to me is just one tiny slice, actually Oh my God, here we goes the 40% rule. Now this is serendipity. If I so I put these questions together maybe two months ago. And I'll just get back to it. Now this is this is okay. You can't write it any better. Here we go. I remember reading an article about the owner professional sports who paid a Navy SEAL to come and live with his family for a month and teach them to use their minds to do more than their bodies ever thought they could. Part of their training was the 40% rule. You know, I'm just gonna leave it right there. Because you just said it. In your own words. I got the guy who wrote the book who just said it. Let's just get to the question. Tell us about the book and why somebody would want to pick this up. Yes, yeah. So
Terry Tucker 23:59
sustainable excellence was really a book that was born out of two conversations that I had. One was with a former player that I coached in high school, who had moved to the area in Colorado where my wife and I live with her fiance. And the four of us had had dinner one night, I remember saying to her after dinner, you know, I'm really excited that you're living close, and I can watch you find and live your 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, using your unique gifts and talents and living that reason. So that was one conversation. And then a young man in college reached out to me on social media and he said, you know, what do you think are the most important things I need to learn to not just be successful in my job or in business, but to be successful in life? And I didn't want to give them the you know, get up early, work hard, help others. Not that those aren't important. Those are incredibly important. But I wanted to see if I could go deeper with him. And so I sort of stepped back took some time was writing some notes eventually had these, you know, sort of 10 thoughts, these 10 ideas, these 10 principles. And so I sent them to him. And then I kind of stepped back and I was like, Well, I've got a life story that fits underneath that principle, or I know somebody whose life emulates this principle. So literally, during the three or four month period where I was healing after I had my leg amputated, I sat down at the computer every day, and I built stories, and they're real stories about real people underneath each of the principles. And that's how sustainable excellence came to be.
Philip Pape 25:39
Yeah, storytelling is a great way to learn. what's your what's your favorite principle? And I'm not going to let you choose number nine, because that one is listen more than you talk, which we already covered in the Swat. Story, yeah,
Terry Tucker 25:55
the one that resonates with me, and it's always fun for me as as the author because the each principle is a chapter. And when somebody reaches out to me, there's always one chapter that resonates specifically with them. And this is the one I can't remember if it's two or three in the book, but the chapter is entitled this, most people think with their fears and their insecurities instead of using their minds. And I know I've done that probably many times in my life where, you know, I want to do this, oh, wait a minute, you know, maybe I'm not smart enough. Maybe I don't have enough information or knowledge. What do people think about me if I fail, that's thinking with our fears, and our insecurities, that's not thinking with our minds. And I always tell especially when I speak to young people in groups, I always tell them, if there's something in your heart, something in your soul that you believe you're supposed to do, but it scares you. Go ahead and do it. Because at the end of your life, the things you're going to regret are not going to be the things you did, they're going to be the things you didn't do. And by then it's going to be too late to go back and duel.
Philip Pape 27:00
Do the thing you're most scared to do. That is great advice. I mean, you can you can take that to the microcosm. Also, it doesn't have to be some massive, passionate undertaking in your career could be, you know, you're afraid to go give that presentation or do this podcast or try this new program or talk to this person and so many things, I could see that applying the thing you're most afraid of is the thing you should be doing. Right? Embrace lack of uncomfortability. Yeah. Cool. And you said two and three, are they? Did you want to cover the other one, you said to chapter two was
Terry Tucker 27:37
two or three. I mean, that's, that's definitely, you know, the one that resonates with me. And you know, I say they're not in any particular order. And they're not more important than the other. But I think in all honesty, probably the last one is the most important I was when I was growing up. John Wooden was the basketball coach at UCLA. And I was a huge wooden fan. And I remember one day he was being interviewed by a reporter. And I was sitting there literally, you know, I'm probably 1213 years old, with a pad of paper and a pencil and I'm looking for some good X's and O's to be a better basketball player. And the reporter asked him, what do you what do you want your players to learn most? As you coach them in this game? It like I said, I'm ready for some, you know, I'm ready to write stuff down. And he said, The most important thing to me is the word love. And as a kid, I'm like, no, no, no, no, I want some good X's and O's don't give me what love. Are you kidding me? He said, No, I want people I want my players to understand the importance of loving what they do, loving themselves, loving their teammates, loving their Creator. He said, everything we do in life comes down to love to love what we do. And I didn't get that as a kid. You know, it didn't resonate with me. But today it does, you know, how we treat people, how we treat ourselves, you know, the important things, our values in our life having a value driven belief system. The bottom line is for all of us, I think, you know, if you love being a great podcast host if I love being a great podcast, yes, it still comes down to love. And I really do think that's probably the most important trait or principle that I put in the book.
Philip Pape 29:21
Love is all you need. That song is going through my head right? Now, yeah, that's so true. Because it's, you know, we talk about maybe the opposite of that of eliminating things that don't, that aren't part of love or that don't serve you or that are toxic or that try to tear you down and embracing these things and the abundance mentality so absolutely love that. Speaking of love, I use the word love a lot. So there we go. So if you had to pick one thing that you would just universally write universally right now on the spot, recommend to someone that they need to start doing right now today, you know, don't let life pass on by what would it be?
Terry Tucker 29:59
I I think it would go back to the first of the four truths, control your mind, everything starts with that, if you can't control your mind, you know, you're going to become what you think. And if you're thinking a bunch of negative things, you know, think about things you can't do, then you're going to become that negative type of person are not able to do that things. So I would say, you've got to start with being able to control your mind, if you can do that everything from their outcome is like the ripple effect effect of throwing a stone into a pond. If you can control your mind, you can absolutely do whatever you you want to do in life.
Philip Pape 30:35
Now, because that's one thing you absolutely have control over, right? It's only more even more than your actions in body if, if you were completely imprisoned and trapped physically, you still have control over your mind.
Terry Tucker 30:46
Well, there's there's an interesting, there's a great book, and I'd recommend it. It's it's called do hard things by Steve Magnus. And Steve Magnus was a former track and field coach at the University of Minnesota, he was also a very elite runner early in his life. And he cites a study in that where this person put people into a room and the only thing in the room was a table and a chair, they were not allowed to have their devices, there were no windows, there were no anything and he wanted people to stay in there for 15 minutes. The only other thing in the room was a buzzer on the table. And if you press the buzzer, you got an electric shock. So you had a chance to just stay there be alone with yourself for 15 minutes, or to press the buzzer. 67% of the men press the buzzer, including one man who pressed the buzzer every five seconds and 25% of the women press the buzzer as well. Was it difficult to standardize, you've got to be comfortable with you. You've got to be comfortable being alone with who you are and your thoughts and things like that. And you may need to change your goals, you know, 75% of the people who die trying to scale Mount Everest die on the way down, not on the way up. So you know, their goal is so consuming that I've got to do this. But the understanding is my body can't handle if I do this, why don't I you know, is it really going to matter whether I climb that mountain or not? If the end result is I'm going to die? Let me think about that 75% of people die on the way down after reaching their goal. Right. You know, it's something to think about in terms of controlling your mind.
Philip Pape 32:24
Yeah, in terms of perspective, that's great. All right, Terry. So I do like to ask this of all guests, and that is what one question Did you wish I had asked, and what is your answer?
Terry Tucker 32:37
Boy, I guess you know, people always ask me, Do you have one piece of advice? And I if I could, I know I've kind of shot my mouth off a lot with you. Let me end this with a story. If I may always been a big fan of Westerns growing up. You know, when I was young, my mom and dad used to let me stay up and watch Gunsmoke and Bonanza My favorite was always Wild Wild West 1993 The movie Tombstone came out you've probably seen it huge blockbuster started Val Kilmer as a man by the name of John Doc Holliday and Kurt Russell's a man by the name of Wyatt Earp. Now Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp are two living breathing human beings who walked on the face of the earth are not just made up characters for the movie, and Doc was called doc because he was a dentist by trade. But pretty much Doc Holliday was a gunslinger and a card shark and why on earth had been some form of a law man his entire adult life. And somehow these two men from entirely opposite backgrounds come together and form this very close friendship. And at the end of the movie, Doc Holliday is dying of tuberculosis at a sanitarium in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, which is about three hours from where I live. The real Doc Holliday died at that sanitarium, and he's buried in the Glenwood Springs cemetery. And why it at this point in his life is destitute is no money is no job is no prospects for a job. So every day comes to play cards with Doc and the two men pass the time that way. And in this almost last scene in the movie, they're talking about what they want out of life. And Doc says, you know, when I was younger, I was in love with my cousin, but she joined a convent over the affair, which is all that I ever wanted. And then he looks at why this is what about you why What do you want? And why kind of nonchalantly says I just want to lead a normal life. And Doc looks at him and says there's no normal, there's just life and get on with living years. Philip, you and I probably know people, there's probably people out there listening to us. They're like, sitting back well, when this happens, I'll have a normal life. Or when this occurs, I have a successful life. Or when this arises, I'll have a significant life. What I'd really like to leave your listeners with is this Don't wait. Don't wait for life to come to you. Get out there find the reason you were put on the face of this earth. Use your unique gifts and talents and live that reason. Because if you do at the end your life I'm going to promise you two things. Number one, you're going to be A whole lot happier. And number two, you're gonna have a whole lot more peace in your heart.
Philip Pape 35:06
Get out there and live your life. There's a reason you're a motivational speaker, you gotta you gotta be ready to go. Ready to go. So I hope everybody listening is as well and they're psyched up. Where can everybody learn about you?
Terry Tucker 35:17
So I have a blog called motivational check every day I put up a thought for the day and with that thought, usually comes a question about how maybe you could apply that into your life. On Mondays I put up the Monday morning motivational message of recommendations for books to read videos to watch and things like that. So you can you can also leave me a message leave me a note at motivational check.com
Philip Pape 35:39
Perfect. I will put that in the show notes, motivational check.com can check it out myself. And Terry, I really appreciate it. This is insightful, interesting conversation, your background is fascinating. And all the things you share today I think are gonna really help the listener. So thank you for taking the time to come on the show.
Terry Tucker 35:54
Well, thanks for having me, Philip. I really appreciate it.
Philip Pape 35:58
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